Prussik Peak

 

Now that our bike problem had been solved we went back to Leavenworth to do what the locals call the classic must do climb of the area, Prussik Peak. We still had to deal with getting a permit so we woke up at the crack of dawn and headed over to the permit office to try our hand at entering the daily lottery to get our designated area. Pulling into the parking lot, we were the 3rd car to arrive and thankfully that's all we had to compete with. Fortunately for all of us, we all were after permits to camp in different areas so we were all able to get what we wanted for the day. We got 2 nights in our basin because we wanted to make it well worth our time after we hiked up a few thousand grueling feet up 7 miles to our campsite. According to our guidebook this approach is the mellowest but longest of all the areas that take you into the climb. For it being classified as the most relaxed way in it certainly felt unrelentless as we never took a downhill step the entire way in. Even with the steepness of the hike we made it into camp in a pretty quick time! I typically set myself goals when we hike in to keep myself at a constant pace and by starting the hike at noon I had set us a 6 hour goal to make it to camp. And...at 4:30 we were rolling into our home away from home for the next 2 days! WOOHOO! we got right down to setting up camp, filtering water, and making dinner. We had brought in 1 extra plain tortilla shell to divide up between both nights for dinner. We decided that if you smell your food really really really hard that you could actually have more than whats actually in front of you. Hence the picture of me really enjoying the smell of my tortilla! :)

 

After dinner was done we crawled into bed somewhere around 8pm. We had another early morning wake up and needed some shut eye before another long day. I think we got up at 4 or 5 ate our usual peanutbutter role up and coffee and then got on the ol' dusty trail. The hike was kind of a slap in the rear end to start the day off. We had 3 miles to go before hitting the base of the climb and the trail went straight up out of the basin which we steadily pushed through. We were going up the West Ridge which has a crux pitch of 5.6 and is listed at 7 pitches but we did it in roughly 3 pitches.

 

Even though we got to the base of the climb fairly early there were 2 other parties that we caught up to really really quickly. Luckily the bottle-neck happened on a huge ludge where we sprawled out and ate some snacks while we waited for them to finish ahead of us. The weather wasn't terrible but compared to the day before it looked pretty ugly. It looked like a snow storm was headed our way but thankfully it wasn't windy or even really that cold. With one more pitch to the summit we went on up and took some breathtaking photo's of the area that we looked out into. This area is called the Enchantments and an extremely popular area for hikers and climbers. It's a small region that is unlike it's surrounding areas. In the middle of Jungle-like territory these huge granite spires and snowfields erupt out of the ground creating a harsh and rugged terrain.

 

 

On our descent as one would have guessed, it started snowing on us. Nothing that left much on the ground but we did put on our rain jackets to keep dry. In no time we had made it back to camp with plenty of evening left to relax and read our books. We did some sleeping in the next morning as all we had to do was hike out to the van. After a relaxing breakfast we packed up camp and headed out at about 11AM. This area really is very very popular, when we got to the trailhead it was like an over populated ant hill with more cars than should ever fit in the parking lot. We scarcely could back out of our spot but once we finagaled our way around we left town to begin our drive to Washington Pass. We stopped at a rest area to clean the van and take a break in the grass. I even had to part with my much beloved and well traveled pink water bottle. It has seen many good days, but it's time had come to rest in peace in the trashcan. :(

 

 

 

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The Tooth

We wanted to make our trip to Seattle feel like it wasn't a complete bust so we scrounged through one of our climbing guide books and found a peak that we could do in a do on Snoqualamie pass called The Tooth.

 

Washington has a lot of alpine cragging peaks that are very doable in a day which a novelty to us since most the approaches we are used to take about a full day making it so we have to go in with heavy overnight packs. Today we got to bring small and light packs which would make for a quick hike in to the base. After about 3 miles, some snow crossing and scrambling we had reached to base of our route.

When we were at the base racking up a father and his son were just coming down from the peak. The dad informed us that due to time constraints he had to leave one of his cams slightly stuck in a crack but with a little finagaling it should pop out. We definately were going to snag this one up as those little babies cost anywhere between $70 and $100 per piece depending on which one it is. The 2ish pitches of 5.6 quickly led us to the summit but hadn't found the cam along the way. There are a few different ways to reach the top so we figured we'd find it on the way down. As we were relaxing on the top we met a crazy old goat (he was actually a person) who enlightened us with stories from his climbing career and gave us some local insight on some classic routes we should climb while in Washington. We bid ways with the gentleman and headed down the peak still on the hunt for this lost cam. We scoured the face, tugged and pulled on some permanent pieces thinking that maybe one of them was his? Alas, we gave up the search and figured the father was playing a dirty trick on us and wanted to see us hunt for a proposodely lost cam. Jokes on us? or maybe the next lucky souls will find it :) Packed our gear away and made a quick jaunt back to the car to head back to Bavaria!

