Now, on to our new training stories and updates. After my last outing with Billy on Berthoud Pass, Billy texted me that his left big toe was in a great deal of pain and he could hardly walk on it. He asked me for a foot doctor referral which I gave him (Alan Ng- a friend and the surgeon who surgically repaired my right ankle almost seven years ago). Ng saw him ASAP at my request and determined Billy needed surgery to remove a solid mass, which he promptly scheduled the following day (Wednesday 4/23/14). Billy made it through fine and is laid up for two weeks and should be back in the training saddle! Unfortunately, he would be sitting out this weekend's training climb.
Billy's incision
This weekend's team climbing objective was St. Mary's Glacier and James Peak. Jeff and I did this route for training last year. You gain almost 3000 feet in 3.5 miles and top out over 13,000 feet. On this trip we planned to climb the glacier as a roped team of four, then set up a camp before the ascent of James. We planned to meet and carpool at 4:30 am on Saturday from Highlands Ranch. I had a hockey game the night before which ended at 10 pm. I got to sleep close to 11:30 pm after packing my gear and loading it in my vehicle. Ugh! Only 4 hours of sleep!
Ben and I met Jeff at 4:30 am then drove to pick up Derrill. We stopped in Idaho Springs for breakfast sandwiches and coffee. We arrived at the trailhead around 6:30 am geared up and weighed our packs on Jeff's new hanging fish scale. My pack came in at 58 lbs. Ben and Derrill's were mid 50's and Jeff's was 48 lbs, which meant he got to carry more of the shared gear.
Gearing up and stretching. My pack is sitting on the tire.
We hit the trail with snow shoes on, except for Jeff who didn't bring them (he had recently broke his binding). The snow was hard and plentiful. The weather was perfect; calm and cool. We reached St. Mary's lake after .75 miles and the sun came out. We took a break and got our climbing gear on.
There were a couple of other climbing teams coming up. We found out that they were also training for Rainier. After a briefing on rope travel, harnessing up and tying in, we roped up and I was on the lead end.
Stepping onto the glacier
Looking at our options. We headed toward the cornice on the right of this picture.
Breaking to take off layers. It was balmy!
At our break I removed my water bottle and it's hip belt holder from my pack. It slipped away from me and took off like a rocket down the glacier. The bottle separated from the holder and luckily we were able to retrieve the holder. The bottle, on the other hand, slid out of sight and wasn't to be recovered.
Me just before my bottle jettisoned
Ben climbing second on the rope
On the glacier we practiced cramponing and rest stepping as a team. We worked well together. The snow was perfectly firm and stable. We emerged from the gully at the top of the glacier and took another break. We stayed roped up and traveled now on the open tundra to the lone rock outcropping where we decided to make camp and drop our packs. We got out our shovels and started digging platforms for our tents. The snow pack was solid hard for the first two feet before we hit soft snow. I came up with a system of using my ice axe to break the hard snow/ice then shovel it out. We built a wind break wall around the perimeter (I couldn't imagine if we didn't how bad things would have been). All this axing and shoveling left us with sore backs and fatigue. We set up our tents and unloaded our gear. Ben, Derrill and I called nap time. James was not going to happen this day. Jeff, however, went for a walk and summited near by Kingston Peak (12,147 feet). The rest of us had a good hour and a half rest in the comfort of our warm tents. We did see an number of parties head up to James and pass near our camp.
Our camp at the rock outcropping. My tent with Jeff is up top.
Derrill hanging in his tent's vestibule with Ben building the wind break wall. Note how the vestibule is dug out for foot space and to maintain tent warmth. James Peak looms in the background.
After the rest we mobilized to practice rescue rope work on a small wind loaded cornice above our camp. We ran through two scenarios when the weather started to change. Dark cloud fronts kept rolling in, but not producing any precipitation. At least not yet. By now it was around 6 pm. We decided to start melting snow/boiling water for dinner.
I got to test my new stove the Jetboil Joule. It is a work horse for melting snow and boiling water quickly and is light weight. It does have it's quirks though. It sputtered a bit and was cumbersome to maintain consistent gas flow. The push button ignitor didn't work, so I had to use matches to light it. Derrill's stove, the MSR Reactor, had it's moments too. Overall though we were able to melt plenty of snow.
