mattp

At Exit 38, turn right and drive maybe a mile to where there is a wide spot on the left. Cross the street and hike up a short trail that enters the woods right next to a stream. After 10 minutes you will pass some bolted climbs on the left and reach the old train track; turn left and the first thing you come to is a good top-rope crag called "Write Off Rock" on the right with a couple of climbs, 5.5-5.7 or so (the far left is the easiest, 5.4 maybe, and the far right is about 5.6 or so). Kids like this place among other things because there is an old train trestle right there and they want to throw rocks into the creek (watch for hikers below). I don't know about camping in the area but the truckers park along the road at that wide spot and sleep in the back of their cabs. A second great destination with kids, and probably better, is "Summit Wall" at Mt. Erie. Drive to the top of Mt. Erie just south of Anacortes, and park at the end of the road. The top of the cliff is only about 50 yards south of the parking lot but you have to approach the bottom via a trail that diverts south just a little bit down toward the view point that is reached by a stairway to the east. Hike and scramble down to the right (watch your kids) and head right at the first opportunity (watch them again). There are a dozen or so climbs here, about 5.4 to 5.10. This is a good place for moms and kids, with good views and easy access to top and bottom. There is State Park camping about 5 or 10 miles south. For a single climb, the Great Northern Slab at Index offers a climb that is 5.6. That climb is suitable for kids but little else at Index would fill the bill (if you know the area you could find a couple of other options). There is unrestricted camping (which unfortunately means you don't want to take your kids there) in the immediate vicinity. Leavenworth would be worth a look, but it is another hour's drive east (depending on where you live, maybe not another hour more driving than the places listed above). There are a number of good campgrounds and one particularly spectacular kids' climb is on Bruce's Boulder, relatively low down in the Icicle Creek canyon. It has a terrific 5.2 climb on the far left although the noise of the creek thundering below makes some children nervous. If you live on the Olympic Penninsula, Mt. Zion offers some good options as well. I can't give any detailed information because I haven't been there for years and years and it is not in any guidebook, but you can find some pretty good crags by heading up the hiking trail and looking for them off to the right.

We have presently collected $228,000 or so. We have grant applications still out and pledges still to materialize and I'm not sure that we can be confident that we have reached our goal as of today but we are certainly close. We ARE going to purchase the Lower Town Wall and all funds collected will go toward the permanent preservation of this climbing gem. Any last minute tip over the edge will be appreciated!

how'd Dtown work out for you?

Fred Beckey's Cascade Alpine Guide(s) gets my vote as the best guide ever. Yes, there are some errors in there and sometimes he incorporates feedback from climbers that renders newer editions less accurate than prior with respect to a route here and there, but he DOES try to update the guide in each successive edition. Yes, the books are heavy, but he includes history (not only the climbing history but the historical history) and in addition to this he presents detailed route information and carefully selected pictures. These books reflect a dedication to the book in a way that few guidebooks ever do. I use Fred Beckey's books as a climbing guide AND for bedside reading. The Cascade Alpine Guide rules! Second place goes to Clint Cummins' Index guide from the 1990's I loved the format - simple and very straight forward - and accurrate. I loved his philosopphy as presented in the first couple of pages: feel free to copy this guide and pass it on. I use the Cramer guide when I climb there today and it is an excellent guide as well. I like most guidebooks and these are two that in some ways repesent bookends. Simple vs. encyclopedic.

Pilchuck, That scary step up onto that direct finish is not actually hard but you sure wouldn't want to fall there. Run for the roses.

To reach the summit from the ridge below where Westward Ho tops out there is a short direct pitch with a scary move on it or you can make a very cool detour around right on a ledge that leads to the north ridge. Grab the rose bushes and go.

Considering the current state of it, perhaps the climb Jimbo and I did was "Let it be."

David once told me there was another old line up there. I think he found it when they went to look at Revolver and concluded Revolver was more worth his attention.

Hey thanks, Otto. I went up there with Jimbo yesterday and we climbed your refitted route. However, we took a wrong turn on pitch 4 because some other old route was easier to spot ... or at least we saw it first. Here's a shot taken from the belay. Jimbo is clipped to the first bolt on our errant variation - is this the legendary Picadilly Circus route? It climbs up the swath of rock above his head for at least 2 more pitches. Anway, Revolver heads up and right out of this shot but eventually re-enters this view at upper right.

Davis Holland/Lovin Arms is the best 5.10 in the State, in my opinion. Rad's right: the "crux" is well protected. It is small gear, but you can place 5 pieces if you want. 6 pitches of great climbing, all different.

Are you the bas*%$#rd who keeps steeling my beers out of the beer cooler pool in Darrington?

I think you are referring to a short bolted thing, on the right edge of the arch. If that is the case, it used to be more "doable" but a knob broke off the last time I tried it. This is not the first time I saw one of the Darrington knobs completely pop off the rock. The same happened to the original crux on Safe Sex, and I don't know of anybody who has climbed it since then (the crux finger-tip crack). I bet this is related to their origin as part of the mother rock and not the granite intrusion so it may not be entirely unlikely that they lack a complete bond with the surrounding granite. I don't know for sure but I bet that little thing on the Great Arch is pretty hard now. I'd be up for a weekend campout with celebration of DTown granite and a bit of maintenance effort. Trailwork and bolt replacement come to mind. I don't think we can replace the knobs, though.

