Bronco

Didn't know him but I understand he was also the oldest person to summit Everest at the time he climbed it and was attempting his 80th summit of Rainier in June.

Sounds like last night's public meeting was rowdy: https://www.opb.org/article/2023/11/03/omak-washington-public-comments-meeting-grizzly-bears/

Probably better than a cat, they're jerks.

Glad someone reported him, that's not an easy call to make.

Anyone else see this? This could be one of the worst American climbing tragedies in recent times. Sad for them and their Tibetan guides, it seems like the situation was unnecessarily worsened by the competition. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/08/two-die-in-avalanches-on-shishapangma-mountain-in-tibet More here from other climbers who were on the mountain: https://explorersweb.com/what-happened-shishapangma-climbers-speak/

Followed JayB up the Kone route yesterday. Beautiful weather and dry rock provided for an enjoyable day out. We received a tip at the trailhead from Jared(?) to take some small cams for the runout sections and were glad we had some. Updated rap route is down the Magic Bus anchors, all newish chains and bolts on climbers left side of the Great Arch. Also, there's been a bunch of bear activity along the base of 3 O'clock rock so consider maybe hanging anything left at the base off a bolt out of reach or take everything with you up the climb. PS, I fumbled my belay device at the top of the last rap so good reminder to practice your Munter.

I'm thinking that if the current population is such that we have the occasional grizzly near a town, we probably don't need to introduce more of them. I'm ok with the current growth of the population continuing as bears migrate from surrounding areas. No need to accelerate it. https://www.khq.com/news/grizzly-bear-captured-north-of-colville/article_03736338-5ef4-11ee-8f2f-ef7b408e478b.html?fbclid=IwAR0yX4qU4J3QHc-9QUvL46hNbUEvS8IOPWwZpQ8D5wyvak7DIalrlnZ9Uz0

I'm not sure why this is going through the NPS website as it will clearly impact a lot of area outside of the park. Here's a link to leave a comment on the reintroduction of Grizzly bears in the North Cascades. https://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?documentID=132104

Not much detail but here's a link to the article for those who are interested. RIP https://methowvalleynews.com/2023/09/21/climbing-accident-claims-life-of-alabama-man/

I'm seeing the 2016 accident get bumped elsewhere on social media from folks looking for info on Sunday's accident.

I remember looking at this route from Easy Peak and wondering why more folks don't approach the Northern Pickets that way. Now I know!

HWY 20 is open with a pilot car between Rainy Pass and Blue Lake Trailhead. It looks like most NCNP and USFS is closed between Newhalem on the West and Silver Star Creek on the East. fseprd1132480.pdf

Washington State Department of Transportation Northwest Region – 1019 Andis Road – Burlington, WA 98233 – 360-757-5999 TRAVEL ADVISORY Aug. 16, 2023 Contact: RB McKeon, communications 360-399-9328 Lauren Loebsack, communications 509-860-0000 SR 20 North Cascades Highway now closed between Newhalem and Silver Star Campground due to Sourdough and Blue Lake wildfires NEWHALEM – The Washington State Department of Transportation in partnership with the Sourdough Fire Incident Northwest Management Team 10 and the U.S. Forest Service have extended the closure along State Route 20/North Cascades Highway from milepost 120 in Newhalem to milepost 171 at the Silver Creek gate, approximately 22 miles west of Winthrop due to the Sourdough Fire and Blue Lake Fire. The National Park Service has closed camping, trailheads, overlooks, pullouts and other recreation east of Newhalem due to fire activity. There is no access to North Cascades national Park and Lake Chelan National Recreation Area from the Bridge Creek trailhead or via Blue Lake, Maple Pass or Twisp Pass. There are no reroutes for the Pacific Crest Trail at this time. Additional details about trail, area and camp closures are available on the North Cascades National Park Service complex website and the U.S. Forest Service alerts website. During the closure of SR 20, people can use I-90, US 2 and 12 for east-west travel across the state. WSDOT crews will continue to partner with Incident Managment Teams responding to both fires. Road closure information is posted in the WSDOT real-time travel center and @wsdot_north and @wsdot_east on X/Twitter and updates will be provided as available. The Sourdough Fire started with a lightning strike on July 29 near Diablo in the steep and rugged terrain of Ross Lake National Recreation Area. The Blue Lake Fire began on Aug. 15, approximately 20 miles west of Winthrop on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. A cause has not determined at this time. Sections of SR 20 have been closed since Friday, Aug. 4. Hyperlinks within the release: Sourdough Fire: inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident-information/warlp-sourdough-fire Blue Lake Fire: www.facebook.com/OkaWenNF North Cascades National Park Service Complex website: www.nps.gov/noca/planyourvisit/fire-closures.htm U.S. Forest Service alerts website: www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/okawen/alerts-notices Real-time travel center: wsdot.com/Travel/Real-time/Map/ @wsdot_north: twitter.com/wsdot_north

USFS closed the Blue Lake trailhead and trails due to a new fire close by just this morning.

