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Trip: Mt. Hood - Three Little Monkeys - New Route on The Black Spider Trip Date: 03/31/2018 Trip Report: “Three Little Monkeys” New Route on the Black Spider, Mt. Hood OR WI4+ M5R Michael Getlin and Walter Burkhardt I was chatting with Wayne a few months back and he mentioned that there was some unclimbed potential on the left side of the Spider. A quick scouting mission showed a beautiful and long ice line between the existing Fric-Amos route and the Elder-Russel summer line. A fat long ice line it was not, but it seemed to have smears in all the right places so we gave it a go. We left Timberline at 5am with perfect high cloud cover that promised to keep the sun off the east-facing, concave wall. We crossed the bergschrund at 8:15 and started right in on what we thought would be the crux pitch. A few vertical mixed moves brought me to the hanging, detached ice dagger which proved fragile and delaminated. It was a type of fragile water ice climbing that I have never seen on Mt. Hood. It was strikingly similar to the first pitch of "Mean Streak" in Cody (we bailed). WI4+ (Not Mt. Hood grading) I brought Walter up and then set off to try and connect to another hanging dagger directly above but huge unsupported snow mushrooms guarded it. After sending one down on Walter I decided to try right. This proved to be the crux pitch of the route as rotten snow over near vertical mud lead to two distinct vertical mud chimneys. The second one was protectable, the first was not. It turns out though that in a pinch, the rock/mud takes decent sticks. Several times when I thought I was getting in trouble, I just wailed away at the rock face and my picks stuck like magic! Gotta love volcanoes. M5 R For the third pitch I jogged left again, trying to get back on the plumb line which proved a good guess as we found sound rock with interesting mixed moves and wonderful water ice that took good screws. WI3 M3 After bringing Walter up, I climbed up a narrow ice gully hoping to veer left and drop into the upper bowl through which the Fric-Amos route finishes. At this point it was getting late and we were looking for a quick exit. But to my surprise the bowl was guarded by a vertical snow fin that would have involved about 50 feet of unprotectable down climbing, so I veered right and then straight up, finding a path through wild gold-colored gendarmes that rose like turrets over the upper face. We popped into the sun and knew we were home free. WI3 In all we climbed five full length pitches, the last of which was mostly steep snow. I was lucky to share this experience with Walter. He was a great mentor to me when I first started going to the mountains and I owe him a good deal of credit for keeping me safe and motivated over the years. Note: In retrospect, it’s worth mentioning that the face was pretty dry when we climbed it. The start or Arachnophobia and the visible parts of the center drip looked more like rotten snow than solid alpine ice. I think when the face is fat, the line would be a very reasonable outing. I was surprised at how direct, steep, and sustained it was. I would love someone to give her a go in better ice conditions and see if that little kink in the second pitch could be ironed out. Our line in yellow Looking at the start from below - the face seemed dry to me but it was my first time up there so I don't really know. Approaching the line (Straight ahead) Mid way up the first pitch Walter Following P3 Looking up at the start of P4 Gear Notes: We brought a single 60m, 2 Pickets, 5 screws, 4 pins, and 4 cams (.5-2). We could have used a few smaller cams and a rack of nuts would have been nice Approach Notes: Timberline to top of palmer. Dropped our skis and crossed the white river at about 8800ft. 3:15 car to schrund in good conditions.

Trip: Dragontail Peak - Triple Couloirs Trip Date: 03/31/2018 Trip Report: Quick conditions update, for those of us that don't have facebook and like CC as a resource! Anthony and I climbed TC car to car yesterday. What little ice there is in the sections between couloirs was very thing, not well formed, and poor quality. We brought screws but didn't really place any (I think I placed one 10cm for the sake of it but it wouldn't of held anything). We climbed up the right side of the runnels which seemed to me to offer more rock pro, since the ice wasn't taking screws. Run out mixed climbing and lots of piton placing! The second pitch was the most sketchy; the start was a short section of fun with a thin smear of snice in an open corner that we climbed delicately, but pretty soon that turned into snow on a short blank face with no ice or snice to help. Forunately there was an old rapel tat slung around a horn that with some funky rock climbing was just in reach, and I swallowed my pride and used it as aid in desperation. With some ice, even just a little, it would have been super fun. The exit out of that section was also delicate and engaging. The third pitch was really fun with a neat bit that combined dry tooling, chimneying, and an exit onto thin delicate snice, followed by some uncoslidated snow to add to the spice. The pitch between second and third couloirs was the least difficult I think, but by then the lack of sleep was catching up and I found it harder and more awkward than it really should have been. Overall the snow quality was great. The wind was calm and the views stellar, and it was cold enough but not too cold! A second party just ahead of us climbed up the first couloir a bit then traversed over and rapelled into the top of the 2nd runnels pitch. Thank you to them for kicking steps! It was a really fun day out and the hardest mixed climbing in the alpine I've done so far, and while there were some rather scary and run out climbing, I had so much fun. I've come to the conclusion that if you want to climb winter/spring alpine in the Cascades, you have to get comfortable with mixed climbing, as its just too damn hard to reliably find ice. Photo of N Face: Gear Notes: We brought set of cams from .01-1, a set of stoppers, 5 knifeblades/bugaboos, 1 lost arrow, and (2) 10, (3) 13, and (2) 16 cm screws, and 2 pickets. We used all the KB's/bugaboos, all the cams from 0.2-1, and a selection of the smaller stoppers at some point, and the pickets as the anchor at the top of the crux pitch exiting 2nd couloir. Approach Notes: Trail is well packed

