roboboy

I have an old rope you can have. PM me if interested.

That's amazing. I was on an attempt of the north face on the same day in 1983 and we turned back as my partner had misgivings. On the way down we were overtaken by one of the group who had been higher up, who told us of their tragic accident.

PM me if you want them back.

Front Row: don't know, Tom Stewart?, Don Liska, Dave Becksted, Paul Myhre.

I have a book on the Mt Whitney walk up route that you can have, it's not the Croft book. If interested PM me and I'll get it to you, maybe meet somewhere, north end.

We went to Snow Creek wall to check out Hyperspace, a route befitting a climbing God. But unfortunately we couldn't decide who should be the ropegun and we both wanted the glory so we ended up not getting off the ground. That's the way it goes sometimes. I wanted to provide some beta so I at least showed the way across the creek. Jeff Lowe arguably has a more impressive first ascent record. I asked him at his slide show once and he said "over 1000". A lot of them were big walls and hard technical climbing. I think that hardly any or none of them were first ascents of mountain summits however. Also, I don't think either of these two people are willing to discuss this in detail.

And he actually isn't and doesn't want to be.

The 1965 orange covered Leavenworth guide (by Fred) refers to "a severe layback problem just opposite the Mountaineer creek trail departure..." Maybe that refers to classic crack.

You could try rapelling from a tree on top and clear off the loose stuff on the way down (with no one below). Isn't there a route nearby Kiss of the Crowbar ?

Contrary to some opinions, I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a single new technical alpine route this moderate left in the Washington Cascades. I hiked up Porcupine Creek today to get a look at this. From the opposite side of the valley at a long distance away it looks fairly insignificant but must be around 400 vertical ft of rock. The first slabby pitch is pretty good. The 2nd pitch (5.8) is marred by it's low angle heathery finish. Looks like there are many options on the start of the 3rd pitch (probably 4th class by traversing left) but we went straight up to simplify rope management. There is then a short low angle rubble slope (stable) before the 5.7 exit chimney. So not really a classic moderate but still a fun climb on good rock.

these are a couple of photos I have -

We did a few of these climbs this weekend. I was climbing with someone who had never climbed outdoors before so the agenda wasn't too ambitious. You can actually set up a toprope at Garden of Eden by hiking up the ravine on the left and scrambling up the opposite end of the crag, takes about 10 minutes. Access to the climbing is the same as last year, apparently Braeyside farm, although I haven't yet found the sign that calls it that. The parking lot is at the end of Valleyview road above the northeast side of Skaha lake. Parking fee is $10/day or $6 if you get there after 2pm. An annual pass is $78. I counted 25 cars Sunday afternoon but the area didn't seem crowded, there are lots of climbs. You can check the message board at the parking lot shelter for groups occupying popular crags, like Another Buttress, before you bother going there. Cyopeck's secret Eve's dropping

Yak peak last Wednesday night - lots of snow.

I was thinking about this and about the standard route on Triumph, called the West route, that I did once. I think the West route traverses around to the high bench that Layton calls the 1100 ft point on their route on the SW then finishes up on 4th class rock on the upper southeast face, basically crossing over their SW ridge route. The new route sounds pretty worthwhile but basically this means that there is an easy escape to the right to summit from the final two crux pitches of the new route. I guess it also means that you could combine the upper and lower parts of either of the routes as desired ?

This thread reminds me of "Cindy66" about a year ago. This site has some people that will take newbies and offer informal instruction but you usually have to be northwest local in order to get on private trips because they often aren't planned ahead. In the case of Cindy she kept posting and talking about it but never showed up in person and never reported back that she did any climbing. I think the main reason was that she was too far away (Arkansas) for anything to work out. I'm not sure if anyone would have wanted to bother trying to set anything up with an out of town stranger with little climbing experience. This isn't really the season for basic mountaineering around here either so if anyone did want to plan something it's probably going to have to be at least 2 or 3 months from now to get decent weather and conditions on larger mountains.