Stay tuned for more reports ands pics... 1. West McMillan Spire 3. Snowking attempt. 4. Luna Attempt. West McMillan Spire  It is hard to describe terror basin and the climb up West McMillan spire in word and pics but I will try. Dicey, Josh's (my son)Truck Tigger, and I arrived at the Goodell creek TH Friday morning. Truck tigger didn't want to stay in the truck so he came to climb with us. The TH is at 600' and is a climbers path that runs up the river valley for about 4 miles. The path is brushy but still easy to follow. Around 4 miles give or take the path takes a turn at a camp with a fire ring. At 1600' or so The path turns right and goes strait up a ridge. When I say strait up I mean it...it kicked my butt. It gains 3500' in 1-1.5 miles. Many areas the vegetation and trees are your friend. At around 5000 ' the views start to appear. the path starts to mellow a bit and drops down to a stream crossing(now water). at 5200' you come to a second stream with very little water. climb up the stream bed of large boulders for 100 feet and find the caire. this is where the traverse begins. The traverse runs though meadows, slab and rock with incredible views to the south and west. Dicey arrived at the 6200' foot saddle before me and was waiting for me when I arrived. The plan was to descend down from the saddle into the basin for camp. That is not what happened. The steep slope is a mess of dirt, scree,loose and unstable rock. After Dicey tested the slope and we both looked at it, neither one of us wanted to descend it with our heavy packs. Dicey had a great idea to look for camp up higher with views and we could descend in the AM without heavy packs. Dicey went up the ridge to look fro a camp and water. she found a great spot with views that don't stop. Tigger liked stomping in the heather lol. The next morning we headed down the nasty slope to the basin. It was bad every step was loose and scary.  After dropping down from the saddle hug the right side near the base of the cliff and helmets are suggested. Once down off the slope we descended a snowfield to the glacier stream and followed it down to the basin where the camps are at 5800'. There was a tent up there near a tarn. We saw a guy and he waved as we came closer. We stopped to talk to him and Josh said he is from Ohio and just got back from living in Argentina for 7 years. He hitched rides and took buses to get to the NCNP for this backpack. As we are talking he asked if he could catch a ride back with us to seattle. We said ya no problem. He said he would cook us dinner after the climb so how could we pass that up? As we climbed for the day Josh was going to move his camp up to ours. We started up to the saddle to get a look at lake Azure. We scrambled up slab and rock to a notch at 6200' and took a break and snapped some pics of the lake. Now it was time to tackle The Spire.We descended from 6200' to 5500' when you cross an outlet from a thawed glacial lake. The lake is very nice and so green. From here you traverse a bit around a ridge and start to head up the terror glacier. We scrambled up rock and slab to reach the glacier. We stopped and put our crampons on and checked out the route. We head up the side of terror glacier and skirted around some tiny crevasses. up to the snow finger in a gully. The snow finger was very steep around 40 degrees or so. It was great fun. The finger is very thin and skinny up at the top so in a few weeks or sooner it will collapse. at the end of the finger we stashed our crampons and started the scramble up the summit ridge. The ridge is also very steep with a lot of loose rock and scree but some good rock to play on too. At the top you run into a false summit that is really nice. From there is a scramble along a small ridge with some exposure to the summit block 8000'. The views well.........WOW is all i can say. The pickets, shuksan, baker, south to glacier and all the other many peaks you can see. Tigger insisted he have a summit pics so i took one. We spent about an hour and headed down. The sun was hot and there was a little concern about the snow finger collapsing under us so we got going. The descent down the ridge was fine. We needed to get back to our crampons so we followed the same route we took up. Well it is not always easy to go down what you went up :rolleyes: . We tried skirting around some slab but it was too exposed. so the other option was a tunnel of mud between the snow finger and the cliff base with an overhang. Dicey went first. She was successful till the last ten feet or so and then ran out of move. Then she slipped and slid in the mud for about 10'+ :eek: . Just enough to get the adrenaline pumping. I followed and did the same thing. There was nothing that we could have done with the situation but slide in the mud. We reached the crampons with mud covered butts legs and hands. my adrenaline was pumping so good now that my knees where shaking. I hate descending steep snow just a peeve. Dicey started down.  I told her that I would find a route down the rock. HA! not a chance got part way down a slick slab with no holds and started to slip. That was when I did a backward spider climb back up to safety as quick as I could. OK.... WHEW....BREATH!!!! BREATH!!!!! that was all i could do to try to calm down. After the mud slide, the rock slip and the thought of having to descend that steep snow I was freaked. I had no time to sit and ponder to calm down Dicey was halfway down the snow finger and it was my turn. I put every bit of concentration in each step. With the help of Dicey's steps, some encouragement, and instruction I calmed right down and made it down safe and sound. We removed our crampons and did a little glissade. It helped clean the mud off :lol: . the traverse back to the camp areas was uneventful. Now the only obstacle was to ascend that saddle back up to camp. Dicey went first and I waited till the danger of rock would be clear. I have never hugged rock the way I did getting up that slope. every step I took seemed to not want to hold at all. I was so glad when I reached the top. When we reached our camp our new friend was waiting. He was ready took cook us dinner after high fives were given. He made something and I can't remember the name but it was good and filling. After some good food, conversation and a great sunset we all retired. The next morning we got out slow. The worst part of the way back to the th was the steep section on the ridge. It pounded the heck out of me. But it was nice to have a good 4 mile cool down before the truck. This was and will be one of my favorite climbs. Great area Great climb companion and got to meet and get to know Josh. I am glad Tigger came along cause it was a nice reminder of what i have back at home. Plus he loves to climb :lol: I hope that Dicey will pipe in with her experience of the climb and maybe some more pics too. brought crampons...used them but didn't need to ice axe...used them helmets...used them my altimeters said total acc elevation was 13, 300+' I think that is gain and loss maybe. I know my muscles are telling me it was alot!  Baker traverse to Hadley peak attempt To me this weekend was all about good people with great views!.
