All Activity

If you haven't yet, I would post it to this Women's forum on Mountain Project... https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/103989406/womens-forum

Trip: Snow Creek - The Chisel (North Face, 5.9) Trip Date: 06/14/2024 Trip Report: After stumbling across Jplotz's photos of the Chisel on SummitPost taken in 2006, I was inspired by the aesthetics of this pinnacle and the lack of information about it. Jplotz, 2006: The photo that captured my imagination Photo from 6/14/24 Working with only the 2006 photos, a brief mention in the Cascade Alpine Guide, and a location pin on Caltopo (later discovered to be inaccurate) my buddy Sam and I set off for a Cascadian adventure. We approached via the Wedge Mountain Trail, bushwhacking and scrambling south along the ridge to the point where we would drop down into the 4th class terrain and descend the 500 feet to the base of the Chisel. The bushy ridge of Wedge Mountain, looking north. The tower in the middle is not the Chisel. In hindsight, the more sane approach is to take the Snow Lakes Trail and ascend a gully (unless you have a hankering for a scrappy, scrambly day out) even though the mileage and elevation gain are higher. This way, you can avoid most of the schwacking, the loose descent off the ridge, and the heinously overgrown road to the Wedge Mtn. Trailhead. The second crux of the day (the first being the road) was locating the Chisel. Caltopo's pin is about 400 feet too far north, and this caused some confusion as we continued down the ridge with no Chisel in sight. After traversing a little farther and scrambling up to a viewpoint, we finally laid eyes on the pinnacle and felt a mixture of stoke and worry as we realized how much sketchy, kitty litter and pine needle-covered 3rd and 4th class terrain we would have to descend to reach our objective. The Chisel reveals itself! We hemmed and hawed for a few minutes, then started carefully down-scrambling. We made one rap off a tree, then roped up and traversed south across a dense 45˚ forest slope, using the trees for a natural running belay. Just when it felt like we must have passed the formation, Sam shouted back to me that we were close! Soon we were back on rock, scrambling to the base of the climb. We took a short break to settle in and rack up, then started up the real climbing. I led the first short step to the big belay ledge, a hand crack behind a flake. Up next was the 75' 5.9 pitch that I had seen referenced but never photographed. I was surprised by how protectable and high-quality it looked. 75 feet of 5.9 crack! I started up the wide layback, noting how much the lichen-crusted rock reduced the friction beneath my feet. At a good stance, I placed gear and moved into a section of good hands followed by good fists. More laybacking on flakes and good gear led to the final section of good hands with increasingly abundant and positive face holds. Topping out, I whooped with delight and stoke on the fun lead and spectacular position. I brought Sam up, and we took a moment to enjoy the views and take photos. There are three bolts at the top, an assortment of rusty 1/4"ers. We replaced the old tat and equalized the two best bolts, backing them up to a nut. Woohoo! Sam on rappel The scramble up and out was straightforward enough, though accompanied by many laments of the Wedge Mtn approach. Burgers in town capped off an unforgettable day out! As far as we know, we are the first party to climb the Chisel since 2006. If anyone has done it before us since 2006 let us know and tell us about it! The little summit block of Wedge, a small bonus on the day Gear Notes: If you want to sew it up and have a solid anchor: Singles 4 to 0.4 Doubles 2 to .75 Approach Notes: Wedge Mountain approach is much more bushwhacking and scrambling. Snow Lakes Trail is probably much more straightforward than what we did, but longer.

There isn't a size tag on the coat...but it's probably men's large in today's sizing.

Hyperion is still available. Price lowered to $220.

Women make up approximately half of all climbers yet are significantly underrepresented in the current literature on rock climbing injury incidence, risk factors, and prevention. My team at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine is conducting a research study to fill this gap and investigate gender-specific risk factors unique to women. Your participation in this survey will greatly contribute to our understanding of risk factors and injury prevention among female climbers. Access the survey using the QR code below or this link: https://jh.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d0yU1HrB3031NWK

I can find no message... Kletterhund@msn.com

Is there a size listed???

