chucK

Excellent Klenke old boy! Pip pip cheerio and all that wot! where's the damn photos?

Yeah shit! How could I forget? That was quite a scandal!

Anybody here know any beta besides the Beckey paragraph? "Hard class 5" from 1956 seems like it could be anywhere from like 5.8 to 5.10, or other. I thought the rock up there was pretty nice. Swirly, featured, some jagged heucos, pretty solid .

You catch William Jefferson's speech last night? Hilarious! "For the first time ever when America was on a war footing, there were two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top one percent. I'm in that group now for the first time in my life. When I was in office, the Republicans were pretty mean to me. When I left and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them." All the references to the Republicans helping him out were great! Guy looks freakin' younger than me! When he was president I always thought he was doing a better job when he was freshly shorn. Seems like Bush never has a problem with taking time out of his busy schedule to get his hair cut.

Here's some pictures. On this trip I learned that you don't need boiling water for cup o' noodles! somewhere up near the bivy Lower Curtis(?) glacier out above the chimneys for Distel On the SE Ridge (nice rock, fun!) Nooksak? On the hike out

Nice Job man! Did you downclimb that one chossy section on the Roosevelt Kaleetan traverse that gets you to the low point? As a point of order, if I'm picturing it correctly, I don't think you climbed Bryant (Bryant is to the South of that big talus gully), but sounds like you climbed something cooler.

Don't any of you people have a job that you could just go to lunch on Friday and not come back 'til Monday? East Buttress Big Snow Mountain

Need a partner. You volunteering?

Hey! Anyone want to go climb something Fri-Sat? I can leave town not 'til around 12:30pm Friday. Ideas for this time frame: Big Snow Mtn. (prefer 5.10 route) Bears Breast Complete N Ridge Stuart with light light bivy ('cause it's gonna be really warm?) Others? Shuksan? Send me a PM

Yes it is. If we made it easier for everyone there would be a fucking wheelchair ramp on el cap by now. Climb the mountain on the mountain's terms; not yours. If you don't have the skills stay in the gym. Some excellent sound bites there. Too bad they don't apply very well to the world of your average climber. Every route you've ever climbed that has had a bolt (or two!) installed, or has had moss scrubbed off, or has had a trail beaten to the base. has been made easier for you. Most stuff commonly climbed out there fits somewhere in between unblemished mountain and wheelchair ramp. This hyperbolic posturing is wearisome

In August, what is left of that snowfield may be rockhard all day long. You can avoid the snow completely by crossing over the ridge below the false summit at a level below the snow field. You may need to rap into the Cascadian Couloir, or you might be able to downclimb. Depends on your comfort level. There is a big slab with a rock horn in the middle with a bunch of rap slings on it there.

But Dru, you didn't do the Beckey Route. We are talking about the Beckey Route here. Not some rap route.

"Badass" as in fun! I'll stick by that one. Maybe I was a little loose with the "i" word. I am calmed down now, and I would just call it "strenuous", for me that is. A the #4 and #4.5 were nice to have on the next pitch after the badass intense crux pitch. What'd I do to piss you off this time bayyyyyyyy-BEE!

Beta 1: Do the hike up the gulley as early as possible! It's one hot miserable motherf in the heat of the day. Beta 2: reposition all the stuff on your harness so there's nothing on the back loops (fer da chimblies). That one tricky move is so tricky that even STeven Hawking balanced on a herd of chimpanzees couldn't even figure out that tricky move, until like Sunday. Man it's tricky!

Whoa! Great pics! Number 2 is especially prizeworthy (if only Tony was wearing more red ).

Anybody pick up my Victorinox (Red Swiss Army) knife that I might have left laying around at the Spring Ski-in? It had a bootlace lanyard. Will reward it's return with some beers or equivalent compensation.

