Van Life Week 8 l Mt. Rainier & Prusik Peak

Kristen Bowling
22 followers
15 Video Views·Nov 15, 2022
First time in Washington.
First time in Washington. We just entered Washington.
No, first time. It's cute here.
What is cute here?
Vancouver.
Washington. Got you.
Not in Canada yet.
We're not allowed in Canada right now.
Talk to them.
Everybody talks about it.
You don't know anything about Vancouver.
Everyone I was talking to said you gotta see the lockdown.
Anything you have to do in Washington.
There you guys go.
We can end van life now.
We've seen the Vancouver Clock Tower.
We're at the sunrise side of
Mount Rainier.
Pretty awesome.
Tomorrow we hike the Fremont
Trail to go to the fire tower.
Get some good views.
Not climbing Mount Rainier this time.
But we'll be back. Hopefully next year.
Oh yeah.
To do Liberty Ridge.
Since nobody asked, here's what
Jordan and I eat. Literally every
lunch.
Bread. A little mayo. A little
Cholula. A little avocado.
Some onion.
Turkey.
We got beet sauerkraut.
Fermented beets with a little fennel.
Fermented food.
Good for the gut.
Some broccoli and clover sprouts.
Look at the color.
Perfect.
Right up here.
The fire tower.
Top of Mount Fremont.
Views.
Deck up here.
Fun trail.
We go over really bad.
When a shelf falls out of the van
it comes right out.
And so every time we go over a big bump
one of us has to run back and
put it in.
Didn't lose anything this time.
But
we gotta fix some stuff on the van.
We made it to Leavenworth.
Which is a Bavarian town in Washington.
Gonna go to the
mountaineering shop. Ask them a little bit about the
routes we're looking to do.
And then
explore the town.
The classic Bavarian
pretzels and frowers.
In Leavenworth,
Washington.
Now, as Kristen said, home of the
infamous Nutcracker Museum.
Across the street.
Lots of super cool places.
Bavarian style town.
Alright, we are out here in
Leavenworth, Washington.
Mountain range called
The Enchantments.
Very pretty. We're heading up towards
that wall. That's where
we're gonna climb and top out on.
Let's see if this trail is super
hot. But
very pretty. There's supposed to be some
pretty awesome granite climbing.
Getting after it.
Alright guys.
It is day two of Leavenworth.
I didn't capture it on video
but yesterday
we tried to hike up the Snow Creek Wall
to climb Outer Space.
We got up there, the rock
was pretty hot, so we ended up just
doing the hike up and down.
And now we're crossing a bridge
so it's gonna be hard to hear me.
Okay, so now we are
hiking up to Pressick Peak.
Up to Pressick Peak
you have to climb Asgard Pass
which ascends
about 2,200
feet in elevation
in about a mile, so
it's definitely a bit of a
trek to Pressick.
And I think the total overall
gains around 5,000, right?
Yeah.
So it's definitely not an easy
approach, but
everyone says Pressick is awesome.
So, pretty excited about that.
And we're in The Enchantments
which is supposed to be really beautiful.
And
not to jinx it, but
we still have had the most amazing weather.
It's still hot, but
sunny.
It was a pretty brutal uphill.
I think we ascended about
3,000 feet.
Three and a half miles.
And it's not fun.
I think we're close to the lake.
All trail says this is the
flat section. Still going up.
And then
at about
half a mile flat.
And then it's the
Asgard Pass hike.
Oh, you can see it.
Kolchak Lake.
You can see Asgard
Pass. It's that
right there. Here we are.
Starting the pass.
Part of the way up
Asgard Pass.
We go up.
It's really pretty.
Just looking back down at the lake.
Hello. I'm Connie, brother.
We are
almost at the top of Asgard
Pass.
I think.
It is taking forever.
Asgard Pass,
yeah.
But there's still
pretty views.
Who knows if that's the top.
I don't know.
I think we've made it to the top
of the pass.
We still have a mile and a half to go
for camp, but
beautiful views.
Eat some dinner. We're very hungry.
Just enjoy
the sunset
so we can wake up really early.
Do some climbing and then
pass.
Alright, you can see Presik Peak
in the distance. Gonna camp
right around the lake.
We have a goat
friend who is way too comfortable
with people
and has been circling our camp last
night and then this morning.
But
packed up, ready to go hike
to the clock.
We don't know what these bugs are, but
they're quite large
and one was in a tent, one was
in a bear bag. All of our stuff.
All of our stuff.
They seem to like to crawl
into places
which is kind of gross.
Mosquitoes
are out. In order to get
to Presik Peak, we have to go up Presik Pass
which is not a very welcome
site after Asgard yesterday.
We'll see.
View from
Presik Pass.
You can see
Presik Peak over this way.
There's Presik Peak.
Alright, just clipped in a piece.
I'm leading a cross pitch here
up on
Presik Peak
as it's called.
I'm about to do this airy traverse
out and around here.
Then I cross back up there to do the last
pitch up to the summit.
Pretty wild views.
Pretty good exposure
all the way down.
That's where we camped over there.
There's the rope.
There's Kristen.
Back where we came up.
Alright,
that's the slabby section.
Go up now
to the traverse.
Alright, there Kristen is.
Coming up the third pitch.
Pretty high exposure on these moves.
She's going to traverse around
this pinnacle here
and then come meet me.
Pretty spectacular views up here
on Presik Peak.
All the way
around.
That's pretty awesome.
Got the anchor set
and this crack. We're going to scramble on this
ledge around to the last couple pitches.
The summit's just behind there.
The finger crack was fun.
Yeah.
I'm good.
Alright, we're out here
on the summit of Presik Peak.
Pretty sweet.
Just hopped out of the
west ridge. You can see
all the way down to the base.
Epic views up here.
Got to climb a sweet
finger crack on the last
pitch. Turned into a 5.8
which was nice.
And just some pretty awesome views
all around. Get backpacked in
from over there on that pass.
That was Asgard.
So I have to go back up.
I have to redescend, unfortunately.
But it's good stuff out here.
We're having fun. Eat some
fruit snacks. That's always a good time.
And
do some rappelling.
Everyone I hope got slayed down.
There it is.
Just chilling
in the snow.
These things are everywhere.
On our descent from
up there. Standing up there
about a couple hours ago.
Back down to the car.
This morning we were on top of that.
We're making our
way up the pass
so we can go
down the pass. Which
I am dreading.
But then it's all downhill from there.
Alright, we made
it down to Asgard.
So on the top of
that, way down
around the lake.
And then
down 3,000 feet.
Alright, it's 8.15.
We are done.
We went down Asgard Pass.
Descended 3,000 feet.
In record speed.
It's like an hour and a half we went down.
And that last mile
felt long. But
we are drinking a fat gelato.
Jordan jumped in the lake. I forgot to get a video.
I made lasagna.
We clearly had our priorities.
Man, my feet hurt.
Presik Peak in the back.
