Just prior to the beginning of this expedition, brothers Curt Cratty and Steven Cratty and friend Virginia Rozic - all from Butler, Pennsylvania - participated in and completed Part 1 and Part 2 of our Alpine Mountaineering and Technical Leadership course. Their expedition to Waddington is the culmination of the three-part course.

Seth said the plan for today was to get settled in and build their base camp on the col. "It's a great camp, and we've got some nice solid snow walls built already. From here we have breathtaking views of both Combatant and Waddington, our two objectives for this trip." The col - known commonly as the Combatant Col - is a broad, flat, glacial snowfield perched high between Waddington and Combatant's lofty summits. From there the team will have access to both peaks.

Tomorrow the group will attempt to climb Mt. Combatant via a route called Central Couloir. The couloir leads off from the col and extends upward in 1,320 impressive feet of 50-degree snow. At the top of the couloir the route then gains the northwest ridge and ends in a scramble to the main summit.

After their climb on Combatant, the group will take a rest day on Thursday, and then if weather and conditions permit, they will begin their attempt on Mt. Waddington via the Kiwi Route. Though the Kiwi Route is not visible from their base camp on the col, the group will have full view of it during their climb of Combatant tomorrow. Stay tuned for more updates!

The forecast for the weekend calls for clear weather and the team is optimistic about their attempt on Mt. Waddington.

The group flew out Sunday evening after they descended from the summit to their camp at the Combatant Col. Congratulations to everyone for getting to the summit of one of the Waddington Range's prominent peaks!

Dylan reported, "Conditions are awesome! There are no sketchy snow bridges in sight. In all, the glacier looks far better than it did last year." The team has already climbed 1,500 feet above the helicopter landing zone where they were dropped off this morning, and plans to continue on to 8,500 feet where they will make their first camp. Stay tuned for more news from Mt. Waddington!

Dylan said the weather has been very favorable. "Today was the first day we had any sort of weather - just some wind and a few high clouds, nothing serious. Everyone is enjoying themselves and for the most part feeling pretty good. The views have been spectacular."

The group is currently camped on the Spearman-Waddington Col at around 10,600 feet. Dylan said the weather picked up a bit today, with more clouds and wind than yesterday. The forecast shows conditions possibly worsening tomorrow but getting better on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. He hopes to move to high camp tomorrow at 12,000 feet but cautions that they won't move up if conditions don't allow it. Dylan said, "High Camp on Waddington is a rough place to be if in high winds. We'll wait for the right conditions."

The route to Waddington's summit from the top of the Bravo Glacier involves a handful of rock and mixed pitches in a narrow gully system on the summit tower. Due to the narrow nature of this chimney system, the route can only safely accommodate a small number of climbers at one time (to avoid one party kicking loose rock and ice on a lower party). Because of this, the group has decided to split up, and tomorrow one guide will take two climbers to the main summit of Waddington while the other will take two climbers to the beautiful spire of the mountain's northwest summit. If the weather holds, the group will flip-flop the next day (Saturday). The forecast calls for partly cloudy skies tomorrow, getting cloudier on Saturday, and worsening Sunday.

The other team, which consisted of guide Joey Elton and two climbers, attempted Mt. Waddington's true summit today but unfortunately had to turn around due to the high winds. Depending on the weather, they will make an attempt on Waddington's northwest summit in the next day or two, while Dylan's group will go for the true summit. Dylan said, "We're just going to wait it out and climb when we can."

"This morning we woke to sunny skies and literally jumped for joy. The weather over the weekend was some of the worst I have ever seen. We were literally stuck in our tents from Friday afternoon when we got down from the mountain until this morning. The storm brought winds up to seventy mph, with gusts up to 78mph, and really thick, constant snow that required us to dig out our tents frequently."

"Every time we stepped out of our tents to dig or use the restroom, we were blasted by heavy, wind-flung snow and ice that froze our eyelids shut and pelted us violently in the face. It was like having a huge fire hose loaded with ice crystals aimed at our camp for two-and-a-half days. Then at 1am last night, suddenly, the storm just stopped and it grew clear."

The team plans to spend today digging out their tents and gear. "Despite all our digging in the night, when we woke up this morning our tents were mostly buried," Dylan said. "We're going to need all day to find all of our food and gear we had in camp, which is now under several feet of snow, and to dry everything out to the point that it is usable." Dylan said the sunny weather is supposed to hold through today and tomorrow. After making their preparations today, the group will leave early tomorrow morning and descend all the way down to the helicopter landing zone, where they plan to fly out tomorrow evening (Tuesday).

As planned, the group used all of Monday (August 1) to dig out their tents and equipment from under several feet of fresh snow and to dry their gear out in the sun. The next morning, Tuesday, the team woke early and begun the descent to the helicopter landing zone. On the way down they stopped to dig out a couple caches that they had placed on the way to high camp. "It was very nearly impossible to locate the exact spot where the caches were with all the fresh snow," Dylan said. "The wands that we had placed to mark the caches were of course buried as well in all the new snow. Instead what we had to do was look for large lumps on the surface of the snow as we approached the cache areas. Then we just started digging through and under the lumps. Some of them just turned out to be raised spots in the snow, but we persevered and in the end we found our stuff."

The group made it down to the landing zone by 4pm. The first thing they did was dig up the food cache that they had buried just in case they had to wait through several days of bad weather before flying out. "We ate about four meals each," Hazen said. "We didn't realize how hungry we were until we saw all that food, and then we just dug in!"

The helicopter came as scheduled that evening, arriving around 6:30pm. After two trips of forty-five minutes each, the entire team was safely off the glacier and back at home base. That night, the group camped nearby and fell asleep almost immediately. "We were all just so glad to be on dry ground and out of the storm," One climber said. "I had the best shower of my life and then we zonked out with relief and exhaustion."

The next morning, the team enjoyed a hearty meal - "dozens" of pancakes, sausages, and coffee at the ranch house. Taking their time, they leisurely packed up took the remainder of the day to drive the 9 hours west to Squamish, where they set up at a campground and planned to do a half-day of cragging the next morning.

On Thursday, the group enjoyed some warm-weather top-roping and a few trad pitches at Squamish's Smoke Bluffs, and then drove the remaining two hours back to Bellingham.

"The whole trip was really quite an experience," Hazen remarked, once back at AAI. "Even the storm, which was pretty dire in the midst of it, was an experience I'll never forget. I'm sure I'll be telling that story to my friends for my whole life! I can't believe it's the end of the thirty-six days..." Hazen was referring to the three twelve day sections of AAI's Alpine Mountaineering and Technical Leadership program (Parts 1, 2, and 3) which he just completed with this expedition. "I quit my job on the East Coast intending to move out west to learn to climb mountains. And that's what I've done! After Part 1, 2, and 3, I feel self-sufficient and able to make my own safe choices on the mountain. I'm definitely going to go do my own climbs now."

Hazen isn't the only one who plans to take his newfound knowledge back to the mountains - all of the climbers either have climbs on the near horizon or have climbing goals brewing in their minds.