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Original Production Highlights Environmental Issues and Stories of Individuals Who Protect and Promote the Region
SEATTLE—KCTS 9 is proud to present the premiere of North Cascades: People, Places and Stories, a special showcasing the breathtaking park through the words and actions of Washingtonians of all ages.

Airdates: Sunday, January 17, at 10:30 p.m. on KCTS 9 and KYVE 47. Repeats Wednesday, January 20, at 7:00 p.m. and Sunday, January 31, at 4:30 p.m.

KCTS 9 will also be producing a Spanish-language version, which will air on V-Me on Saturdays, January 23 at 7:00 p.m. and January 30 at 7:30 p.m.

Written and produced by Emmy Award-winner Doug Tolmie and hosted by KCTS 9′s Enrique Cerna, North Cascades: People, Places and Stories provides an in-depth look at the region and its relationship to the community. North Cascades highlights both critical environmental issues and the stories of passionate citizens who have worked to create, maintain and preserve this stunning part of our state for the future good of all.

“The North Cascades features one of the most ecologically diverse landscapes in the world,” notes Cerna in the program. “It’s home to a national park, two national forests, more glaciers than any other place in our country outside of Alaska, and more than 300 peaks above 7,000 feet in elevation.”

Three of the stories featured in this program are:

* A profile of legendary mountaineer Fred Beckey who has been climbing in the North Cascades for nearly seven decades, racking up more “first ascents” than any other climber in history. The 86-year-old is the author of the Beckey Guides, indispensable guidebooks for climbers and hikers exploring the backcountry.

* The return of wolves to the North Cascades. Scientists and conservationists are tracking two wolf packs, one in the Methow area and the other near Republic. After being hunted to near extinction, the natural return of this iconic predator is exciting news for wildlife biologists—and a cause of concern for ranchers.

* A look at the North Cascade Institute’s nationally recognized education program, The Mountain School, where hands-on activities introduce hundreds of students each year to diverse ecosystems. Says Professor John Miles of Western Washington University, “There’s a concern that kids are getting disconnected from nature, and if they get too disconnected then they will not be the stewards of the North Cascades of the future.”

North Cascades also examines the effect of wildfires on the ecosystem and First Bloom, a program that teaches kids how to design and develop their own native plant garden.

The full-length program will be available online at KCTS9.org/video in English and Spanish after the premiere. The program will also be available via Comcast Video on Demand.

Like National Parks: Northwest Stories, which premiered in September, 2009, North Cascades is part of KCTS 9’s be more green project, through which we explore the science, policies and personal choices that shape our environment. Viewers can watch complete episodes of National Parks: Northwest Stories, find the replay dates for Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, sign the National Parks Stewardship Pledge, find hikes and read media coverage on the parks at KCTS9.org/nationalparks.

For additional details, a press preview DVD or interview opportunities, contact Daphne Adair, dadair@KCTS9.org | 206.443.4835 or 206.599.9435.

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The KCTS 9 mission is to improve the quality of life in the communities we serve by providing meaningful programming on air, online and in the community that informs, involves and inspires.

Program description
North Cascades: People, Places and Stories

North Cascades: People, Places and Stories provides an in-depth look at the region and its relationship to the community, highlighting both critical environmental issues and the stories of passionate citizens who have worked to create, maintain and preserve this stunning part of our state for the future good of all.

Credits:

Doug Tolmie, writer and producer
Enrique Cerna, host and executive producer
Bill Strothman, photographer
David Solheim, editor

North Cascades: People, Places and Stories is made possible by support from the following:

REI
The Wilderness Society
Sun Mountain Lodge
Mazama Country Inn
Brainerd Foundation
PSE
PCC Natural Markets
KCTS 9 Members

Still wanting to do a climb in North Cascades National Park, I solicited Daniel for a midweek climb of the North Ridge of Forbidden Peak.  I want to have climbed all three ridges on the mountain.  Then of course, I’d have to come back and climb the wild and enticing Northwest rib.  I thought the chances might be low that he could pull it off in such short notice, but either way, I’d be happy:  If the trip fell through, I’d just stay in Robert’s cabin, extending my trip and building more trails.  But, Daniel made it happen.

