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Trip: North Early Winters Spire - Labor Pains (Retro Bolt) Trip Date: 06/21/2021 Trip Report: I know, I know, I'm sure someone will be upset that retroed this hardman test piece but hear me out. Labor Pains has been on my to-do list for years, but I was just too intimidated by its reputation. I knew that when I did eventually climb it, I wanted to replace some of the hardware to make it less of a death route, all while retaining it's character. Since I wasn't able to get permission from the FA party, I committed to doing it in the best possible style I could manage. I self belayed every pitch in it's original state, then replaced the hardware I felt was warranted on the way back down to clean the pitch. I placed 3 bolts total, all hand drilled. As far as the climbing goes, I thought the grades listed on the topo were largely quite soft. The one exception being the 11a mantel on P4. If climbing this with a partner, rope drag would be a serious concern. I might actually consider climbing this with half ropes to mitigate the drag, but proper slingage should help considerably. P1 5.0: Start up Chockstone route, then traverse up and left, through a loose chimney system to the ledge just below P2. Confident parties should just solo this, however the looseness should be taken into account. P2 5.10: Climb the somewhat crumbly right facing corner system. This pitch protects well enough, and is the only pitch you really want the #3 and #4 on. The bulge is much easier than 5.11. Once above the bulge, slab left to a thin corner system and up onto the sloping ledge above. Looking down P2 from just above the bulge. P2+ 5.9?: I recommend moving the belay up to the ledge above. A horizontal overlap and sloping ledge will provide a good stance for the next pitch. You could even move all the way up to the base of the thin cracks if you wanted to. P3: 5.10+: Aim for the obvious thin crack above. This "mini west face" is actually a double crack, with the easier of the two being the right crack. Once through the seam, traverse left below the roof, and look for the bolt around the corner. I determined this bolt to be in good shape, and not yet in need of being replaced. I re-drove the piton above it, and it can be adequately backed up by a .1 cam just to the left of the pin. Replacing the pin with a bolt would be nice, but I determined the pin, supplementary cam, and proximity to the bolt to be safe enough. Continue over the bulge on cool flakes to where you will now find a new shiny bolt. This used to be a rusty pin behind a flake. The pin turned out the be pretty damn good, but certainly not sustainable. More somewhat runout climbing takes you to the right, then back left to the newly updated bolt anchor. Broke my tuning fork before I was able to remove the old button head. It now suits as a good spot to hang your shoes. The old pin, and the new protection bolt. P4 5.11a: From the bolted anchor, step up on good edges until you can reach the new bolt up and right. Slab your way hard right under the loose flakes to the sloping ledge. A thin crack which takes good pro will take you up and over a steep bulge. The topo calls out a "not so great fixed pin" which was gone before I got there. If you are already feeling some rope drag, I recommend belaying on the slab just above the mantel. The remainder of the route climbs flakes and cracks up and left on licheny but easy terrain. The previous runout straight off the P4 belay. The new bolt that protects you from falling straight onto the belay. Overall I thought this routes reputation was a bit overblown. In it's previous state, all the hardest climbing was well protected, but some falls could have been catastrophic. As it stands now, I truly believe I was able to retain the adventurous excitement of the route, while mitigating the danger. It is still PG13, as bolting all the runouts would be unreasonable. Get on this route, It's really fun! Gear Notes: Double rack from micro to #2. Single #3 & #4. Standard rack of nuts plus some brassies might come in handy. Many shoulder length slings. 70m rope to take advantage of the W-face raps. Approach Notes: Standard Blue Lake approach

Trip: Mount Terror - West Ridge Trip Date: 06/20/2021 Trip Report: YouTube video: https://youtu.be/xpHcQ5-uq5g 3 day trip, early season. Crux of the trip were the raging stream crossings. Getting in during the morning was okay. But had to work to find a crossing on the way back with the streams rising. Went aways downstream on the last crossing and hopped a big rock to an island then climbed up to a pair of fallen logs and au chevaled one to get across. We saw more bear crap on the trail this trip than the last 10 years combined. Literally about every couple hundred feet was a pile of bear poo. Heard some crashing through the brush on the way out pretty close to the trailhead. The poo thinned out once we got to Terror Creek but still saw some up on the climbers trail on the ridge. Other than that its tough to follow the climbers trail in without constantly losing it. If you lose it don't venture too far, find it as soon as possible. From Terror creek it was almost 4000ft gain before we saw any running water for as much snow as there is up there. The campsite at the col is under a giant 10ft mound of snow with just the edge visible. We carved out a tent platform in a whiteout just next to the rocks of the ridge. Next morning had great weather and snow all the way from camp to within 10ft of the notch up the gully. Great conditions going up, didn't rope up, no moats forming yet. Then a short steep snow section up to the base of the rock climb. Not sure why there are reports of 2 pitches of low 5th class. We did a 30 meter pitch of low 5th then it was easy scrambling from there. We went to the false summit first (in hindsight should have gone into the right gully below the face further down. This meant a 4th class downclimb a hundred feet or so. There were some rap slings but we just downclimbed. It looked intimidating from further back but once on the left side of the face it was great 3rd class (some have said 4th class) scrambling with solid rock. Steep enough we did 3 rappels back down from existing slings. The rap stations were all looking pretty ratty so we left behind a couple slings to back them up. The step across to the true summit is exposed but easy on solid rock. The summit register is in a crack right at the summit block. If you step up to the summit block, look down and its in a little white PVC tube in a crack. The snow coming down the gully was a couple inches of soft mush over hardpack and we had to facein downclimb about 2/3 of it. Gear Notes: 60m skinny rope, light rack to #1, a few small nuts, ice axe, crampons Approach Notes: Its the Pickets, it sucks. Like the TR before us. If you loose the climbers trail, find it. Crux of the trip were the raging stream crossings.

