Redemption in the Cascades – ’26 Summer Climbing

It was 2 am on a Thursday morning. The only place open in Bellingham was a Russian Dumpling shop outside of a crowded bar in town. Joe and I looked awful as we stumbled in from our three hour drive. Blood was still dripping from the bandage on my knee. At the time I was more focused on downing dumplings as quickly as possible. It was a good distraction from the potential recovery I had ahead. The week of climbing leading up to that day (see previous article here) ended in a rock smashing my knee on the descent from Mt. Cutthroat. I was happy to have survived but I couldn’t help but think about being stuck in Washington with a bum knee. That night I didn’t know the extent of the injury. The only thing on my mind was Advil PM, sleep, and planning our next trip.

I awoke that next morning on a residential street in my truck and began planning what was next. Luckily my friends Meredith and Ryan were nearby and were gracious enough to let me crash for a while. I’d have time to rest and seek some medical attention that I desperately needed. Despite having little trouble descending 2,500 ft on a bum knee, it was now nearly immobile with 24 hours passing. X-rays came back with no signs of breakage and I came out of the office with no confirmation of injury for the time being. It wasn’t until a few weeks after that I was confirmed to have bursitis, a rupture of the bursa sack on my patella. I also should have gotten some stitches but never followed through. So all being said the recommendation was to just rest, ice, elevate, and take a bunch of advil. I was glad not to have a permanent injury. I was also devastated to be out of commission.

After five days I went on my first run. My knee was just slightly swollen, maybe an inch wider than its neighbor. Joe was itching to get back out there and I wanted to make sure I still had it in me. I started off easy with 4 ish miles just below 10 minute pace. The next day I ran 5 a minute faster. On the 7th day from my injury, Joe and I were on the road. Plan A was to tackle the route we first came to the Cascades for: the West Ridge of Forbidden Peak. This route is a 50 classic climb and was yet another Becky FA. Normally climbed in the spring, it has a little bit of everything the alpine has to offer. We’d need to hike a steep and remote approach. Then depending on conditions, we’d cross a glacier and gain the ridge via a steep couloir¹. Next is about 1500 ft of traversing on a spectacular knife edge ridge. It’s grade was only 5.6, but successful parties needed to move quite fast. Once on the summit, the descent becomes the crux in classic fashion. We’d need to retrace our steps down the entire route. Joe and I arrived at the trailhead after another 3 hour drive. I was pretty nervous and we debated if we should pull the trigger late that night. Instead I continued to feel unsure. Looking at the recent trip reports it was clear that the access to the ridge was void of snow. The steep gully would be another death trap with rockfall. It was not the right call given our previous endeavor.

That night we settled on a fine alternative. We drove to the Blue Lake Trailhead below the Liberty group for another round of climbing on Washington Pass. This time we actually bought the SuperTopo² and chose another classic: the Southwest Rib of the South Early Winter Spire. This was the highest peak of the group and our route would follow 900 ft of sustained climbing to its summit. Its first two pitches were stiff 5.8 cracks³. Afterwards were several runout pitches of slab and offwidth⁴. Coming from Squamish I agreed to take on all of the crack pitches while Joe took the runout slabs. I studied the topo and descent rigorously that night. I wanted to come back and send the route in good style⁵. From a technical standpoint it was the most difficult route we’d attempt together. Commitment-wise it was definitely a step down from both Mt. Cutthroat or Forbidden Peak. For me this was perfect and we got ready for yet another early departure.

The approach was quite nice and my knee felt good. We had great weather and were joined by a few others on the route. By 9 am we were racked up below the first pitch. I was on lead and was feeling surprisingly good. I knew the crux of the route would be a short overhanging hand crack at the top of the pitch. I had studied some the beta and knew it would take a #1 and #2 cam⁶. When I arrived I took a few minutes to plan my moves as usual. I was getting slightly better at this and felt confident while placing my pro. I downclimbed to a good rest before taking off. Then I made the moves and made it up feeling secure. After a week of uncertainty this was immediately a turning point. There were many pitches left but I felt great. Joe came up and gave me some validation for the send. Up next was the ‘Wavy Crack’, one of the coolest features on the route. I started up and immediately felt secure in the perfect hand crack. To my left was some awesome exposure and I was having a blast romping up the smooth, wavy flake. Near the top was one weird 10 ft section of unprotectable offwidth. I had to use a tagline on my backpack⁷ to make it up this portion but otherwise it went well. Joe followed and had a little difficulty with the crack. He was great at face climbing and slab which paired perfectly for the top half of the route.

