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Trip: The Brothers - Brothers Traverse Trip Date: 05/13/2018 Trip Report: Our merry band of chosstronauts climbed both of the summits of the Brothers on the 13th of May to celebrate Nathan successfully completing another trip around the sun. There’s enough beta out there already on the traverse, so I won’t get much into blow by blow of the climb, but I wanted to share some pictures and info I would have found helpful to know before doing it. The trail up to the lake is a highway and very well maintained. On our way up, we passed a friendly WTA work group who was working on blocking switchback cuts. If you haven’t hiked this trail, there are 19 switchbacks in the first 1700ft vert. We were thankful for them on the way up, only to curse them on the way down. Such is the duality of climbing… The next few miles through the Valley of Silent Men was just as memorable as the first time I hiked up the S. Brother 8 years ago, and even more so! There’s a section of fierce blowdowns and mandatory schwacking for about a mile shortly after leaving the lake. Lots of log hopping and trying not to fall into the river all while fighting devil’s club and other pointy foliage. There is a “path” that is flagged through the wreckage, but it’s pretty much a choose your own adventure affair. I didn’t remember this section from my last ascent, so I wonder when all of it occurred, or if it’s just been a deteriorating trail for many years? Anyway, once navigated, the trail again becomes easy to follow to the Lena Forks/climbers camp. We stashed our trail runners and swapped into mountain boots here, but you could probably belay that for another mile or so until after you get through the burn. I’m sure there’s a path through there somewhere, but we didn’t find it. There is a snow finger that follows climber’s left of the burn that we used to bypass some of the bullshit, but this is melting out fast and should be trodden with care. It’s quite thin in places and the river flowing underneath is cold and fast. I punched through on the way down, but was lucky to land upright with my feet on a big rock and my hands out of the hole, keeping me from being swept underneath too far. Be careful! Don't fall in a hole The snow eventually widens into the large south couloir at the top of the burn, and it’s easy going and continuous up the slopes. We chopped a bivy around 5500 ft at some relatively “flat” spots and settled in for the night. In all, from TH to camp was about 5000 ft of vert and 10 miles. Not having done this sort of approach in quite a while, we were all pretty knackered and settled in pretty fast. The night was uneventful, save from the massive stomach cramps my dinner gave me. I usually don’t do dehydrated meals anymore for these climbs, but I found one in my kitchen and the convenience of it won out over going to the grocery store. All I’ll say is that there was a very different sort of alpine aire happening all night in my sleeping bag, which made for a very restless night. Good night south sound Woke up at 430AM the next morning to aim for the 6100” notch in the S Brother SE Ridge with the goal of gaining the Great Basin, the North peak, and then traversing to the South peak. There’s no real good description of what to aim for, and each TR seems to gain a different notch. So here’s a picture of what to shoot for, unmistakable marked. This notch seemed to match the approach notes on the Mountaineer’s website, and we found some rappel tat while climbing it, so I think it’s the correct way to go. There was only a thin finger of snow up the gully when we did it, so it may be gone by now. I’m not sure what climbing up the rock of the gully would be like, but the short sections we had to do were attention grabbing. The backside is steep snow down to the Great Basin, but nothing five minutes of face-in down climbing can’t dispatch. The great basin is quite beautiful, and it’s a really cool feature to traverse across. This is the prominent snow slope visible from far across the sound. It’s amazing to be able to look at from far away and know that you walked across there. Decent to the basin from the notch The ascent couloir to the North Brother was dispatched quickly on slightly mushy but continuous snow all the way to the ridge top. The snow will probably last for a little while longer at least. This deposits you almost right at the summit; a quick few rock moves away. The summit register on the North Brother is gone, but the anchor chain is still there. Wonder what happened to it? From here the traverse begins. Follow all the other beta that’s out there along with your own intuition and you won’t go awry. Every feature that looks impassable or sketchy from afar has options aplenty when examined up close. The climbing was all very straight forward and wasn’t difficult; if you’re doing 5.7+ moves you’re off route. I will note that we went an alternate way to finish the traverse. Instead of going through a cave/moat, and then up the steep NE face of the South peak as described in the beta, we continued to traverse to the NW face, over a rock rib, and up the NW couloir. The route described in other TRs wasn’t in for us; the snow was too unconsolidated and thin at the steepest section and it would have been asking a little much of it to hold on for 4 climbers to pass through. Our alternate way worked well with an exposed move or two of 5.choss. There’s a semi-decent crack to build a quick anchor to protect the leader during these moves here. Be careful if going this way; the snow traverse is quite steep and the rock is very loose and not trivial. There are a few very large loose blocks on this portion waiting to take out a careless climber and a fall here would be catastrophic. It goes though! From the top of the exit couloir, a short 100” scramble puts you on the summit. The traverse took us about 3 hours from the time we roped up to the time the second rope team topped out (2:15-2:30 moving time for each group). We simul climbed almost the entire route, with one static belay over the 5.choss rib. From the South summit, we were back at the TH in 6 hours, including picking up our camp on the way out and lounging around at Lena Forks swapping shoes. Overall, it was fun and a great first climb of the season. The route holds a lot of alpine challenges which all felt real, but never felt too sketchy. It’s a long way back in there though, so bring strong legs and good shoes. Gear Notes: 30m rope 2 pickets 2-3 small cams deez nutz Approach Notes: Too many switchbacks.....

