DonnV

The marketing stats make it sound like it could do a good job of both melting snow at 10,000' and slowly cooking the luxury trail dinner on the family backpacking trip. Anyone tried one?

Wayne, There would be no technical problems going south to north, except for about 200' or so of sorta technical ground to descend near the top of the North Ridge of the South Sister. The reason I would not want to go that direction is that you'd be going up and down the South Ridge of the North Sister at the end of a tiring day, and that's not a place where you can make any mistakes (the guy who fell and died there last Saturday was not the first). I was glad to do that when I was fresh, and was glad to be on relatively trivial terrain heading up the South Sister as the fatigue set in. But then again, I'm old.

Depends on what you mean by "traverse." Whatcom is typically either dealt with via a traverse around its east side, or via its summit. We went in last year in late July. The traverse down low looked well broken and subject to sliding blocks of melting snow, so we opted for over the summit. It's all 3rd class. Not great rock, but no problem if you're careful. Route is straightforward and not as steep as it looks from a distance. There were some steeper snowfields on the ridge but all were easily circumvented. The route sorta winds up around to the west as you approach the summit. Not only is Whatcom a great viewpoint, but you can immediately see that your day is pretty much done if Perfect Pass is your destination. A few minutes of easy 3rd downclimbing, then you can plunge and boot glissade to the pass in another 5-10 minutes. We came out Easy Ridge and found the Impasse to be very easy to deal with in late July. There was no snow at all where we went through. Easy to find the rap anchors, and an easy (though exposed and unprotected) upward 4th class traverse to get back up out of the gully. My impression was that going the other way through the Impasse would have been slightly trickier since you'd be downclimbing more, but still very doable. And it sounds from previous discussions as if folks have found a few different ways through.

Sad news. Someone on the Middle Sister asked me about the route on the North peak. I remember telling him that you had to really watch your footing and be suspicious of every hold you use. Test everything. You really can't afford to fall anywhere on the last traverse or up the Bowling Alley to the top. Very nasty fall line. ]http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=58944] Rescue crews wait to recover body of dead climber BEND - Authorities are still trying to find a safe way to recover the body of a climber who fell nearly 600 feet on the North Sister. Dr. Bruce Shively, 55, a cardiologist and an associate professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, fell Saturday while climbing with a friend. On Sunday, a helicopter rescue team came within 100 feet of the body, but the mission was called off because it was too dangerous. "We were able to observe enough and for long enough to know that he is deceased," said John Miller of the Lane County Sheriff's Department. Miller said the search and rescue crew would try to make another recovery attempt in the coming days. The fall happened on the second day of a multi-day climb up the North Sister. Shively and his partner, whose name has not been released, turned back and began their descent before reaching the summit, according to Al Hornish of Deschutes County Search and Rescue. At nearly 9800 feet, Shively separated from his partner to scout out a safe path for descent, according to officials. After descending several hundred feet down the loose rock face, Shively shouted to his partner that it was safe for her to descend. She could not see him, but could hear him, according to reports. She then attempted to descend the mountain and re-establish voice contact. She did not hear from him again.