I have iPhone 12 and Ian has iPhone 15. Most of these are his pictures, they look quite a bit better than mine!

Super cool, that doesn't get done very often. What are you using to take photos?

Congrates ... well done

Wow there is a name I have come across in a while. I loved Conquistadors of the Useless.

Purchased in Kathmandu. Lionel Terray was a French climber who died in 1965 so this coat is old. Has been stored on a closet and unworn for decades. Two rows of snaps, very warm high loft down. Own of piece of history, and a warm coat. $50.

Not that I would know, but I bet you guys just got ideal conditions. I also enjoyed the video. I'm also someone not psyched about drones in the wilderness. No doubt that footage is awesome, but the TR would totally not be diminished if that footage didn't exist. Thanks for sharing here.

Continued thanks to those that utilize the "Donate" button in the upper left! We've had a few people donate more recently, and these funds go towards stuff like software licensing, domain registrations, and other expenses. Thank goodness the biggest cost is covered by American Alpine Institute.... our only sponsor other than you! Together with AAI this site lives on without Google soul harvesting. And should any of you want a free Cascadeclimbers.com sticker or two reach out to me. Would love to see these on vehicles at the crags and trailheads. I still have a good amount of them and they aren't doing any good sitting on bag on my desk. If your work at an outdoors store or climbing gym or whatever, I can get you some to give out.

@strongsexysmart have one for you -- sent you a private message.

I also finished a video of this trip with talk at the end going over details of the climb:

