White River IV

Mt. Hood, Ore.

White River III

Mt. Hood, Ore.

White River II

Mt. Hood, Ore.

Jack on Palmer

Mt. Hood, Ore.

A blowy morning

Mt. Hood, Ore.

White River I

Mt. Hood,  Ore.

We want a pitcher

Milwaukee, Ore.

Spider house

Portland, Ore.

We still have Halloween decorations up at our house (this isn't our house). I'm beginning to think of it as a protest against Christmas decorations getting put up earlier every year.

A bridge in Arches

Arches National Park, Utah

No name, or anonymous

Portland, Ore.

Berndog, motorcycle

Butte, Mont.

A blizzard on I-90

North Dakota

Frank Lloyd's fans

Oak Park, Ill.

Lean wit it

Montana

Bus stop hand

Chicago, Ill.

Camas vs. Coeur d'Alene football

Camas, Wash.

Hockinson vs. Columbia River soccer

Hockinson, Wash.

Kings Way vs. La Center soccer

Vancouver, Wash.

Mountain View vs. Peninsula football

Vancouver, Wash.

The long way to Chicago, VIII

Oak Park, Ill.

Chicago, Ill.

The long way to Chicago, VII

Oak Park, Ill.

The long way to Chicago, VI

Somewhere

The long way to Chicago, V

Dillon, Mont.

The long way to Chicago, IV

Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Mont.

The long way to Chicago, III

Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Mont.

The long way to Chicago, II

Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Mont.

The long way to Chicago, I

Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Mont.

Jacob's new route on Beacon Rock

Beacon Rock State Park, Wash.

Stikine (Epilogue)

Epilogue

After returning to Petersburg two days earlier than planned, Shawn and Quentin were able to secure earlier tickets from Alaska Airlines for little or no cost. I was not so fortunate, but it wasn't difficult to acknowledge my extra free time in Southeast Alaska as the gift it was. I went for a solo salt-water skinny dip, and was able to spend an afternoon talking with Dieter Klose, the man who knows the Thumb better than any person. His simple living room has a picture-window view of the Stikine Icecap when its clear out, and the oceanic tides when its not. We talked about the value of ideas, and he told me about his life as if we had known each other for years.

That feeling of connection is powerful and it is positive. I absolutely felt it after a year in Ketchikan. I felt it after many tent-bound days with Shawn and Quentin, and the feeling is lodged permanently inside me after a long morning scratching my way nearly to the top of the Thumb and very nearly getting spit off in the process. The feeling was immediate and deep when I listened to Dieter.

We didn't get to the top of the Thumb, but the conquering mentality has never been why I climbed. I climb because of how it connects me to places, people, and to myself, and for that, this trip was a true success.

Stikine XI

XI

After excavating and building a series of rappel stations to the curving snow ridge, trying not to slide down the slope now above its logical melting point, and falling into the bergschrund, I returned to my skis to find my ski boots filled with water. Shawn called Wally in Petersburg to schedule a pickup ASAP. He said he'd try to get to us. Thanks Wally.

The helicopter took longer than anticipated because Wally's regular route to the Thumb was too cloudy. Shawn and Quentin volunteered to go on the second flight out, and made sure to have enough food and shelter in case Wally couldn't return for them that day. We flew out over the Baird Glacier, the emergency escape route by foot and air, and I was thankful to be on the helicopter instead of the maze of deep blue crevasses and gravelly moraines below.

When Wally returned to the hangar after his second trip to get Shawn and Quentin, his face was sullen as he told me he had to leave my partners on the icecap. The weather finally closed. The potential of the situation was too real not to believe, until Shawn and Quentin burst through the doors laden with backpacks. Thanks Wally.

Stikine X

X

The ridge appeared to be a little more straightforward above the gendarme. There was often enough rock to climb around the snow, but still enough snow to be jealous of attempts lucky enough to find the Thumb in true rock climbing conditions. The circuitous climbing was slow going, but at least we were moving.