I was a little late in arriving the next day, and we wasted a bit of time hunting down the rope from a co-worker, but we arrived at the Boston Basin trailhead around 3pm, enough time for the relatively modest hike in.  the trail was hot and the usual July biting flies were out, serving to push us onward and upward to our camp, somewhere beyond Sharkfin Col on the Boston Glacier.

(above) Sharkfin Tower is located between Boston Peak and Forbidden Peak

I have been to Boston Basin many times but never to Sharkfin col, the key to accessing the North Ridge route and, unfortunately, upon arriving in the high basin, I realized that our lack of planning might cost us, or so it would seem.  Locating the col is tough; from below, there seems to be multiple possibilities, and all are unsavory.  So, we moved right, looking for a break in the imposing cliffs.  We found one, almost immediately underneath Sharkfin Tower.  We hopped over the bergeschrund, climbed some low fifth class rock, and continued up to the base of the tower.  The rock pitch wasn’t very hard, so we were skeptical that this was the route to Sharkfin Col.  The view from the snowfield at the base of the tower confirmed it – the col was much farther below to the west.  It was getting late at this point so we wondered what to do.  Daniel suggested a climb of Sharkfin Tower instead of Forbidden.  It didn’t take much persuasion; I’ve been stymied once on each ridge I’ve climbed.  Maybe this was fate.  Plus, I could use the extra time back in Seattle.  OK, let’s do it!

But then, we had an even better idea:  climb now, during the sunset, bivy at the base, and hike out in the morning.

We found a good bivy site, then headed up Sharkfin Tower for our sunset climb.  The climb is great, I really can’t say enough about it.  The only problem is it’s so short!  There are only three pitches and all are easy.  We soloed the first, a rather exposed but easy traverse to the base of the ridge.  The second pitch is the money pitch – right up the edge of the ridge on solid granite.  We just simuled through the third pitch to the summit just as the sky turned a deep orange.

The final rappel was by headlamp, but we were back to the bivy sites less than two hours later.  After a late dinner (the sun went down around 9:30pm) we turned in, probably around 11pm.

I slept like a log on the edge of the cliff, much like Frodo and Sam in “Return of the King”.  Daniel woke me up in the morning around 6:30.  Apparently, he’d been up for a while taking pictures.  It wasn’t until he had to say, “Uh, turn around and have a look”, that I realized just how fortunate we were.  Iw as delighted to see the ocean clouds down in Boston Basin.  I always enjoy being above the clouds.

Daniel patiently waited on me while I prepared my things.  We made two rappels down to the Quien Sabe Glacier.  Below the glacier, we began feeling raindrops.  The rain was quite gentle at first, then stopped.  A second gentle shower visted us, then stopped.  It wasn’t until the third time that the rain we realized how fortunate we were that we didn’t find Sharkfin Col.  The clouds opened up.  I quickly pulled out my rain jacket, but Daniel, who only had a soft shell just endured the driving rain.  My shell ended up making very little difference actually (and I am half wondering about the place that I ordered in from in the US…have they been importing fake goods from China?)  It rained the whole way down and the wet brush caused the moisture to penetrate every dry spot.  We were utterly soaked when we got back to the car.  Good thing we weren’t on the North Ridge.  To quote Daniel’s pithy comment:  “What a wonderfully successful failure!”

Robert set a brisk pace up the trail.  We hiked a little under two miles to an intersection with the Pacific Crest trail and a lake (whose name now escapes me), turned right, and began the longer traversing hike to get to a pass above Trap Lake.  From there, we could follow climber’s trails to the tower.

We had a perfect day for this hike.  The forest and meadow greens were deep, and the sky’s blue was radiant.  At a luxurious meadow, we had our first view of the tower.  It was a typical Cascades view:  a small dark spire sitting on a burly glacial ridge.  It was good to finally have a view; I had been doubting if this trail was correct.  I studied the trailhead map for maybe 5 seconds but it felt like we were traveling along in the wrong direction.

