mattp

That gully you describe, Wind, may well be the one I am thinking of. And, yes, you do climb down several hundred feet. There are possible traverse routes that stay closer to the crest, but you said you didn't like exposure all that much and these involve rock scrabling or even outright rock climbing and rappels and sketchy anchors and such. I have been accross the basin between Washington and Ellinor in late season like this, and that gully (like the one at the other end) was a dirty mess if I recall correctly, but otherwise just fine. I think the gully at the Washington end is a little steeper, or maybe it is the place where you cross an intervening ridge, and I remember some dirt over rock that kind of sucked for perhaps 30 feet. You said you have plenty of common sense, so I figure you'd be cautious enough to turn around and go back where you came from if you ran into something you didn't like. The old guidebook may be out of print, but you can look at it in the Mountaineer's library if you live in Seattle. I think I have a copy of it, so maybe I can send you a xerox.

I'd agree that they're more enjoyable when the rubble is covered by snow, Dave, but lack of snow is no reason not to go. It's beautiful in that bowl behind Washington and Ellinor and at this time of the year you could even find a nice picnic site on some heathery benches with a little lake and lots of wildflowers. It might be nice to wear gators to keep the scree out of your boots, or maybe to wrap your cuffs with tape to accomplish the same, though.

I'm sorry you feel "sermoned" DM. Fact is, people are all the time proclaiming the approach to the North Ridge of Baker "done for the year" or Goode Glacier "impossible" and other folks believe them. I'm just trying to help.

Thanks, Dru. That "Big Hill" is a pretty exciting stretch of road, eh?

Wind, I think that big huge square rock you describe may be "A Peak" or whatever it is, a satellite peak on the NE side of Mount Ellinor. If you hike down toward "Peak A," east from Ellinor, there is a steep chute that drops to the back side into Jefferson Creek. I believe it heads down and left before you drop into that bowl with the boulders that is a few hundred feet down from the summit. Anyway, once down in that basins at the headwaters of Jefferson Creek, you can traverse accross the bowl and climb over an intervening ridge to reach a gully going back up to the ridgecrest just short of the summit of Washington. At the Mount Washington summit block, you should skirt around right and then you can either climb up a steep gully toward the summit, or continue on a ledge system that has some exposure to it and then scramble back south along the final ridge to the summit. You should not have too much problem following the normal route down from the summit of Washington. Just follow the summit ridge south, back down below where you joined it, and the point where the route departs down and left on some scree-covered ramps is obvious. Follow this ramp system down and right, looking for a way to get to a heathery bench area below (there are a couple possible ways to get down to it). From this flat bench area due south of the Summit of Mount Washington, look for a southeasterly ridge with some towers on it, and find the trail heading down just to the right of the top of that ridge. You're on your way.

Poncho, You may be talking about the doiagonal ramp up the face from that large bowl on the southeast flank of Mt. Washington. It is indeed a great route, one that involves some exposure but is otherwise suitable for beginners. You pass through two bolws full of rubble and the ramp itself is somewhat "dirty" at this time of year, but is still an exellent route with a very scenic approach to an exciting finish. To get to that SE bowl, I've been both ways and I think it is preferable to take a slightly more direct start near the waterfall 200 or 300 yards short of the trailhead. here's a description

I liked the fingerlocks on sloe children.

Alex - Even on the darkest of nights, you should be able to see accross a glacier pretty well so a headlamp isn't essential for routefinding on a macro-scale but for negotiating crevasses and snowbridges, or for bushwacking, one thing that would help solve your problem is to have at least one person in your party carry a headlamp that actually puts out some light. Most of the super light headlamps people carry around these days are good for reading a map or looking for something around the campsite, and they are adequate to follow a trail or a cross country route if you already knokw the way, but they are inadequate for routefinding, in my view. In general, it is not as bad as you think. I have wandered about in the bush and in the crevasse fields in the dark many times, and almost never have I gotten lost or gone the wrong way because of the darkness on an alpine start. I've stumbled down of many climbs and cursed the darkness when I didn't bring a headlamp, though.

