Tuesday, July 27, 2010

SAHALE AND SHARK FIN TOWER

In my last trip to Boston Basin and after lots and lots of rain, we finally had some break on the weather.!!!!! haaaa blue Skies.... Andres Marin Collection

Wake up super early and head up to climb some peaks.
The person how I was climbing with a super strong ex pro bike sprinter racer had plenty of legs and energy to put up with a long day.


We start with Sahale peak a super cool peak that offer some cool mixed terrain climbing.
Here I'm getting ready to start with the most technical part of the climb.

Here John is making the last rock moves up the Summit pyramid.

once on top the view is great from Sahale you can 261 different peaks. Cool he!!!!!
Summit shoot.

John is superrrrrr psyched !!!!!!!

A view of the cool terrain that we just climb.

From Sahale we head up to Shark Finn Tower.




Once at the base of the tower conditions wore looking pretty sweet... and there we go.

superr good rock very cool route great views.


Here at the top of the Tower John is recording our ascent in the Summit register book.
Hang out in the Summit for a little while and start our decent to camp and then all the way down to the car. Superr long dayyyyyyyyyyy.

Once on the car where wore super psyched to get to peaks done in the same day.
Good times at the Boston Basin with a super strong climber.

Looking forward to do it again :)

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Torment peak

On the second trip to Boston Basin, we had the opportunity to climb Torment peak.
This peak is where my really good friend and Hero Craig Luebben died on august 9 2009 and a very unfortunate accident. Climbing/guiding this peak for me it was a huge mental challenge.
Fortunately we had great weather and awesome route conditions. We Climb the direct South face to the top.
Andres Marin Collection

Here we are with Aaron on the Boston Basin high camp after our summit. For Aaron his first Alpine climbing experience. He had a awesome time.!!!!!!!

I'm almost at the summit of the peak after climbing a good 1,200 feet of mid 5 class alpine rock.
Summit!!!! of Torment super cool view. remembering CL :)
Andres Marin Collection

TRIP TO THE WEST RIDGET OF FORBIDDEN

On my first mission to the North Cascades, my first guiding objective was the West Ridge of Forbidden peak. Forbidden peak is located on heart of Boston Basin witch is located in the center of the North Cascades. This ridge is consider one of the 50 classics climbs in North America. This climb it is a relatively easy climb in terms of modern Rock climbing grades a 5.6 it is the grade for the crux of the route. Although climbing with packs and boots plus the long approach can make feel this grade a bit harder. Besides the technical difficulty, you will have lots of super cool exposure. Like in most sports conditions have to be good in order to be able to get it done and in our case, we had lots and lots of rain :(

(This photos was taking after this trip when weather was awesome)
Andres Marin Collection.



And for us it was pretty wet. Even the Marmots wore complaining about the weather!!!!!
We waited for 2 days, the weather did not improve and after a very cold night, we decided that it was time to go down :(



Here is how the upper camp in Boston Basin looks early this July.
Usually is very nice platforms for tents in the dirt but this time was lots and lots of wet snow.

Sucks having this weather, but thats how it goes in the Mountains.

Friday, July 16, 2010

ALL JULY IN THE NORTH CASCADES

I have been in the North Cascades for the past 16 days and it has been super sweet !!!!!
Photos and stories coming soon stay tuned.

60 SUMMITS OF RAINIER AND COUNTING :)

60 Summits of MT Rainier and counting!!!!!!!
yeahhh!!!!! you want to climb MT Rainier I show the way :)