 

 

 

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Going to Bavaria and $9 Cam Straps

The day after Rainier was 4th of July and we could use a rest day to recoup some of our energy lost up on the mountain. Yakima, Washington was on our way to the next climbing area so we stopped there and loaded up on groceries. Turns out, Yakima really sucks. Thought maybe we'd enjoy the city for part of the day but couldn't wait to get out of there. Nothing in particular struck us as terrible, just not a place we were seeming to enjoy. ( maybe because when i "yelp'd" a coffee shop into google maps it took us directly to their prison?!) Anywho, on our way to smaller and better places. Destination: Leavenworth. It's intriguing to say the least. We got into Leavenworth, or could you say Germany? Years and years ago this town was a dying soul destined to quickly become a ghost town. How did they resurrect this small community? Of course they made a tourist trap by enforcing a town law that the entire city had to be in Bavarian Theme. Street signs, scrollic lettering, bratworst, polka music, and may-poles. NEATO right? Even Starbucks and Safeway are required to be in the typical German theme. ( and unfortunately we forgot to take a single picture of the town. lame!)

The next day we spent wandering around Leavenworth eating delicious scones and meandering through the park next to the river. We even found a brewery that whipped up some killer beers. Stopped here around noon and tried a sample flight of all 8 or so beers, to get a tasting for what we might like when we came back later. There was a mexican restaurant with a killer happy hour so we managed to spend a few fun hours here drinking a few brews and indulging in even more chips and salsa. :)

 

 

We really haven't had much alcohol this entire trip but after having a few pints our appetites were wet to keep on sipping the frosty drinks. With that, we wandered back over to the brewery, found some good company and enjoyed another one under the evening sun. Do you know what goes great with German beer? German Bratwursts. In an outdoor beergarden and bratwurst restuarant we found some finely crafted sausages accompanied by homemade applecider saurkrauet and a plethera of homemade and different flavored mustards. I was in heaven! Ordered a curryworst, drenched it in super hot mustards and horseradish, and copius amounts of sauerkraut. Next up, live music in a lofted bar on mainstreet. We hung around and listened to a band play acoustic covers of popular songs before signing the night away and crawling into our bunk.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to head to the permitting office to enter a lottery to see if we could get backcountry permits into an area that we wanted to climb. You are able to reserve permits online but only months ahead of time. This obviously won't work for us as we are never really sure when and where we will be in certain places. Us and one other guy wanted a permit for the same area so we had to be entered into a drawing to see who would be the lucky one, today was not our day. He got the permit and we went on our way to find something else to occupy ourselves with. Turns out that it was a blessing in disguise that we didn't get the permit because I happened to be rather hung over...alright, it was fairly mild but i was being a baby about it and im sure I wouldn't have been a happy hiker through the 10 miles to camp if we were to have gotten the permit.

We headed off in a different direction to find a peak that we could climb the next day. On our way up the 22mile dirt road we all of a sudden heard a strange thunk-ing noise from the back of the van. I got out to investigate what was going on and the ladder on the van with both bikes attached to it had torn off the back door! The metal hooks had snapped off the top and left our bikes dangling dangerously close to the road. Thankfully we had locked the bikes through the handle of the door which eliminated them from smashing to the ground causing damage to the bikes. We really had no way of fixing this at the moment so we threw everything inside the van and figured we'd deal with this in a few days.

When the morning came we were packed and ready to hit the trail towards our next climb. We had been hiking for about an hour or so and we needed to be looking for a trail that would take us up and over a pass into the next basin. It seemed like we had been going far too long based on the info in our guide book so we pulled our map and and assesed where we were. Yep, we had gone a full hour in the wrong direction. Somehow we completely missed a turn that we should have taken about 5 minutes from the start of the trail. It was later than we'd like and we would run out of time before dark to descend back to the other trail and basically begin the hike over so we studied the map and figured out an alternate plan. The trail we were on climbed a pass and dropped into the next basin which gained another trail and looped back to the road 2 miles below where our van was parked. Figured we'd turn it into a loop hike to get different scenary. It certainly wasn't a difficult pursuit but an unexpected 14 miles later we were returning to the van ready to cook some dinner and put our sore feet up!