Gary: You make a great point about how the Munter Hitch can be a great tool and that it does not twist the rope if it is used with the ropes "parallel." Where you say "parallel" I think you may mean "in the same direction." If you rappel on a Munter, and allow the tails to hang down, you will get the rope twisting, right? If you rappel on it but make sure the tails travel up out of the Munter and then back down below you, you don't right? Parallel lines do not have a distinct direction, so this distinction may be important because someone might think that feed rope UP and tails DOWN are "parallel" unless they understand the "concept." And I agree: I've used the munter hitch for belaying a follower or for lowering somebody with a lot smoother performance and simpler operation than any belay device. In fact, when I set somebody up to lower me for a rescue some years back I set it up this way because I had less than complete faith in their use of their belay device. When using the Munter Hitch, have ropes in and out of the "knot" feed from the same direction if possible. Mr. Munter can be your friend.

Lets see you at Marmot tomorrow night.

For those who want the original flavor, you can follow the line depicted in the Smoot guide. Head up the obvious right facing corner middle- left on the Blueberry Terrace, and yard on bushes or climb rock on the left to reach where it turns into a rotten little gully and then disappears into the bushes. Anybody who climbed the Dome in the "old days" probably went that way. There's plenty of tat, but no bolts.

Those 5/16" buttonheads are mostly pretty good and can be damn hard to remove. I'll head up there and work on it with you, though.

Last Fall a buddy and I added the two belay stations and two pro bolts that you used to reach the summit from the blueberry Terrace. I've also been slowly adding bolts to Jacob's Ladder since I first climbed it. I added one last year.

Lots of good tents weight little more than two bivvy sacs and would much better serve you than the two sacs. If the only tent you can get your hands on weights too much I would still consider bringing it because even in fair weather the winds at your high camp can be atrocious. Off topic but I think that carrying over is in some respects a less advisable plan when it comes to the much celebrated Liberty Ridge route on Mt. Rainier and in many cases a demonstration of unfitness for the objective. If you are not comfortable climbing DOWN the route what business do you have trying to climb UP it? Climbers have died thinking that their only route of escape was up-and-over. I realize that I may express an unpopular viewpoint on this but I think the cautious climber should carry what they might need to a high camp and plan to climb up and back to that camp, then descend. Yes, a summit bivvy may be really cool and a carry-over may be exciting, but as a general rule I think most climbers will do better with a "standard" approach.

No, but I've been surprised to find that 5.9 or 5.10 friction sometimes seems little or no harder when wet and the 5.11 edge climbing on Jacob's Ladder is not undoable when wet either, whereas some of the 5.7 or 5.8 pitches on the Blueberry Route (among others) become completely terrifying when wet.

It is raining tonight but some of the routes there dry out very fast and I've actually climbed the first couple pitches of The Kone during rainfall and other routes when seeping. Sometimes the harder routes are easier than some of the easier ones when wet. Silent Running dries out quickly.

I too am hoping for Dtown this weekend. I'd like to climb 6 or 10 pitches and do some exploring. Send me a PM.

I'm with Raindawg here. You can't blame the Catholic church on Jesus. The Church serves its own interest. Any institution does. If you have a problem with how this nun has been excommunicated, I don't think the answer is "F##k J**s*s." Checkout the Gnostic gospels some time. Jesus may have been cooler than many of you realize.

I hope their posts improve YOUR day. Yes, we tend to post in the critical bent around here (it seems to be an Internet phenomenon-particularly where people post anonymously) but there is a fair amount of good advice appearing here. (Even from Need-To-Climb, who once attacked me rather savagely for no good reason but that he saw that I was posting something indicating that I'd been an idiot.) That mountain we stare at every day is awesome. Good luck with your climb!

Consider adding an insert on the top of your foot for the descent. If you are getting a blister caused by having your foot slide forward as you walk down from Muir, a piece of 1/4" foam, cut to line what would be the tongue of many boots and tapered on the edges, will reduce that movement. I've used this kind of insert to make foot-eating-boots into foot-protectors. I've used it for increased control in ski boots, too.

I believe that tree has been gone for at least 5, maybe 10 years. When I first climbed that route the "ground" extended above the tree. For a time the root that Sobo refers to was hanging out there ready to break a leg. Now that problem is solved but the groundfall is significantly farther than it was when the route was established. Even when I first climbed it I thought that move about 15 feet up was scary. It was probably it's most dangerous when the tree was eroded out so as to expose the root, but I think it is more dangerous now than when the route was established. Somebody please correct me if they think I am wrong (am I confusing this route with another? I don't get to Peshastin much these days). This still doesn't fully answer Sobo's concern, though. Maybe we still don't want to see the route "retrobolted." I tend toward PMS' position myself, but I realize others will disagree and I wouldn't take it upon myself to change the situation.