Dicey had a great idea and a different approach to summit Hadley peak.
The plan was to traverse from Artist point to Hadley and out Chowder
ridge and skyline. In early season or a better snow year this would
have worked well.
The next morning we will pack out and try for Hadley the Skyline/ Chowder ridge route. We had a nice sunset and sunrise but my pics didn’t come out that great so hopefully someone can post some of the sunset. Dicey sitting on the rocks warming in the sun for another day of bouncing up a mountain.
Being an idiot on Snowking
“I think we should turn around here, I am not feeling well at all” I said. “Really it is so close?” replied Matt. “Ok a bit further and we will see what time it is and see how we are feeling then” We were running out of time and the sun was so intense I was feeling dizzy and nauseous. I couldn’t even walk strait and had not one once of energy left. I couldn’t get enough water. I knew I had to cool down and drink more. The sun was sucking all the water right out of me. Thursday and Friday I hooked up to climb Snowking with a dear friend Matt. I knew it would be a good peak for Matt because he hikes or climbs only a couple times of year. Class 2-3 was perfect for his level. We had done some good peaks and traverses in the Goat Rocks and he rides a bike everyday for transportation so I figured Snowking was not out of his comfort zone. This was one of those trips where I just could not stop being an idiot and making dumb ass decisions and mistakes. Here is what not to do if you want to summit. And I know better than to make stupid mistakes like these, but still did it anyways.... DUH  !
1. I forgot my thermorest and slept on my pack in the bivy sac with just a fleece liner, no bag (couldn’t help but think of how comfy Matt was in his tent on his thermorest with his sleeping bag. Grrrr). I would not have been cold if I had the thermorest to insulate the ground. Got about 2-3 hrs of sleep total and most of that was in the morning when I was supposed to be waking up and climbing. 2. Took both our cell phone by accident. So there was no way for Mania and I to contact each other. I could not call him to say we would be late because it took longer to summit. I had to stick to the time I said I would be home. I was still late! 3. I was hot and tired so we decided to camp at the top of the first point on the ridge. Thinking would be an easy day Friday without packs. The route was slower than what I had thought it would be. This mistake was not huge but if we pressed on we might have had better chance at the summit. 4. I slept a bit late in my most uncomfortable bed. Got a late start in the morning. The heat was horrid at 9am. My thermometer said it was 120 + in the sun. I put it in the shade and it dropped to 94 degrees. I have never been just below the summit of a peak in the NW in heat like that. 5. I was an idiot and thought we might be able to traverse over from the lake to the saddle(looks doable on the map). NOT don’t go that way! We followed a slight track and then it just disappeared. We are so close by this time I didn’t want to turn back but that meant we had to go up. I knew the climbers path was up there on the ridge some where. We climbed strait up a VERY steep heather slope using ice axes for belay in the duff. Then bushwhacked our way up to the top of the ridge. That was fun but cost us precious time we didn’t really have. All of the above was the DUH factor. The route is in good shape. All spots one would get off trail have been flagged (not by me) The views are incredible. The lakes are like a treat for the eyes. What a beautiful place. We got within 900' of the summit and turned back because we ran out of time and the heat was the worst I have ever hiked in. Our descent was slow because Matt has not been hiking or climbing for over a year and was feeling it on the way down. I got home at 3am Sat morning after a loooooong drive home! I would say the only thing I would do different is never plan a time schedule for the return. That along with no communications with Mania had me stressed about time. Push myself a bit harder and DRINK MORE WATER. Stop having Duh days. With all that said I enjoyed hanging with a good buddy. What a nice area! I think I will come back to finish the job and maybe (need to research it) do a traverse over to Mutchner too. Our accumulated gain for the trip was 9200' With about 12-13 (? Seems like more ) miles RT Now that was a good workout! Kick ass route. Oh...the bugs were bad but nothing a bit of Deet didn't take care of. Here are some pics. I had fun with a Huge boulder at camp. It was asking for its pic to be taken so I did  Click the bottom ones they look much nicer big!
Luna Unfinished Bussiness Sorry if this is long but it was a long trip....
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