Agreed. Good news, HWY 20 is open (for now):

Those are some OG choss dawgs!

Looks like the following Cross Country zones are now closed due to the Sourdough Fire. Hope you didn't have the Pickets on your agenda this August or September. Cross-country Zones Sourdough Davis Peak Terror Basin Elephant Butte Luna Challenger Prophet Tapto Lakes Middle Lakes Bear Mountain Depot Spickard

also HWY 20 closed both directions at Diablo due to the Sourdough Fire https://wsdot.com/travel/real-time/mountainpasses/North-Cascade-Hwy

I agree the climb wasn't too bad, we just sandbagged ourselves that it'd be an easy day that ended up being longer and harder than we assumed.

Looks like Terror Basin Cross Country zone is closed to all users along with some of the trailheads along Cascade River: https://www.nps.gov/noca/planyourvisit/conditions.htm Also a new fire started over the weekend above the Diablo Dam. Might check in with the Marblemount Ranger Station if you have a trip planned.

Trip: Robinson Mountain - Pasayten - SE Ridge Trip Date: 07/29/2023 Trip Report: Juan and I hadn’t gotten out much lately but decided to attempt an overnight attempt of Robinson Mountain. This is the route description we had from WTA.org: Turn right (northeast) on the unmarked Beauty Creek Trail and follow it for 1.5 miles, as it climbs somewhat steeply up the Beauty Creek valley, staying northwest of the creek. Just after crossing a major tributary of Beauty Creek, elevation 5260 feet, turn left (northwest) onto a climber’s trail that works up the steep meadow, then shallows into a secondary valley before steepening to reach a tarn, elevation 6750 feet. From the tarn, it is a climber’s route, initially up the scree slope to the north and then 1.2 miles along the ridge over the false summits with a short class 2-3 knife edge climb shortly before the true summit. Sounded pretty easy to us. We left the trailhead at 8:30 am in relatively cool temps and were soon at the turn off for the Beauty Creek climber’s path at 2.8 miles from the Robinson Creek trailhead. Some blowdown down low but the trail is in good shape for a climber’s trail. Where the official trail ends in a meadow, we turned up the fall line. We concluded the part of the route description for the Beauty Creek Trail that says “it climbs somewhat steeply” is accurate, it’s pretty steep but at least it was hot and dusty. View of Silver Star from the left turn up the hill to the tarn. At this point we encountered an ancient looking solo climber descending. He disclosed there is a really friendly marmot at the tarn where he had camped for 3 days. He then went on to say the marmot really loved his urine. And then went on further to say how he really enjoyed his time with the marmot and the marmot would probably not be as friendly with us as he was with him. We stared at him awkwardly and thanked him for this somewhat unsettling beta. Arriving at the 6,750’ tarn a little more than 4 hours after leaving the trailhead, we set up camp and took a rest in the shade. Juan, (who turned 60! this year), decided we should go ahead and attempt the summit that afternoon instead of hanging around staring at the scree slope of doom. Juan at the top of the initial scree slope. Around 3:00 we shouldered our packs and slogged up the scree to the SE ridge. The route description at this point says: then 1.2 miles along the ridge over the false summits with a short class 2-3 knife edge climb shortly before the true summit. We were both a little surprised to find out our expectation of a nice Sound of Music ridge walk with occasional class 2-3 was not to be found. The ridge is mostly class 2-3 with a fair amount of route finding. At a couple of points I was certain we were climbing the summit only to see another one behind it, sometimes appearing faaarrrrrr behind. We each later admitted to being close to pulling the plug on this attempt. After 3 hours from leaving the tarn, and passing several false summits, we reached the actual summit. Summit Block Summit Selfie Great light for photos this evening We realized we didn’t have a ton of daylight left and still needed some dinner. We quickly downclimbed and scree surfed back to camp by 8:00 pm, briefly stopping to chat with another solo climber who I accidentally dislodged a good sized rock above on the scree slope of doom that he successfully dodged. He was planning to bivy on the ridge and we wished him a good evening. Dinner was devoured quickly and two tired, middle aged/old guys promptly went to bed at 9:00, no sign of the overly friendly marmot. The hike out on Sunday had a lazy pace, stopping to eat berries and Juan attempting to make friends with a small rattlesnake next to the trail that I wanted no part of. We never did see a marmot at the tarn and suspect the old guy may have abducted it for continued companionship. We stopped for a quick meal at the Mazama Public house, Smoked Tri-Tip and Frites (steak and jo-jo's) hit the spot before a long drive home. Gear Notes: Helmets Approach Notes: Snakes, dust and heat

Can you elaborate on this? Tighty whiteys, thong or boxers? No mas pantelones?

Things like this make me never want to climb Nooksack. It seems like everyone who climbs it has one of these close calls.

I think the bypass route is a lot easier to figure out from below and avoid the cliffs. We stayed pretty close to the Impasse and managed to stay on class 3-4 and a bit of brush. We were there on Labor Day weekend so no snow to deal with.