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Thanks John! Crazy to see what the glaciers looked like then. Seems like a big portion of this ridge used to be covered.

Nice line. Here's what it looked like 54 years ago on July 10, 1971.

Over the last 3 days, Lani and I climbed what we believe to be the FA of the North Ridge of Redoubt. This is the long, NW trending ridge that looms over the North Face glacier route. The route was actually quite classic and comes with a high recommendation. It is by far more enjoyable than the standard route scree encountered on the descent. The route was primarily low fifth class and fourth class scrambling and we roped up for roughly 1100', though snow coverage and comfort sloping may drastically impact this number. The ridge gains a bit over 2000' over around .5 miles of horizontal. The name is inspired by the little ball of fire, Calcifer, from howls moving castle, as we watched the Perry Creek fire grow in the distance. Day 1 We approached and bivied at Ouzel lake. A bird tells me the Depot Creek "trail" is in particularly excellent condition, requiring NO bushwhacking, and they said handlines are even avoidable. The same bird mentioned that current logging roads take you all the way to the border, making the approach to Ouzel Lake 4.5 miles. We bivied all the way up at Ouzel lake as we were initially planning on climbing Spickard the next day, but growing smoke from the Perry Creek fire changed our minds on that plan. There is also an excellent potential camp at the top of Depot Creek falls, potentially allowing for a direct approach, though this would require bushwhacking of unknown taste... There are also potential bivy options on route to help facilitate a 2 day itinerary. Day 2 From the lake, we made a long contour on talus, loosing only around 400', once near and below the objective, we made our way up talus and slabs to the toe of the ridge. Excellent running water out of the toe of the glacier. We initially attempted the cracks smack on the toe of the ridge, I bailed around halfway up after encountering some 5.11 tips and entering unpleasant looseness. There is an obvious corner left of the toe that potentially holds a very classic potentially moderate direct start. The unsent directismo After bailing off the toe, we looked to the right and zig-zagged up ramps to gain the buttress crest. Snow coverage will drastically impact your experience here. Once on the ridge crest we found thousands of feet of enjoyable scrambling on mostly sound rock. Lani compared it to the NE buttress of triumph but with mostly better rock. We roped up for the occasional pitch, but mostly soloed. There is a broad saddle at 7600' where things begin to steepen subtly. This would also make an excellent bivy with a permanent snowfield for water access. Above the notch, the climbing steepened and we climbed a few back to back pitches until we were below a prominent gendarme. Unsure what the top of the gendarme would be like we traversed into the chossy gully to climbers left and climbed a short, overhanging pitch of surprisingly solid shist. After topping out the gully, we found the descent off the gendarme would have been chill, so Future parties should consider a direct line up the cracks on the gendarme for a more classic finish. Once at the notch in the ridge we met up with the large talus fields that define the slopes on the south summit. The traverse over the sub summits to the true summit was generally easy but involved a few sections of fifth class. Once on the summit, we began the "joys" of doing the standard route late season. Lani in the canonball hole Once at the base of the gullies we encountered awful scree, one could only imagine how much more awful it would be to go up, so there is that... The entire day we had been watching a fire grow in the East. Seeing it expand so quickly and already beginning to envelope spickard in smoke we decided early on our descent to forgo spickard and plan on hiking out the next day. Mordor to the East Day 3 Hike out, blueberries... Suggested Rack Single Rack .3-1, optional 2; full set of nuts; we had a single 60M rope, but it could be done with a 30M line to save weight.

This thread is your hysteria. Look how worked up you are 😂. Are those people storming the capitol? Trying to actually overthrow the federal government? If you can’t see the difference you are blind. Let’s see…arming the military and send them into the streets isn’t authoritarian? The list goes on but you must be blind and deaf, so why bother listing them. You clearly must be incapable. So Joe was simultaneously “authoritarian “ and “napping “? Now that is hysterical. Which is it Brian? Authoritarian napping? Glad to see you’ve own up to living in the cult Brian. Even got the prescribed vocabulary going I see.

They do it all the time. LA, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, DC come to mind.

Burn an American flag as an act of defiance, no problem. Burn a progress/pride flag in WA? Hate crime. Charges filed. Trump? Sure, I support him. About 98%. A few quibbles, like crypto insanity--but he's doing everything we voted for. From where we stand, he's far less "authoritarian" than was Biden. (Or whatever woke cult was running the White House while Joe was napping.) And I thank God every day the Ditz, Kamala, isn't sitting in the Oval Office. Yikes, what were Democrats thinking? Porter, you're being hysterical again. You've live in Washington State for so long, you forgot what America looks like.

We looked at it from Pioneer Ridge in 1980 and thought of it as “Skateboard Wall.” First ascendants can call it what they want, of course. Pardon funky colors. Film got wet.

Yes.

Oh no! Someone showed a a flag on their off hours in a public park!!! Sounds like a ringing endorsement of treason to me!

How many times have the democrats done what happened on January 6th? Are you showing your support of the orange turd? You’ve been very careful to avoid doing that this far. So you consider that event an act of patriotism eh?

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The noose gets tighter at MORA. The park is being severely mismanaged--and, given his history in Alaska, I suspect the new superintendent is the nexus. https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/roadway-from-cayuse-pass-to-stevens-canyon-road-will-be-closed-next-month-at-mount-rainier/ar-AA1LmuTS?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Wow, that is strange. I have to think some sort of AI scrubbing going on?

Another 2 weeks and there would be zero bugs. Bugs die fast in the far north as summer ends in late August. I think that might not have been so aytpical for mid August.

I hope that just means more fun routes keep popping up to spread us mouth breathers out 😉, heard Mt Hardy is a cool looking face!

Yeah, we were really surprised at the bug situation. We all brought bug nets and deet, but never really used them much. The bugs were about as bad as the Cascades in July/August. I'm still confused about it, maybe just a good season, or possibly reverse sandbagging by Alaskans to keep people out (but I doubt it). I think we just got really really lucky.

What a beautiful place, thanks for sharing. Was it very buggy? I've heard horror stories of Alaska mosquitoes but you don't mention it or have bug nets...

Sadly there is some truth in this. Banging around on clean granitic rock for a few days in the Cascades without another soul in sight was definitely a perk.

That's quite a set of perched blocks along the side and top of that lower, scimitar-like feature. Maybe solid for now...

Reliving glory days!

Watching...

Twice, it’s been a while though..

Hi, are these still available?

It is a little known fact that Darin develops routes so that he doesn't have to see other people when climbing high quality rock