Klenke- I've been up both Maselpanik Creek and Depot Creek and for a hit-and-run peak climb sort of trip, I would recommend Maselpanik as an approach to Rahm. There is some truth to what you say, and not only is the waterfall pretty cool but so too is that upper valley above it, but in actual fact I don't think the drive to Maselpanik takes all that much longer, I believe the overall effort required to get from car to summit is way less and, unless somebody has recently done a lot of brushing in Depot Creek, you go through as much brush at the start of the Depot Creek trail and in the swamp above the waterfall as we did in Maselpanik Creek this Spring. The Maselpnik Glacier is scenic, and that gully/ice tongue is pretty cool. In addition, you are much less likely to run into ranger rick who may send you back from Depot Creek to get a customs permit and wilderness permit. Of course, if you want to hang out in an alpine area with a couple of high lakes, and knock off Spickard and Redoubt or Custer while you are at it, Depot Creek would be a better way to do. If you choose Maselpanik, it'd be a good idea to call ahead and find out if the Maselpanik Road is going to be open. I would guess it would add 4-5 miles of road hiking if they gated it back down at the Silver-Skagit main line.

is this what you guys are talking about?? ramrod website

What about the free beer? And isn't there going to be a puppy-toss? How 'bout a Jerry Sanchez kicking contest, or a midnight speed climbing competition on Castle Rock? No boulder racing from the top of Snow Creek Wall?

dm- There is no such thing as "impossible," especially when it comes to crossing a couple hundred yards of a tiny North Cascade glacier and accessing a low-angled rock ridge. The answer to your question will depend on your skill level and how determined you are. I believe that your friend is talking about a "moat" and not a "schrund" if he is talking about the point where you step from ice to rock and I think you should interpret his report to mean no more than that he couldn't imagine crossing - at what appeared to him to be the only easy point to do so - if the wedge of ice enclosing the moat got any thinner. Wait for another opinion, or go on up there and see for yourself. Even if another party comes back and reports it to be impossible, I can assure you: there is ALWAYS a way.

I agree with absolutely everything you wrote there, Kurt. My only disagreement is on where I think you want to go from here. It looks to me like those who don't like BeckFest want to shoot it down out of a sense that they're fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. I say let's look ahead and consider the alterntives: Will cc.com benefit if we pull the rug out from under Beck? Will you? You may want to see about getting Jon and Tim to tell him that he is off the planning committee for any future events, but if he has to call up vendors and back out of commitments now, who benefits from that? Exactly what "compromise" could we make that would retain the original flavor of ropeup?

Mr. Whitelaw recommends bring two #1 camelots, so you can use one lower down on the pitch and still have one for that move near the end. But if you're like CTuller, you just blow it off and get on up to the belay anyway. I'm not surprised about the hex, though.

I'm with you on most of what you said, Erik. All the disenfranchised can get together and tell stories about Beck behind his back and drink way too much beer and go out and climb some good routes while we're at it. We can call it "bitchfest..." and think of ourselves as righteous outlaws who stood up to the man. It'll be fun. But we don't have to shoot down Beck in order to do that.

Mr. K, I agree with Beck: quit pissing into the fire. He may have hijacked what you thought was YOUR party, but the fact is he DID sign up for the group campsite both of the last two years and he DID do whatever legwork was done. Does that give him the right to the trademark name "Ropeup?" I don't know. But I do know this: he has put a lot of work into this thing and he's got a lot of people on board. I don't think it is right to ask him to cancel all of it now - nor do I think that would serve anybody's interest. Let go of the name "Rope-Up." Let Beck and others have a success -- if the local American Alpine Club chapter that you think is so lame does something like a service project it will only be a good thing. If somebody who never wanted to go climbing "outdoors" is drawn in by corporate sponsorship and actually tries a toprope climb on real granite, what is wrong with that? If the rangers at Leavenworth think it is OK for climbers to throw a big event and try to sanitize it so that it meets forest service standards, that's great -- isn't it? I agree with you that corporate sponsorship and professional beer servers in a formal "beer garden" and an organized program are not MY idea of a good time. If you want to organize your alternative event, lets do it. But lets not try to undermine Beck. Lets do it on a different weekend and lets let those who want the big festival enjoy their party. I mean, what are you fighting for here? It's the right to kick it with your buddies and have a good time. Nobody is stopping you. All of this pissing and moaning does kind of stink.

