An internal debate rages as I nervously watch the teens scramble about the basalt formations.  Half of me is joyful to watch them climb about and explore; this is why we came out here - this is what they need.  Half of me wants to prohibit them from leaving the ground; if one of them falls I am so screwed.  

I'm the leader/chaperone guy for a group of Portland teens, who fan out around the walls and caverns of HorseThief Butte.  These crags are the stalwart remnants of a basalt monolith that survived the prehistoric glacial floods.  We play hide and seek, evading one another behind rock outcroppings, laughing.  Once we get our breath back, we climb to the top to eat our lunch.  The Columbia River surrounds the escarpment like a horseshoe.  Mt. Hood dominates the skyline with its sharp relief.

Before the creation of the dams, there was a Native American Village on these shores.  The Columbia roared cascaded over a steep drop known as Celilo Falls..  For many and more generations, the Wishram and other indigenous peoples gathered their sustenance from the river, netting and spearing behemoth salmon.  The dams flooded everything, buried the falls and the village.  Today, hand crafted wooden fishing platforms remain along the shores; weathered white, the bones of what once was.

I cram my fingers into the cold crack and scan for the next hold.  The rock wears an icy veneer, with snow choking the inner recesses of the corner system.  The wind whips around me, and for a moment it feels like a hand on my shoulder, beckoning me into the void below.  I keep looking for that magic, “oh-thank-god” hold that unlocks the sequence and delivers me to the summit.  But all I see are exposed friction moves on slippery rock, too dicey for hiking boots and no rope.

I take several deep breaths, feeling the all encompassing solitude, and know that as I have gotten myself into this position, I alone will have to get myself out.  I delicately down climb on slick holds, my foot reaching blindly for the ledge below, until my toes finally touch down.  I step across an exposed slab and end around back to the climbing route.  I had hoped to gain the summit, but now I must find an alternate route… or retreat.

It’s mid-October and I am on one last backpacking venture into the Cascades.  Unable to find anyone with the same days off, I go it alone to a zone I have never explored.  The Chelan-Sawtooth Mountains rarely blip on backpackers’ radars.  Overshadowed by the somewhat more dramatic and well known neighboring peaks of Washington Pass and the Enchantments, these trails are better known by hunters and dirt bikers.  Having heard rumors of superlative backcountry skiing, and the fact that this was the only corner of the Cascades not forecasted to get absolutely poured on these few days, I decided to check it out.