The Brothers - 5/25/09

The Brothers are visible to the West from Seattle and they have been staring me down almost everyday since I am always traveling East/West. Because of this I have wanted to climb them for the last several years .... just have never gotten around to it. Alison and I attempted them mid Feb and pretty much had a tough go of it because of conditions. There was enough snow to make finding the proper trail feasible and make things slick, but not enough to cover everything for easy progress. So we made plans to take advantage of the awesome Memorial Day weather and attempt them. The original plan was to head out to Hurricane Ridge Saturday for an easy hike with friends, stay on the peninsula and hike into Lena Lake (and beyond) late afternoon, possibly into the evening. Summit on Sunday and possibly stay another night if needed/wanted.

At the last minute we realized that the hood canal bridge was closed, causing us to change plans. On Saturday Alison still went snowshoeing with friends while I stayed home and recouped after a weeklong conference in NY while brewing an imperial IPA. Sunday morning we were off to Lena lakes trailhead, more or less delayed a day from the original itinerary.

We had a casual start and casual hike in. . The trailhead was a madhouse – there must have been 100+ cars there! Of course it was memorial day weekends with stupendous weather, but it made me rethink whether this was such a great idea. TH to Lena lake is about 1100 ft gain/ 3 miles, all on nicely (maybe too nicely) graded trail. We arrived at the lake in about 75 minutes time and then continued up the valley of silent men, again about 1200 ft/3 miles. Pic left is sun cascading through the trees in the valley. This is where we first saw the difference from Feb. No snow. Easy trail. No messing around, easy going. In another 90 minutes we had gone through the nice forest and arrived at a crazy busy camp. We found a more or less secluded camp and took in the scene.

Based on conversations with some climbers, about ~60 people summated that day and at one point there were 20+ people sharing the summit. We conversed with climbers, feared that we would be trapped in the middle of a zoo, and set up our own camp. At about 5:30 we were the only group still in camp (pic right is camp after everyone left), although others would straggle in later. However, we concluded that our change in itinerary turning out to be the best decision all weekend long!

We were on the trail by 5:15 AM making easy progress up the creek. The trail winds through next to the creek and up a short headwall into the old burn area. It’s here where we had the most trouble in Feb, but good trail and fine markings allowed us to navigate sin problemas. The trail hits a gully, which takes you right up to the headwall at ~5000 feet. We pretty much hit snow at 4200 feet (???), right before out turnaround spot in Feb. Hit the headwall, turned right up the ramp and farther right again for easy access to the S Couloir after a bit of travel on rock. Pic left is the bottom of the couloir/gully leading to the summit. Pic right is Alison coming up the couloir. Since we were first on the mountain I thought the hourglass might be doable (it collects the rock/snow fall from the S couloir so you don’t want to be in there with people above) but it had melted out too much and there were waterfalls, etc. Anyway, after traversing around the little buttress, we started climbing the couloir with crampons (great hard snow at that time of day!). Up into the top gully and we were almost there. I decided to veer slightly climber’s left following footsteps thinking that all tracks would meet up. Not true. 30 feet from the summit we were on a ridge trying to figure out a way up. Things looked doable, but a little too dicey for our equipment (or lack thereof), so we downclimbed 500 feet and went up the normal way, easily reaching the summit, Pic left.

Views were great. The weather was still great, although a little hazy. We enjoyed the 360 views of the Bailey range, Mt Olympus (all shown in panarama), and the hood canal. After soaking it in with a few other groups we headed down. The first ~2500 feet of the dissent went quickly since there was what looked like luge runs for glissading. We pretty much glissaded to the end of the snow. We made it back to camp in short time, packed up, and trudged down the final 6 miles to the now, mostly empty TH.

Twas a day of beer

knowing it was going to be a long day, I got the water ready for the mash, and on the stove the night before. I woke up early and turned the stove on .... and I was off. To make a long story short I rebrewed my IPA that I lost in "the incident during all incidents." (same recipe and all, so I won't repost) I've been without an IPA on tap for tooooooo much time. It was a ten gallon batch again. because of timing and all of that, I decided to keg the wit and ginger (and clean the damn carboys) because I needed the carboys to ferment in. I also decided to keg the pilsners and transfer one of Alison's beers that had been sitting way to long. ... and it was a requirement to taste some of the other beers sitting around and aging (the Palo Santo is coming along spectacularly I might add! :-)). That's a long day 10 gallons brewed. 4x 5 gallons kegged, 1 batch transferred, and all the cleaning/tasting in between. Thanks to work for requiring me to edit and finalize a poster, Alison for needing a ride to the airport, and John and Beth for coming over for food, all of which broke up the day! :-)

So, not to be outdone, Kari (sis; the following day) had a day full of beer. She judged in a pro-am competition --- best in show to brew their beer at Left hand brewery in Longmont CO. Anyway, she judged some random categories and was judged for her Bucky Badger Brown ale (I added the Bucky part to the name). In the end, her ale took first place in the American ales category and it then won best in show! so she gets to brew it at Left hand. SOOOO AWESOME. Unfortunately she was so surprised she left the building without telling anyone her contact info ... but I think they'll fix that.