Thought we better give the climb a second chance so we woke up a bit earlier and headed back to the trail for round 2. We actually got on the right trail this time but may or may not have gotten into an argument which turned our attitudes sour and didn't promise us much fun for the rest of the day. Called the climb off as we were both being testy with eachother but finished the trail up into the next basin where we were going to rehydrate and have a snack before going back to the van. As we were sitting there we saw somewhere around 20 mountain goats milling around. We are very accustomed with goats and never have felt threatened by them but these buggers were different. While we were snacking a big billy with long horns was getting way to close for comfort so i got up and started walking away. The darn goat was getting closer and closer and followed me in a complete circle. I now started getting a little panicky as i wasn't sure what his intentions were but clearly he wasn't going to leave me alone. Sam came to the rescue and started throwing rocks at him to deter him momentarily. Figured it was time to get our move on as we saw more goats heading our way. Another goat and his baby started trailing us pretty closely as we were frantically scrambling to get out of their territory. We couldn't decide what their intent was but we didn't want to find out. Might as well make it a party and add another big goat and his baby to the chasing train. Now we really felt uncomfortable and couldn't move fast enough to get away from them. At this point we weren't on a trail but going over slabs, loose rock and snow and this terrain didn't provide quick travel for us to get away. These darned goats followed us out of one basin, over a pass, and down onto the trail until FINALLY they got sidetracked with something else and left us to live another day.

look mid picture in the rocks and you can see the goats

Not to say that we had an unsuccessful trip back into Ingalls peak but unfortunately didn't climb anything in this area. We now had our attention turned to this ladder/bikerack that needed to be fixed. We made a few phone calls back to the Leavenworth area (we were planning on heading back that direction to climb) to see if any shops either had a ladder for a 1989 ford van or if any outdoor shops had a bike rack that hooked onto the spare tire. All of them had the same unifed answer that they didn't have those items in stock but could order one in and it would arrive in the next 7-14 days. Hmmmm, may not be ideal for us as we weren't planning on spending that much time in that area. We were about 100 miles from Seattle at this point so we used the interenet to locate a Yakima and Thule dealer. Their website stated that they had every single item these companies had ever made, both used and new, along with 8 different show rooms and the ability to try the rack on your vehicle before you made a purchase. Although Seattle was 100 miles in the wrong direction, we really didn't have a choice but to head that way. Both of us were rather astonished when we showed up to this "mega" dealers shop. It was nothing more than a small store front on the corner of a busy street. Figured we'd go inside and see what they could hook us up with. Yep, nothin. Both the racks that we needed we out of stock. Uh really? Mildy annoyed we began calling around to REI's, RV stores and a few other local outdoor dealers to see what we could scrounge up. Most of them gave us the same rig-a-ma-role about being able to order anything in but of course we'd have to wait for it to arrive. We ended up finding an REI in Bellevue that actually had the product in stock that we needed. After dropping $200 on a new spare tire bike rack we took it out to the parking lot to start installing it. It was obvious that someone else had previously purchased it, and then returned it without any of the accompaning tools that typically come with a Yakima set. We made a couple trips back into the store to have their bike mechanic adjust, move, and tighten the components we needed adjusted. With sweat pouring, and tempers on the verge of breaking we were finally getting the rack pushed up onto the spare tire mount. Come on go! Oh geeze, seriously? It won't fit. It has to fit. Nope, not gonna. The alignment of the hole pattern on the rack was just slightly off from the component on our van, so we unhappily packed it back together and returned it. Plan B? Subway sandwiches and Ice cream at Burger King. That oughta fix it! Once fed, we began brain storming and found that Walmart carries some brand of bike racks. Of course the wont work either. So on to plan C and that was to buy Cam-straps and strap the ladder back on the van. Seems kinda sketchy but at this point we don't know what else to do. Sam spent nearly an hour rigging up the straps to keep the ladder attached and it actually looked pretty sturdy! All we had to do now was test it out with the weight of our bikes. And....TADA! just like new. Granted our problem was solved, we can now joke that we drove 200 miles round trip to buy a $9 box of cam-straps at a Walmart in Seattle.

 

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Mount Rainier

 

Crevases Mid-Route

 

We had a lovely surprise visit from Sam parents while we were camped in Rainier National Park. They were only 40 miles or so from where we were picking up a kayak so they came and spent the evening and next morning with us. It was fantastic to see some familiar faces and enjoy the company of them. Brews were drank, gin and tonics made, followed by delicious kabobs and cajun style rice. I had warned them to sleep with one eye open because I had formulated a plan to bury them and take their jewels (because that's what gypsies do right??). Seemed like a logical thing to think. haha. Fortunately for them I let them live another day, maybe I knew that breakfast would ensue if they were around in the morning. After eating one of the breakfast sandwiches i've ever had, we packed our packs to head up towards Rainier. It was finally our time to make our way up the mountain!

