"After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, which is the most horrible thing in the world."
--Oscar Wilde on Absinthe
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dmuja - Mar 24, 2004 10:37 pm
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: August 23rd, 2003Great job brother Mark! Fun mountain, fun route.
derbilly - Feb 24, 2004 2:20 am
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: Spring 1997One of my first summits. One thing that sticks in my mind is walking through miles of slush on the way back with semi-waterproof boots.
Zarn - Feb 17, 2004 12:57 pm
Route Climbed: South Standard Date Climbed: 08/23/20008/22/00 Mi-day start, w/ a bivy @ Lunch Counter. Hot walk on soft snow. Encountered a mountain goat w/ calf @ approx 8300'. They crossed the glacier 200' above me, Amazing!! Stary, moonless, cold evening w/ distant lightening turning nite into day. 5am start on the solid only to mush out on the apporach to the pikers peak headwall. Beautiful clear day. Suncupped, plateau w/ sharp ridged recessed path. Sloged last 600' to summit on the loose rock & pumice. Excellent views all directions as it was clear & 40 degrees on the summit but it was a long hot walk back out.
Z1
Kimberly - Feb 11, 2004 8:52 pm
Route Climbed: South Ridge Date Climbed: July 15, 1999I climbed it with my husband. We had good weather.
cascadeclimber1978 - Feb 7, 2004 9:30 pm
Route Climbed: Lava Ridge Date Climbed: August 25-26, 2003excellent route for those who like a beautiful approach.
good climbing, but lots of loose scree in aug. it was great to do a much different route than the norms.
chickenhawk34 - Dec 21, 2003 12:00 am
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: 09-13-03My first "alpine" summit - a fantastic trip with my dearly beloved Rebecca Rice and a great friend Jim Macsurak. Quite the trip for a bunch of flatlanders from Delafield, Wisconsin (ALT 912!) I saw my buddy make it with little or no training and tremendous fortitude - Jim Macsurak has the heart of a lion.
The trip I will always remember - the accomplishment I waited years to complete - just the same, the beginning of the most facinating sport I have ever
participated in.
Special thanks to All of You at Summitpost
for all the beta - this is really a special site
my all time favorite!
T. A. Casiana
Tweezer - Nov 26, 2003 11:00 am
Route Climbed: Sout spur Date Climbed: Aug 1999Spent a night on mountain. Very pretty but a long snow slog. More of a hike than a climb!!!
cluck - Oct 6, 2003 2:38 pm
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: September 27, 2003It being so late in the season, I expected to be wading through scree the whole way but was pleasantly suprised at the route conditions. The trail to lunch counter was dry and solid with snow above the Crescent Glacier. A tiny bit of scree slogging to get to the Lunch Counter and then snow again almost the whole way to Pikers. The final 300 feet to Pikers peak was an agonizing scree slog, but that was the worst of it. From Pikers to the summit was dry but the trail was tolerable.
Went car to car with some newbies in about 13.5 hours. The route was in much better condition than I had anticipated. But, it's 1,000 times better to go earlier in the season.
Jeff H - Sep 21, 2003 11:47 pm
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: September 1st, 2003Little over five hours from parking lot to summit. Beautiful weather with great visibility. Only a couple other climbers on top. Thought there would be more people on a holiday weekend. Have to come back in the spring with skis when there is more snow.
schitthaedt - Sep 15, 2003 7:23 pm
Route Climbed: North Cleaver Date Climbed: August 27, 2003Good weather, but windy. No snow on route. Photos on my personal website.
CraigA - Sep 7, 2003 1:28 am
Route Climbed: Mazama Glacier Headwall Date Climbed: Aug. 17, 2003Climbed the Headwall variation of the Mazama Glacier with Martin on the 17th. Due to some computer problems and an overbooked schedule I'm just getting the pictures, so I figured I'd go ahead and post the report.
As Martin said our original plan was to climb The Castle, but it was completely melted out. Settling on the Mazama Glacier we started up at about 5:00 am. We made good time on the lower and upper sections navigating around crevasses as necessary (mainly on the lower section). While taking a break we scoped out the headwall and decided "it needs to be done"!
Martin led out and we traversed over to the top of the South Klickitat Glacier and then headed straight up the slope. It was around 40 degrees at first and quickly increased to around 65-70. When we reached what we thought was the top we were a little suprised to see it was really the front edge of a huge crevasse. This forced us to traverse north about 30-50 yards (just a little nerve racking on a slope of 50+ and softening snow). This led to a narrow chute that ended in a second, even bigger, crevasse. However, I spotted a vertical section (everything else was overhung) on the other side and we crossed a snow bridge and worked our way to it. It looked like about 6 foot but when we got to it, it was probably closer to 12-15 foot. Everything was solid in this area, the crevasse was about 20-25 foot wide and the bottom was solid. Everything looking safe I headed up. I quickly discovered there was a small overhang that made this section a little trickier than I thought and as I got my chest to the top and attempted to swing one of my ice axes over the top so I could pull myself over, my other ice tool popped out and I was free falling backwards. I landed and rocketed to the other side and came to a stop. I quickly took a "mental" inventory and didn't feel anything severe, so I stood up and looked up at Martin who looked like he was trying to figure out what the Hell had just happened. I was ok but a little shook up, Martin then said lets do this without packs. We dropped our packs and he made VERY SHORT work of this section (his greater experience on vertical ice really showed) I tied on the packs and he pulled them up. Then he gave me a boot belay and we were done. Nothing left except the slog to the summit.
