mattp

I've ridden up to Cold Springs in a Cadillac. You should have seen the bug-eyes on all those people in 4x4 pickups and Subaru outbacks!

Assuming that what you are looking for is a way not to have to do either a carry-over or a one day marathon on the North Ridge, I would say that you should consider the Mountaineer Creek approach and the Sherpa Couloir descent. The approach hike is probably no further (and probably no more difficult) than the approach over Goat Pass, though there is some "off-trail" hiking (if you do it right, as described not long ago in this forum, there is a climber's path most of the way), and the descent down the Sherpa Couloir is pretty straightforward (some have complained about it, but recent route reports have mostly been favorable). Really. Check it out.

I want to hear more about your Tunnel Creek adventure! Got pix??

Indeed, every time Pubclub is more than 10 blocks from Ballard there is a marked drop in attendance and the same usual suspects complain about it. However, every time we go to Tacoma or the East Side, the Seatle folks still outnumber their outlander cousins, and almost every time we stay later, too. So it just doesn't make a lot of sense for us to do it all that often. I'd be game for Everett sometime, and maybe this is the time -- how many north enders are actually interested? Also, are there other north-end places like what about something in Mountlake Terrace or Kenmore, just to make it a little closer to Seattle? One thing to bear in mind, though, is that last week we were out at North Bend. So maybe it should be back in Seattle this week and we might look at a north-end gig in the next week or two?

Indeed, I enjoyed the climbing yesterday. We climbed 8 pitches of damn good rock and, even though there are some of the usual DTown flakes and the approach up the sidewalk is mildly gnarly, the side of Blueberry Hill is one very cool place to be in a rainstorm! As the second thunder cloud rolled overhead, the big raindrops had sunlight on them and shown just like Bush Sr's thousand points of light! Here's looking up and down from the "thousand points of light" belay:

The first time I skied Mt. Adams, we left the parking lot at 10:00 am, sat around on the summit, and started the run down the South Spur from the false summit at 5:00 pm. Because it was late in the day, all the hikers were out of the way. The suncups were huge (I believe it was the first week in August), and we were glad that we waited until very late in the day so they would be maximally softened. If you want to be extra cautious, bring them but I'd be very surprised if you needed crampons and an ice axe to climb or descend the South Spur. (The first few hundred feet off the false summit are very steep, though, and if you are not comfortable with that sort of thing you may not want to ski it and you may want the axe.) There will be a staircase kicked by others and, if it's a nice day, you'll see other people up there in sneakers. The last slope up to the actual summit may be a bit icy, but it is not steep.

This is what you'll see when you land at the airport: The airport is in Hagensborg, 10 or 15 miles up the valley from Bella Coola. There isn't much in the way of facilities there, but perhaps a half mile or mile away there is grocery store accross the road from a hotel with a cafe. There is also a park that is FULL of mosquito's and I believe there was some kind of commercial campground nearby as well. We found mosquito-free camping at a park down at the bottom of the valley, a mile beyond Bella Coola -- there was a saltwater breeze that really helped a lot (I think the sign said it was "day use only" there, however). There is big granite all over the place within about five or ten miles of the airport, both north and south facing, and I think there is some description of a few climbs in the area in one of the BC rock climbing guides -- perhaps the "inland" one or whatever it is.

Go for the SW Chutes!!!!

I don't know where you guys live, but that's not really a bad forecast for a June weekend in the North Cascades. Take friday off and try to avoid the weather if you can, but even on a "clear" weekend you better be prepared for a storm if you head up on big climb or are going to go way above treeline on a Volcano or something, and there is always a significant chance it will come in early if you head up a day ahead of a predicted turn in the weather. With this forecast, you could get some wind and some moisture and some poor visibility, and even if you know what you are doing you might end up wandering around and getting stuck like those folks did last weekend, but it is far from a forecast that says "go and you will die."

By the way: in a very impressive display of juggling, Dryad made the CATCH OF THE NIGHT! When she saw that Brian was catching some air, falling over the massive roof on the East Wall of Repo I, she did the "reverse Lambone maneuver" and dropped to the ground, thereby taking an additional three feet of slack out of the system and reducing the chance that he might pull her out of position somehow. It was actually quite impressive! Take note, all of you! (And she didn't even drop the cell phone call.)

Nobody died. Some predicted disaster, but PubClub went climbing and everybody had a good time. Wayne was the leader of the pack, lugging a medium sized cooler full of coors light up there early in the afternoon to get a head start on us. Lacking a belayer, he self-belayed just about every climb on the two repo rocks before the rest of us showed up. Part-way into his cooler, he was ready for action and led Goddess and then cruised Little Hitler (Wayne is leading Little Hitler in the first picture). Catbird set a rope on Human Foot, Dave Schuldt put one on one of the Repo Climbs, and Ctuller lead Kinder and Gentler Carpet Bombing. Between stories and speculation about what had happened to the lost dog "Dakota" whose owners were desparately running back and forth along the trail calling their lost pooch, we took laps on these climbs and just as I eyed the last cruxy bit before the chains on Goddess, Wayne (my belayer) took a phone call from his climbing partner for the next few days. Hang on, Matt -- no it's OK climb on. Fred Beckey is known for requiring his partners to stop at every pay phone booth on the way to and from a climb so that he can line up his partners for the next trip, but Wayne was doing it while on belay! Picture's two and three show our refinement of this tactic. As you can see, we found that with careful juggling one can drink beer, talk on the phone AND belay at the same time (thus, climbing is almost like bowling - the only sport I know where you can have a cigarette in one hand, a beer in the other, and STILL throw the ball). Anyway, less than a minute after the last picture was taken, Dryad actually caught Brian, who took a leader fall and ripped out a stopper before being caught on a small TCU. We can definitely say it: TCU's work! WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. ROCK CLIMBING WHILE HANGING OUT AND DRINKING BEER IS DANGEROUS!!!!! DO NOT, REPEAT DO NOT, TAKE CELL PHONES AND DOGS TO THE CRAG. THIS IS ONLY A JOKE.