Here are the prizes... medal for the brown ale and trophy for best in show! I once gave her a brown recipe, I don't know if that's the beer she based it on or not. I'm saying it is. Congrats Kari!
So there is a pro-am in Seattle soon. I'm trying to figure out which beers I need to submit. I am digging the ginger, maybe that'll be the one. Only fitting if I end up winning based on one of her recipes! :-)

Highlights from early 2009

Just a little video from our first few trips of 2009. Granite mountain, Red mountain, and Kaleetan peak. Kudos to LJT for putting the vid together, as he has done with the others. Had a few other escapades not included in the blog - like the slot couloir on Snoqualmie and a day near Hyak. Apologies for slacking on those.

DIY Sparge recirculation system

I was ordering some tubing from morebeer and shipping was exorbitant - my purchase wasn't enough for free shipping. What to do? By a pump cause it would be fun and make my life easier. Yeah, right. OK, a note (disclaimer) up front. I am not an electrician. I make no promises for the accuracy of anything I write or show. In fact if you try to replicate this you are likely to burn down your house.

So I got the pump and decided to make a recirculation setup. ok ok ... so it might not be that useful, but it was fun and it will allow me to ignore the recirc at the beginning of the sparge. Was it worth not paying for the shipping? Naw. But hopefully it will make my life easier. Here it is as a trial run with water only:



I wanted it controlled by a float switch. So I got one of those from a vendor at work. Typical float switches can't deal with spikes in the amperage for turning on/off a pump like this. So instead of wiring the circuit through the switch i used a relay. I didn't really know what a relay is but it takes a "test circuit" and translates that to a "business circuit." --- yes those are my terms. For the relay I used (DPDT), if the test circuit is closed then the AB loop is closed, if test circuit is open, AC loop is closed. So I wired the pump into the AB loop (see diagram). pic left is the relay. Top lead connected horizontally is the "hot" that went through the float switch. Bottom connected horizontal goes to the common. Vertical ones go to the 3 way switch and the hot of the pump plug. It's ugly, yes, first time using those connections. I used a two switches: a standard one to turn the whole system on/off, and a three way switch to control the pump either by the float switch or just always on. I also have an extra outlet that will always be on if the box is plugged in. --- for a boom box, heat stick, etc, etc. The wiring is shown to the left, the finished product to the right and a wiring diagram below. Here's some more comments/issues.

Some relays need 6 or 12 V DC, or other, for the test circuit. I originally was going to do this. I had a transformer from a cell phone and was going to use the "extra" plug to power the transformer. In that case I would have powered the transformer outlet by the first switch, i.e. connecting wire x to wire Y and not the power source. For the reservoir, I just got a food grade bucket, drilled a couple of holes and screwed in a spigot and the float switch.

I had to jerry rig the box cover because I couldn't find the proper one i needed.

I have a vacuum cleaner that doesn't work. I cut the plug off of that and used that for the power - all I have to do is plug it into a GFI outlet in the kitchen.

I can't run both the heat stick and pump at the same time... too much amperage for this system because of the wiring. Plan accordingly.

I want to connect the pump via disconnects instead of barbs.

Because the float switch is wired into the box, the box and reservoir bucket are permanently connected by a fixed length. I want to insert a plug and and outlet inline so I can separate the bucket from the box.

If the reservoir is stainless, you could heat the wort during this. Like a HERMS???

Was this worth it? Any improvement ideas? Let me know.

Belgian Wit

With the kegs getting tapped, gotta brew to keep the brews flowing. Just did another spring time beer - A beglian wit. Again, lower alcohol but plenty of fruity flavors. I've never made one before so I didn't venture too far away from known protocols. I based the recipe on a Hoegaarden clone. Target 1.045 with an 80% efficiency.

For beer geeks: 3.6# Belg pils, 3.25# unmalted wheat, 0.3# malted wheat, 0.25# aromatic malt, 0.75#flaked wheat, 0.75# Flaked oats, 0.5# crystal 40, 0.25# honey malt. Step mach, at 122 for 30 min raise to 154 for 60 min, mash out 170. Boil schedule: 90 minute boil; 60 min 0.825 oz halertau 6.2%, 15 min 3/4 t coriander, peel from 1 orange, and 0.25t grains of paradise; 5 min 3/4 t coriander, peel from 1 orange, and 0.25t grains of paradise. Chill and pitch with 3944 Belgian wit --- started for a couple of days. OG 1.044, but i think i might have gotten 6 gallons???

So I had an early soccer game and brewed before it. I set the water out and grains out the night before so all I had to do was turn on the stove to be ready to go. I amazingly finished in about 4 hours even with the extra mash infusion and longish boil. Good brew day and excited to test it out.

Mt Shuksan Circumnavigation

So here's the video. Below the story. Pictures afterward. ... an awesome day and a half on Shuksan culminating in my second ascent of the gorgeous mountain.