Yocum Ridge was on our objective list for this winter. Initially, I was thinking sometime in March or late Feb would be optimal conditions. On Thurs 2/1, I was perusing Mountain Forecast and noticed that the temperatures on Hood were still quite cold, despite the unseasonable warmth in the rest of the PNW. Wind/visibility for Sat looked excellent. I also found some photos from a couple days prior of the South side, and the rime ice coverage looked quite good. I texted Ian, and he responded right away with a “lets do it”. On Fri he met me at work in Cashmere at 3:45pm and we left for Oregon. At 8:45pm we were skinning up the cat track towards the top of the Palmer chair lift. With Ian carrying our 70m rope, we were able to sustain around 2,600’ of gain to the top of Palmer in around 90min. From there we left the cat track and traversed another 800’ up to Illumination Saddle, arriving at 11pm sharp. We set up the tent, made dinner, and were sleeping by midnight. We awoke at 6am to start the morning routine. I got breakfast and water started while Ian prepped gear. We were on the move by 7:20am, just behind three pairs of climbers on the Leuthold Couloir route. We quickly descended and crossed the Reid Glacier and gained the ridge at 8,800’. The first 700’ of ridge climbing was very fast, and conditions were perfect. Firm snow made for one-swing sticks. At the base of the first gendarme, we set up belay and I lead two short pitches to the top. The rime was still quite solid and easy to climb. Protection was with pickets. We ended up using pickets, a couple cams, and a couple ice screws on route, but mostly pickets. From there, we slung the top of the gendarme and with no way to ease into the rappel, I jumped off the top. The rappel was very awkward and mostly sideways along the ridge. Ian followed, and we traversed a longer section of moderate simul-climbing terrain on the serrated ridge crest. I made it to a ledge shortly after and in the rising sun, I changed into my t-shirt and belayed Ian up. The terrain on this part of the climb is amazing. The rime ice formations are sharp and huge. Coupled with the blue skies and views of the other Cascade volcanoes it makes for a very unique and beautiful setting for the technical climbing. We simul-climbed the ridge crest past the less-remarkable 2nd gendarme on the South side, and up the 3rd gendarme. We then made a similarly awkward traversing rappel from the top. This time I had to take out an ice tool while on rappel to get around an awkward tower and back to the ridge crest. The rope reached just far enough to get past the scary terrain. From there, I called out “off belay”. Ian pulled his backup picket and came down as well. From here, we solo’d up the ridge to the base of the massive upper buttress. I entered a forking gully at the base, and decided to go left. This lead to a nice flat bench, where I re-organized my pack a bit and called my wife. Meanwhile Ian pulled the rope, packed it up, and carried it through the moderate terrain up to the bench. I often like to joke that Ian is basically the guide and I am just a privileged client. He is often willing to do 90% of the work on a route without a single complaint, which sometimes makes me feel guilty. At the bench, we switched the rope to my pack and Ian took a turn leading us up to a very intimidating looking rime-ice headwall. From what I have read, not many people, if any, actually go to the top of this thing. It’s much bigger than the gendarmes, and we attempted two vertical routes to get up it. Ian tried both unsuccessfully. I was feeling good and gave it a shot, only to have the rime beneath my feet, then knees, then ice picks all give out and I took a good 15’ fall. Up until this point, we were making very good time, but we burned over an hour trying to scrape up the headwall. We decided to try the right branch of the gully, and ended up rappelling a full 35m down into a 60 degree gully. I would have liked to try and find a way up the upper buttress, but we were starting to run out of time, and I believe most other parties (if not all) also made the 3rd rap down into the gully like we did. This rappel was the only place that we deviated from the ridge crest on the climb. Once in the gully, we crawled upward until reaching a 15’ vertical step. Ian managed to lead up, build an anchor using a picket, and belay me. From there, we were able to follow the rest of the gully up to the ridge crest again. By then it was 3pm. We could see the top of the Leuthold route, and the last of the groups we left with was just heading up to the false summit. We solo’d around lots of unstable rime formations on the South side of the ridge, and finally reached the end of the technical difficulties. We stopped there at around 10,600’ to melt water and we were both exhausted. That is not the easiest 1,800’ of climbing one can do. We haggardly slogged our way up to summit and reached it at 4:20pm in warm, windless conditions. The views were amazing, and I sat there on my knees for around 10min just resting and enjoying the scenery. After taking photos, we followed the bootpack down the South-side route, past the sulfur vents and back to our tent at Illumination Saddle. We packed up in around an hour as darkness was setting in. Not wanting to ski down in the dark, we forwent dinner and skied decent powder down toward Timberline Lodge as the last rays of sun disappeared. We made it back to the truck in the dark at 6:15pm. We then proceeded to crank the heat up and beeline for the Hood River McDonalds. 4 hours and 4 cheeseburgers later, I made it home to my wife and one-month old baby girl, Navy. GPX Track: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/mount-hood-yocum-ridge-2c8ed85 Gear List: https://www.packwizard.com/packs Video:

I definitely remember meeting at illumination saddle, I think that was spring 2016 when we did Cathedral, time flies! That's great that you're still getting use out of your NWA stuff over a decade later, I absolutely love to hear that!

What a nice and mellow chat RE drones in the wilderness.... thanks for keeping it civil everyone and thanks for listening @eeelip!

10-4. I didn't think to check the regulations on this since obviously nobody was going to be in this area, but we are planning on just leaving the drone at home from now on. Thanks for the comment!

Sweet, except for that gnarly wet slide. Cooper spur and the Eliot headwall are looking prime for skiing.

Timely report but yeah next time leave the drone at home. I find them quite annoying

Hey Bill, I think we met on Illumination saddle... you were camped up there going over to do Cathedral Ridge, this was years ago. I have two Black Spider Hoodies, they are my favorite mid layer for alpine/winter climbing. I also have the old softshell jacket and pants which I won at the Craggin' Classic at Smith... in maybe 2013?! They are still going strong, especially the jacket which I love. Glad to see NWA continuing to do it the right way!

What a prime adventure. I absolutely love wandering the muskegs and ridge tops in that area of the world. The alpine environment is so close to sea level. I need to retire and go do more of that.

I've thought about this one for years, but I can't remember how I got the idea. It's done occasionally by Sitka locals. I'd be happy to share my track via PM. Next up: a packraft traverse of Admiralty Island, or maybe a climb of Peak 5390--Baranof Island's highest point in photo #3.