The climber’s path took us along the ridge, through tight scrub pine bands and finally on to easy snow that led us to the base of the tower.

Robert took the first pitch and elected to start at the base of the tower instead of the higher and easier start.  This was easy enough, though I did remind him that I was climbing in boots instead of rock shoes and hadn’t climbed in about a year.

He passed over a small roof and was out of sight.  The rope moved slowly up, indicating that maybe the terrain wasn’t so easy.  Then, I heard a loud whirring and buzzing sound above me.  Thinking for an instant that it was a giant hummingbird, I looked up to see a large spinning rock come flying past me.  This actually shocked me quite a bit.  I felt foolishly cavalier for being so ill prepared than I should be.  Having no helmet was dumb – for the two of us.

Finally, I followed up, having to get creative with my boots.  The rock was great below the roof, but was covered in lichen above.  It reminded me of a sunny Johannesburg.  The steepness relented and I emerged into some trees to meet Robert.

I decided to lead the second pitch, a solid leaning dihedral.  The pitch was easy and fun, leading up to a belay station at another pine tree.  I decided to continue on up a steeper wall to the ridge crest.  From there, I turned left and we were at the top.

Back below the tower, along a small convex snowy shelf, Robert got in some bouldering on some large glacial rocks while I climbed to a high spot and took pictures.  We said goodbye back at the cars and I continued on to Cashmere.

A long traverse along the right side of Shield Lake brought us to the final slopes that led us to the top of Prusik Pass.  I felt like I had a lot of energy yesterday, but this morning I felt like I was dragging a bit.  At the pass, we turned right and boulder hopped up to a spot just below the west ridge where we ditched our packs and got the gear ready for a climb of the west ridge, which loomed directly in front of us.  It looked totally inviting; I was looking forward to climbing rather than more slogging.  There was still no one else in sight as we headed off.  I realized that I’d left my helmet back at the camp.

I headed off for the first pitch and scrambled up a lot of 4th class before encountering easy 5th class climbing in the middle of the face.  Eventually, Robert started following somewhere along a long, low-angled crack right on the left side of the ridge.  This crack led up to a short strenuous move over a block that led around the corner to a nice belay spot.  The rope drag was getting bad so I threw a sling around a block and brought Robert up.

Robert started the second pitch.  This was one of the 5.7 cruxes – a committing but easy face move.  Robert scrambled over more exposed ridge to a wide ledge where he belayed me up.

I led off next, a steep pitch consisting of high quality mid-5th class climbing.  The first section is a crack in a corner that leads up to a foot-wide ledge.  One can continue climbing straight up, which would lead to an offwidth crack.  Instead, I opted to move right to a vertical flake system which led to a belay station just below the summit.  From here, the rope drag increased again.  I saw several options.  We could descend just a little and walk a thin ledge to the offwidth, or we could solo (or spot the leader) up a chimney just below the summit.  I decided to bring Robert up to show him the options.  Having climbed the route before, he saw a third:  a prominent “chicken head” which could be used to scamper up a very exposed final section of easy ridge which led to the summit.  We chose this option – top notch!

We climbed the route pretty fast and spent a relatively long time lounging around on the summit before finally beginning the descent.  We’d looked at the Temple Ridge traverse but both quickly admitted that we didn’t “smell the summit”.  I’m glad we didn’t; just hanging it out and taking it easy was much more appealing.

Returning to camp, I discovered that the leather netting in my helmet had been chewed up.  Not sure who the culprit was.  Either a marmot or a goat.  Ah well, that helmet served me well over the years.  It was the first I’d bought and I guess I can retire it now.  There were also suddenly a lot of people wanting to climb Prusik Peak.

We descended down passing Gnome Lake where I snapped the classic view of Prusik Peak, undeniably one of the great views in the state of Washington.  Beyond this we made our way down to the creek along a paradise of smooth granite.  We took a long break here, lying in the sun.