I was up skiing yesterday Northside Blue Peak. Big winds is the story up there. My first lap we skied on the skiers left side below the ridge walls (good2go bowl) trying to find a powder seam. All the tracks that we had made in that same Bowl two days prior were filled in with wind transported snow, so the skiing was okay. On the second lap all the wind transported snow in that same Bowl had been transported somewhere else because all the old tracks from the prior two days were now visible and etched into the slope so the skiing in that area was not quite so good on the Wind hammered surface. A friend of mine describes the conditions as "crappy", but he's been used to ripping powder most of the winter and we are now in that Springtime snow transition period. It's pretty clear the strong winds have been depositing wind drifts on the higher elevations terrain features creating pillows and increasing the fluting along many of the walls. One notable surface wind slab Avalanche occurred yesterday on the south face of Whistler Mountain. It ripped out below the summit pyramid rock face where the snow field starts. Fairly steep in that area and guess of crown depth would be 2 feet or less, but pretty hard to tell from my vantage point.My guess would be something fell out of the Rock's to trigger that. I was looking over at the "Whistler's Mother" couloir and remembering an old ski mentor who skied that gully on pin gear many years ago, in the era of leather boots. Three days ago that gully had a wind drift across it about Midway and yesterday the line connected up. Or maybe it was me who was being transported.

Trip: Dragontail Peak - Triple Couloirs Trip Date: 03/31/2018 Trip Report: Climbed Triple Couloirs yesterday via the bypass of the runnels. Weather was great, but route was pretty bony. There was very little ice thick enough to take a screw and a lot of slabby poorly protected mixed climbing, which was interesting considering we had never climbed mixed before and only had started ice a few months ago. Snow was okay, just slow. Dragontail conditions: We soloed all the couloirs. First couloir was pretty fast. We got to the base of the runnels and decided to pass on that. One other party behind us climbed the runnels and said it was "The hardest mixed climbing they had ever done before". We continued up the 1st couloir another 150 ft and then started a pitch up to the left. One 80 m pitch to the rap anchor at the base of the 2nd couloir. It had a nice icy/mixed corner that actually feature the fattest ice we would see all day, enough to get in a 10cm screw! The final part of this pitch had some sketchy traversing on rotten sugar snow on top of bare rock slab. I had to do some major excavation to find features in the rock slab underneath to use: Short rap, then the crux mixed chimney (but protected well) to the base of the 2nd couloir. 2nd and 3rd couloir were very unconsolidated and full of rotten sugar snow on top of slab in places, which made for exhausting breaking trail sliding around and stepping pretty deep, but at least there's a ladder of steps now. 60 m pitch between 2nd and 3rd couloir was relatively easy mixed, but very poorly protected. Solid 50ft runout between pieces. This pitch was a rope stretcher, and all I could find for a belay anchor were some partially screwed in stubbies... Not much pro around here as I said. Up the 3rd couloir: There was one short last WI2 step in the 3rd couloir, soloed it. Last walk to the summit: Summit photo of Stuart: Descent to Aasgard: 8 hours on route, 1 hour back down to lake from the summit. Descent was pretty firm in places down Aasgard. Some good WI features near the top of Aasgard. Some evidence of shallow wind slab avalanches in the couloirs, but we didn't notice any current activity. Gear Notes: Gear: nuts, angles (used once), cams .2-1 (small cams very useful), 10cm and 13 cm screws (bring the stubbies), pickets (not used, snow was too soft), 60m rope. Approach Notes: No flotation needed as the trail to Colchuck is packed, although the post holing across the lake was pretty bad. Be careful on the lake, one guy punched through and got his boot wet. Snow was consistent from about 2.5 miles up the road on.

Wow, that looks steep! Nice work guys.