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If you camp at upper Ingalls Basin I would think you might as well pop up to the Lake and take Ingalls Pass out, but I could be wrong about that (it is not very far up to Ingalls Lake from there) My advice about the W. Ridge routefinding is try to scope it out well from a good vantage like Ingalls Lake and Pass and make some mental notes about big things that you'll be able to discern when right below them. Follow cairns from the summit to get to Cascadian Couloir. It's just on the other side of the East Peak. If you stay right on the crest initially there's a scramble path you can take that avoids traversing the snowfield directly below the summit. When we were up there 2 weeks ago the snow in the CC was pretty hard (i.e. easier to walk down talus unless you had crampons, unfortunately talus was not an option), though the day before at the same time of day the Stuart Glacier was casual. Probably something to do with the elevation difference.

I tried Pixie Corner and Jolly Roger and backed off of them both. Jolly Roger was more stemming without positive holds and my resolve just slowly melted until about 10m when I decided to downclimb (Later I saw somewhere that it is more difficult higher up?). I think the Pixie Corner decision was basically made on the ground. Rounded insecure finger locks soloing? You really should check out the Clean Starts/Neat and Clean area. At Clean Starts there's I think 3 distinct cracks. Left to right it's a finger crack, hand crack, hand crack recessed in dihedral. I thought the right stuff looked easier but it wasn't. I tried the far right, got halfway up, switched to the middle, then really cringed on an insecure topout (grabbing grass hummock). Then before I left I thought I could climb the finger crack as high as I wanted then downclimb, and it turned out to be much easier! Bomber locks pretty much the whole way. Of course YMMV depending on your finger size and technique. And I agree totally about Sugarloaf. Have you guys done that hand crack boulder problem through a roof that's just inside the jungle on the right (N) side of the Murrin Park parking lot?

Dude it's like a 1/4 of a mile. Don't sweat it. Just drive there and check it out. If it's too heinous for your rig, just walk.

OK. I guess you're right. It could be a reasonably long day, depending on how much was belayed. I still don't think it's easy (to avoid the chop), and I still don't think it's a traverse. To go from Roosevelt to Kaleetan, you climb up Roosevelt, then back down to the base. Then you walk over to the start of the N Ridge of Kaleetan and you climb up that. I think of a traverse as climbing over a contiguous feature between two peaks. Roosevelt Kaleetan is no more a traverse than Snoqualmie Peak -> Chair Peak would be, or perhaps closer would be Liberty Bell by the Beckey Route, rap down Overexposure to the notch then climb Lexington or Concord or whatever that tower is by Lib Bell by the N Face Route.

You probably wanna take Ingalls Pass to access the West Ridge, then Longs Pass on the way out. Are you planning on camping in upper Ingalls basin or at Ingalls Creek near where the Longs Pass trail is? West Ridge times can vary quite a bit. Depends on how much roped climbing you do and your routefinding decisions. It's easy to get lost up there. The West Ridge sees its share of unplanned bivys, so your time could be 2 days. A somewhat fast time from car to summit is 6 hours. I was just up there a couple of weeks ago and my time from summit to camp at Stuart Pass was 4 hours, partner took 6.

You guys just wait. Soon the demo challengers will have the entire theme of their campaigns centered upon Bush's Iraq "problem", then come sept 15 or so, "we" will "discover" a huge WMD stockpile. This will quickly send the demo challengers down in flames, then come Nov 10, we can put the anthrax and nukes back into our store-rooms.

Sounds like a great idea. The question is where. Squamish is pretty kid-friendly but a long way away. I guess Leavenworth must have some good places?

Roosevelt-Kaleetan is not easy and it's not a traverse. Probably not even all day. It's usually not good form to take your buddies from out of town on something that has significant death-by-loose-rock potential. I'd like to try to answer the original question, but it is so vague it's tough to get a handle on. How easy is easy? Saying "friends from out of town" hints of total newbiedom, but perhaps they could be your buddies Steph and Dean from Moab. Similarly "all day" will vary depending on your abilities. For example, The Tooth is all day to most, and sub 3 hours to many. Narrow the field and I'll bet you'll get a lot more suggestions (and more useful ones too).

Once you get drunk you could mane some topropes. Good way to pick up on newbie chicks.

Hi Cascadeclimbers! It's Thurday Tool Haiku Time!!!!!!!!!! Show your inner GEEK!

called via modem climbers gather in the Fall free beer or freedom? (note the reference to a season, thus a "real" Haiku)

Hey Beck! I know you're not asking for opinions, but thought I'd float this suggestion by you. Do you think you could possibly maybe see if those lovely waitresses from the Blue Star could be the ones serving the beer at the big event? Thank you for your attention.

Can you make that tree in the background go straight up and down?

The way this has evolved appears to be that: this is Beck's party and you all are invited to attend. "This is not a democratic thing." Beck and whoever are merely using the CascadeClimbers name, the "Rope Up" name, and maybe $$$ from the on-site advertising(??). They have not asked for input. No consent is implied or solicited. The only injury I see to those upset is perhaps they/we have lost some planning time, while blithely skipping away the days assuming Beck was going to make all our dreams come true. If we don't like the sounds of Beck's party, we don't have to go. If someone wants to have a party that conforms more to his/her ideals of what the "Rope Up" should be, then time's a wasting with all this bitching. The Full Moon Pyramid OR stewardship extravaganza is Beck's event, and I don't see any reasonable grounds for "taking it back". It weren't never ours in the first place. If you want your perfect party, then create it. If you don't wanna do the work, then just show up at the party you're invited to and deal with what is provided/required. I agree that the more we learn of Beck's Big Bash plans the more suck it sounds. But that mostly because we have been thinking of it completely in terms of last years serendipitous success. How can it compete? Perhaps if last year didn't exist, then noone would be whining now. We'd just think about Beck's Big Bash as an opportunity, an invitation. I think we need to get over the fact that Beck is "taking" our party. He's having his own, and we're invited (except Rat ), and why complain about that? If we want a better one, let's get working on it, instead of trashing Beck. Of course, if it is planned the same weekend, then perhaps at that point a little Beck Bash bashing would be wise to try to draw all our "friends" to the alternate venue .