Cooking dinner in our camp kitchen (which Jeff dug out) with the sun setting over James.
By 8:30 pm, we retired to bed as the temperature dropped. I crawled into my bag, which was warm from the hot water bottle I stashed in it during dinner. I put my boot liners and my clothes in the foot of my bag to keep them warm. I read a little and fell asleep for a short while until I was woken by strong wind. The wind strength intensified making it difficult to sleep even with ear plugs in. By early morning my tent was getting hammered by wind, almost buckling in (which is hard to do to a 4-season mountaineering tent). Snow had fallen and made its way into our tent via the vents. Snow even was blown through the tent window screens and piled up between the window and screen. Jeff peered out through the front door into the vestibule and found it to be filled with snow above the door. The snow had completely buried all of our gear including our boots! Luckily I brought my shovel into the vestibule before going to bed. I used it to dig everything out.
Our vestibule filled with new snow.
Derrill and Ben's vestibule filled with snow and buried gear.
I suited up and went outside to survey the weather. It looked pretty adverse. The wind was howling and blowing the snow harshly, causing very poor visibility. I made my way over to Derrill and Ben. I scooped snow out of their vestibule and crawled in. We decided to pack up and head out as soon as possible. I scrambled back to my tent and let Jeff know our plan. I made a call (thank god we had cell service) to Billy letting him know we were in inclement weather and would be climbing down in a whiteout. I instructed him that if I didn't call to check in by 11 am he was to contact Clear Creek County Search and Rescue. Jeff and I started packing up the inside of our tent. We ate some dry food and drank water. We weren't about to attempt to fire up the stove. Snow had blown back into our vestibule even with the door closed. I had to dig out again. It was now time to get outside and take down the tent. I thought it best to keep the tent fly guyed down and take down the tent first. The wind continued to get stronger and made it very difficult to pack things up. We had our full battle gear on- soft shell jacket, big down parka, hat, balaclava, hoods up, big mitts with liners, insulated pants, hard shell pants, goggles, etc. This made it difficult to handle items. At one point I took my mitts off to pull my thumbs into my base layer thumb holes. I couldn't manage to do it well. I ended up sitting there in the blowing snow for a few minutes with my hands pulled into my absolute zero parka. I had a hard time processing what to do. Finally, I dug into my parka's pocket to extract my glove liners, put them on and had to have Jeff assist putting my mitts back on.
I finished loading my pack and felt my way down to check on Derrill and Ben's status. They were packed up and ready to head out. Jeff still struggled to get his pack loaded. The weather was so bad I couldn't see Jeff from Ben and Derrill's camp spot. Once Jeff was packed up he couldn't put his pack on because the wind was blowing him around. We all had the same challenge. Finally, Jeff got his pack on and slid down to us. We roped up on a 30 meter rope (glad we made this decision, otherwise we would have lost one another). Derrill was in the lead followed by myself, Jeff and last Ben. Ben and Derrill had GPS units and Ben had a compass. We knew we had to head due East to get to the glacier. We started walking some time around 8:30 am. Our walking turned into stumbling because of the fierce wind. Wind speeds were 40-50 mph sustained with 70-80 mph gusts. We couldn't effectively read the GPS due to the wind, iced over goggles, snow and difficulty to actually process what we were doing. The compass was more worthy, so we followed our East bearing. Derrill and the rest of us meandered on in zero visibility. Everything was white. Knowing that we were going down hill was our only true physical reference. Every third step we had to stop because the wind gusts were so strong. Our legs were fatiguing from bracing against the wind. I kept steering Derrill back to the East as he seemed to drift North at times. Derrill and I came together every 10 steps to re-evaluate our bearing and direction of travel. This was the only communication of our rope team. I couldn't see Jeff or Ben, just a rope disappearing into the white. Heck, I could only see Derrill half of the time and he was 6 meters from me on the rope. As we trudged on, we ran into a cairn (a route finding marker of piled rocks) and part of the summer trail trench. We felt good about this. A second later it disappeared again into the white. We came upon another cairn not to farther on. We must be on the correct path. Again we seemed to vanish in the wind and whiteness. We saw intermittent foot prints and ski tracks in the snow. Another clue we must be in the correct heading.
