Category Archives: Mountaineering

Jun9

BCEP – An attempt on Mt. Hood

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Last year, I took the BCEP class with the Mazamas – Basic Climbing Education Program. It was interesting; a great chance to review my well-trained skills, practice some that I hadn’t used in ages, and get to meet some new climbing and outdoors people. It was fun, and ticked all the boxes that I had hoped that it would.

My faith in the outdoors community reinvigorated, I quickly and happily volunteered to help teach BCEP this year. I was expecting to assist with the same group that I’d taken the class with the previous year, since leaders tend to continue teaching year over year, so I was a bit surprised when I was placed with a different group… but it turns out, this new group was just starting out – the first year the leader had led a BCEP team on their own.

The chance to help out with a new group, and to help build a similar culture of excitement and optimism for the outdoors? All while getting to show people the unbridled joy of rock climbing? Of seeing new views off the side of a mountain?

Well. Sign me right the heck up.


Sunday, 23-Apr-2023

Traditionally, the “final climb” of a BCEP team is an ascent of Mt. Hood… or at least, the offer that students can join the group leader on an attempt. As part of preparation for that possibility, our team decided to give it a partial go the day after Snow School – aiming to leave the Mazamas lodge sometime around 4am, and making an attempt on the top of the Palmer Glacier.

We rose (no shining, I’m sorry to report), we packed, and we made our way to the trailhead… arriving just in time for the freezing rain to start.

In the mountains, conditions aren’t always the same as they are in the front-country… and sometimes things are better or worse than you’d expect them to be. Freezing rain isn’t one of those things. It’s bad in the front country, it’s bad in the back country, it’s just not a good time for anyone. Especially for someone working on a FAR too early wake-up, being tired from the day before, and who doesn’t really like sufferfest trudgeshows in the first place.

Me.

That’s describing Ben, right there.

It was horrid. I can’t put it any simpler than that.

I was in a bad place, I freely admit. I was slow – I could try blaming the heavy boots I was wearing (Ed Note: Ben was trying out an ascent in double-plastic technical boots… vaguely twice the weight and half the flexibility) but… in the end, I was the one who chose to wear those boots. I was cranky – I could try blaming the early morning, or the dark, or the rain… but in the end, I was the one who chose to attempt the ascent. I was the last person in line – I could try blaming any number of things, but in the end… I was just a sorry and cranky mess.

I made it up about 1,200 ft vertical before calling it quits. Maybe less, even, since I couldn’t really see anything in the rain and darkness. I’d lost sight of the majority of the team a while ago, not even able to see the headlamps of the spearpoint of the group.

All I saw was two folks ahead of me, and one headlamp coming down toward us…

Jess was along with us, and it turned out that the lamp coming toward us stragglers was her – She was actually having an even rougher time of it than I was, and had hit her limit. Recent injuries gave her a reason to be extra cautious, and she’d made the hard decision to turn around… as an assistant, I was in the position to descend with her and make sure no one was left alone… an opportunity I jumped at.



We descended slowly and carefully, making sure not to leave the path or fall prey to one of the gullies that would cause us to miss the parking lot. We watched as the world grew lighter, shade by shade, never quite reaching daylight. The rain persisted.

Finally, the parking lot appeared and we were able to drop our packs and head down the pavement to the warmth awaiting us. The Timberline lodge reared out of the mist, and we made our way to the main floor, the huge hearths, to let our gear dry while we waited for the breakfast buffet to open.

It was 6am, a full two hours before food was to be had… we’d only been ascending for two hours, though it’d easily felt like half a lifetime in purgatory.

We ate waffles and drank coffee, and slowly became human again.

Drove home, spread the gear out to dry, and appreciated the warmth of my fireplace and the comfort of my couch.

Jun7

BCEP – Snow School!

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Last year, I took the BCEP class with the Mazamas – Basic Climbing Education Program. It was interesting; a great chance to review my well-trained skills, practice some that I hadn’t used in ages, and get to meet some new climbing and outdoors people. It was fun, and ticked all the boxes that I had hoped that it would.

