June brought unseasonably nice weather, leading into one of the busiest Fourth of July weekends on record. July and August continued the trend of hot and sunny weather. The above-average snowpack melted quickly, yet many routes remained in great climbing shape late into the season.

An unusual number of powerful thunderstorms moved across the Cascades during the summer, chasing climbers down mountainsides and causing a flash flood on Boston Creek that washed out a section of the Cascade River Road. Despite the unstable weather and dire predictions, there were fewer wildfires in the North Cascades than expected. The Panther Creek and Brush Creek Trails were closed for part of the summer due to wildfires, and small fires of short duration were observed on Castle Rock, Luna Peak and near Boston Basin and Newhalem. In addition to the Brush Creek Trail closure, a large avalanche on Forest Service Road 32 (Hannegan Pass Road) prevented the road from opening until August; this made access from the west to Whatcom Pass and the North Pickets problematic for much of the 2009 season.

Climbing Visitation
The Wilderness Information Center reported a 24% increase in visitation to the office and a 34% increase in the number of submitted voluntary climbing registers over the previous season. For the past ten years, visitation to ten cross-country zones has been tracked based on overnight rermits issued. The table below (showing the number of registered backcountry users, not the number of parties) illustrates increased visitation to all zones except for the Sulphide Glacier. For the past several years, rangers have been noting increased visitation to the Southern Pickets, a trend that continued in 2009. (Note: This table includes data published in previous issues of the NWMJ that has been corrected.)

Climbers cross the Inspiration Glacier. Photo © Lowell Skoog.		Mount Logan from the summit of Black Peak. Photo © Dan Hilden.		Steph Abegg on the summit of Mt Buckner. Photo © Jason Hummel.
Climbers cross the Inspiration Glacier. Photo © Lowell Skoog.		Mount Logan from the summit of Black Peak. Photo © Dan Hilden.		Steph Abegg on the summit of Mt Buckner. Photo © Jason Hummel.

Staffing and Training
In 2009, two permanent, one term, 11 seasonal, and three full-time Student Conservation Association rangers conducted patrols of nearly 3,000 miles of wilderness trails and off-trail terrain in the North Cascades. Climbing rangers patrolled routes on Mount Shuksan, Eldorado Peak, Mount Logan, Goode Mountain, Terror Basin, and the Boston Basin peaks.

All wilderness rangers participate in two weeks of early season training on topics including search and rescue, low-angle carry-outs, high-angle technical rescue, snow and glacier travel, Leave No Trace principles, trail and camp maintenance, and toilet maintenance. One ranger was sent to the 40-hour National Park Service Technical Rescue training at Canyonlands National Park, and two climbing rangers participated in an interagency rope rescue training drill at Mount Erie.

Resource Monitoring
Each year, wilderness rangers conduct monitoring surveys of cross-country zones, climbing routes, and campsites to identify areas in which human use is leaving long-term, visible impacts upon the landscape. The purpose of these surveys is to identify areas that may require future efforts to restore them to wilderness standards. In 2009, rangers surveyed the following cross-country zones: Torment Basin, Terror Basin, Inspiration Glacier, Sourdough Mountain, and Mount Arriva.

Waste Management
Over the course of the 2009 season, rangers documented and removed 139 occurrences of human feces and/or toilet paper from the wilderness. Improperly disposed human waste was most commonly found on the Sulphide Glacier route of Mount Shuksan and on Eldorado Peak. To address the on-going human waste problems on Eldorado, the National Park Service installed a new composting toilet in the fall of 2009, located on a rock outcropping at the base of the East Ridge (near the popular bivy site at 7200ft). Wilderness rangers maintained 19 other composting toilets throughout the park as well as countless pit-style toilets. North Cascades National Park continues its free blue bag program, and rangers are investigating the potential for including alternative waste disposal methods into its human waste management program in the future.

Glacier Monitoring
For the seventeenth consecutive year, the National Park Service monitored four glaciers in North Cascades National Park for mass balance (net loss or gain of ice). Jon Riedel, park geologist, reports that 2009 was one of the worst years for glacier mass balance since the project began in 1993. All four of the monitored glaciers—North Klawatti, Sandalee, Noisy Creek, and Silver—lost far more mass to summer melting than they had gained by snow accumulation during the winter of 2008-2009. The long term trend for all four glaciers has been rapid recession caused by lower winter snowfall and higher rates of summer melting.

Search and Rescue Incidents
Rangers at North Cascades National Park responded to 18 incidents in 2009, of which 10 were considered major Search and Rescue (SAR) operations. These included the evacuation of seven injured or stranded climbers, one climbing fatality, one response to a personal locator beacon distress call, and a multi-day search for a missing hiker. In addition, rangers followed up on 27 climbing parties believed to be overdue because they did not sign out after filing a voluntary climbing register. The total emergency cost to the National Park Service was $42,454, of which $15,401 was for helicopter SAR operations.

Five climbing rangers and two local pilots completed annual training and proficiencies in helicopter short-haul rescue. This program, in its fourth year at North Cascades National Park, enables rangers to efficiently rescue patients in mountainous terrain. The short-haul rescue program proved to be instrumental in 2009, with seven operational short-hauls used to rescue injured climbers in remote areas. Notably, most climbing accidents were reported quickly in 2009. That, coupled with the constant availability of an on-call helicopter in Marblemount, provided unusually rapid and efficient rescues throughout the season. In most cases, injured climbers were rescued from technical and remote areas within a few hours of the injury occurrence. Selected search and rescue highlights are in the sidebar.