Trip: Lincoln Peak - Standard Route…I guess Trip Date: 06/11/2018 Trip Report: Trent texted Sunday night wanting to know if I was in for tomorrow. Uh, sure. For what? His partner bailed on his planned Lincoln Peak trip. Did I want to go. I haven't climbed any alpine in month's, out of climbing shape, drank all weekend with friends. Sure, I'll go. But I don't know anything about the route or approach, so Trent is the navigator on this one. We got a later start Monday so we didn't have to sit in camp for too long that afternoon. Left Burlington at 11am and drove up to the infamous FSR34. We had the secret weapon for FSR 34. Big Blue, a '79 Ford super duty beast of a truck. We drove up the road through brush and ruts to within 1 switchback of the end. Big Blue would not be denied. We then started the thrash up the old road bed. It is a thrash with plenty of slide alder, rock and an occasional trail. We broke off uphill after having enough of the road bed and enjoyed steep underbrush until finally breaking out onto snow. Surprisingly there was a fairly substantial layer of fresh snow, but travel was easy from there to high camp at the end of the ridge. We got from the car to camp in under 3 hours thanks to Blue. Great views of Lincoln and the route were enjoyed while sipping some whiskey and trying to stay warm. It was breezy and colder than we expected for the evening with clouds moving in and out. A 2am start got us to the top just after 6 for a cool sunrise. The shrund was negotiated with about 40' of steep s'nice climbing, then some crappy snow climbing with a 2" breakable crust with 4-5 inches of sugar underneath. We did have the occasional front pointing, but the large part of the climb was popping through the crust, unless you're bantamweight Trent who seemed to dance on top way more than clydesdale me. Route finding was pretty straightforward and the climbing consistently steep and enjoyable without being hairy. We broke out the rope for the final 10ft onto the summit. Great views with clear weather on top in fresh sunshine was perfect. One rappel off the summit and then we down climbed the entire route with the exception of the schrund, where we did one 30m rappel off of a picket. The steps I bitched about on the way up made for easy down climbing and back to camp. The thrash back down to Big Blue made us cuss and spit, but we made it back in 2 1/2 hours and licked our wounds with IPA spittle. All in all a great day out with Trent. The climb is really enjoyable with a bit of Rockies taste to it. If someone cut a path through that hell of an approach I think it would be a regular classic for its short climbing window. Some crappy cell phone pictures. No Jason G on this trip to capture the great images. I suck at photos. Gear Notes: 2 tools, rope, pickets, Hunters Approach Notes: Big Blue. Shwack, thrash, swear

"International Day of Yoga, or commonly and unofficially referred to as Yoga Day, is celebrated annually on 21 June since its inception in 2015. An international day for yoga was declared unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly. " Unanimous!! The UN!! 2015!! So many levels of humor

namaste, bitches

But who is the boss, really? ... Nope our packs were the same weight, both when leading and following. On the upper 2K foot wallow, one 1.5L water bottle move back and forth between leader and follower. Last year we summited Denali, so we knew we dealt with 20K feet OK. We got the idea from the Smileys who had a similar schedule and felt the altitude but managed. http://smileysproject.blogspot.com/2015/06/denalis-cassin-ridge-classic-climb-45_25.html We asked our paying bosses, very nicely.

Guys, you know you can do both at the same time? Don't limit yourself! Even if you're a knee dropper, there's a single stick out there for you!

Awesome work you two! Excellent write up and I love you got a photosphere on the summit!!! (I got the West Buttress route photosphered, just had to go back for the summit!)

so what's next?