My faith in the outdoors community reinvigorated, I quickly and happily volunteered to help teach BCEP this year. I was expecting to assist with the same group that I’d taken the class with the previous year, since leaders tend to continue teaching year over year, so I was a bit surprised when I was placed with a different group… but it turns out, this new group was just starting out – the first year the leader had led a BCEP team on their own.

The chance to help out with a new group, and to help build a similar culture of excitement and optimism for the outdoors? All while getting to show people the unbridled joy of rock climbing? Of seeing new views off the side of a mountain?

Well. Sign me right the heck up.


Saturday, 22-Apr-2023



I love the snow.

I love the cold, I love the smell of snow, and I love the feeling of being an arctic explorer, forging through an unexplored world at the spearpoint of civilization.

I mean, okay. We were like 500ft from the parking lot here, but you know what? Thanks to the snow and the wind we could barely see the cars. So it counts, right?

Right!



This weekend was the Snow School portion of BCEP – taking the students out into the cold, and trying some of the skills that we’d been practicing out in the “real world”. It’s one thing to learn about rope travel while on a warm hike, but it’s something again to be post-holing through the snow, having to stop and freeze every 30ft to plant a picket.

We started off easy and fun – setting up a few practice stations, and moving the students through them one by one. I mostly just manned a rappel station, but I did take a few moments to escape and play photographer… and maybe have a snack and mug of cocoa or two as time allowed.



We went through the curriculum, did some “ascents” where we roped up and explored some nearby hills, and generally had a blast. Then, all too soon, the day was done and our coursework completed. We did a quick skills test for the students (which they all passed with flying colors, unsurprisingly) and then headed back to the parking lot, with the goal of moseying onward to the Mazama’s Lodge for an evening of food, revelry, and an early evening in preparation for a possible ascent up the Palmer Glacier in the morning…



Aug29

A glacial ascent in the heat of summer – Middle Sister!

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Friday through Sunday, 12-Aug-2022 through 14-Aug-2022

Vital Statistics:
Day 1 = 6 miles, ~2,000ft elevation from Obsidian Trailhead to Arrowhead Lake campsite. ~5 hours total.
Day 2 = 6 miles round trip, ~3,100ft elevation to Middle Sister Summit via the Renfrew Glacier. ~11hrs total.
Day 3 = 7 miles, ~2,000ft elevation loss, via Obsidian falls. ~4 hours total.

Talking with the rest of my team, I realized something interesting. This trip is pretty close to the 16th anniversary of my first backpacking trip! Not to the day, I don’t think… but the Perseid meteor shower is this weekend, and that was the starter for my first backpacking trip, so…

Hey! Happy 16th anniversary of backpacking to me!

Not only that, but Middle Sister is the tallest glaciated peak that I’ve summitted! Standing proud at just over 10,000ft above sea level, it beats my previous summit of The Matterhorn (no, not the one in Europe, the smaller one in Oregon…) which stands at 9,845ft.

An anniversary and a personal record, all in one weekend… not so bad, right?


There’s another first to add to the list too – My first official Mazama’s climb! Since BCEP, I haven’t had occasion to do a full and official climb with the group who I spent so many weekends hiking alongside. I’d signed up for the Mt. Hood climb, of course, as is tradition for graduating BCEP students… but unfortunately that trip fell through due to a series of increasingly unlikely and exceptionally ridiculous issues.


I got an email a week or two prior from the BCEP group I was a part of. There were a few extra spots on a Middle Sister ascent team, and applications were open if any of us were interested. I’d already made plans for that weekend to go backpacking in the North Cascades with a friend of mine, but since those plans were pretty tentative at best (and, let’s be candid here, I gave them a 50% chance of falling through) I pivoted toward Middle Sister pretty quickly.

Plans were crystalized, times confirmed, and gear packed. An earlier-than-normal morning was followed by a stressful drive, where I was convinced that I was going to be a full 30min late to meet the team… until I realized that the longer-than-expected ETA was because my GPS was planning on having me take 15mph forest service roads to the trailhead… instead of the 60mph highway that leads right to it. I arrived almost exactly on time, in the end, though I’m pretty sure I overdosed on stress hormones before I realized that tomfoolery.