Up next was a short traverse pitch and it was very easy outside of some route finding diversions. At a small ledge, I’d give the lead back to Joe for the mental crux⁸ of the route: the “Nervous Nelly” pitch. It went at 5.6 R and had a delicate traverse move high above gear. I was thankful it was not me on lead as Joe struggled to place consistent gear. It was unclear where to go and he searched for a few minutes before eventually finding the crux move. There he placed a reachy, downward foot before finding the glory jug to his right. When I followed it definitely seemed harder and less obvious than I expected. Right after we had a comfy belay below the second mental crux of the route. This time I would lead again and face the ‘Bear Hug’ pitch. It was a unique ~30 ft section of rock with parallel offwidth cracks. We only had a #4 cam so the vast majority of the pitch would be unprotected. Initially I was nervous to lead but when the time came I was excited. After an awkward start I stepped into the crack and was committed. Its possible to stem⁹ up this feature but I was nervous for any insecurity. Instead I shoved the right side of my body into one of the cracks and inched my way up. At some point the rope got caught around my leg and I had to temporarily squirm out of the offwidth to dislodge it. Otherwise I felt great on the pitch and it wasn’t long until I reached up to a chickenhead¹⁰ near the top. There I could sling a secure pinch of rock and sit right on top of the rock fin. I looked down and took in the bottom half of the route with incredible exposure. After this section my leads were done for the day and it was a fantastic feeling.

Joe quickly followed and got to enjoy stemming up the bear hug in comfort. I was happy to sit back and have him take the sharp end to finish off the route afterwards. To our surprise, these next couple pitches were still full value. There was a fairly long section on an exposed and poorly protected arete¹¹. Then there was a short downclimb to another steep but easy pitch. Even the summit had a thoughtful boulder move¹² to gain its highest block. This went fairly quickly and we both felt great about the route. Joining us on the summit were two other climbers just finishing on the Southwest Rib. After chatting for a bit we realized they had climbed the descent route on a different trip. Having been scarred from my previous descent I asked to follow them down. They graciously accept and we took our sweet time descending with them on the spire’s South Arete. This portion had some cool moments of exposure before we eventually reached a set of bolted anchors. I choose to rap after our new friends while Joe downclimb the crux sections. These went at 5.6 and made for some excited moments as we watched from below.

After we made it back to solid ground we departed from our new friends and headed down. The descent wasn’t bad but I began feeling the weight of the day on my knee. It still wasn’t exactly the same size as my good knee and I was nervous for the following day. Still I made it down okay and we enjoyed a great afternoon in the area. I wasn’t sure how much longer I wanted to continue climbing with my knee still wonky. In theory I had a trail race later in August but I was pretty confident it was not going to happen. Instead Joe and I did some more research in the search for more inspiration. While descending we heard about some big potential routes from our new friends. One in particular called ‘Flyboys’ stuck out to us. It was located in nearby Mazama and was called the ‘tallest 5.9 sport climb’ in the US. The style was almost the exact opposite from what we were used to. Its 18 pitches were bolted almost every 5 feet¹³. The approach and the descent were both less than a half hour. It would be the perfect reward for weeks of hard earned alpine climbing. That night we drove out to the top of the route after some dinner in town. There was an access road at the top of the cliff where we could stash a car for shuttling. We were stoked to test our skills on something different for once.

The next day we got an easy rise and took my car to the start of the route. Conditions had seemed ideal the previous night but we were blindsided by a huge swath of wildfire smoke. It filled the valley and I was a bit nervous to spend the full day breathing in the clouds. After a few minutes accessing the area we agreed to pull the trigger anyway and began up the approach trail. After 20 minutes or so we found the first few bolts. Immediately it was clear that the route style was vastly different than what we were used to. Bolts were scattered throughout each pitch. Almost every anchor had three next to one another. We laughed at the thought of this style compared to Yosemite. There any unnecessary bolt was almost immediately chopped. On this day I thought it was awesome. For once we didn’t have to worry as much about consequence and just romped up the terrain. I also took quite the backseat for the day. My knee was not 100% and Joe generously agreed to lead almost every pitch.

