I start the traverse. Photo by Stebbi.
May 23, 2004
Paul Belitz, Stefan "Stebbi" Sigurdsson
I did some climbing with Stebbi last year. But then I bought skis in the spring, and we hadn't done anything together since. I ran into him on the Ave a few weeks ago, and during our short chat he mentioned that he wanted to start skiing more. I filed the information away for future reference.
On Friday Stebbi emailed me asking how to get to the approach gullies on the Coleman-Deming. I drew the route on a map he sent me. No big plans had materialized a day later, so when Stebbi mentioned that he hadn't been able to find a partner, I suggested that he take me along. For some reason he agreed, and we decided to meet at the Burke Museum parking lot at 2am Sunday morning. I was stoked to finally do Baker in a day, despite the forecasted showers. I was in the parking lot by 2.
By 2:30, I decided that Stebbi had slept through his alarm clock, so I headed back to my room, happy to get some more sleep. I dumped my stuff, undressed, and jumped into bed. Two minutes later, my phone rang. At 3:15, Stebbi pulled up, and we headed up I5, with Stebbi's excellent collection of CDs keeping me awake. At some point Stebbi reliquished the wheel to me, while he caught up on his sleep quota. Despite my driving right past Glacier Creek Road, we managed to get to the trailhead at 6:00, and were hiking by 6:30.
Five minutes of walking through the forest and we hit snow. We hiked to above the last little steep slope, switched to skins, and followed two splitboarders up the gullies. Stebbi was stoked, and set a punishing pace. We covered the first 1000 feet in 40 minutes. We got to the traverse in two hours. I guess the snow triggered something primal in Stebbi's brain, him being from Iceland and all. We passed the boarders at the top of the gully and started the traverse on very hard snow. Stebbi was literally hopping around as we traversed to the normal campsite. The weather was unsettled, but we were in the sun until we hit the saddle.
I ditched the rope and my harness at 7700, and did my best to keep up with the crazy Icelander. I started feeling it at the saddle, and Stebbi was kind enough to wait at the base of the Roman Wall. We packed our skis, and, along with two other skiers, started trudging up the bootpack. The lack of sleep, lack of food (oops), and quick pace had thrashed me. I took several breaks, and nearly fell asleep during half of them. The other three were way ahead, and not being able to see anything through the whiteout didn't do much for my motivation, either.
At some point I staggered onto the summit plateau, and found the others enjoying the view from inside the summit lenticular. Luckily they only had to wait for half an hour before I showed up. Still, I was staggered when I realized that it was 1pm. 6.5 hours from the trailhead to summit. That made me happy.
There was no point in going to the true summit, since we couldn't see anything anyway. So instead, we rested up, and soon started skiing down. Despite my toasted legs, the skiing was great. We were still in the clouds, but the snow was soft, smooth, and silky. Wow!
The other two tele-dudes left us in the dust, but we followed them down to 7500 or so. In stark comparison to last weekend, the skiing on the glacier was fantastic. Not sticky or gloppy at all!
The snow became wet and heavy on the traverse and in the gullies, but it was managable when we stuck to the steeper slopes. It sprinkled on us as we were packing our skis for the walk through the woods, but I didn't care. A quick jaunt over the fallen logs, and we were back at the car. It was 3:30, a round trip time of 9 hours.
We made it back to Seattle in time for dinner. What a great trip. I think I've had enough Coleman-Deming for a while, though. Maybe.