While maybe not as appealing as some of the linkups that can be done up north, this is about the best one can do down in Oregon, and I had been wanting to do this for a couple of years. My wife and I drove up the recently opened Mackenzie Pass road Thursday afternoon and camped at the Obsidian trailhead. I headed up the trail by headlamp at 3 AM. I was high enough by sunrise to enjoy the spectacular view of the sun hitting the lineup of Washington, 3F Jack, Jefferson, Hood and Adams. I started with 2 liters of water and planned to grab one more liter on the way up. I kept seeing streams, so kept hiking up. Started daydreaming, I guess, and realized a bit later that I had missed my chance and was now far above any flowing water. Snow was pretty hard fairly low. I threw on crampons at about 6500'. Another half hour higher, as I trudged up the snow, I heard a voice from the rocks on the left say, "Hey, do you want any water?" A guy had bivied there and had carried up several liters more than he could possibly use. I gratefully filled up, chatted a bit, then continued on my way, glad to have been rescued from my inattention. The North Sister is the only one of the three summits that has anything very technical, so it was nice to get that out of the way early. I ditched a bit of gear at the base of the S ridge and headed up. The route is mostly dry right now, but the steep traverse to the base of the Bowling Alley is still very hard snow and provided excellent cramponing. The Bowling Alley itself has a bit of remnant water ice, but I was able to climb up and down easy 4th class on the right side. I was carrying a 30m rope for a possible rap. Not only did I not need to rap, but I found two fixed ropes already there, iced in a bit so very likely from last season. I only spent a couple minutes on top. It was hard not to just hang out and enjoy the views, but a long way to go yet. Saw no one else on the route. The trip down was slow and tedious, followed by a fairly quick walk over to the base of the Middle. The North ridge is a short walkup. Saw 4 people there. Again only spent a few minutes on top before starting down the SE Ridge. This is a fairly decent and direct descent route. A bit of snow, some solid blocky 3rd class downclimbing, more snow, with lots of boot glissading down to Chambers Lakes between the Middle and South peaks. This is where you need to spend some time just hiking for a while. The North and Middle are very close together, but the gap between the Middle and South goes on a ways, or seems to at this point in a long day. I was fortunately able to find some meltwater and refill without having to drop even further to one of the lakes for water. The North ridge of the South Sister starts off feeling like a pretty good way to finish the traverse. It's all pumice, but actually fairly good footing and the rock is a multitude of wild colors (or maybe I was just really tired). The ridge is really just a hike for most of the route. Unfortunately, about halfway up the footing starts getting looser, just as one gets more and more tired. It turns into a real trudge and my pace slowed quite a bit. Just below the summit the ridge is blocked by a buttress that seems to be made out of hardened mud and loose rock. Out came the axe and crampons and helmet one last time for the 5 or 10 minutes it takes to walk around it on steep snow to the right. The last few minutes are a slog to the top. This is the one summit where I hung out for a while. I was definitely feeling the fatigue, and it was very nice to look back at the other two peaks now that all the work was done. Oddly enough, there was no one at all on top of the South, although there had clearly been many there earlier, and I did pass many people coming up on my way down. I fortunately just caught a nice quiet window. There was still enough snow low on the south trail to allow for a fairly quick descent. I never thought I would say that the trip down the South Sister trail was pleasant, but I enjoyed every step of it this time since it marked the easy, last leg of a very hard day. Crampons on and off about 7 or 8 times. Six liters of water. Left Obsidian trailhead at 3 AM. Top of North at 8 AM. Top of Middle at 10:30 AM. Top of South at 2:30 PM. Devils Lake trailhead at 5:15. Wife had a gin and tonic in my hand at 5:16. No real climbing challenges, but a great workout on an absolutely gorgeous day.

Not to be too picky, but the spur is probably closer to a mile before US Cabin. We went in last year via the summit of Whatcom Peak and came out Easy Ridge. I had left trail shoes at US Cabin and had to run back to get them after we made the ford. Ran down to US Cabin and hiked back fast and I think it was close to 40 minutes for the round trip. For what it's worth, the loop we did was recommended by Wayne and I'd agree it makes for a great trip in to and back from Perfect Pass. There's a bit of elevation gain to deal with, but Whatcom is a nice summit to bag, PP is about a 5-10 minute run down the snow from there, and the Impasse is pretty easy to figure out on the way out.

Anyone have any recent info on the condition of the Chilliwack Lake Road to Depot Creek, or can tell me the best way to find that info? I was there last year and thought I saw signs indicating the road would no longer be maintained that far. It was still passable but at least one section seemed to be quickly falling into the lake. If it is passable, I don't suppose any friendly locals have pruned the Depot Creek Road so that you don't have to kiss your car's paint job goodbye? Thanks.

We were the group of 4 coming up the West Ridge Couloir that mtnear mentioned. He was right, we enjoyed a planned bivy on top. I did take a look at the North Ridge from near the false summit. It looks to have maybe a bit less snow on it than it did last year when a partner and I climbed it on about June 15. The snow created no real climbing problems then on most of the route (we stayed in boots all the way to the gendarme), but I wouldn't go up there right now unless you are ready to do the direct finish on the gendarme, which is what we did. Last year those pitches were bare and dry, but the standard finish looked very difficult due to the amount of ice you'd have to deal with following the rappel. For what it's worth, there is FAR less snow on the summit right now than last year in mid-June.