We got a relatively late start and probably ended up choosing the most inopportune time to head up the glaciated mountain. In reality we either needed to start at 5am or 5pm to avoid the heat of the day. When crossing glaciers it's not only the sun beating down on you but the rays are being reflected back off the snow onto you. More or less, we were entering an easy bake oven during the hottest time of the day, we got anxious and couldn't wait till 5 so we headed up somewhere around 2 in the afternoon. Our destination for the day was Camp Muir, It's situated at about 10,500 feet nestled in the heart of the mountain 4,000ft below the summit. We only had to go 4 miles but all of which were straight up a glacier gaining a little more than 1,000ft per mile. It was brutal and relentless and the sun didn't help but for the first 3 miles we managed to keep a pretty quick consistent pace.

 

 

 

At some point in the last 3/4 mile I took a downward turn. I'm assuming that we gained way too much elevation far too quickly and minor altitude sickness was setting in. The last push of the climb to base camp took me almost as long as the previous 3 miles had combined. My head was spinning, I had the shakes (and not because i was cold), my appetite was gone and with every step i wanted to vomit but mostly I just wanted to lay my head down and never wake up. Slowly trudging along, I FINALLY made it to camp and was welcomed by what I would classify as the COOLEST ranger ever. I found sam building a snow wind wall and trying to get the tent up before darkness set in. All I wanted to do was sleep, evening standing up almost enduced me throwing up. Sam graciously let me slip into the next and zonk out for almost an hour. Meanwhile, we was finishing the set up of camp and melting water. It was getting late so Sam woke me up so we could get some dinner into us before we crawled into bed. Fortunately, my nap zapped nearly all the life back into me and was feeling like a million bucks!

Super tired and ready for dinner!

It was around 9PM when we finally got around to dinner and the entire rest of base camp was already sound asleep! Most of the people up there (85% or more) were with guides who would take them up the peak. The guides get their clients up around 10:30 or 11 PM so they can be en-route by 11:30 or midnight at the latest. This ensures that they will have plenty of time to summit and descend in the safest conditions possible. This clearly was not our plan as it was nearing 10 o'clock and we were just crawling into bed. We had checked over the weather and we had nothing but perfect conditions for our summit push so we opted for a 3am wake up to ensure we'd be moving by 4. Turns out, neither of us slept nearly a wink. The wind was so ferocious that even in our super extra small wind buffetting tent, it managed to make enormous amounts of racket and shook us around all night. We certainly were not rested but definately ready to get moving when the alarms went off. Made some coffee, ate delicious peanutbutter/nutella roll-ups (a staple for us now!) and got roped up to begin the climb towards the summit.

 

 

I know that words cannot even come close to describing how magnificent it was that morning. We were atleast 1,000 above the clouds and it appeared as though the sun was rising below our feet. The colors of the sunrise bleeding through the clouds, mixed with rocky peaks poking through the cloud blanket was unbelievable. We attempted to take some pictures but the lighting for the cameras wast quite right and it's something that you really have to see for yourself to appreciate.

climbing above the clouds

 

 

At about 6:30 we ran into the first guided party on their descent, holy moly! It was odd to see them coming off the summit at such an early time but then realized that they had been going for almost 8 hours at this point in the morning. We thus far, were very happy that we didn't start at 11pm :) I was googly eyed the entire time because this was the first I had ever seen serious crevases, let alone having to cross them. It's other wordly and so intruiging at the same time. We passed a slow party of 4 on our way up along with hoards of other people coming down from the summit, like little ants all over the mountain!

The mountain seemed to never end, each time we looked up we saw what was in our minds the summit only to get there and realize that we had to go up a to the next high point which was the summit. Once there we had the same realization that we still had farther to go, hours passed and we were still going up hill when we finally crested into the crater of the still active volcanic mountain. All that was left was a quick jaunt across the crater and a short hike up to the top. While climbing up hill previously, we were only wearing long sleeve shirts but pushing over the crest we ran into winds so strong that you could push yourself as hard as possible into it and it could support your body weight. We were now bundled up in down coats, gloves, and hats. We snapped a few quick pictures at the top and knew we had a long way down (we were going all the way to the car and not staying at camp muir) so almost as soon as we summited we were heading back down. The views were spectacular and we could see 3 or 4 of the other major volcanic mountains in Oregon and Washington.

The descent was a sloppy, hot, wet mess that we trudged 5,000ft back down to our tent at Camp Muir. The tables had turned and this time when reaching camp Sam had a case of the sick-ies so he took his turn curled up in the tent napping while I made water and organized camp. Once we were both feeling rejuvanated we packed up camp and began to head back down to the car. We had 4 miles with some serious vertical relief to tackle before we could throw our feet up in the Turtle and make a warm dinner. It all went rather quickly and in no time we were sound asleep in the warmth of the van.

 

 

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