Trip: das toof - South Face & Tooth Fairh Trip Date: 06/21/2021 Trip Report: Finally got the trade route done with a bonus linkup of the rape bolted monstrosity the Tooth Fairy. woot. Zach and I sacked up at 8:30 on some skin track that leads the short way to Source Lake. Being a regular SAR + ski patrol member has given him encyclopedic knowledge of the myriad paths scattered around Alpental. I (snowshoes) and Zach (microspikes) followed two skiers, Eric and Allen (I think...) most of the way to Source Lake. Nice dudes. They were headed for the Tooth Fairy as well. (You know that weird overachieving stoke that comes in the car ride at about Exit 45? We mutually agreed to try for the twofer S. Face and the Fairy so we wouldn't have to slog all the way up there again for a while, until we would get REALLY psyched and storm the East Face sideshow attraction.) The big ramp above Source Lake was a slog but the moats were interesting to look at, if terrifying. I have yet to become comfortable on snow, at all. This was a big step tho. Eventually we reached Pineapple Basin. No sign of the skiers but we had two ladies ahead and a two dudes + dad behind. We passed the ladies and the trio passed us. Shoutout to them storming up that gully in approach shoes. Fortunately they, too, were off to the Tooth Fairy. We got to Pineapple Pass first and racked for glory. I led P1 and the P3 scramble, leaving, coincidentally, the crux 4th for Zach. We chose that juggy layback in the middle; I'm a little tempted to come back for the Catwalk but when I head up there again it'll likely be for Chair... Summit was exquisite and certainly the nicest of the four ( :3 ) Snoqualmie summits I've been on. On the raps down we passed the ladies on P3 and the skiers on P2, as evidently a party of three in front (on toof fairy) was too much for them to endure. The spoils of whatever war they were fighting finding a better skin track. The moats around the SW face are unpleasant. I shall say no more about that. Tooth Fairy was a fun second half albeit a bit hot. Mostly 5.7-8ish except the very fun P2 and the awkward P5. P5 reminded me of the Plank (a highly overrated and rather contrived route at Exit 38) in the way that to avoid making their multipitch .11+, there's a bleh slabby traverse at the base of an overhang. Goes to show how difficult it is finding sport multipitch on andesite, so props to Nelson and Whitelaw. Quite dehydrated at the end of P5, we discussed the necessity of expediting things. I gave up looking for bolts on P6 after mistakenly skipping the first one and romped left in a rage. Fortunately the gully I found led straight to the summit on dirt and heather plus had an overcammed placement for the one piece of pro on my harness (secondhand .75 X4). We rapped the South Face again with dry lips. Contouring back on steep snow in climbing shoes was problematic. Getting over the moat was worse. Zach tried to jump and [REDACTED]. I found an OK spot and carved out steps with my axe. Rapping down those beautiful bolted anchors in the gully was exquisite. Terrified initially by the glissade I was disappointed by the lack of slope and speed in the rest of Pineapple Basin. Then there was no more glissading due to moats/pits/boulders, but lots of self-arrests to avoid those unpleasant little scummers. Eventually we made it out. Nice day out altho now I can't sit down because of glissade abrasions and my back hurts from carrying the rope whilst lurching about on slippery snow. Ya reap what ya sow I suppose. Will post pics in a moment. Gear Notes: Buncha draws for tooth fairy. A few cams for South Face. Dry rope was nice for gully raps. Helmet... ICE AXE! Approach Notes: Patchy ski track to Source Lake - long snow slope to Pineapple Basin - couloir to Pineapple Pass

I'll never give up my hexes, but I have some Tricams that I would be happy to unload. I have pink, red, and brown available. I've carried them a few times but only placed each one maybe once or twice. The slings are in good shape and they have been stored in a sealed plastic bin. Email daniel-p-smith@hotmail.com if interested.