cascade range

Last summer me and some friends went on a road trip that started in Utah and went up to Crater Lake National Park. From Crater Lake we worked our way down through Northern California to Lake Tahoe. The last stop was supposed to be Great Basin National Park, but by the time we got there all the...

My daughter, Holly, going to school in Seattle, had the great idea that I should come up in the summer and we could explore Rainier National Park. Our research led us to the Wonderland trail, so we decided to apply for the hard to get camping permits that would take us all the way around the...

My daughter and I stopped by this park for a first time quick visit on our way back to Seattle from Glacier NP. We were expecting a point of entry with a booth but never saw one. We drove in from the east and were impressed by the mountain scenery in the fading light of the day but never saw...

The Pacific Northwest did not have a winter this year. That was followed by perhaps the hottest June and July on record. By July, snow was mostly gone. Glaciers were icy or huge crevasses had opened as to make travel perilous or impossible. In this, my 21st, 3 week, July trip to the North...

My wife and I took our first backpacking trip over Labor Day week in 2012. At the beginning of the year I did not even know that North Cascades National Park existed. Hiking, camping, and backpacking were not on my radar. Then I saw a copy of a Backpacker magazine at a newsstand. On the cover...

I had been wanting to do a trip to Eagle Cap for years, so with the husband laid up with a torn achilles, the mutt and I escaped for a long weekend in September. We started at the Two Pan trailhead and set up camp by Sunshine Lake. It was a nice little spot, had it to ourselves. We spent the...

Let me attempt to quickly report on one of the great trips of my life this summer - my 4th attempt to climb Mt. Rainier. The first climb was all about fulfilling a childhood dream of summitting this impressive mountain. The next climbs have been more about inspiring myself to stay strong and...

In july my parents told me that they were going to a geocaching event in Seattle in august. So it crossed my mind that perhaps i should catch a ride with them and do some backpacking. They said they could handle that. So i cleared some time off of work. I hadn't planned to do the Wonderland...

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 Ziff and I had planned for 6 days on the traverse, as with a washed out road, on the way out. We awoke 25 miles from the spotted car. It was hard to prepare to leave the world of the alpine, but I had a flight home the following day. In fact doing it in 2...

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 We awoke early and broke camp, which meant the snowfields we had to descend were very HARD. Some we skirted, some we clung to. We could not figure out the route from the view ahead of us. That happened on day 2 also. Sometimes you just plod forward the...

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 Ziff and I went to bed, having decided to take a pass climbing Le Conte, which looked daunting. We slept better for it. Ahhh but when early light shown on the peak, we could see more features and it looked more reasonable. I pointed the difference out. We...

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 Up early the next day, we break camp and slide by the impressive icefalls of the Middle Cascade Glacier and on to the less serious, but not trivial upper glacier. We went thru the pass and down 200 feet of steep snow. After hemming and hawing, we decided...

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 Ziff was in. I took him on his first mountains when he was 8 years old.....38 years ago. Long ago he passed me by, skills and strength wise. He still offers the charity of taking me about, up in the North Cascades, when we find the time. The bad news was...

After the 4 AM thunderstorm cells moved through, sun beams shown in the valley below and successive clouds rolled over the peaks above. Gear was dried and the day settled into one of relaxation. I can only take so much of this. I restlessly stared up at the peaks. They were calling me. Jenny to...

Snowfield? Ohhhh boy is that ever the impressive name for a mountain!!!.....NOT!!! Aw well! It does have its challenges nevertheless. It was over 9 hours full packing to our camp. From there it is up a glacier to a pass, down steep snow and onto a pretty massive glacier, then an exposed ridge to...

Harvey and Jean joined Jenny and I for a 5 day trip up into the Colonial Group, near Diablo, Washington. Harvey is a famed canyoneer and backpacker and regular partner of Steve Allen's. Jean, while an athlete, was new to this type of mountaineering. Jenny and I agreed to facilitate. It is under...

Off the success on Mix-Up, we had 2 days before friends were to come in. The forecast was marginal and our desire strong for more technical climbing in the alpine zone. When the weather is bad in the Cascade's, you migrate east, over the crest to the rain shadow. We had Black Peak in mind, with...

The mountain was just staring at us, from our camp. We vacillated on whether to do it or not. It called to Jenny. Spoke to her. Called her some more. The east face route is a personal favorite. What looks like an impossibly steep face is actually steep, but clean granite slabs, hanging over a...