2016 round-up

This was a big year for me! I’ve been trying to get through a backlog of old trip reports, but let’s be honest – it’s not going to happen. For every post I write, I’ve been doing two more trips. I’d rather go out and do something than write about it anyway, so I thought […]

Liberty Bell Beckey Route – August 18th, 2016

One of my major learning goals for this season was to learn how to lead multipitch trad climbs, placing protection and building belay anchors along the way. So when the opportunity to climb with my buddy Jacob around Washington Pass came up, I jumped on it, even though it would be a weekday climb and […]

Rainier summit + July ski via DC route – July 30th-31st, 2016

In this trip report, I want to write about the experience of summiting Rainier via the DC route and getting my 9th consecutive month of skiing in, but I also want to write about how my perception of and attitude towards goals has evolved over the course of this last year. I’ve been sport climbing for […]

Glacier Peak – July 23rd-25th, 2016

Back in the beginning of May, I attempted to summit Glacier Peak, the most remote of the Washington volcanoes. This trip proved to be my first unsuccessful mountaineering trip in my short career, but was a really cool learning experience. Since then, Glacier Peak had been nagging at me, since I consider it to be […]

Rainier attempt via Emmons – June 30th-July 2nd, 2016

I’ve got a huge backlog here of trip reports to get through, so I’ll keep some of them brief! This one is about our climbing group‘s attempt at Rainier via the Emmons Glacier. The climbers in this group consisted of our group leaders Eric and Vlad, Pete, Kimber, Leslie, Rusty, and myself. We had a […]

Skiing Nisqually Chutes – June 25, 2016

Month 8 of turns all year! I knew I needed to ski the last weekend in June, and was just looking for the opportunity to get out. Luckily, my friend Rachel Warren was turning 30, and had decided to ride her bike from the sound to Paradise, and then summit Rainier from there with a bunch […]

A special summit of Baker – 6/5/16-6/6/16

Our climbing team that I mentioned a few posts back (the one that trained in the rain near Alpental) finally had our first real summit bid – Mount Baker via the Easton Glacier. The weather was forecasted to be HOT and sunny, and it did not disappoint in that regard! We set out from Seattle […]

Mt Adams summit/ski descent – 5/30/16

One of my goals is to summit all 5 Washington volcanoes in 2016, so far I’ve done a Mt. St. Helens ski descent with Pete, and attempted Glacier Peak with Pete, Luke and Scott. Needless to say, Mt. St. Helens is a bit easier since the entire top half of it is missing, and Glacier was […]

Climbing team training at Alpental – 5/14/16

View this post on Instagram Rainy cold climbing team training isn't the most fun time I've spent outdoors, but when you live somewhere this beautiful, even the bad days are good days! ☔️👍 A post shared by Patrick (@patrick.nygren) on May 15, 2016 at 1:15pm PDT I applied for the WAC climbing course this spring, […]

Glacier Peak overnight attempt: 5/7-5/8/16

(pics by myself, Luke, and Scott) A couple months ago, my friend (and dentist!) Luke hatched a little plan to do a climb and ski descent of Glacier Peak, the most remote of the five Cascade volcanoes in Washington state, via the White Chuck, Gerdine, and Cool glaciers. Each Cascade volcano is to be a worthy ski objective […]