We ran into wind loaded snow that was 1-1.5 feet deep. This meant we were at a gradient change in the terrain, praying it was the entrance to the glacier gully, but had no true idea. We had concern of avalanche danger from our surroundings. We all had our beacons turned on. The slope grade steepened. Derrill and I began to post hole with our snow shoes on. I failed to buckle my chest strap on my back pack when I put it on. This wreaked havoc on me as the wind tossed my pack to the side (even with my shoulder straps sinched fully) forcing me to work too hard to stand up. I attempted to attach it but it was far too hard in my gloves, iced over goggles and big parka. It also took a lot of energy. Hard to believe something so simple as buckling a chest strap would be so exhausting. Derrill was having a tough go too. His waist harness kept falling around his knees compromising his balance in already unstable conditions. He went down. Luckily the snow was soft and deep. I caught up to him to make sure he was ok, which he was. We rechecked our bearing and agreed in our travel direction. We were only able to take 2 steps then stop to rest and brace against the wind. This went on for more than an hour. We both fell numerous times. When he and I were close together the wind would blow the rope and tangle us up.
We still had no visual on Jeff or Ben, just the tension on the rope let us know they were still behind us. Jeff didn't have snow shoes and didn't put on his crampons. This slowed our descent. I learned later that Ben was holding us up a lot of the time to arrest our falls. Derrill and I were becoming exhausted with our trail breaking efforts. We still had no idea if we were on the glacier or not. Nothing was visible and the wind was as strong as ever. I started to wonder if the situation would get worse. Would we make it down, would one or more of us get hurt in a fall, were we headed for a cliff, would we get so tired we would just quit? We had no place to gain shelter. The only answer was to continue to follow our bearing and the downhill grade we were now committed to. I wanted to see my family and friends again. I did not want to be one of those news stories of how experience climbers were lost in the backcountry. These thoughts kept me going and kept me determined to get our team down to safety. I had no concept of what time it was. Derrill and I regrouped and decided I would now lead down. It was so difficult to stand, so I decided to get down on my hands and knees and crawl backward downhill. I shouted to Derrill to do the same which he did. This was so much easier to do than stand and walk. It seemed to save energy. We did this for maybe 300 feet of elevation until I hit hard snow and saw foot prints. This made it easier to stand up, face downhill and walk. Derrill got up with me and our pace quickened, now 5 steps then stop and brace against the wind. Miraculously, the white opened up for a split second revealing a rocky ridge line to my left(North). Ben described this as if we were sailing in the unknown and finally spotted land, LAND HO! We were in a gully, most likely St. Mary's gully. I felt a fresh feeling of hope! The ridge disappeared quickly, however the hard snow didn't. We kept our course and descent. A while on, the white gave way to rocks again on my left. I would never have known I was only a few feet away from them. I was able to follow this edge now more consistently. Another clue came to light, I could hear wind blowing through trees! However, I couldn't see them. We must be close to treeline and possibly the bottom of the glacier. Rocks on my left stayed visible. I could now see Jeff and Ben behind us. Jeff was struggling to gain footing on the glacier with just his boots and ice axe. He attempted to glissade, but couldn't get going. We finally made it to trees! The wind wouldn't give up. It still bashed us and knocked us down. We needed to get into the woods. We skirted St. Mary's Lake and ended up on the rocky beach area. I tripped and fell again. A gust kicked up and knocked Derrill over some rocks. Luckily he was ok. We made it onto the trail in the woods, but the wind still wouldn't stop. We took off our packs, rope and harnesses. I had to pee so bad. We hadn't eaten or drank since departing camp. I found out that Derrill didn't eat anything at all yet this day. We were beaten up, but glad to be close to safety. Only .75 miles to the car, all below treeline. We put our packs on and headed down. We met an older guy coming up with his dog. He had a snowboard on his back pack. We warned him of the dangerous conditions/weather ahead, but he did not heed our warnings. I realized I needed to call Billy. It was after 11:30 am. I was able to get a hold of him. He had called the Sheriff a few minutes before my call. I instructed him to call back and cancel the search and rescue which he did. All of our team did receive calls from the sheriff on our cell phones. We made it to the car by 12:15 pm awfully tired but joyous. We had high fives and fist bumps all around. Derrill's wife Liz was waiting at the trailhead since 8:30 am to pick Derrill up and go to Breckenridge to snowboard on closing day. That didn't happen. Ben, Jeff and I threw our packs into Jeff's vehicle, keeping most of our battle clothing on. We were wet and fatigued, but remained warm. Ben said it best, "Today we cheated death, guys."