Turns out I really needed Joe on the lead. I had a lot of experience climbing granite this summer but I was not feeling great on sport. I also had to be quite careful about not touching my right knee to any rock which proved to be very annoying. Joe was a great sport about this and continued to lead pitch after pitch. I admittedly pulled on a few draws¹⁴ for the 5.9 pitches while following too. By the halfway point on the route we began to feel pretty tired. Most experienced climbers will simul climb¹⁵ a good portion of the route. We opted to link some of the earlier pitches but always had a fixed belay. This slowed us down to about 30 mins or so per pitch. Unlike alpine terrain, the vast majority of the route was between 5.7 and 5.9. Our feet began to hurt, our fingers were raw, and we both weren’t eating enough. We had about 9 pitches to go and the route began to feel like a marathon.

Although we were gassed on the second half, the climbing was still quite interesting. The clear winner was a 5.9 pitch through a large chimney. It started off with a large, steep flake on a wide portion of the chimney. Then there were a few moves on an overhanging rail¹⁶. I saw Joe even get a nice heel hook in before mantling onto the top of the rail to his right¹⁷. Then there was a nice rest before stemming up the chimney and popping out into a large flat plateau. I was still out of energy but was psyched to get on the pitch. I did take at least one rest on the rope but otherwise managed to send it somewhat good style. Outside of the chimney there were a handful of other good pitches. The cliff was quite wide and oftentimes the route would intentionally wind one way or another to pitch a region with good exposure or with some unique feature.

Soon enough we were within a few pitches of the summit. Both of us were quite exhausted. My knee and fingers were hurting and I could tell it was hard for Joe to lead. The final pitch had some stout 5.9 moves and we transitioned at the belay without exchanging many words. Eventually Joe looked back from the summit having found the final anchors. I was relieved and followed through with the help of some quick draws. Below us was the valley far below filled with smoke. We took a short break at the top to take it all in. Then we were back on our way to the car. It was only 20 minutes away but this still felt quite long at the time. I could not have imagined descending a route this large otherwise. When we did finally make it to the car we immediately chugged a liter of water and ate some quick carbs. Then we headed straight for the Mazama Public House for some well deserved beers. For me this was the obvious end to the trip. I was exhausted and knew that I needed more rest to heal up. It was a little sad leaving Washington knowing that we had some objectives left unticked. But if anything our last pursuit was a tad greedy. I could have gone straight back to California after the rockfall. Instead I wanted to see what was possible and was committed to following through. I have no regrets to this day.

1. ‘Couloir’ – steep snow gully ↩︎
2. ‘Supertopo’ – popular climbing guidebook ↩︎
3. Near vertical climbing on cracks about the size of one’s hands ↩︎
4. Runout refers to climbing with little protection on any type of terrain. Slabs are smooth and low angle terrain while offwidths are cracks larger than one’s hand or fist ↩︎
5. ‘Send in good style’ – controlled climbing without any falls ↩︎
6. Climbing protection for cracks between 1-2″ ↩︎
7. Taglines are used to haul gear or a backpack below if they get in the way of climbing in tight areas ↩︎
8. ‘Mental Crux’ – easier climbing but with the highest consequence for a fall ↩︎
9. ‘Stem’ – climbing by pushing one’s arms and legs between two opposing walls ↩︎
10. ‘Chickenhead’ – a unique protrusion from a rock wall that resembles a chickenhead and provides good grip ↩︎
11. ‘Arete’ – A corner, in this case it was more like a steep ridgeline or fin ↩︎
12. Thoughtful boulder move implies a very short but committing sequence of climbing ↩︎
13. Bolted sport climbs provide much better protection than traditional alpine routes ↩︎
14. Pulling on draws refers to using climbing gear and bolts as holds instead of the rock itself. Generally this invalidates ‘free climbing’ and is ‘bad style’ for sport climbing ↩︎
15. ‘Simul Climbing’ – Climbing together and without a fixed belay. Trades safety for speed ↩︎
16. Steeper than vertical section of rock with good holds ↩︎
17. More jargon ↩︎