We started the long hike down making one last significant stop at Vivian Lake where we ate for the last time.  A ranger passed along the trail below us but didn’t ask us for our permits.  The rest of the hike out in the Enchantments was genuinely enchanting, truly one of the unique spots in Washington.  Waterfalls cascaded from high granite perches, the sky was a deep blue, and the occasional mountain goat punctuated the perfect balance of the area. Below “Trauma Ridge” though, the hike becomes a long long slog through the forest.  We put on the iPods to pass the miles more quickly.  At least we weren’t hiking out in darkness or anything.  I couldn’t believe how quickly we were losing elevation and we still had such a long way to go.  It was pretty interesting seeing the aqueduct from Snow Lakes to Nada Lake in action.  It’s a massive jet of water that forms a huge rainbow.  Check out this shot:

We arrived back at the car just before 7pm.  We then headed to the hamburger joint in Cashmere, Rusty’s, and returned with the food to Robert’s cabin where we kicked back, ate, and drank.  Great trip, homes!

Total trip stats:  20 Miles, 8500 Feet of Elevation

The first part of the Snow Creek trail always seems to go fast.  “Wow, we’re already past Snow Creek Wall.”  Maybe the high altitude of Colorado made me appreciate the oxygen, or maybe it was the large quantity of Thai food serving as fuel, but I was feeling good.  Somewhere around a campsite that was just before a set of switchbacks (around 3200 feet), we left the trail and crossed Snow Creek aiming for the left side of a prominent talus patch to the south of Toketie Creek.  We crossed some semi-sketchy bouncy downed tree crossings across the creek, or above a dangerous pit of strewn broken trees.  Eventually, we were in the talus field, consisting of mostly very large boulders.  We eventually found cairns and followed them as best we could until we found a dusty trail that went up and up and up always exposed to the hot sun.

After the trail finally relented some, we took a break, consulted the map, and then figured out the next part of the trail:  a wide, steep slope of granite, a little brush and burned trees from the Rat Creek Fires.  After we crested this slope, we were finally in the high country around Toketie Lake.  We’d already lost and found the trail about ten times on the way up, and we probably lost and found it ten more times before arriving at Toketie Pass, just south and a little west of the Edwardian Plateau.  There’s a tarn here created from snow melt where we decided to camp.

We packed up for a quick trip to the Mole, one of those rare summits that would be fun to tick off.  The hike up to the plateau went quick, more hopping over boulders and a rough trail.  Up on the plateau the trail vanished as we traveled through larch forest, then to a burn zone, and then to a small sandy desert.  The Mole was just over the western edge.  Getting to it was a bit of a pain…a steep sandy descent and a slippery sandy gully between it and the Duolith.  I kinda wish we would have started the climb lower down, some of the cracks looked good, but we found the official started and roped up.  Robert took the first pitch and headed off.  This first pitch was good, with a solid fun 5.7 section right off the bat.  Robert then traversed around a tree and up over some boulders, along a ledge, then up a small set of cracks.  He belayed from there.

I think we may have gotten off route here and Robert opted to head out again in order to “make it right”.  After realizing that a squeeze between the wall and a large boulder wouldn’t go, he down climbed about fifteen feet to a deep notch with an overhanging crack.  Having already used some pro that would have been perfect for the crack, he opted for a balancy traverse that gained the notch above the crack.  I followed, climbing the crack directly, finding it harder than 5.7, I’d call it 5.9.  Above this, a steep flake system requiring liebacks led to where Robert was belaying on the ridge.  I led out from here placing like two pieces on easy terrain that led to the summit.  On top of the Mole, the Icicle looked far away, a totally miserable way to approach the Mole – I’m sure no one is dumb enough to approach from that direction.

We headed back down to our camp.  This spot was great.  The tarn had been warmed by the sun so cleanin’ up wasn’t a miserably cold experience.  Also, there are tons of places to sleep on either dirt or granite.  We picked the dirt for the extra layer of soft comfort it provided.  The moon wasn’t out tonight, or was just hanging out behind a ridge somewhere, and the stars were out in spades.