W
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Posts posted by W
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FYI, Unless you arrive early Wednesday morning of t-giving weekend, or earlier, it will be difficult to find a campsite even in some of the outlying campgrounds. I once got the last site at the last campground I checked, in White Tank or someplace that was way far from the climbing. So get there early if you can.
Can't help on the hotel but Yucca Valley will have the best variety.
At one point there was talk of a climbers ranch to be put up outside the park by the AAC or Access Fund- anyone know the status?
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2 books not mentioned yet:
- In the Shadow of Denali, Jonathan Waterman
Great short stories centered around his years climbing and working on Denali, but including peripheral elements including the all time classic, "Lone Wolf: The Other Jon Waterman", about the infamous John ("Johnny") Mallon Waterman.
-High Alaska, by Jonathan Waterman. A "historical" guidebook to Denali, Hunter, and Foraker. with compelling stories of the first ascents of each route on these peaks.
A second vote for "Challenge of Rainier" by Molenaar. One of the best portraits of "classical" mountaineering during the golden age, by a terrific guy. Timeless and inspiring.
Also Matt Warfield's reference to Long's short stories- if this is the same book with the story of visiting an extremely primitive tribe's village in Borneo and Long lets one of the natives listen to his Walkman and the guy completely freaks out and destroys the hut they are in while thrashing around and the tribes leader accuses them of "torturing souls and putting them into this box" and they have to make a run for it into the jungle....then yes, one of the funniest stories I have ever read as well as amost entertaining adventure narrative books as well.
"Mountains of My Life", Walter Bonatti
Finally- "Enduring Patagonia" by Greg Crouch.
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would you rather spend a month next summer in
a. New River Gorge
b. Bishop
c. Squamish
Hey Rudy!
My thoughts:
a) sport climbing is cool but for a month trip I'd want more variety.
b) endless endless alpine rock options but beyond that, like dru said, if summer the bouldering and sport climbing in the Owens might be untenable given the heat.
c) a sure fire winner with lots of variety
Having said that the other thing that comes to mind is, why limit yourself to one place with a month to play in the summer? Think about 2 weeks in Squamish and the rest in the high Sierra, tuolumne, etc.
In any case- have fun!!!!
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i looked at that...got scared, went away...
how izzit?
protects well if you got a #6 camalot.
As for the climbing, it's aptly named: required a great deal of hunger to finish, and you feel like throwing up afterwards.
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Also put English Breakfast Crack on the list. Have fun!
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A good prep circuit for the Steck:
Ne butt of higher
gripper
entrance exam
midterm
rt. side of the cookie
ahab
wire these and Steck will seem easy. Sort of.
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Practice chimneys, flares, and fists. Not much true OW on the route.
For the narrows, practice the parking lot thing while having all you breath exhaled. Oof!
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Bump. Still have the Jansport Day pack.
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Bump. Still available.
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Bump- the Makalu's are sold but I still have the Nupstes ($150)and Trango Ice ($150)!
Winter is coming up...
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Thanks so much for putting this up, Jay.
It's worth paraphrasing here the comments I made in the Supertopo forum- Jay and his friends were all over the AAJ's in the late 70's and early 80's with these amazing Alaska trips. Overland approaches and then many weeks spent climbing in the range, then a ski out too. Epitomizing the virtues of patience and respect for the weather, they gave themselves plenty of time, and they ended up climbing so many routes- not only first ascents, but radical repeats (like the climb above). Their journal reports were a huge inspiration and influence for me as I researched and planned during my early years climbing in Alaska back in the 1990's.
Would love to see more photos and stories, including of the overland approach routes (Traleika, Kanikula, etc.). Sweet big country!
Major appreciation for sharing these historical accounts!
Cheers,
MW
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Jay-
Mark W here. Welcome! Folks here will be very psyched to read your inspiring reports- by all means post them up!
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Random items. PM please if interested. Will ship if you cover it, or I can meet in Seattle area evenings during the week.
Canon SLR camera case. It's a nice one. Pretty much new.
$40
Jansport backpack- it's in great shape
$25
Viper ice tool. Needs a hammer head, pick, and attachment bolts. Oh and it needs a match!! Please, someone take this off my hands.
$40
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It's in excellent condition. I believe it was overstuffed with an extra 2 oz of down. Have had it since 1998 but haven't used it in many years. I believe the external fabric is PTFE. It's a long, which mitigates the lack of width for this model.
