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sTePh aBeGg's 
Climbing & Photography
Website



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1. Trip Reports

3. Photography

Recent Trip Reports & Pages

Recent Trip Reports
 (reverse order)
To see all of my trip reports in chronological order, go to my Trip Report Chronology.

Other Recent Additions
  • John Scurlock and I complete our quest to photograph (by air) the Highest Hundred summits of Washington. See Photoset 34 (Apr 16, 2013)
  • Aerial photos (and some videos!) of spring in the North Cascades: Photosets 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 (Mar-May 2013)
  • Western bluebird flight photos on my songbirds page. (Mar 2013)
  • Mebee Pass Fire Lookout page. (Feb 2013)
  • Aerial photos (and some videos!) of wintery North Cascades: Photosets 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 (Nov-Mar 2012-3)

Upcoming Adventures!


Lots of ambitious climbing adventures planned for this coming summer....

JUNE 18-30, 2013:
  • SIERRA (CA): with Mark Thomas
    • Third Pillar of Dana
    • Incredible Hulk, Red Dihedral
    • Palisades Traverse ++
JULY 5-11, 2013:
  • NORTH CASCADES Adventure (WA): with my sister Jenny
    • Eldorado area scrambling and glacier romping or Washington Pass rock climbing 
JULY 15 - AUG 11, 2013:
  • EUROPE (SWITZ/ITALY):
    • Walker's Haute Route, a 200 km hike from Chamonix to Zermatt with parents
    • Matterhorn, Hornli Ridge
    • Dolomites, climbs TBD with Michael Stanton
AUGUST 15-30, 2013:
  • WADDINGTON area (BC): with Dan Aylward, Chad Kellogg, Sarah Hart
    • Combatant, Skywalk Buttress
    • Tiedemann
    • others TBD
IF THERE'S TIME:
  • NORTH CASCADES (WA):
    • Juno Tower, Clean Break
    • Pasayten climbing trip
    • Mebee Pass
    • Silver Lake, Fisher, Arriva
    • Vesper, North Face

Then back to school....

Upcoming Presentations/Workshops


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

Aerial Photo Calendar

Every Christmas I make a calendar for my friends and family. This year the theme of the calendar is "Aerial North Cascades," containing 13 carefully selected high-quality aerial images of Washington's rugged and beautiful glaciated North Cascades. Each month is represented by an aerial photo taken during that month. 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: Early Winters / Liberty Bell
FEB: South Hozomeen
MAR: Hidden Lake Lookout
APR: Glacier Peak
MAY: Shuksan
JUN: Baker
JUL: Bonanza
AUG: Baker
SEP: Dome Peak
OCT: Wildfires '12
NOV: Mt. Stuart
DEC: Southern Pickets
(JAN): Rainier
+++: Mystery peak on cover

As a challenge, if you can name the summit on the cover photo below I will offer you (for the same price) a special 13-month calendar containing Mt. Rainier on the extra 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
JUNE
6
2009
DRAGONTAIL PEAK, Serpentine Arete (5.8, late spring conditions)
Category: Washington      Trip Report #: 66
Partner: Sara Vera
Elev: 8,850 ft

The best climbing was a couple of pitches mid-route, and the rest was rather easy and loose.

The Route

It was the weekend before spring quarter final exams at UW. I study better under a time crunch, so my friend Sara and I headed up to climb Serpentine Arete (5.8) on Dragontail.

We climbed the route in a day from the car. We left the Stuart Lake trailhead at 4:30am, got to Colchuck Lake by 6:30am, were climbing the rock by 8:30am, summited at 2pm, made it back to the lake at 4:45pm, were back to the car by 6:45pm, and were back to Seattle by 10pm. Time to study!

We simulclimbed most of the route, and had a blast. Here are some photos and brief descriptions for this trip report.

Photos
Looking up the route from the base. We started just right of the orange slabs at the top of the terminal morraine above Colchuck Lake.
The first pitch, short 5.7ish pitch to get to class 3 ramps.
Easy scrambling for much of the route.
Sara leading the first of the 2 "crux" pitches mid-route, a 5.8 crack. These were our 2 favorite pitches, we wished there could be more of this kind of climbing!
Sara following the second of the 2 "crux" pitches mid-route, a 5.8 dihedral. These were our 2 favorite pitches, we wished there could be more of this kind of climbing!
Most of the second half of the climb involved fun 3rd to mid-5th class climbing up the arete. There were several possible variations.
We spotted a Mountaineer party heading up to Colchuck Col. I decided to make the route look more impressive by rotating the photo....
A piton, perhaps from the original ascent of Serpentine Arete in 1973.
The view of Colchuck Col from our climb.
The view south from the summit.
The view of Colchuck (and Stuart behind) from the summit.
Early summer snow in the Upper Enchantment Lake Basin on the descent down the back of Dragontail and down Aasgard Pass (a walk-off, although Aasgard Pass never fails to be uncomfortable on the knees).
The last of the winter ice on Colchuck Lake.
I can never resist taking photos of chipmunks.
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