Meet either place. If you are at the trailhead and nobody's there and you have a partner, I bet you're not going to want to wait.

Just a guess, but I'm pretty sure you'll find the brush in the bowl below Shuksan Arm is melted out and probably leafing out by now. By the way, if you do head in there, try the trick used by a friend of mine from Kodiak, where there is a thousand feet of willow brush to crawl through before you get to the skiing. Tie your skis together, bottoms facing each other, and hang them from the side of your pack, a little above the bottom attachment of one of the shoulder straps, so that they are fully in balance or nearly in balance with a little more weight to the rear and the tails forward (tips trail behind you). You rest an arm on the skis and steer the tails wherever you want to go. They do not get caught up in the brush even a tiny fraction of the amount that you do carrying them the normal way.

The Cave would be a cool place for pubclub. Ever been in there? Last time I was there, they had computers and stuff so we could have pubclub ONLINE.

I can't tell if there's much interest in climbing tonight. Every week, there's no shortage of enthusiasm for arguing about where to drink beer, though, and lots of you have time to hang out in the pub for several hours every tuesday. It's damn near the longest day of the year, people. And we can drink beer in the woods (not before, but after belaying TLG) or go to town for some pizza and beer afterward!!! Maybe they're right, we are a bunch of drunks that like to talk about climbing rather than climbing.

Sorry to offend you Ryland. I understand the usefulness of wands and I promise I won't laugh at you but they are not any panacea. In my opinion, they are really no more reliable than a GPS because the key wands may blow over in a windstorm and you'd have to have way many of them to mark the entire route to the summit and back so even if you mark the key places, you can still wander around in the fog and if you get snowfall or blowing snow with your fog, you still have to be able to navigate. As often as not they end up just being more stuff to haul up and down and, if they are used, they frequently end up left behind as trash that may or may not mark the right way for subsequent parties. I do not know if a few wands at the key crevasse would have made any difference this past weekend.

What's the issue?

Skepticism and hindsite analysis are valuable. Particularly when it comes to a public or semi-public discussion of mountain rescues, though, uninformed flammage and personal sniping should be avoided.

I can't leave before 4:00 or close to 4:00, but I'd take a couple riders from Ballard/Fremont. By the way, mosquitos can be a problem there. Anybody got DEET? Headlamps recommended.

Good one, Redoubt. I guess I'm doing the same, aren't I?

Come to Little Si. It'll be fun.

Connya's right, guys. Have you ever been involved in any kind of rescue or accident? There are always judgment errors involved. Have you ever had any kind of epic? There was always a judgment error involved. Have you ever been lucky that your own mistake didn't cause you to have an epic or an accident? There was a judgment error involved. It is easy to sit here and say "I wouldn't have made that mistake" and you may be right, but the fact is that you wise ones make your own mistakes and, as of yesterday, you really didn't know what you were talking about. It is exactly this kind of speculation that you criticize in the press, or in other people's reactions to your own trip reports. Maybe they made such huge mistakes that your criticisms are justified, but the basis for your criticisms seems to be that the weather report called for unsettled weather (I don't think there was any prediction of heavy moisture or unusually high wind), and that they called the rangers when they found themselves stuck at 13,000 feet (we don't know who called, why they thought they were calling, or what they said). Lawgod criticizes them for having only 2 sleeping bags for 9 people or 1 bag for 6, but I doubt more than 1% of the parties who climb from Muir or Schurman (even in the winter) carry more than this. He gripes about a prior incident and maybe the "other guy" was the jerk but, from what I have observed, it is standard practice to leave somebody behind when climbing the Emmons or the Cleaver with a large party and one person is starting to lag. Wands? Most of us would laugh at anybody who carried a bunch of wands up Mount Rainier even in the winter, let alone the summer. You folks are just carrying on the typical cc.com snipefest where everybody jumps on the bandwagon and calls each other names so they can show how clever they are. You at least ought to give them the benefit of the doubt until you know or even have grounds to think you know what actually happened. Otherwise, you are just like those clueless "other people" who say that climbers are irresponsible and they should be forced to pay for their own rescues.

'Don't know about that, Dave. It is possible that the new parking lot may have gates -- I've only been there once and I wasn't really looking for that kind of thing. The old parking lot is certainly not gated, so if it looks worriesome I suppose we could park down there (about 200 yards away). I don't know what the regulations might be, but I know that in the past I've gone climbing there after work and come stumbling out in the dark without any problem (though sandals might not be a good choice of footwear). I've done the same at Amazonia, where there used to be (probably still is) a sign saying the gate will close at dark or whatever.

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