So the original plan was to do a 3 day traverse (Fri – Sun) from the Baker lot to Shuksan summit to Nooksack headwall, over to icy peak via the nooksack glacier and out Ruth Mtn and Ruth Creek. Weather called for perfect Friday with a cold front pushing up from the S Friday night and displacing the high pressure system throughout Sat. It didn’t sound too severe with minimal precip so we decided to go for it. I had finally gotten up Shuksan last fall with Keith and Alison via the sulphide and I thought that if nothing else we’d do Shuksan again via a different route if we indeed had to bail. This was a trip that I decided to try some new things. 1) a new smaller, lighter pack. 2) a new “shelter” instead of a tent. 3) a more minimalist approach to try to shave even more weight out of the pack.

Thursday we packed up and left late. It was a long week for both Lucas and me. I had a grant to help write (which I didn’t completely finish, but spent my due time on), and Lucas was well, busy … I don’t know doing what, I never saw or talked to him.

Thursday came and we were finally off, dropping the take out car on the Hannagan Pass rd and parking just outside the lower Mt Baker lot at 11:30 for some minimal shuteye in the car By 4:00 AM we were on our way towards the White Salmon glacier. Lucas and I had skied nearly the whole white salmon last year so the route was familiar to us. However, this year there was less snow, the whole valley was filled with huge avy flows, making us reconsider our ideas. Undaunted, we trudged along. Going was slow because of the snow conditions/avy debris. We finally booted up past the worst part below the white salmon where we heard some huge seracs break off from Hanging glacier. We saw the rubble come out of the gully and it was like an unimpeded flow of rock and ice. It was pretty impressive and as I figured - the mountain’s was of demanding respect. We made some good time up the white salmon where we took a little break. Up Winnie’s slide, onto the upper curtis, up over and down to hell’s highway. Up hell’s highway to the sulphide. This all went swimmingly and we even got some turns in on the Upper Curtis glacier. By this time we noticed that we were following a solo climber that had likely taken this route the previous day laying boot tracks and skin tracks. We mostly followed this insanely aggressive line up Hell’s Highway finally switching to our own more reasonable line.

I was feeling surprisingly good at this point. Day was early, the summit pyramid in spitting distance and plenty of daylight. We skinned under the summit pyramid to what had to have been the windiest place between the sulphide and the Crystal glacier. For some reason we decided it would be a great place to set camp – there was a sittin’ rock. Mental note – windiest place on cold glacier bad. Got it. We rested and then decided to head for the summit to save some time to get into the nooksack cirque tomorrow. Skinned up to the class 3 gully and followed the boot pack to the summit. The weather was impeccable and the views were outrageous. A little bit of time and we were going to ski the gully, which was corn turn into mush. Unfortunately we were a few minutes late and the upper gully was shaded over making it corn turn into mush turn into crust. We skied most of it (I down climbed the narrowest section) and headed back to camp. As the sun went down, the winds came up. I was surprised that the shelter withstood the beating but we made it through the night and woke to a reasonable morning. We skied over the crystal to the nooksack headwall to assess the conditions, not knowing what to expect. The glacier was opening up and it looked doable. The issue was dropping in through the crevasses on steep terrain. While we finally found a line that was likely doable, I didn’t like the terrain with the “no fall zone.” Lucas didn’t like the weather. And the straw that broke the camels back was not being absolutely sure that we wouldn’t hit ice that needed downclimbing. Since we stupidly left the crampons on our living room floors, we decided that the best thing would be to save the traverse for a later date (year) and enjoy the area up around Shuksan.

We skinned back up the crystal taking various detours to check things out. We skied hanging glacier over to the upper Curtis where we finally made it back to our tracks from the previous day. By this time the clouds had engulfed Mt Baker and it started to look quite ominous. We decided to high tail it out of there and avoid an afternoon/evening of precipitation. It was a no brainer since we lacked any whiskey supplies to wait out the rain. On our decent we had the great idea to traverse over to the Shuksan arm and go out through the ski area. As Lucas wrote: …”we stupidly decided that it would be cool to do a high traverse over to the Shuksan Arm and ski along the top of the ridge, coming out at the top of the ski area. The non-fun aspects of this decision are shamefully too numerous for me to describe.” But hey, we avoided the avy debris below and the slog back up to the lot.

We made it back to the car for a stashed beer and chips before heading to seattle. On the way we were pummeled with rain, thankfully, being far away from the unknown cirque – but who knows it could have been sunny and majestic back there. We’ll find out next year!

View across the avy fields early in the AM.

Booting up the crap as we get to the White Salmon.

Upper white Salmon with Baker behind.

Winnie's slide.

My new shangri-La without the wind... for now; summit behind.

Lucas coming up the class three gully (class three in summer).

Summit Pan of with jagged ridge, icy peak, and the nooksack glacier
Lucas getting jiggy with the summit pyramid.

Lucas with jagged tower/nooksack cirque behind him.

Icy Peak with the nooksack below.