$200.00
Please PM. I'll ship if you cover the charges. Otherwise I am in Seattle and can meet evenings during the week.
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Bumping this. All three pairs of boots are still available.
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Cool photos.
I climbed it in 1998 with Puryear. We couldn't find anyone who had done it so we were a bit apprehensive for lack of first hand beta especially regarding the Beckey guide recommending knife blades for belays. Then on the approach, at 4 AM in the dark just below Colchuck lake we were catching up to a pair of climbers. Just before meeting them Joe joked "it's probably Matt Christensen (Boving's FA partner) going to retrobolt the Boving route...".
Turns out, it was Matt (who we had not met) and his 15 yr old son enroute to Prusik Peak! So there in the dark at the lake we got our beta.
I recall the end of the first pitch, and start of the second pitch, being a bit spooky if not fully runout, particularly because the first belay took a lot of work to make safe- the kb placements were filled with broken off blades, so I built a nest of small cams and brass nuts. The crux roof on p3 I recall having good enough pro but being a bouldery face crux over the roof on dirty holds. P4 would have been really fun but the crack was packed with dirt and I had to aid a bit so I could garden it out with a nut tool. Then the end dihedral was really sweet. Aside from some dirt, the rock quality was high, particularly for Dragontail.
I'd like to research Dragonscar, because for sur I remember everything after the fifth pitch being low fifth schwag that knocked at least one star off the overall quality rating, in my opinion anyway.
Nice work!
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Hey Chris,
I haven't been on South Seas but have done the full PO a few years back. Most likely things will be heavily fixed but my guess is the rack suggestion is conservative in case someone (or you...) has zippered a string of it out. There are definitely some very fixed gear dependent pitches above the junction of SS and PO, especially 15, 16, 17, and the pitch off the top of the black tower. Some pretty manky stuff too. P16 is where we placed our only head (a circle in fact) and it has lots of heads. Really watch the rope running above a sharp flake at the start of that pitch, also. Make sure you bivi on Island on the Sky. 5.8R off that ledge isn't bad. Illusion Chain is a sweet pitch, especially if there's already a pin pounded into the start of the expando flake. Finally...have fun hauling the bags up the last pitch...
As above poster mentioned, check ST for more current fixed gear beta, I'll bet you'll get an answer.
Have fun!
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Dane,
One of my regular partners climbed it in 2003, the same year 4 French did it. My friend bailed a few hundred feet above the crux gully, a few hundred feet of moderate terrain from the top. It was not clear if the French topped out either, I get the impression they did not, but they also climbed through the crux.
My friend (Walsh, with Semple) said of the crux pitch, the last hard one, that he might have backed off it if it wasn't so high on the route. He said it was a burly, runout chimney with a roof pull high above his last piece. There is also a dodgy aid pitch about 2/3 height where they aided off tied off stubbies in small patches of ice, then runout drytooling to aid off kb's. Apparently John Stoddard broke an ankle here in the 80's.
Generally the route is very thin ice and s'nice throughout. I made an attempt with Dan Aylward in 2004 that made it about halfway. We found even moderate ground to be tenuous and poorly protected, the rock is very compact. In 12 pitches we placed one ice screw. More than once we were simul climbing with a single knife blade for pro while climbing 70-80 degree snow/s'nice. Walsh had firmer conditions down low than we did, it made things too slow for us, but we also had bad spindrift and I was struck in the shoulders by a large random piece of ice which also helped send us down. I had a look at the route the next two years for another attempt but it was looking way too lean. Still hoping to go back some time, it is a cool line. Beware that the start is actually quite dangerous due to seracs from both sides. As we skied away from the schrund we were also knocked over by a good sized snow avy from the route itself- thankfully we were not still in the gully for it.
The last complete ascent I can confirm was Benoit Grison in 1984, which I think was the 3rd ascent.
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Check PM's
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Bump.
It's all still here.
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Bump...
Check original post- all items noted still available.
Accepting reasonable offers!
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Crampons are sold.
Edited the original post to remove the sold items, and also reduced most of the prices. Have another look.
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Reduced the prices on all of the above, and added some photos of the Makalus...
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SOLD so far:
Cloudveil Jacket
Andinista Pack
NF Kichatna Jacket
[TR] West Fork Ruth - Huntington E. Ridge 4/1/1980
in Alaska
Posted
Wow. Thanks again for another 5 star report and for the inspiration Jay.