On July 16th, two students, Brian and Tim, and myself reached the summit of Mt Waddington, British Columbia's highest peak. We were the first to reach the summit this year. Unfortunately, for those who follow us, we might be the last, judging by the sorry condition of the crevasse bridges on the Bravo Glacier.

We began our adventure on July 11th, with a 10 hour drive from Bellingham through the tinder-dry forests of central British Columbia and onward to Tatla lake. Early the next morning from a cozy, out-of-the-way ranch, we flew via helicopter towards the heart of BC's Coast Range, Mt. Waddington. The breathtaking 25-minute flight was too short, and soon we were lugging heavily loaded packs onto the lower Bravo glacier, the beginning of Mt. Waddington's "standard" route. Conditions on the glacier were warm and sloppy, but we struggled through the most crevassed sections, crossing several snow bridges along the way and wondering whether or not the bridges would still be there upon our return.

Our first camp was placed at 8900' in the upper basin of the lower Bravo Glacier in a feature named the "cauldron". I speculate that this feature was named due to its propensity to develop incredible heat by mid to late morning. Upon arrival, we hunkered down and waited for the cool early morning hours in order to surmount the route's first crux, a large bergschrund, which is capped by several hundred feet of steep snow, ice, and rock. In the early morning, we were dismayed to find that temperatures did not drop below freezing. We battled our way up near vertical ice and slush in the 'schrund, then slogged up 50-degree snow, kicking sluffs off to the side of our tracks as we made progress.

From the top of this headwall, the route follows the steep, upper Bravo Glacier until it reached the summit spire. We plowed up hip-deep slush, crawling across a few scary snow bridges that were still stubbornly hanging on, and camped at 10,400' one night, before the final bit of glacier climbing brought us to our high camp at 12,200' on the evening of our third day.

After a night of steady wind, we left our tent at 5:30 am in welcome silence, with only 900 feet of rock and ice between us and the summit. The conditions seemed harder than normal, with steep and at times, desperate ice obscuring what we anticipated would have been rather straightforward 5.7 rock climbing. The three of us never removed our crampons, scratching our way up classic and exposed mixed terrain until we reached an icy runnel that led to Waddington's true summit at 13,177 feet. A steep cone of sugary rime comprises the summit, and it is too weak to support a climbers' weight. Each of us took turns climbing 20 feet of ice up to the summit where we bellyflopped on the ridge, touched the summit, took in the view (which was rapidly becoming cloudy), and downclimbed back to safety. Seven suprisingly snag-free rappels brought us back below the 'schrund at the base of the summit spire, and our tent.

High winds kept us awake all night, and dashed any ideas we had entertained about attempting Waddingtons' lower, northwest summit, so we packed up camp in the morning, and struggled down hip deep snow towards our helicopter pick-up spot at Rainy Knob. Several of the bridges we had crossed had collapsed during our ascent, so we were forced to devise clever ways of crossing these slots. We were elated to arrive back at the foot of the route on the Tiedemann Glacier without incident. Waddington certainly offers its fair share of hazards, and we were proud to have negotiated them safely.

In the morning, Mike King picked us up in his Jet Ranger, gave us a scenic tour of the peaks surrounding the Tiedemann Glacier, and then returned us to his ranch, where the rest of his extremely hospitable family plied us with coffee and blueberry pancakes until we were almost too fat to fit through the door. For the last several days, we've been climbing classic routes in Squamish and the North Cascades in order to get our waist lines back under control. Today we are headed for the ice cliffs on the North Ridge of Mt. Baker. All in all, it was a spectacular adventure on one of North America's least climbed and most sought after peaks.