The three of us collected our senses and drove down to Idaho Springs where we stopped at Tommy Knocker's for beer and excellent food. We debriefed our morning and talked about what we could have done differently. We thought it would have been best to have stayed put in our tents and wait out the storm. We had food and fuel to last us another day. Ben downloaded our trip on his GPS and to our amazement found that our descent only strayed 40 yards or less to the South of our ascent route. This made me feel good about Derrill and my route finding skills.
Later that night I found myself in the company of my entire family at my sister's house to celebrate my niece's birthday...comfort...peace...appreciation of life and those I love! My sister and brother-in-law had given me a survival cord bracelet as a gift more than a year ago. Believe what you will, but that bracelet, which I wear on my backcountry travels, has kept me safe in the mountains. Thanks Carrie and Derk!
This outing/expedition definitely gave us adverse training for Rainier. I hope I never have to use it again!
Until my next report of our training preparation for Rainier...
I finished loading my pack and felt my way down to check on Derrill and Ben's status. They were packed up and ready to head out. Jeff still struggled to get his pack loaded. The weather was so bad I couldn't see Jeff from Ben and Derrill's camp spot. Once Jeff was packed up he couldn't put his pack on because the wind was blowing him around. We all had the same challenge. Finally, Jeff got his pack on and slid down to us. We roped up on a 30 meter rope (glad we made this decision, otherwise we would have lost one another). Derrill was in the lead followed by myself, Jeff and last Ben. Ben and Derrill had GPS units and Ben had a compass. We knew we had to head due East to get to the glacier. We started walking some time around 8:30 am. Our walking turned into stumbling because of the fierce wind. Wind speeds were 40-50 mph sustained with 70-80 mph gusts. We couldn't effectively read the GPS due to the wind, iced over goggles, snow and difficulty to actually process what we were doing. The compass was more worthy, so we followed our East bearing. Derrill and the rest of us meandered on in zero visibility. Everything was white. Knowing that we were going down hill was our only true physical reference. Every third step we had to stop because the wind gusts were so strong. Our legs were fatiguing from bracing against the wind. I kept steering Derrill back to the East as he seemed to drift North at times. Derrill and I came together every 10 steps to re-evaluate our bearing and direction of travel. This was the only communication of our rope team. I couldn't see Jeff or Ben, just a rope disappearing into the white. Heck, I could only see Derrill half of the time and he was 6 meters from me on the rope. As we trudged on, we ran into a cairn (a route finding marker of piled rocks) and part of the summer trail trench. We felt good about this. A second later it disappeared again into the white. We came upon another cairn not to farther on. We must be on the correct path. Again we seemed to vanish in the wind and whiteness. We saw intermittent foot prints and ski tracks in the snow. Another clue we must be in the correct heading.
We ran into wind loaded snow that was 1-1.5 feet deep. This meant we were at a gradient change in the terrain, praying it was the entrance to the glacier gully, but had no true idea. We had concern of avalanche danger from our surroundings. We all had our beacons turned on. The slope grade steepened. Derrill and I began to post hole with our snow shoes on. I failed to buckle my chest strap on my back pack when I put it on. This wreaked havoc on me as the wind tossed my pack to the side (even with my shoulder straps sinched fully) forcing me to work too hard to stand up. I attempted to attach it but it was far too hard in my gloves, iced over goggles and big parka. It also took a lot of energy. Hard to believe something so simple as buckling a chest strap would be so exhausting. Derrill was having a tough go too. His waist harness kept falling around his knees compromising his balance in already unstable conditions. He went down. Luckily the snow was soft and deep. I caught up to him to make sure he was ok, which he was. We rechecked our bearing and agreed in our travel direction. We were only able to take 2 steps then stop to rest and brace against the wind. This went on for more than an hour. We both fell numerous times. When he and I were close together the wind would blow the rope and tangle us up.
