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 :)

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.

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 :)

28 Days in Alaska

I just came back from AK, where I had the chance to spend a total of 28 days.

After coming back from Denali, I had some extra days to recover and start thinking in my new adventure. I was hanging out in Talkeetna and I got a call from my good friend Joel.
He ask me where I was and I said I'm Talkeetna!!! he says I'm going there tomorrow. SWEET !!!! I have a climbing partner.
we got together at the AMS office where they have a huge map of the Alaska Range.

After doing some research and getting some beta from Craig Collims, we decide that the conditions at the pika glacier can be pretty decent.
After having a plan of where we are going we need it to find a pilot how wanted to take us there and not charge us a fortune.
Mean while we wore doing some chilling in Talkeetna and the cool places around town.
Finally!!!! we find a pilot our good friend Jock how fly for Hudson Air Service.

The dude is a great person and pilot with over 20 years of flying experience on the range.

Highly recommended flying with him. After packing all our gear that it was over 200 pounds of Ice, rock , Aid and all our camping Stuff. We wore already to fly.
The fly was awesome with a pretty grip landing at least for me I'm sure that it was just another landing for Jock. Once on the glacier Joel and I wore superrrrrrr psyched to start our adventure in a new place for us.
Our first objective was the West face of the Throne a super sick looking rock face with snow and ridge climbing at the top.

We gear up with skies and then we wore to check out our first objective.
In camp, we decide to chance our schedule because the temps wore pretty high so we wore sleeping in the day (hottest part) and climbing t night.
The other objective that we came for, was this awesome looking wall The Central North Pillar of the Crown Jewel. It had more snow that we wore spectate, and we the temps been warm we wore not 100% sure about how safe is going to be that wall.
Once at camp we start getting ready for our first adventure.
Having supper sticky Rubber is essential for sending!!!! and that's exactly what 5.10 have supper awesome climbing shoes.
The approach was pretty cool with great views. At the base of the route our first crux came up changing shoes with out falling in the moat!!!!!
Once climbing shoes on, I start the first pitch. The crack system that we find looks great for the first 50 meters and then we wore not sure if up higher the same system will continue or not. unfortunately the system stop and blank face with water running down everywhere stop us from be able to keep going up. Bummer man!!!! came down and decide to climb the formation via the lots marsupial route.
That route was awesome Alpine rock climbing with Snow, little ice and expectacular ridge Summit. Here Joel and I on the Summit!!!!!!
It took us quite some time to get back to camp. At 4:00 AM we wore cooking our Dinner / breakfast.
Some hours later we wore checking out the weather observations more than 80 % of my time in the AK range was full of sunshine!!!!! check this out
The rest of the day we spend dry our gear and checking out the view.

Super splitter weather!!!!! after drying out the gear, we went in our next mission.
Here we are in front of the Crown Jewel looking the conditions of the face that we wanted to climb. The snow on top that we spot earlier was definitely a danger for us we wore seeing pretty good avalanches in all aspects at any time of the day. Even a small spin drift with that type of snow could take us down, so we decide that it was not worth for us to get up there and ask for trouble. Abort mission :( but we wore in one piece.:)
From the last location we head for the Dragon's Spire and the South Face.

Moving at night make the glacier travel been pretty easy. In this photo is about 1:20 AM pretty sweet he!!!!! that's right is AK Baby!!!!! 24 hours of day light.
Checking out our new objective and what wore our options in terms of finding a crack system that is going to hope fully take us to the top.
After finding a possible option Joel took the first pitch. The rock was looking pretty sweet, but we wore not sure if it is going to go all the way that sweet splitter.

He climb about 50 Meters, he belay me up and the next thing I saw, was a pretty difficult wet and grassy crack less crack. Exactly how it sound. no way to put cams, stoppers or even pitons. Crap that was it. I did make some tension traverses to try to find other crack to connect but NADA :(

Denied again!!!!!
So we decided to tour around the glacier and check out some other walls.

we had just until 11 AM when Jock is going to pick us up.

Check out this awesome blue pool of glacier water. This place is such a cool area to check out.
11 am came fast and before we know was time for us to fly back.

It was a great 6 days of hanging out with a good friend in a great area.
Thanks Joel for a great time Dude!!!!!!

Also thank to Jock for a pretty grip landing and take off.

You scare the @##$%%^ out of me man :)

Looking forward to get back to that place and hopefully when is little dryer.

SUMMIT DENALI!!!!!

IN THE 22 OF MAY MYSELF, MIKE WALTER (GUIDE) AND 3 CLIENTS, WE ALL HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO STAND ON THE TOP OF MT DENALI. IT WAS A GREAT 18 EXPEDITION WHERE ONE OF OUR CLIENTS BECAME THE 2 OLDEST TO SUMMIT THE MOUNTAIN.

AL. A 72 YEAR OLD STRONG DUDE WAS ONE OF THE COOLEST INSPIRATION THAT I HAD SO FAR IN MY LIFE.

UNFORTUNATELY MY CAMERA BROKE DOWN, SO NO PHOTOS OF THIS TRIP FOR THE BLOG :(

ANY WAY

CONGRATS TO

AL, RICHARD AND JOHN FOR THE SUMMIT !!!!!!!