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sTePh aBeGg's
Climbing & Photography
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1. Trip Reports

3. Photography

Washington Weather Forecast for Climbers

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My friends Luca and Ephrat have created a wonderful mountain weather matrix which shows the 5-day NOAA point forecast for various locations in the US. As they are Californians, they mostly have CA locations, HERE. Since I cannot run .php on googlesites, they have generously created a PNW-oriented version HERE, for which I provided the data points for various climbing locations in Washington. This is very handy for seeing multiple weather forecasts all at once to help choose the weekend climbing destination. Gone are the days of obsessive refreshing of a slew of NOAA point forecast tabs!

Recent Trip Reports & Pages

Recent Trip Reports
(reverse order)

OCT19 & NOV 27, 2013:
SEPT 7-13, 2013:
AUGUST 18-29, 2013:
JULY 15 - AUG 11, 2013:
JULY 5-11, 2013:
JUNE 18-30, 2013:
JUNE 9, 2013:
PREVIOUS TRIP REPORTS:

Trip Report Chronology


Other Recent Additions
(reverse order)
  • Aerial photography of autumn in the North Cascades: Photoset 37. (Oct 2013)
  • Updates on Mebee Pass Fire Lookout page about restoration efforts. (Sept 2013)
  • Photos of a squirrel eating a plum on my animals page. (Sept 2013)

Upcoming Adventures!





Working on a
Masters in Math....

Upcoming Presentations/Workshops

No presentations or workshops are currently scheduled, due to a heavy school load this year.

Aerial/Night Photo Calendar


Every Christmas I make a calendar for my friends and family. This year the theme of the calendar is "Fire Lookouts of the North Cascades," containing 13 carefully selected high-quality images of fire lookouts perched on rugged Cascades summits. The selection encompasses a variety of aerial and night and other unique photos taken during all seasons of the year. Here is a sampling of my aerial photography. 

The calendars are large format and professionally printed by Apple. Contact me at sabegg@gmail.com if you are interested in acquiring a calendar(s). I order the calendars from Apple on an individual basis and get them directly shipped to your address. The calendar can be ordered at any time, and can be even be customized to span any range of months (for example, June 2013-June 2014).

Photos by month: 
JAN: Lookout Mountain LO
FEB: Sourdough LO
MAR: Three Fingers LO
APR: Pilchuck LO
MAY: Goat Peak LO
JUN: Slate Peak LO
JUL: Three Fingers LO
AUG: Hidden Lake LO
SEP: Three Fingers LO
OCT: Mebee Pass LO (before & after restoration)
NOV: Desolation LO
DEC: Winchester LO


(I also still offer a 2014 version of last year's calendar, where each month is an aerial photograph of a Cascades summit taken during that month.)

Quick Link to Night Photography


Here's a quick link to my page on night photography, which gives lots of photos as well as a technical discussion on the physics of night photography.

Contact Info

Hi! My name is Steph Abegg. Please see my Who is sTePh? page for more details.

Please contact me with questions, requests, or comments. I am happy to share route beta or sell photos on request.

email: sabegg@gmail.com
MARCH
23-24
2010
MT. BUCKNER, North Face (snowy early spring conditions, steep ice/snow)
Category: Washington      Trip Report #: 85
Partners: Jason Hummel, Kyle Miller
Elev: 9114 ft *        Lat/Long: 48.49520, -120.99780

The North Face of Mt. Buckner is not often climbed or skied in the winter or early spring, but if the weather and conditions are right (as they were for us), it makes for a wonderful adventure complete with wallowing, exciting climbing and skiing, thinly bridged crevasses, great views, downclimbing steep ice, basecamp on one of the largest and most beautiful glacier in the Cascades, frigid belays, and lots and lots more fun and memories.

* The SW summit is listed as 9114 ft, which makes it the higher summit relative to the 9112 ft NE summit. However, at some angles - such as from the SW summit - the NE summit actually appears higher. This has been a topic of debate among county high point peakbaggers, since Buckner is the Skagit WA county high point with over 3000' prominence. This debate inspired the creation of a program that employs photo pixel analysis to determine elevations. This program was used to determine that the SW summit of Buckner is indeed 9.6 inches higher than the NE summit (hence, probably closer to 9113 ft than 9114 ft). This is all very fascinating. It would be interesting to do a photo pixel analysis to determine if the SW summit is still the higher one under winter snowcover!


* In this trip report, the text is given on the images, so click on the images for descriptions. *

The Route

The trip took us 2 days. Day 1 involved skinning/snowshoeing into Boston Basin, and getting to Boston Glacier via the Sharkfin Col (which involved a single-rope rappel to get below the bergschrund on the other side). We set up basecamp on the Boston Glacier with a great view of the North Face of Mt. Buckner. Day 2 involved climbing the North Face of Mt. Buckner and then packing up camp and skiing/snowshoeing back to the car. Jason and Kyle skied/snowboarded the North Face while I backed down. On the way out, we chose to use the notch just south of Boston Peak (between Boston and Boston-Sahale col) to get back into Boston Basin.
Topo map of the route we took.
Route overlay for the North Face of Buckner, early spring conditions.

The Approach

The approach involved skiing/snowshoeing through Boston Basin, going over the Sharkfin Col, and setting up basecamp on Boston Glacier. While crossing the Boston Glacier, Jason punched through a snowbridge and nearly fell into a deep crevasse, but reacted quickly to get his ski stemmed on the opposite lip of the crevasse.
(Photo on right by Jason Hummel.)
(Photo by Jason Hummel.)


The Climb

We climbed the North Face of Mt. Buckner on Day 2. In early spring conditions, the route involves about 1300ft of 40-50° snow. The conditions were great on the way up and the summit views were spectacular. A wind picked up just when we reached the summit, so we did not linger long as we wanted to get down before there was too much wind-loading on the face. Jason and Kyle skied/snowboarded down the North Face in a few minutes, while I backed down in about an hour. It was a fun climb.
(Photo by Jason Hummel.)
360° pano from the SW summit of Buckner. Jason is sitting on the SW summit, and the NE summit is on the left side of the panorama. It was a hazy day, but you can see (from left to right) Logan, NE summit of Buckner, Goode, Booker, the peaks of the Ptarmigan Traverse, and the SW summit of Buckner, among others. Click here to go to my panoramas page to see more panoramas, many of them labeled!

Back to the car

After climbing/skiing the North Face of Buckner, we packed up camp and headed out. We chose to get back to Boston Basin via the notch just south of Boston Peak (between Boston and Boston-Sahale col). It was fun to try a different way out, but in the end it probably took longer because of its high elevation and some icy conditions in the rappel/descent gully on the other side. We got back to the car shortly after dark. What a fun trip!



Jason's TR

To see the adventure through Jason Hummel's lens, here is the link to Jason's TR: http://cascadecrusades.org/SkiMountaineering/buckner/nface2010/nface2010.htm.
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