Mountaineering on Austera Peak, Ram's Cascade Adventure Camp
4-We awoke in a cloud. It was mostly calm. Then a drizzle. Then a sleet. Then a rain. Then it would blow. Then calm. Sometimes it would brighten, the sun trying to come in over the top. Then it would darken. By noon we were stiff and restless. A party had headed the way we needed to go, the day before. They had turned back. But if we could follow their prints, it would point us in the right direction. So in a lull, we packed. Ziff found a great route over a pass, saving us a rappel and in our own personal " box of cloud," we headed upward. After a turn left and and turn right, we found the apex of the glacier and headed up Austera Peak. An exposed ledge would take us past most of the difficulties. The rock was loose. The rock was lichen covered. The rock was wet. When we fall, we fall fast. And so it was with Aaron. Half the tumble was over before he would remember any of it. It was a class 3 spot. Did the foot shoot out? He doesn't know. We do know that the angle was low.....but still he went over backwards and rolled. He came to a stop. Ziff called urgently for me. I was up ahead with Sonny. I let Sonny hustle back to my fallen son. The people there were SAR people. The people there were medical people. The people there were not related to him. They did not need a panicked parent. I let my mind wander off to my first romance. Still the conversation below filtered in. Wave of parental panic. Moment of calm removal. Wave of.....
Inventory was taken (4th picture) and the damage was minimal. A chewed up butt. A scraped up lower back. Test that sore elbow. Note the dink on the helmet. Ahhh, to be young, fluid and flexible!! And helmeted! I strolled down as the evaluation continued. We were remote. We were in a cloud. We were lucky! What to do? We summitted and continued on...
Arriving at the north col of Kawatti in the fog and drizzle. (Ram's Cascade Adventure Camp)
arriving at the north col of Kawatti in the fog and drizzle.
one of hundreds of unnamed towers
Ziff scouts and finds a way over the normally technical pass, without the standard rappel. One class 4 move from the snow to the rock is all it took. Aaron follows
Aaron after the fall and being checked out by Sonny and Ziff. Being more remote is hard to imagine. We got lucky this time
The final moves to the summit of Austera Peak
We came from around the corner, above the apex of the snowfield. Class 3 with the world as exposure. A fall here would not be forgiving
Down, down, down and around the corner. Then that best of Cascade magic starts. The clouds start to part. A show with 100's of acts. A peek here. A window there. A parting. A closing. A sunbeam. Then patches of blue. It mesmerizes. It is constant change. It is timely, for we can now see where we might go
But where to go? It seems cliffed out in all directions. We discuss. We disagree. We probe. It is hard to see a way, in and out of cloud, going downhill. And the thought of climbing back up is daunting with loads on the back. A hateful thought. We probe and probe and finally a loose gully offers hope. A full double rope rap and watch out for those loose boulders. We land on a glacier. Sonny's pack tumbles and lands 150 vertical feet lower or so his altimeter says. It was right on the edge of a much further fall.
Our reward for getting here? Over 1,500 vertical feet of climbing up to a pass. It is 8 PM. I am feeling the tension of the day and I snap at folks who don't deserve it. Then these people blitz hard up the hill. Camp is made before dark in a place called Lucky Pass. Lucky we are to be all in one piece and the luck would hold. The next day would be among the most extraordinary of our lives.
Down, down, down. All the footprints are gone now. We use the ridge as our marker, dancing around crevasses.
Which way is what?? Sensing our way through the pea soup fog. The sound of falling rock and crashing snow and ice occasionally heard out in the oblivion
A map and a GPS on a Ram trip? Well the map would have come anyway. Fog, glacier and cliffs. tricky business.
The clouds part. The Klawatti Glacier and Icefall. Aaron inspecting.
In and out of cloud and sun. A hundred different looks an hour. Marvelous!
Metamorphic dikes in the granite? (editor: nope, guess again!)
The remote and wild Klawatti lake
And then back in the clouds
Looking over toward Lucky Pass. slopes of Primus on the left, Triconi on the right. Now how do we get there?
We guessed and gambled by going down there
Down, then rapping a gully, crossing the North Klawatti Glacier and up the steep slopes to Lucky Pass. We would set camp here. Looking back at Mt. Forbidden
Forbidden from the North Klawatti Glacier