One there, with the whole group assembled, we held a solid team meeting at the trailhead. Went over plans, routes, gear, and all the fun things that a new team of adventurers cover with each other. Then, we shouldered our packs and headed in.


The hiking was, truthfully, a bit rough for me. I’d like to think that I’m in shape, and I know that in comparison to the majority of the population I am, but compared to the team I was with… I wasn’t the strongest member. We had seasoned mountaineers, a firefighter, and exceptionally strong hikers. Our route wasn’t particularly tough (see the above vital statistics) but I was definitely lagging behind by the time we started into our final push to the lake-side campsite.

Thankfully, our campsite was singularly gorgeous, and we’d arrived with easily enough time to spare for a quick nap, some good relaxation, and even some crevasse rescue practice… not that we expected any major crevasses on the glacier, but they’re one of those things that you always plan around… the penalty for failure being as simple as it is catastrophic.

We rested, we ate, we hydrated, and we watched a perfect sunset drop below the horizon before heading to bed, with dreams of an early morning start in the forefront of our thoughts.




The following day, on the push for the summit, I was feeling the elevation. Or the gain, or… I don’t know, but it was definitely a challenging. The morning started beautifully cold, and I embraced the change of pace from the boiling heat of Wilsonville with gusto. My jacket stayed in the pack, and my tee-shirt let me appreciate the full brunt of the alpine morning.

As we steadily ascended, the sun lit up and we took some time to stop for photos of the sunrise illuminating the line of Cascade Volcanoes stretching off into the Northern distance. We continued on, though we did take fairly regular breaks… to my extreme appreciation. Route-finding wasn’t particularly easy, since the glacier has receded quite a bit in recent years, but soon enough we found the foot of the Renfrew Glacier and headed up.

I dragged.

It was tough going for Ben, I freely admit. I was tired, my pack felt heavy, and the terrain was steep.

I persisted though, and with some help from the rest of the team we all made it up, and I was able to summit my newest glaciated peak!




The rest of the day was better than the ascent. The descent went smoothly, with my knees thankfully playing well with the braces and glacier and not even hurting that much. The glacial descent itself was lovely – a bit challenging in spots where the snowfield got steep, but we had rope teams and crampons and axes, so even in the two instances where I lost footing I was able to very quickly self-arrest and stop my slide within a foot or three.

The return to Arrowhead Lake was glorious – we quickly dropped our packs, and our outside clothes, and jumped into the bracing lake. It was freezing at first, but actually quite warm once we became acclimatized to it… the lake was maybe 4ft deep at its deepest, and fairly small, so the sun warmed it up nicely throughout the day. It wasn’t like a hot-tub, by any means, but… more like a mild cryotherapy? Regardless of the exact temperature, the lake was hugely appreciated and undoubtedly contributed to a speedy recovery for my poor tired legs.

Dinner and sunset were lovely, as expected, and sleep claimed me quickly and deeply; a very well earned rest.




The following morning saw us packing up a bit later than we had on Saturday. We didn’t have a summit to try for, and almost our entire trail was downhill… which would speed our pace, and was absolutely critical to my sanity for the morning. I could (and did) survive some uphill… but the lake and some ibuprofen could only do so much, and my poor legs had performed right up to their peak over the two days prior.

We took a detour to visit a small spring at the base of our campsite, maybe 300ft below the lake, and to see the waterfall that it turned into later on. We hiked, chatted, and took semi-frequent breaks to snap pictures of the stunning scenery surrounding us.

That didn’t slow our pace though, and we made excellent time – finding ourselves back at the trailhead far earlier than I would have guessed.




A final group meeting was had, and the climb was officially over.

We did an outbrief, discussed lunch, and made our way to burritos in a small tourist town called Detroit. On the way, I picked up a few hitchhikers from Bangkok who were hiking the PCT, and the whole team had lunch (together with the backpackers) at an excellent pod of food trucks off the side of the highway. We traded stories, learned a bit about their slice of the world (Both were ex-pats, one from the States, the other from London), and finally said our goodbyes for the day.

I drove home, left my gear in the spare room, and drew myself a much-needed Epson salt bath.





P.S. – I just got an email from another team who was on the mountain! They got pictures of us on the summit!