Terry_McClain

(Sat.) 1-19-2008 We did Rambles Centre today...it's in great shape. Snowed all day, maybe 3-4 inches came down and it is still snowing, but pretty wet in town right now. It was a great 1st lead WI3 for me. We top roped the Rambles Centre Top Step WI4 and ran laps. Great Day.

Couloir - sitting in Lillooet..sorry..just one pic I had in an email. Ice cliff & Ice Fall both look good.

Trip: Rainier - Camp Muir /gate/ snow conditions Date: 1/17/2008 Trip Report: Gate did not open till after 10am today- file complaints, it is the only way to instigate change- comment forms available at Longmire. I could understand it if they were plowing...they weren't today. Snowshoes could have been used, but totally unnecessary- especially above 7000' - if anything crampons would be nice in some spots. Snowfield was completely scoured/hardpack. Rest of upper mountain 'appeared' to be the same.

Way to go, Congrats Guys! Nice TR and pics as well-thanks...brought back some great memories.

Yes, I think route should still be good. We crossed Coleman at 6500' and went almost all the way to the toe of the N. ridge before cutting up. The whole way was mostly a a straight shot for us. Stay at 6500' and don't cut up too early and I think it should be fine for you. Enjoy this super stellar route!

Trip: Mt. Baker - North Ridge Date: 7/26/2007 Trip Report: This trip up the North Ridge of Mt. Baker was a trip of A Thousand 'Thunks'. The sweet sound of the pick sticking solid every time in nice pliable alpine ice. I met up with Chris Kouba from Phoenix and Verendra from New York for this climb. We had never met before so I am sure we were all hoping for a good fit, which indeed it was. We left the trailhead at 3:30pm on Wed. with a solid high pressure system in place, reaching our 6000' camp at 5:30pm with plenty of down time to relax. Terry chill'n. There we met an AAI team that was headed for the N. Ridge as well the next morning. 'Ben' from AAI was way cool being friendly and giving us some good beta. He had a report from another party that the left start did not go, so we probably saved some time taking the right variation. They took off at 2:30AM the next morning, and we gratefully followed their tracks across the Coleman 1 hr. later. Early morning light on the Coleman Glacier. We passed them at the base of the hourglass after 2.5 hrs of an easy traverse. They took a left start bypassing the schrund (looked easier but had some rockfall debris at start). I lead up the middle through a collapsed area in the berg schrund which worked nice as well. The next 800-1000' went fast with a mix of some ice and firm snow. As we came up out of the hourglass and started to traverse up to the start of the ice step the route took on a new flavor with increasing ice getting steeper and steeper. Every pick placement stuck so nice though! I set up a belay and Chris took the lead (sorry- no pics), heading straight up about 40 feet to pick up the upper ridge proper. He dropped a second rope from there and then continued climbing the full 60 meter rope up before setting up a belay. Verendra and I simul-climbed next up the ice step as Chris belayed us off a reverso set up in autolock mode. From there we simul-climbed the rest of the ridge with mixed snow and lower angle ice. Verendra on the ridge above the ice step Chris on the ridge above the ice step Approaching the summit plateau we traversed right between a cool serac and ice shelf. Chris coming out of the secret passage. Any easy slog to the summit had us there in 7hrs from our camp. A straight forward, though long, slog brought us back to camp, all smiles! This was a spectacular climb and the route is still in great condition. Get on it while you can! Gear Notes: used a few pickets in running belays, 2-3 screws on ice step. Approach Notes: easy crossing the Coleman at 6500'

Standard route, D.C / I.D unless the freeze level comes down. Looking for experienced partner that's in shape for 12-15hr push. Plan on leaving Paradise 8-9pm Fri. night. PM me if interested.

Awesome sounding trip there! John just might pick up some 'style' if you keep showing him how it's done. I especially like the photo of him napping, although I seem to remember him having more hair on his back and smaller horns.

Congrats CBC! I was one of those well wishers. Thanks for posting your TR. Great style! I'm super envious!