It's MSM, and you'll find tons of info on the web. It's right along the same lines as chondroitin and glucosamine, and shows up a lot these days combined with those two. Used lots in vet med, especially horses.

Another vote for the roomy and scenic ledges 1 or 2 pitches up the route. Really nice place to spend the night. I think the reason this climb often ends up being 3 days is that the low technical grade attracts lots of climbers who just aren't accustomed to climbing quickly. The climbing is easy, but you're far enough from the car that you can't afford too leisurely a pace on the route. We got going early in the morning, kept moving, and had no problem at all getting all the way out on day 2.

And don't fail to note the names of the climbers involved. Sounds like one of the Northwest's most prolific rescuers almost needed some help himself. You gotta love the way they went on and summitted anyway.

Has anyone out there done this? If so, is the route worth doing? The only description I have is from the Thomas book. He gives a fairly detailed pitch-by-pitch description, but says almost nothing about the general quality of the climb. Just looking for a general opinion from anyone who's done the route. Thanks.

quote: Ryland, there are lots of different ways to notch to summit it but I have found the following 3 work best, depending on your skill and fitness: Another option. Drive over in the afternoon (or even later in the evening) and hike up to Long's Pass with bivy gear (and some water). Early AM, leave bivy gear at the pass, drop down into Ingalls Creek and hike the trail up to Stuart Pass and continue from there. Less time and work on climb day than going car-to-car, you climb w/o carrying any extra gear, and you have bivy gear at Long's if you can't get all the way out in one day. Same advantages are had by bivying down at Ingalls Creek but often lots of bugs there and you have a bit more gear to haul back up over Long's. My wife and I did this several years ago and it and had a great climb with plenty of time.

Was up Depot Creek a couple weeks ago. No problems crossing border at Sumas either direction. Depot Creek road itself was easily drivable with our 4WD high clearance pickup, but don't drive the second half of that road unless you really don't care at all about the paint job on your car. The trail into the basin below Redoubt is actually in really good shape right now.

For all of you with excess cash lying around, consider the floatplane option to Stehekin. My wife and I did the NE Buttress years ago when we had real jobs and had more money than time (that's changed!), and we opted for the plane. Day 1 we left Chelan at 6:30 AM which allowed us to grab the first shuttle leaving Stehekin and gave us plenty of time to reach the bivy sites. Day 2 did the climb and came as far down the SW side into Park Creek Valley as we could by dark (good sites and water just above timberline). Day 3 was up early to continue down to the road where we caught the day's first shuttle returning back to Stehekin, where we grabbed a boat within about 10 minutes. I think a one-way flight is now up to $80 per person (it was a bit cheaper back then), but it's one more option to think about if your schedule is tight and you want to cut down your trail mileage. And the flight in was a very cool way to start the day. One more thing I remember about this climb was that the summit itself had an awesome bivy site. A bit hard to work a summit bivy into your plans maybe, but if you could (or if you were forced to), you'd have a very comfortable site with unbeatable views.

Another vote for Zorn in Seattle, although my experience with him is also ten years old. He did arthroscopic meniscus repair on both of my knees and at the time was also the guy that did the knee work for the Supersonics. He was also an avid runner and very conscious of the needs of active athletes to get back to where they were physically. An interesting aside is that the anesthesiologist for my surgery was Dr. Skip Edmonds, a member of one or two of the Whittaker-led expeditions to K2. Every time my vitals would start drifting too low and I'd start dozing off, I remember he'd start asking me details of some specific climb I'd done. I don't think he really wanted to know, but just wanted to make me have to think a bit and stay awake. I appreciated it later once I realized what he was doing, but at the time I thought he was being sort of a pest and I just wanted to doze off. Seemed like a mean trick to load a guy up with a spinal and a strong sedative and then ask him to describe the crux pitches of the North Buttress of Slesse, and what kind of rack to take. God knows what I told him.