We still had no visual on Jeff or Ben, just the tension on the rope let us know they were still behind us. Jeff didn't have snow shoes and didn't put on his crampons. This slowed our descent. I learned later that Ben was holding us up a lot of the time to arrest our falls. Derrill and I were becoming exhausted with our trail breaking efforts. We still had no idea if we were on the glacier or not. Nothing was visible and the wind was as strong as ever. I started to wonder if the situation would get worse. Would we make it down, would one or more of us get hurt in a fall, were we headed for a cliff, would we get so tired we would just quit? We had no place to gain shelter. The only answer was to continue to follow our bearing and the downhill grade we were now committed to. I wanted to see my family and friends again. I did not want to be one of those news stories of how experience climbers were lost in the backcountry. These thoughts kept me going and kept me determined to get our team down to safety. I had no concept of what time it was. Derrill and I regrouped and decided I would now lead down. It was so difficult to stand, so I decided to get down on my hands and knees and crawl backward downhill. I shouted to Derrill to do the same which he did. This was so much easier to do than stand and walk. It seemed to save energy. We did this for maybe 300 feet of elevation until I hit hard snow and saw foot prints. This made it easier to stand up, face downhill and walk. Derrill got up with me and our pace quickened, now 5 steps then stop and brace against the wind. Miraculously, the white opened up for a split second revealing a rocky ridge line to my left(North). Ben described this as if we were sailing in the unknown and finally spotted land, LAND HO! We were in a gully, most likely St. Mary's gully. I felt a fresh feeling of hope! The ridge disappeared quickly, however the hard snow didn't. We kept our course and descent. A while on, the white gave way to rocks again on my left. I would never have known I was only a few feet away from them. I was able to follow this edge now more consistently. Another clue came to light, I could hear wind blowing through trees! However, I couldn't see them. We must be close to treeline and possibly the bottom of the glacier. Rocks on my left stayed visible. I could now see Jeff and Ben behind us. Jeff was struggling to gain footing on the glacier with just his boots and ice axe. He attempted to glissade, but couldn't get going. We finally made it to trees! The wind wouldn't give up. It still bashed us and knocked us down. We needed to get into the woods. We skirted St. Mary's Lake and ended up on the rocky beach area. I tripped and fell again. A gust kicked up and knocked Derrill over some rocks. Luckily he was ok. We made it onto the trail in the woods, but the wind still wouldn't stop. We took off our packs, rope and harnesses. I had to pee so bad. We hadn't eaten or drank since departing camp. I found out that Derrill didn't eat anything at all yet this day. We were beaten up, but glad to be close to safety. Only .75 miles to the car, all below treeline. We put our packs on and headed down. We met an older guy coming up with his dog. He had a snowboard on his back pack. We warned him of the dangerous conditions/weather ahead, but he did not heed our warnings. I realized I needed to call Billy. It was after 11:30 am. I was able to get a hold of him. He had called the Sheriff a few minutes before my call. I instructed him to call back and cancel the search and rescue which he did. All of our team did receive calls from the sheriff on our cell phones. We made it to the car by 12:15 pm awfully tired but joyous. We had high fives and fist bumps all around. Derrill's wife Liz was waiting at the trailhead since 8:30 am to pick Derrill up and go to Breckenridge to snowboard on closing day. That didn't happen. Ben, Jeff and I threw our packs into Jeff's vehicle, keeping most of our battle clothing on. We were wet and fatigued, but remained warm. Ben said it best, "Today we cheated death, guys."
The three of us collected our senses and drove down to Idaho Springs where we stopped at Tommy Knocker's for beer and excellent food. We debriefed our morning and talked about what we could have done differently. We thought it would have been best to have stayed put in our tents and wait out the storm. We had food and fuel to last us another day. Ben downloaded our trip on his GPS and to our amazement found that our descent only strayed 40 yards or less to the South of our ascent route. This made me feel good about Derrill and my route finding skills.
Later that night I found myself in the company of my entire family at my sister's house to celebrate my niece's birthday...comfort...peace...appreciation of life and those I love! My sister and brother-in-law had given me a survival cord bracelet as a gift more than a year ago. Believe what you will, but that bracelet, which I wear on my backcountry travels, has kept me safe in the mountains. Thanks Carrie and Derk!
This outing/expedition definitely gave us adverse training for Rainier. I hope I never have to use it again!
Until my next report of our training preparation for Rainier...