Tuesday I decided to do a day hike up to Success Cleaver. The west side road is washed out in a few places requiring some stream crossing. The park service is working on the road right now, so it should be much better soon. I brought my mtn bike for the 1-2 mile? road approach. I wondered if it was worthwhile on the way up, but was still very glad to have it on the way back. The last time I went up Tahoma creek trail was 2 years ago. Since then, alot more of the trail is gone now, making for tedious going at times. I think with a bigger pack it would be faster/easier to come in from Kautz creek. I ran into 2 climbers that were descending the ridge. They had bailed from Success Cleaver due to high freeze level. A team of two were up on South T headwall. One of their party of three (Ft. Collins, Colorado) had stayed behind (sick) at their camp. I would be curious to know how their climb went. The route looked in- but I'll bet it was a bowling alley with the 14,000' freeze level! Here are some pics looking up and down from 9500' on the ridge. This has become one of my favorite workout hikes. Looking up Success Cleaver from 9500' South T headwall from 9500' on Success Cleaver Looking down towards Pyramid Peak from 9500' on Success Cleaver

Humor- NOLSe at his best (sorry buddy)

Success Colouirs show from Indian Henry's http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=15290&size=big&sort=1&cat=503 Success Cleaver from 10,500 if this helps... http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=15291&size=big&sort=1&cat=503

treknclime- Check out Mineral Creek as an easy approach. We did that route and it made for an easy approach. I think total round trip dist. was about 12 miles. You pick up the PCT at approx. 4 miles, leave it in another 1/2mile or so at the 5400' notch that drops down to glacier lake.

We climbed on the 4th of July as well. My experience with trying to climb Rainier on Memorial Day has not been the greatest. I think the weather Gods have always frowned on me for this weekend. One of the worst storms I ever experienced was at the 9500' camp on the Wilson Glacier during Memorial Day- so good luck with the weather! For LR we had our bags packed for the entire month of June waiting for a decent weather window. When a good high pressure system did come in, it narrowed to 2 days so we pushed up to Thumb Rock in one day, and summitted on the 2nd day. This worked well, except for the rockfall hazard in the afternoon heading up to Thumb. There are smarter times to be on the lower ridge. Luck, or otherwise, there was only one other party at Thumb Rock with us on the 4th.

I went up to Muir today (Tue.) Hut is fine. Two teams up there in it right now- one headed for Nisq. Ice Fall tonight, other team for Gib Ledge tonight or tomorrow.

Cool pics and sounds like ya'll had a great trip, a bit more relaxed than that NOLSe guy typically likes it though Mtnguy01- great style doing as one day climb. I vowed never to carry overnight pack up that brutal hot boulder field ever again. By the way, did you tell Nolse you were going to carry my pack on approach to Challenger so we could do it in two day RT? Thanks Dude, my kind of climbing partner!

Joshk, Yep, you make the good point that Light and Fast is all relative. We were pretty happy with the trade off's in weight and comfort. I won't tell you I took a deluxe thermarest because then you will give me shit

To JoshK, we packed for 5 days so we did have more fuel and food weight, otherwise I would have been challenged to pair it down past that for this trip. 3rd tool was a waste as well. I liked the fact that we had a tent to escape the bugs. One picket could have been acceptible as well. We mostly carried 1 liter of water, trusted the water up high, but brought filter for water down low. Russ, If you stay on route with the scramble peaks, a 30M would work fine. I did not bring cel phone and seriously doubt you would get any reception.