All in all this was one of the funnest climbs I've done, although I could have done without the fall. I ended up with a small bruise on my right knee and a small bruise on my right side (I think my pack actually absorded most of the impact). The Mazama Glacier is a beautiful route and the views are stunning. If you haven't done it you should put it on your agenda! The headwall makes for a great finishing variation, but the route is worth it even with the standard finish.
Craig
Joseph Smith - Sep 4, 2003 3:37 pm
Route Climbed: mazma glacier headwall Date Climbed: april 10 2003Great climb with moderate weather.
annaleiserabinek - Sep 3, 2003 1:09 pm
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: August 25, 2003What can I say that my climbing partner hasn't already? See Cornvallis entry below. If there is any one way to make a physically fit person feel out of shape its to climb a mountain. Slow, but persistant, progress was made for the 50 climbers ahead and behind me. The views of sunset and sunrise were fantastic from Lunch Counter. Friendly campers. We felt our gear was safe to keep at camp while we summitted. Views from the top were gorgeous, of course. Weather was perfect. Glissade chutes were a blast!
climberkristin - Sep 2, 2003 11:13 am
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: Aug 31,2003Not too busy for labor day weekend. Hordes of people coming off the mountain as we hiked in Sun night with dogs in tow. Camped at Lunch Counter, only about 5 other tents there with us. Next morning, we tried to stick to snow for the sake of avoiding scree and tearing up the dogs feet. Stashed our packs at false summit and hit the true summit at noon. Amazing views all the way to Baker! Despite being end of August we still got some very fun glissading in on the way down!
Cornvallis - Aug 27, 2003 4:19 am
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: August 25, 2003Left Cold Springs at 4:15 PM with a huge pack (annaleiserabinek hope you get an overnight pack soon) and plans to spend the night at the Lunch Counter. Arrived at the Lunch Counter with just enough day left to set up our tent, filter some water, and enjoy an incredible sunset. The cold wind hammered our tent all night so I slept little, but stayed toasty warm thanks to a Nalgene bottle filled with boiling water at the foot of my bag. Climbed out of the tent early to watch the sunrise and was not disappointed. Left camp at around 7 AM with a cold brisk wind that would stay with us to the summit. Once again didn't really need crampons, but would have been nice. The view to the true summit from Pikers Peak was a little disheartening, but only helped spur me on. Took some photos of the shack and surrounding views then walked over to the highest spot on the summit plateau and enjoyed some lunch with brownies for desert. The legendary glissade chutes, while shorter than early in the season, did not disappoint. The chutes looked like bobsled runs, good times! Got back to the Lunch Counter with smiles on our faces, broke camp, hurried down the mountain, and we were off to pick up passes from Jack's to climb Mt. St. Helens the next day. Great couple of days on the mountain! I'm glad we broke it up into 2 days so we had more time to enjoy it. Adams is huge!!
dkantola - Aug 25, 2003 1:42 am
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: August 24, 2003I did this route as a solo day hike. A morning cloud cap and lenticular cloud dissipated, but the winds didn't. Interesting nieve penitentes stood on the summit plateau. Great glissades were still to be had below Pikers Peak.
Scott - Aug 21, 2003 1:37 pm
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: July 15 1999Had 9 days of cloudless skies in the Cascades.
Martin Cash - Aug 18, 2003 9:52 am
Route Climbed: Mazama Glacier Headwall Date Climbed: 8/17/03Craig and I climbed the Mazama Glacier Headwall, which is a great variation to the standard glacier hike. The headwall had one nice pitch of snow to 70 degrees, and was a lot of fun. At the top of the headwall we traversed about 150 feet to the east, then dropped down inside a crevasse. I led up the 15 foot high slightly overhanging ice wall to get out of the crevasse, then belayed Craig up. There we met the hordes of south side hikers. The remainder of the route was hiking on volcanic scree. Weather was beautiful both days.
Our original plan was to do the Castle, Battlement Ridge variation. However, this route was completely melted out, and we heard rockfall. We looked at doing one of the hardcore routes, North or South Klickitat Glacier Icefalls. These routes are considered alpine testpieces. They looked extremely difficult, and the approach looked badly crevassed this late during the year. We decided against it after speaking with a man at sunrise camp who had climbed it a few year ago. His party spent a full 12 hours just on the icefall portion. Yikes! This route is now offically on my ticklist.
K Williams - Aug 14, 2003 12:08 am
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: 7-27-03A prefect day for climbing, clear sky, low wind and firm snow. Camped at the lunch counter with four other people. Overall a great weekend on the mountain.
UIdahoClimber - Aug 11, 2003 1:09 am
Route Climbed: South Spur Date Climbed: July 29, 2003Camped at roughly 7,000' just below the snow line, and climbed to summit from there. An absolutely beautiful day without a cloud in the sky and hardly any wind. Passed some climbers on their way down to the south summit and ended up with the true summit to myself. Fantastic views of Ranier, St. Helens, and Hood. The glissade tracks were so deep I felt like a bobsled on the way down.