Climb: Chianti Spire-East Face Date of Climb: 7/10/2004 Trip Report: Jeff and I had an ambitious day planned. We were gonna drive up to WA Pass, hump our bivy up to the base of Clean Break (the plan for Sunday), then climb Rebel Yell. Plan went mostly well, though the weather didn't really help us out much. Didn't rain, but it was c-c-c-c-cold! Anyway, we did our hump in, set up camp at the base of Clean Break, then headed up toward Chianti at around 1:45 pm. Heading up a couloir below the East side of Burgundy Col We started up the climb around 3pm. I lead the first pitch and got the screaming barfies for the first time in a long while. The first time in July probably forever! offwidth pitch and route above Jeff got the offwidth since I led it last year, and Jeff loves those freakin' things anyway . Actually, it was pretty fun, on second. "blind steparound" I did a variation on the next pitch. Instead of using the "blind steparound" guidebook beta, I employed a nad-scum hand-traverse grovel about the tricky arete. It worked anyway, and I only had to endure a bit of heckling disguised as well-meaning post-hoc climbing advice. start of intense crux pitch The crux pitch is badass. Overhanging handcrack in a corner followed by steep strenous fisting for a long ways. Last year AlpineK linked this thing with the previous stepacross pitch. Burly lead. I think the way we did it this year was probably better for all involved though. Final pitch is more of the same clean wide crack goodness, though nowhere near as sustained as p4. A nice finish. Jeff tagged the true summit (I did it last year) and we hurried to get down as the c-c-c-c-old wind was howling up top! On the first throw our 7mm fell behind a big flake and was way hung up (knot in end). I quickly decided we were gonna have to cut it (only lost a couple feet) and hacked at it as fast as I could with my amazingly dull (replacement) pocket knife, while I knew Jeff stood up top getting hammered by the icy wind. I noted another rope hung up inside the crevice. Watch out for this one! We rapped the route, which worked pretty well, but the last pull was really tough due to drag over the rock. You can rap straight down, but I didn't want to muck around in the snow at the base already being so damn cold. it was cold up there Once we were walking, we warmed up a bit, we made it back to camp about 10pm. Quick dinner and cold beers in the freakin' freezin' wind. ...to be continued [Clean Break] Gear Notes: Cams to 4.5, used 'em all. Yellow alien placement in offwidth, too big for #5 Camalot above. No crampons necessary. Did use ice-axes a lot. 60m ropes get you from "Bookmobile" Ledge to anchor slings at base of "blind steparound" pitch in one rap. Approach Notes: About 1:15 from base of Clean Break to Chianti.

Climb: Juno Tower-Clean Break Date of Climb: 7/11/2004 Trip Report: It was still very cold the next morning. We were feeling a bit beat up after the hike in and Rebel Yell yesterday, so we weren't moving too quickly. It looked like maybe we were gonna bail, but that woulda been a pretty unpalatable option when looking back a week or a month later, after the visceral assault of that cold wind had dulled. Luckily, the weather appeared to improve and we gave it a go, starting up around 10am. Pitch 1, Clean Break After negotiating the snow field, I dropped my stick/ice-axe in the pile on the big ledge, and Jeff geared up for the first lead. It's a doozy. Steep, sustained, and once you think you got it licked, it kicks back again with a steep, slanting section of thin hands. Glad I was on second. Nice lead Jeff! "The Clean Break" The Clean Break pitch is cool and nowhere near as strenuous. The sun was starting to come out more and we were rolling along. We had some routefinding issues on p3. After some confusion, we went to the top of the LF dike corner instead of taking the less-used looking finger crack described in the Kearney. This ended up working fine, with just a slight downclimb to start p4. The pitches ran together on fine granite. A very thin sequence after a fixed pin, and a strenous diagonal fist crack were highlights. The fist crack pitch had a second crux, a corner with small tips holds and dish-smearing for feet that really got my attention. The Kearney topo says "RP's useful", but I think you'll be much happier if you have small cams for the parallel placements. Easier terrain on upper route A few more pitches and the ridge eases off. We simuled what Kearney calls the last five pitches. We stayed mostly left, and never even saw the "Wild Crack". I thought the rock was very good on this finishing section. Fun scrambling. obligatory "view from top" photo The summit views were stupendous, blah blah blah. No hints of the nasty cold wind and clouds of yesterday. We musta screwed up the descent, because it was heinous. We dropped down the gully just below (SW) of the summit, and couldn't find passage N, until way down. At which point we then scrounged way back up again to the ridge crest, then more down again to Sunset Col. Even though we probably screwed up, it only took about 2 hrs to reach camp. Packed up by 8:30pm, hike out. Made it to the basin and intermittent trail by dark. Home 3am . Busy weekend! the route from below ~8 pm Gear Notes: Brought a 4.5 Camalot (by mistake, still in pack from day before), didn't need it, and probably didn't need the #4. #3.5 found some use. Kearney description seemed right on, and useful. Approach Notes: Snow at base soft enough to ascend with approach shoes and stick. A bit of hairy exposure over the moat right at the top. Gas station in Oso open at 2am! Red Bull!

Exposure is heinous dude . But it's all quite easy and you can sew it up anywhere you want. I'd be more worried about dying in the couloir and/or on the descent. So if you're thinking of bailing halfway up, just remember it'll be harder to bail than make it to the summit!

How did you ascend?

Hey Cracky! Is that Royal Flush?

I saw this pretty woman today wearing a striking T-shirt. It was all white with a small mug-shot of ol' GW in the center. In tasteful red font (Arial Black) in large letters the pic was captioned "LIAR". Very effective.

Hmmmm....maybe in the top three. Dru does have quite the prolific spray factor, probably more than enough to make up for the climbing part ...

Nice going! I've definitely looked up there and thought there looked like some doable cracks. I think you guys are probably #1 and #2 in terms of the cc.com (hard climber)*(prolific sprayers) metric.

Yes that's standard procedure. Some people lower though the chains even, but that is frowned upon by some, especially at sandy places as the grit in the rope, combined with running the rope under load through the chains, can abrade the chain links and wear them down. Usual procedure is to put draws up there for all toproping and lowering until the last person needs to get down. Then last person runs the rope through the chains and raps. Pulling the unweighted rope through the chains probably does not do the damage that a weighted rope would.