Climb: Ptarmigan Traverse-7 summits tagged Date of Climb: 7/22/2004 Trip Report: Ptarmigan Traverse - best way I can think to spend 4 days. Day 1 Cascade River TH to Yang Yang (climbed Formidable) 13hrs Day 2 Yang-Yang to White Rocks(climbed Old Guard& Sentinal) 8hrs Day 3 White Rocks to Bachelor Creek camp below slide path. Climbed Dome, Flat Top, Over Drive Tower, & Dynaflow Tower 14hrs. Day 4 to car in under 5 hrs. Nolse and I had our trip go like clock work and if I had to do it all over, it would stay the same. We packed for fast and light with 40-45# packs for this trip. We stayed busy, but I am sure we set no speed records and I don't think either of us felt it was a rushed trip. Most days we were into camp somewhere between 2pm and 4pm. We car camped at end of Cascade River Rd/trail head after dropping our other vehicle at Downey Creek. We made alpine starts every day to beat the heat and maximize climbing time. This worked really well for us with 3-4am wake up calls, and on the trail between 4am-5am. This also allowed for plenty of light still left in the day as we pulled into the next camp. Day 1 Starting at 3:30AM the first morning, we bypassed Magic and Mixup, stpped at Kool Aid with a quick water fill up, and over the Formidable/Spider Col to the start of the Formidable climb. Formidable - Spider Col We droped packs at the ridge before the drop down to Yang Yang, we did the std. south side of Forbidden which was a fun scramble, albeit a bit loose. We picked up packs on way back and descended to Yang-Yang Lakes where mosquitos were very hungry. Yang Yang Lakes Day 2 We skipped Le Conte, dropped packs at the Sentinal/Le Conte Col and headed up Old Guard, which both of us thought was a great scramble with some of the best views. Back down to the packs, and traverse to the West side of Sentinal where we dropped packs again. We started out on Sentinal's std southwest route, but instead of taking the ramp to the left went straight up into some loose exposed 4th class that I did not relish the thought of downclimbing. Nolse being from Oregon had no idea why I was complaining. Fortunately we were able to figure out our folly and traversed back to the 3rd class to gain summit and descend. Sentinal feels much bigger than Old Guard did and we were happy to have tagged the top. A quick traverse to Spider Col and down to White Rocks Camp. Left Dana Glacier from White Rocks Lake Day 3 Waking up early again, we descended the 400' and traversed to the Dana. Here is where we elected to bypass Sentinal and go up the left part of the Dana Glacier. I Highly Recommend this. Route up the Left Dana in Red Almost to the Dana Glacier with Wihite Rocks, Sentinal, and Old Guard in background This approach was very straightforward and saved us several hours by not having to drop down to Itswoot and reascend to the Dome Glacier. With high freeze levels and lots of snow we managed to avoid crampons till the Dana Glacier where we had to cross some low angle ice. We crested the Dana/Dome Col on the edge of the Dome Glacier, stashed packs and headed for Dome. Sitting on Dome's summit at 10am ish had us figuring what we were going to do next. Nolse tackling last of snow before Dome summit Nolse had already climbed Snow Dome, so we tagged Flat Top from the East side. This had some steep snow and a dicey schrund to get around, then one small pitch of rock at the top. We wasted no time, running down the glacier to get to the next peak, which was Overdrive Tower. Some 4th class running belays had us to the top on some fun granite blocks. We downclimbed, and ran down to Dynaflow Tower. Here we went up some 4th class to pick up the left ridge (SouthWest?) with a short stretch of mid 5th class, then along the ridge to a very airy summit. This summit was like the iceing on the cake and our 4th for the day. We rapped down from there to the easy third class scree on one rap and headed back to the packs feeling pretty satisfied with our day. The descent to Itswoot went fast with a lot of snow to glissade and plunge step down. Last look at Dome as we come into Itswoot Ridge Camp We traversed following cairns and were at Itswoot camp by 4pm, headed down to Cub Lake, up to Hidden Valley, and then the top of the slide debris at the head of Bachelor Creek. Here we traversed left into the timber and easily descended the steep forest till we picked up the trail again. About 20 minutes down the trail and we hit a real nice campsite next to the creek. This made for our longest day at 14hrs, but also helped make for a short day out the following. The bridge washout wooden ladder is solid and easy - no worries if anyone is. The distance from Downey T.head to the cars on the road can't be more than 1/4 of a mile. Cold cokes previously stashed in a creek down the road were much appreciated. We picked up the other vehicle from Cascade River Rd. T.H. and were sucking down Espresso Shakes by 1pm at Good Food- what rewards! Gear Notes: never used the two pickets or third tool we brought. carried a 60 meter 1/2 rope and small rack. My hike boots with Stubai aluminum crampons were perfect for trip. Approach Notes: see above

I went up to 10'500 on it as a day hike on the 11th of July and only had to touch snow once or twice. From there it was almost all snow with maybe a rock band or two to cross. I posted a few pic's in my gallery as well. Park rangers had climbed it the day before and following is from NP web site: Success Cleaver: A climbing patrol conducted July 9th discovered conditions on the cleaver to be rocky and melted out. From the north side of Pyramid Peak around 7,000 feet, following the ridge above the Success Glacier was very rocky with small patches of snow. Obvious bivouac sites become apparent at around 9,500 feet. The traverse onto the Success Headwall is melting quickly. Loose rock plagues the normal traverse, making it necessary to climb the ridge until 11,000 feet before journeying off the ridge. Once on the headwall, hard-consolidated snow gullies made for great climbing. Large sun-cups around 12,500 feet impedes swift progress. Rock fall is a big concern on this route, wear a helmet and try not to travel in the heat of the day. There were no open crevasses on the route up to Point Success.

not sure temp range, but remember coolish nights, warm days. I would say pack as if you were living on Snoqualmie pass at this time of year.

I found something of yours you may want back...send me a PM.

Congrats Rod! Thanks for the TR as well. It sounds like you guys had much better weather than jhammaker and I. If only we had waited one extra day . We went right at the rock buttress and got onto snow slopes above. I think this put us around 5600' for our high camp. We never even saw the mountain because of all the clouds and turbo mist/rain. Did you see any of our tracks in the snow?

Troy Moss, your TR rocks! Great job with the one 'real tool' and the one 'wanna be tool' I thought I was the only one that made the wrong choices in that department...seriously - sounds like ya'll had an awesome climb.

MVS, I was originally packed with 2 tools till I read your TR. Thanks for the beta- the third tool saved me 8oz and worked perfect!