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On Saturday, June 14th, Kelly Ryan and I climbed a rock buttress in the Washington Pass area, based only on photographs I had taken of that rock buttress a couple of weeks prior. It has 1000′ of mostly moderate and enjoyable granite climbing, with trees available for almost every belay station. The route is solidly Grade III in size. We swung leads for eight long pitches, where I led the odds and Kelly led the evens. We estimate that maybe one pitch was 5.9, and a number of others were 5.7 / 5.8, but there certainly were factors that could have led us to over-estimating difficulties at the time, so it's possible those difficulties will get downgraded upon the arrival of more opinions. There is a walk-off from the top, which returns to the route’s base. We took a lot of extra time dealing with the details of the unknown here, but with the beta now known, I imagine par for the course could be 12 to 13 hours car-to-car for this moderate route. It's hard to know if this is a new first ascent or not. We definitely climbed it in the style of a first ascent; and despite a lot of searching, I've yet to find conclusive proof that the particular line we climbed has been previously climbed in its entirety. Whatever the case may be, I'm rather proud of our little effort here! More details in this write-up: https://rocknropenw.com/2025/06/17/la-croupe-du-poney/

Trip: Kendall peak - Trail Trip Date: 06/23/2025 Trip Report: Kiba and I went up Kendall yesterday. Had the summit all to ourselves the whole time, lots of hikers out but I guess they were all just going to the catwalk. IMG_7412.mov Gear Notes: Dig Approach Notes: Trail

“It was supposed to freeze overnight and didn’t," she says, “I was just, like, standing, and then all of a sudden, the snow underneath me collapsed." Ummm, yea. Ok. And you're a guide?

Is it just me? IMO this episode reflects very poorly on the climbing community. No broken bones? Hike the f^ck out. At a minimum, turn off your "live feed" while good people are trying to rescue you. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/washington-woman-records-mountainside-rescue/ar-AA1H3KjQ?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Check out the sweet granite stash in Renton. Tons of plumb lines waiting to be put up if you’re hard enough.

Index. Go easy on FA froth until you've been around a particular crag for a bit and gotten to know it and its crew.

Hiya, I'm new to the area and looking to get on some rock. Is there anywhere in the greater seattle area that I can go and fix a line for an afternoon and mini-trax? Preferably crack climbing on granite. Preferable quiet during the week. I don't mind an approach if it gets me what I want. Also a curious question - what's the general FA ethic around here? Ground up by stance I hope? kev

Oh, and post up a TR when you get back (unlike me)!

Climbed S. Twin last weekend and snow starts about 4900' in the basin between N and S Twin, but the west ridges of both peaks are dry. One approach for a 2-3 day trip would be to camp in basin between peaks at about 4900. Good flat camps there along the climber's trail. When you packed up after climbing the WR of the S Twin, you could leave the S Twin climber's trail ~4200' and 'schwack NW to intersect the N Twin climber's trail ~4500' on the WR. Drop overnight stuff there and go up and down the WR of N Twin, picking up the stuff before heading out (or camping another night at the end of the logging spur where the N Twin climber's trail begins. Note- I have not done the connection described above so I have no idea how 'schwacky it is, but it would save a lot of distance and elevation gain from going back to the road before heading up for N Twin.

Anyone been up Twin Sisters lately? Looking for snow conditions. Thinking of leaving late some night soon and taking a couple days/nights to do them both at a leisurely pace. I love the long ridge scrambles so going to do them individually and not the traverse. Can't decide what order to hit them or where to camp, so any beta or recommendations welcome.

Beautiful trip; great photos!

Don't be trying to access your public lands @Fairweather!

https://www.nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/carbon-river-and-mowich.htm Based on a conversation I had with staff and the link above, it is illegal to access the park via Mowich or Carbon entrances--period. No bicycle workarounds, not via Foothill Trail, no secret back doors. No access except from Sunrise or Westside Road on foot. (I didn't mention Lake Eleanor.) Unless, of course, you are NPS staff in a white pickup truck.

Any photos of that pass between colchuck and dragon tail? Looking for beta on those south facing slopes.

Nice work!

Great work! I'd really like to do this one. I've been to that basin twice and that shwacky section in the woods is very hard to navigate. Enough so that I took detailed notes each time and made a GPX track for myself. How was the climbing on route?

You may be right. Are we not men? We are DEVO.

this could be the Scopes Trial of our era

It's nearly impossible to climb an alpine route without getting off the trail. The NPS must know this. Another reason not to post GPS tracks online.

Conflicted. Not a big fan of trail runners--or the NPS.

Great TR! Thanks. We did this one back in the 1990s--I think it was mid May and the Boulder Shelter was buried to the roof. I do recall some very, very steep snow below the top that was obviously covering a cliff band. This was the era of 35mm slides; I'll have to flip through the book.

Thanks! The traverse over to Colchuck Glacier wasn't too bad. The only challenges were dealing with the continuous rock/snow transitions as the snow had firmed up quite a bit since we didn't wrap up the rappels until close to sunset (and we didn't feel like putting on crampons until we hit the constant snow higher up), and the unfortunate uphill to get up to the pass between Colchuck and Dragontail. But that stuff was just your typical slog after dealing with the technical climb/rappels on Argonaut (we decided it better than going back through the trees/slide alder in the dark though).

Props for following that approach in the dark. Was tricky even with light. How was the traverse between bottom of Argo raps and the Colchuck glacier? I Remember it seemed like a slog so we quit and descended back into the Argo basin.

Wow, that is a big effort! I have had this on my list for a long time and still do....thanks for the report!