We did the standard North Ridge route on Saturday from a camp near Ingalls Lake. Colin had come by the lake very shortly ahead of our departure. We never saw him, but we had his tracks to follow all the way from Stuart Pass. We were also impressed by the amount of snow still on the route. Very climbable, but we stayed in boots all the way to the gendarme. I was with a relative beginner to alpine climbing, so we belayed the whole way. The snow slowed us a bit, since we couldn't use our rock shoes, and most of the route is simply faster on bare rock, and some leads had to be cut short to avoid ending up in the middle of a snow slab. Be prepared for that if you go soon, and try to hit it early before the snow softens. We finished on the gendarme, which was snow free. That Camalot on the off width looks fixed for life, unless the second wants to hang for a while and work a bit (or at least resling it!). We could use rock shoes for 5 leads from the base of the gendarme, enough to get us through all of the tougher pitches, then back to boots for the last 3 or 4 leads, which were pretty much completely snow. Saw Colin's impressive finish through some water ice just left of the normal bypass. Gutsy solo. Damn, we just missed scoring those tricams! I'd agree that the bypass will be tough for another couple weeks. I've been on the summit as early as mid-May, and there is more snow at the top right now than I've seen before. And that cornice hanging off the NW side of the summit is inimidating - should come down any time now. The only pitch that gave us any hesitation was the nice long slab, split by a low-5th crack when bare, that sits a few leads before the gendarme. Almost completely snow covered but melting fast. By the time we got there, Colin's first few steps had already slid off, and the rest of the slab looked primed to slide off soon. We ran up it as fast as we could. Ice Cliff looked excellent up high and tougher down low. Stuart Glacier Couloir looked to have a short bare section where it bottlenecks about a fourth of the way up (might have been dark water ice - couldn't tell for sure), otherwise still looked in good shape. Lots of tracks on top from folks who came up Cascadian. A really beautiful day to be up there.

Pete, Thinking of heading in there soon. How far could you drive and what was your approach from the car? I assume you came up Cooper Spur Road?? Thanks!

Couple of other thoughts. Nooksack Tower (couple of route choices) followed by a climb of the Price Glacier (Price would be in better shape later on). Spectacular area. You'd need to bike or hitch a ride several miles back to your car, but it's done all the time. Another great hard man loop would be to do the NE Face of Redoubt via Depot Creek, then descend and traverse to the base of the North Buttress of Bear. I've never done that traverse but it looks feasible. The normal Bear bivy site is close enough to stash most of your gear ahead of time (or pick it up later) and do the climb light if you wanted. You'd again come out with a few miles of road to get back to your car. And, obviously, if you have the patience to keep running down the Sherpa glacier, you could spend quite a while doing a number of worthwhile routes on the north side of Stuart.

Consider tossing in Backbone Ridge on Dragontail on that Enchantments approach.

I've always thought that an outstanding Olympic trip (I've done all parts of this but never linked together) would be to come into Queets Basin via the Bailey Traverse approach from the Sol Duc area. Then climb the Olympus peaks from Queets Basin. Then head out to Low Divide, but finish by hiking out the Skyline Trail (rugged, but uncrowded and incredibly scenic) instead of down the river valley. This would be a great backpack trip without the climbing. Having to carry ropes and other gear would certainly add to the work, and you obviously have a car shuttle to deal with, but it would be an incredible trip through the range.

rbw1966, Probably heading in as early as roads allow (June, I hope), and probably midweek. Not a skier, so I'll be hoofin' it.

Anyone done this or have info on best direction, approach and exit from the area? Thinking about a long solo day later on, and can arrange for drop-off at one trailhead and pick-up at another.

The first party heading up the Worm Flows this morning found an ice axe up near the weather antenna. Looked like someone left it there on their way down sometime in the last couple days. ID it and we'll get it back to ya'.

10.2 x 60m. Saw it online for $99, which appeals to my currently severe budgetary constraints. I've found one reviewer that liked the rope but found it to be a bit twisty and also the slickest (as in slippery) rope he'd ever used. I need a 60m sport rope, but it will also have to see some occasional alpine use. Anyone have any experience with this rope?