CTuller-I noticed that you ran it out between bolts at the top of that 4th pitch. If you are like me, a #1 camelot will make that move up to the last bolt a little more comfortable -- if you don't leave it lower down on the pitch where there is a very tempting spot for it. By the way, Pitches 5 and 6 are a little harder (so is the last one), but the whole thing is just fine and yesterday I spent about 15 minutes scrubbing lichen on the 7th pitch. Its all ready for you.

Peter- you are referring to what we call "The Darrington Effect." All the bushes grow beneath overlaps, where snow and ice sliding off the slabs doesn't take them out. So, too, all the lichen and moss and stuff, though these smaller plant items grow on the down-side of every little ripple on the slabs themselves as well as beneath overhangs. Thus, you look up and all you can see is filth, but when you turn around and look down, it looks much better. Handily, we generally grab onto and step on the upper surfaces of every knob and ripple, so a route that looks like a mess from below may in fact turn out to be relatively unimpeaded by lichen (I know that Darrington is an acquired taste and I very definitely said "relatively"). Total Soul is a very good example of this phenomenon. compare picture number 1 with number two. These pictures show the same pitch on the same day. Number 1: Number 2:

Did one of you guys lose a pair of sunglasses? We found one at the base of the route.

Yo Fence. Re-read my post. What I wrote was that I could not, in a few quick internet searches, find any real validation for my prior statement. As for anti-semeticism, I would tend to agree that it is not a classic conservative idea. However, I think the east-coast liberal establishment and the liberal enclave that I surround myself with has historcally been and probably still is way ahead of your middle America conservatives on this issue. And yes, smart and educated people ARE for gun control.

Fence, Wherever I got the idea that more educated people are more likely to be liberal, I have never really questioned it. I ran some internet searches and I found people asserting that more educated people are more likely to vote, more likely to engage in political protest, more likely to favor gun control, less likely to be anti-semetic, and less likely to rely on TV news as their main source of information about politics -- and I did not find a single place where someone was suggesting that more education led people toward traditional "conservative" positions. I'm sure you could find some, though, and I don't have any real statistics to back up my statement. Maybe I read it in some liberal news media in an article written by someone who was making things up.

Yo Fence. I grew up in Michigan.

I agree that there are some smart, articulate, and well-read conservatives, and anybody who dismisses all southerners as ignorant is clearly incorrect. However, isn't it a fact that more highly educated and well-read individuals, on average, are more liberal? That doesn't necessarily mean conservatives are stupid -- but of course they are, aren't they? Ignorant rednecks...

Fairweather, I think that your belief that our recent actions will in any way reduce the anger of Moslem extremists is misplaced. I agree that our troop presence in the holy land of Islam has been a sore spot, and I agree that we may well be seeking to move some bases out of Saudi Arabia, but I doubt that our war on Iraq is going to reduce Arab dislike for the U.S. in any way. Do you think that Arabs who don't want us in the Middle East are going to see it as a step in the right direction when, instead of maintaining bases in Saudi Arabia by an agreement with their government, we maintain troops in Iraq and Afghanistan following successful invasions? Or do you believe that B.S. about how in a year or two we are going to put these countries back on their feet, with benevolent democratic governments, and then leave them alone? If we were to push Israel into allowing a real Palestinian state it might help reduce Arab enmity toward the U.S., but I'd be surprised if we actually do that.