The finest kind of Madness

Tales from an Alpine Climb­ing Course

Dri­ving the sin­u­ous byway of Wash­ing­ton State’s North Cas­cades High­way, some three hours after turn­ing east from the high-test thrum of the Inter­state cor­ri­dor and onto the only road to cleave the wilder­ness of the North Cas­cades Nation­al Park in two, a curi­ous thing hap­pens to me.

Here the road­way reach­es that high 5,500 foot crescen­do of Wash­ing­ton Pass, among the stunt­ed and tri­umphant sub-alpine fir, where the pave­ment is kinked like a gar­den hose, turn­ing a full 180 degrees to pitch off into a wide-bel­lied val­ley. Above the hair­pin, how­ev­er, is the real prize: the naked­ly-ris­ing gran­ite of the Lib­er­ty Bell formation.

I crane and con­tort my neck in every con­ceiv­able posi­tion just to catch a glimpse of the soar­ing rock, that gold and black gran­ite ris­ing into the sky. I want to climb that. This is where the Mad­ness begins.

Now I just had to fig­ure out how to get up there.

On an ear­ly morn­ing in mid-June, my world is split into two; rock and sky. A rope to tie it all togeth­er. Some 50 feet above me, guide Robert Fitzger­ald is deft­ly using a rock horn as a ter­rain belay, feed­ing the line to bring me up. The gran­ite of Wash­ing­ton Pass gleams beneath my hands. We are sev­en, tied into teams on three cords, ascend­ing the South Arête of South Ear­ly Win­ters Spire. The toothy spines of the Cas­cades splin­ter and spin off in all direc­tions, the jagged sky­line at times inter­rupt­ed here and there by colos­sal vol­canic domes.

I’ve joined the ranks of the up there and hitched myself to Seat­tle-based moun­taineer­ing guide ser­vice and climb­ing school, Moun­tain Mad­ness, some­how finagling my way into a spot on their 8‑day Alpine Climb­ing Course and now, at this moment, find myself tied into the sharp end of the rope.

“Just focus on the fric­tion of your feet,” sug­gests guide Arthur Her­l­itz­ka from below. ​“And be sure to take a peak over the edge.” We’ve come to a por­tion of the route near the sum­mit known as the White Camel, a swale of smooth gran­ite that forms a gable with heady expo­sure on either side. It’s the final test of our met­tle en route to the top, and pulling past this bal­anc­ing act, we move over easy ridge­line and onto the final bal­anced rock of the summit.

It’s a wak­ing dream. A care­ful turn on my heels sur­veys the entire­ty of the North Cas­cades. It is at once every­thing and noth­ing of what I expect­ed from my ter­res­tri­al van­tage point far below. The feel­ing is inde­scrib­able, and I savor it just a lit­tle longer. Then, prepar­ing to descend and look­ing over the oppo­site side of the sum­mit, I swear I can see the hunched-over fig­ures in their cars, eyes aimed right back up at us. Look­ing for that same 

Arthur grins. ​“Wel­come to the Madness.” 

Moun­tain Mad­ness has been in the busi­ness of mak­ing moun­tain climbers since 1984. Spear­head­ed by founder and climb­ing world super­star Scott Fis­ch­er, the Pacif­ic North­west guid­ing out­fit would rise in recog­ni­tion through the 90s, buoyed by both Fischer’s ascents of the world’s high­est peaks with­out oxy­gen and a propen­si­ty to achieve epic sum­mits in some of the world’s most remote places.

Much has changed since those days, but the core val­ues of Moun­tain Mad­ness remain res­olute: a respect for — and cel­e­bra­tion of — being among the moun­tains. The Alpine Climb­ing course I’ve found myself on is one of a deep cat­a­logue that the com­pa­ny offers, span­ning every­thing from local crevasse res­cue cours­es to inter­na­tion­al trekking routes, to the ulti­mate precipices of the Sev­en Summits.

Moun­tain Mad­ness has been in the busi­ness of mak­ing moun­tain climbers since 1984. Spear­head­ed by founder and climb­ing world super­star Scott Fis­ch­er, the Pacif­ic North­west guid­ing out­fit would rise in recog­ni­tion through the 90s, buoyed by both Fischer’s ascents of the world’s high­est peaks with­out oxy­gen and a propen­si­ty to achieve epic sum­mits in some of the world’s most remote places.

On our hike in to Shuk­san I remark at just how var­ied these moun­tains are, how much they demand and — ouch — how much you need to car­ry to climb them.

Our plan is this: pull into camp tonight, and then take advan­tage of the bet­ter weath­er promised for tomor­row to prac­tice tying into a rope team, snow trav­el and build­ing anchors to haul some unlucky soul from an icy maw, should that unpleas­ant need arise.

We arrive at base­camp in a total white­out, but I know that Shuk­san is out there. And in two days I get to climb it.

I am up before my 3 a.m. alarm. The wind has been howl­ing all night, whip­ping our lit­tle fab­ric dome and con­tort­ing the nylon into a mild­ly claus­tro­pho­bic death mask around my head with each full-throat­ed gust. By now how­ev­er it has slacked off, and our head­lamps bob in the fad­ing night.

We tie into the ropes using the skills we’ve been prac­tic­ing for the last two days, pitch­ing off onto the Sul­phide Glac­i­er, a broad white tongue of snow and ancient ice that lolls south from the sum­mit. As the light comes up, it is appar­ent that today will be spent plod­ding around inside a ping pong ball, an all-white exis­tence. Crevass­es pull into and out of focus as we pass; the sum­mit exists — in the­o­ry— in a void ahead.

Some hours lat­er we’ve reached the bot­tom of the sum­mit pyra­mid and tak­en shel­ter atop the first sol­id ground we’ve seen in some time. The wind has whipped into a fren­zied icy blast, and our orig­i­nal plan to ascend the more exposed south­east ridge is aban­doned in favor of going straight up the gut of the thing. It’s a snow-filled choke hemmed in by cram­pon-scarred rock, and its angle ramps quick­ly to a heady 45 degrees.

Our guides Arthur and Robert lead, steady­ing them­selves with ice axes plunged to the hilt. We move in spurts and employ all man­ner of alpine climb­ing tech­niques to ascend, apply­ing what we’ve learned in the past sev­en days. Final­ly, with a col­lec­tive ela­tion, we find our­selves on the sum­mit, a black tri­an­gle among dense cur­tains of cloud.

We sit, eat, rejoice. The white swirls around us, and almost as if cued by our arrival, the wind tan­ta­liz­ing­ly begins to shift; and the win­dows are cracked open on the North Cas­cades. Por­tals in the mists come and go. And through them? Moun­tains. Enough moun­tains for the next month, enough moun­tains for the next year, enough moun­tains for the next lifetime.

This is where the Mad­ness begins.

Nick Bel­cast­er is a Belling­ham-based writer with a par­tic­u­lar pen­chant for exposed choss climbs, back­coun­try tour­ing on Cas­cade con­crete and tak­ing long walks across the coun­try. He con­tributes to local and nation­al pub­li­ca­tions, focus­ing on the inter­sec­tion of recre­ation, ener­gy and the environment.

Arti­cle link: https://​www​.adven​tures​nw​.com/​t​h​e​-​f​i​n​e​s​t​-​k​i​n​d​-​o​f​-​m​a​d​ness/