Is the road still open?

Kangaroo Corner??? No. I just looked at the guide. It's right next to (or is?) "clean starts".

Upper Ingalls (just below Stuart Pass, Ingalls creek side) is way cool fairy meadows. Probably buggy though. When we were there (~ 2 weeks ago), down lower in the valley was not buggy, but majorly buggy up higher.

No problem man. It just allowed me to accomplish maximal chestbeaterdom by chestbeating about something I haven't even done.

Seems like that soloist thingy could hold a fall, but it's scary enough to be taking a lead fall when you've got a partner around to help you out should you get banged up enough to require it. Being out totally alone somewhere is even more scary. I'll be sticking with high-percentage stuff with the soloist I figure (or using to toprope). I think DBerdinka's still got one for sale CHEEP! check it out. I'm not sure about the drive-time comparison, but Mattp appears to be. He will tell you with the drop of a hat that the Darr->Rockport way beats Hwy 20. I took Mattp's advice. It seems pretty fast ~3:15.

Despite my desperate pleas nobody from CC.com wanna/canna go climbing with me yesterday....so I just did it myself . I headed up to Washington Pass, where I thought it might be kinda cool. Inspired by a suggestion given in a thread last week, I thought I'd give the N Ridge of Cutthroat a try. Left the truck at around 7am and headed up into the basin East of Cutthroat ('73 Variation as per Beckey). Well, this may have been a mistake as there is a steep exposed move or two that need to be done on very questionable rock to get up to the 'prominent notch'. I would've backed off, but the soloist I'd just bought via this thread gave me enough of a false sense of security to continue. I pulled it out of my backpack. Then, I pulled out the instructions I'd printed for it just last night, and I got to studying. No choss broke, so I didn't get a final exam on my reading comprehension. From the notch I saw that I couldve just walked to this point if I would've taken the Western approach ('40 route per Beckey). Oh well. One more scary pitch and from there it was all clear sailing. The rock quality improved greatly, and the technical climbing was basically done. There are a few entertaining optional clean cracks to be found along the way, and I took a couple laps on one especially sweet finger crack in a clean LFC. I would say the N Ridge is sorta boring if you're after 5th class rock, but a pretty nice airy ridge scramble if that floats yer boat. One rap down into the notch and one past the choss death lieback and it's time to pack at the head of the bowl. After a pleasant stroll down through the fairy meadows dotted with fun clean white boulders, I arrived back at the truck at around 2:30. It seemed too soon to go home. I've got this rule about not climbing less time than the actual to/from driving takes, so I thought maybe I'd knock off one of my alternate plans, the Beckey Route on Lib Bell. I rested and relaxed a bit before heading off on this part, but let me tell you, the approach up the scree gulley of death to the notch was not really pleasant at 3:45 on the hottest day of the year . Beckey Route went fairly well. Took some time trying to find the easiest easiest variation at every option (ended up taking chimneys almost everywhere). I was really sucking wind when scrambling up the sections that didn't require hands. I was beat. I had intended on using the soloist to toprope solo the Overexposure Route and really hammer the lid onto the end of a long day but when I got to the anchors there was another party there rapping from the Lib Crack route. They offered to let me rap on their chord. Phew! Gave me the excuse to save the CFU Overexposure plan for another day. Back down the scree gulley of death. No water. Gave the Lib Crack guys a ride back to their rig then headed home. Listened to Meat Puppets, screaming down Hwy 20, 70-degree wind blasting through the cab, googling at all those big-ass headers in the soft end-of-day light. A Red Bull and TVP burrito from Marblymount got me home safely without one scary freeway dream. I woulda showed at Pub Club ~10:30 but I didn't know where it was .

I woulda gone there, but in the picture it looked like it was basically right in someone's backyard.

During our family trip to Squamish on the Fourth weekend, I couldn't stand being so close to the candy but not eat, so a couple of mornings I got up early as hell (< 5am) and skeedaddled out to the crags to do a couple hours of climbing before the rugratz woke up (don't worry, my wife was there with them). Anyway, one day I headed out to the Smoke Bluffs, and had fun exploring/soloing stuff. I know you're not supposed to go out there early in the morning out of deference to the homeowners right nearby, but I figured since I was alone and being quiet it would be OK. Also, I tried to stay mostly away from the houses. Anway, it was a good time. Pretty weird to take a tour of the Smoke Bluffs and see NOONE! Introduced myself to Octopus's Garden. That place is cool (though I couldn't push myself to solo up over the bulges, I had fun climbing halfway up and down a bunch of those splitters). I was saddened to hear that that place is usually toprope hell (f**kn topropers ). Cat Crack was cool and there's this excellent finger crack on the far right edge of the far right side of Neat And Cool. It's only about 8m high, so you're only in bad fall zone about half the climb, and all the jams are lockers.

Yeah really hard. border guard: "I see you have an NRA sticker. Did you bring any guns with you?" gunsmuggler: "Why yeh....err noooooooo sir."

They'll suck all right

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