Red Mountain -- BoeAlps

Where: Red Mtn through Commonwealth Basin
When: April 26th, 2009
With: BoeAlps BCC Team 7
Goals: Navigate through the basin to get to the peak (focus on map/compass)

We parked at the Snoqualmie West parking lot and had our gear on heading to the trailhead by 7am. The above picture is a view of Red Peak from the parking lot (photo taken when we got back to the cars because the morning was pretty foggy and we couldn't actually see the peak).

The start of our trail was part of the PCT and there was a decent amount of foot traffic and some snowshoe tracks as well. We crossed two tributaries stemming from the Commonwealth Creek and noted their possible (lack of) stability if the sun was to shine on them all day. Soon after, the sun became encrusted by clouds and we were left to hike in a gray haze. Fortunately, the clouds weren’t ominous.

Soon we were done with our hike across the basin and were climbing the ridge towards Red Peak. At this point there were almost no tracks; the only tracks from a lone skinner (a skier who has sandpaper type material on the bottom of his skies so he can ski straight up). Even this skinner was doing switchbacking a bit—but we went straight up the ridge. I led this section for quite awhile until the team took another break; as I was filling up my waterbottle with snow Kyle and Ryan passed me out.

I was feeling the effects of snowboarding and rock climbing the day before. I don't think it was really slowing me down, but my body definitely noticed the difference in effort it took to move, especially early in the morning.

The obvious ridge ended soon after and we landed on a very steep face of Red Mountain. Since the sun had left us for awhile, all the snow had hardened and was rather crusty. Even once you broke the top crust all the underlying snow was still quite hard. We started doing French steps up the mountain. This means the first person would hit the side of their foot against the steep slope and hope it went in enough to stand on. You’d then cross your lower foot over the top foot to do the same process of side stepping into the mountain. The first person tries to make the step as deep as possible, but won’t really notice if the step isn’t too deep. The 2nd-5th people will still find it quite challenging to step in the leads steps. At most there is an inch or two of a step to work with.

This is John Alley (an instructor) who is on our uphill steps. [He’s actually coming down our steps in this photo, but it shows you the steep hill and our side steps].



If we didn’t have our ice ax this would have been a ridiculous and unsafe attempt. Later in the day we saw 3 people attempting to go up the mountain and it was obvious they had little experience mountaineering. Near the base of the mountain they were already on all 4’s trying to crawl up the mountain.

The interesting part is by the 6th-8th people the steps actually become quite nice! By this time there is about 5” of hole for you to step in—I had no idea!

After climbing 1000+feet of elevation in these side steps we made it to the top! Although our pace had been moderately slow, it was almost straight up, so the first of our team summited at about 10:45am. The rest of the team was to the top by 11:15am.

We got a team summit photo, but not on my camera. For now you’ll get to see the shadows of the team summit in Todd’s helmet!



As the last folks were nearing the summit the sun started to poke its head out. Before we knew it we were amidst blue skies and bright white clouds. As we passed out many different types of summit treats (apple bread, 2 types of cookies, and my peanut butter chocolate covered bars) we basked in the glory of the sun. Since we made it to the summit so early, we decided to dawdle a bit to let the snow soften up for our decent.

I had actually been dreading the decent as we were coming up. I was wondering if we might even rope up for the decent. This would mean we would tie the rope to a tree, and then attach a prussic to our harness and the rope and slowly step down.

Fortunately, a mere 45 minutes of the sun bathing the mountain and the snow softened up enough for us to traverse down safely. Before heading off the summit we did dawn out harnesses, mainly because if we got halfway down and realized we needed to rope up, you sure didn’t want to attempt putting your harness on with the steep slope (not to mention taking your pack off to find the harness and such).

Ron and Bob (a guest instructor) showed us all how to down step this steep area. Basically, point your feet straight down the mountain, jam your heel in as you step down, and repeat with the other leg. Sounds easy enough, right? At first I could only aim one foot down the mountain, the other foot preferred to be perpendicular to the mountain, it felt much safer. The snow was softer, but it wasn’t that soft!

Most of us took a pretty slow pace getting started. We were in awe of the instructors; it looked like Bob was just running down the mountain! I believe he called his steps ‘controlled chaos.’ Mark was also really good at this downstepping although he claimed it was more because he had to use the outdoor facilities and was trying to get to a tree covered area.

Below is a picture of Matt stepping. The instructors told us crouching like an old man was helpful because then you were able to get your weight over your feet.



[Later] Matt and I found that standing up a little straighter but still keeping your weight balanced over your feet, gave us more control.

At one point or another, almost all of us had to arrest with our ice axes. Matt had the longest slip by far. Apparently his waterbottle (attached on the side to his pack), flipped up and kept getting in the way of the ax getting a good grip in the snow. He said his fall was quite a scare. Below you can see how far Matt slid compared to the photo above. [He was quite a bit above the main group, and by the time he stopped he was a little below them]. I think he was just trying to get down the mountain quicker!!



I arrested twice (I think I gained too much confidence and started to speed up my steps and slipped); both times I only slid about 2 feet before coming to a stop.

It’s unfortunate that the image is flattened, but this is 1000ft+ of elevation gain that we just came down.



After we got down the steep pitch we realized it was still pretty early, so we had time to practice some other skills. We simulated two different types of belays, the boot-ax belay and a carabineer-ax belay. Below is pictures of Ron demonstrating footing of the boot-ax and how you stop with the rope.






We also did a Rutschblock test. This is a “sliding block” test that shows how much force is needed to make the snow slide on a given slope. Basically, you dig out a box of snow and you can analyze all the layers of the snow, and also, you can jump on this block to see how sturdy the snow is.

Practicing these techniques took about an hour and then we were headed back down to the cars. On the way down we created a few glissade shoots! And we slid down these slides on our butts (like you would a playground slide) and flew by the last few steep sections. The walk back on the flats was still enjoyable although it was slightly harder going than our walk to the base of the mountain. Since the sun was warming up the snow we were all sinking in a bit on these snow steps (even when we were using parts of our old trail).

We got to the cars at about 3pm—our earliest time ever! We had a quick group meeting and then were off to the North Bend Bar and Grill to make up for the lost calories.

Another great SUN day completed!

This last photo is a view from near the summit. You can see the Snowqualmie Ski Resort (where I have a seasons pass), our old friend Silver Peak (the bowl looking thing above it), and Rainier is sticking out behind Silver from the clouds.