After a few pitches of climbing up, down, and sideways to escape snow, I found myself moving more directly on the steep upper slope of the northwest face to avoid an obvious ice-smeared crack I couldn't bring myself to jam. With my two gloved hands underclinging a dripping flake and one heel hooked around an arete, the entirely natural fear of falling into well over a vertical mile of space finally wormed its way into my brain, just in time for my other boot, edged desperately on drying lichen, to slip. Of course I was run-out.

How did I manage to hold on? It was certainly the most scared I've ever been climbing, and by the time I built an anchor higher up, I was mentally drained. We climbed one more beautiful pitch to the rappel notch, a point we approximated to be 100 vertical feet and 300 horizontal feet from the summit, and the most convenient place for a party to *spoiler alert* bail. It was around noon, and the clouds that had seemed to extend into eternity below the ice cap all day now had companions drifting above our heads. We were moving too slowly to have a chance of scrambling up and down the easy, but slippery terrain to the summit and return to camp in time for Wally to get us out before the weather hit.

Stikine IX

IX 

I had set my alarm for three in the morning every day on the ice cap, prepared to climb. Most days, the alarm proved comically optimistic given the heavy precipitation that would blow throughout the night, but on Wednesday we woke to a clear sky, its colors warming from the blinking summer night. Grabbing our pre-packed bags, we zipped up to the bergschrund, swapping skis for climbing boots, and continued up a steep snow slope to a ridge, roughly following a melted boot track we left on a scouting mission a couple days before.

The snow curved in a grand parabola, pointing upwards past blocks of unconsolidated granite diorite patched with snow and towards a menacing gendarme that marked the start of the summit ridge. Our route. Leading this section rarely felt secure. Protection was minimal, the snow steep. I was thankful to have two ice tools, which allowed me to move between wet rock and shallow snow relatively comfortably. After a handful of pitches, we arrived below the gendarme. I chose to climb below it, hoping the ridge would be dry enough to allow passage on its north side, an incorrect assumption. It was on this mini-reconnaissance, however, that I would peek over the Thumb's plumb, massive, unclimbed northwest face for the first time, a singular moment of the trip. The joy of the exposure was soon muffled by the meter of snow pasted mercilessly to the north side of the gendarme. Down I went, and found a quite fun variation that would take me to the uphill side of the gendarme. I later learned this variation was pioneered by the gatekeeper of the Stikine, Dieter Klose and the late Mike Bearzi.

Stikine VIII

VIII

We were beginning to worry about the weather. Our plane tickets afforded us 9 days, arrival to departure. We had spent 6 days waiting for a window, and from the top of the ridge, it seemed that we might get it on the seventh day. The Thumb was indeed baking above the clouds, but there was still plenty of snow up high on route. We radioed Wally for a forecast. There was good news, and there was bad news. We would get our window the next day, but it would only last one day before a low-pressure system would barge in for the foreseeable future.

We debated from the top of the ridge, the icecap draped below us. We could certainly try climbing the Thumb, but that would risk our ability to get flown out. Was it worth a multi-day vision quest down the Baird in bad weather? So many things could go wrong. But we're here, gotta at least try. The thoughts carried us back down to the tents.

Obviously, we ended up deciding to go for it. That evening, we skied to the bergschrund below the Thumb to make our approach the next morning easier.

Stikine VII

VII

The next four days were spent mostly in either the sleeping tent or the kitchen tent. The piles of fresh snow that fell in the night were unable to support the warm rain that fell during the day. If we got a lull in the precipitation or a slice of sunlight, we went skiing rather than let our clothes dry. Usually, we returned from these short excursions in a full whiteout, no visual guides other than the shallow, ski-width indentations that led back home.

On the fourth day of whiteout, I got a sunburn. The clouds had thinned enough that we could feel, even see, the fuzzy white light through the fog, its warmth trapped between the reflective surfaces of glacier and cloud. My socks were finally dry. The Thumb, which had been receiving its share of precipitation, must be baking above these clouds, we supposed. One more ski-tour, this time to see if we could climb a ridge opposite the Thumb and break through the clouds ourselves.