Don_Serl

an outstanding climb, serious toughness, and a superb report. you guys are 'the real deal', for sure!

amazing trip and wonderful TR, marc. you're one of a kind, for sure!

finally! it'll be interesting to get more details once they get out.

Dave Schultz, as in Nose in X hours Dave(where X is a very small single digit integer)? holy moses, NJC in November is a harsh intro. really, it does get better, altho this is hardly Nirvana for ice climbers (or maybe that should more appropriately be 'Niflheim"...) as one of my past ice climbing partners used to put it, the official website for coastal iceclimbing ought to be 'disappointment.com'... and another reckoned the most important piece of equipment a coastal ice climber could possess was a plane ticket to Calgary! still, it's special when it happens, very special... keep at it!

I reckon Dru hit it. Or think about one of the lakes high in behind Powell River if you're looking for 'rambling' country. I presume you need to fly out of a Harbour Air base. If that included Campbell River, you could fly to Ghost lake and spend the weekend in the Waddington Range. Or fly to the lake east of Queen Bess and do the SE Buttress... Or fly to Lorna Lake and peak-bag your way back to Gold Bridge... Man, makes me 'pine for the old days' when floatplanes were THE way to get into remote locations. Took way more planning and careful packing than is required in today's helicopter access world! Have fun, you lucky devil!

Nice work, and a very concise and precise TR. Congrats! And oh boy, did you ever do well on the summit tower - that's a LOT of rime! Reminds me of photos from 20 or 30 or 60 years ago. You boys are obviously 'clean and competent' to pull thru all that in 13 hrs... Well done - I hope the numerous other parties who are planning Waddington Range trips this summer have similarly positive outcomes (there is a LOT of interest this year, for some reason).

awesome slide off Lituya, but it'd be a stretch to blame global warming. let's see: Ice Valley, 1997, 5km x 1km (see page 180, The Waddington Guide): Hope Slide, Jan 1965 Huascaran, May 1970 Frank Slide, 1903: etc, etc...

p.s. I seem to spewing off here, waxing nostalgic, etc, but I'll say one final thing related to Slesse NEB: I first climbed that route with my first 'great' partner, John Wittmayer, and Squamish hard-corer Paul Piro. June '77, and it was snowy, wet, cool, and gloomy. We bivvied halfway up, no bags, just pulled on an extra sweater and pulled the packs up over our legs - not bad at all. And somewhere on route Paul said something that saved my life at least a couple times in the decades following: "In the mountains, when you're not climbing, you're hiding!" Thanks Paul - advice for the ages!

holy shzt, Drew! noticed bottom centre too - avvy ice towers must be 20 feet tall... shock and awe... but not surprise...

dru pretty much tagged it. early season, go for low, south or west facing, and dry (ish). as for my comment about some of the possibilities being on Slesse, what I had in mind was the NW face. fine route, blocky (so you could climb it in the rain, not that anyone would want to), might still hold a little snow on the big ledges but not so's it'd bother the climbing... and if you did that route, you'd have the advantage of sussing out the descent for later, when you do the NEB, thereby lessening the chances of getting benighted on the descent. I always enjoyed Habrich and Sky Pilot early season. the west side routes on Old Settler would be fine. I used to like heading up into the Lytton backcountry to get dry mountain climbs in early July. west side of Matier. south facing routes in the Chehalis... or climb snow routes... those are (of course) all in BC, and I've not much experience to suggest from for the WA Cascades. I do have one early-season trip that I learned from, that of climbing a route on the NE face of Stuart on the July 1st weekend many years ago, and huddling at the base of a fortunate rock rib high on the face as a huge cornice collapse swept by 10 or 15m away. we had previously been hit by minor falling chunks, in a more exposed position. not the place to be, at that time! p.s. looking back thru my notebooks to refresh my memories, I see that I first climbed the NEB on June 18-19, so 'not climbing big mountain routes in June' is obviously a rule (like all rules) made to be broken! 1977, that was...

wow, nicely done! there can often be superb alpine ice conditions in April and May, but you have to catch then just right, and you guys judged this perfectly. I'm interested in whether you found belays easily. when we climbed it, it was January, and everything was snowed up, so we found very few anchor points, and tended to run out multiple ropelengths moving together with a few pieces (VERY few... sometimes none...) between us. this photo makes it look like good anchors were readily available when you wanted them. ahhh, memories. we climbed onto the crest, along it to where it butted against the right wall, then up the top of the gully to the cornice. the snow was so steep and unconsolidated in the top of the gully that I had to make progress by cutting a groove and 'chimneying' facing sideways, and it took 2 hours to tunnel thru the cornice... then, of course, like you, you have to get off! soooo frikkin cold, for soooo long... and not much red paint around back then... a favorite! good goin'!

the guide is still readily available, altho I imagine few retailers in the US stock it. you can purchase directly from the publisher: http://highcol.pinnaclecart.com/ as for the Upper Tellot, there are literally dozens of fine rock routes available. I like camping high, up by Dragonback, to shorten approaches. there are short routes (2-4p) on Tellot Spires and Dentiform, plus nearby Shand and McCormick. longer routes are found on Stilleto, Stilleto Needle, the Serras, the east face of Shand, etc. the rock is generally extremely good, altho this is the mountains and a few bits of looseness and gritty surface are found here and there. once you've looked thru the guide to get an overview and a start at specific objectives, feel free to PM me if you've got detailed questions. enjoy your trip - it's a fabulous place!

wise. on the one hand, you don't want to have 'old-timers' like myself pontificating on internet forums from the comfort of our studies dissuading you from trying stuff out there in the real world. on the other hand, you want to live to become an 'old-timer' yourself. timing is everything. there are hundreds of lovely routes available, some of them readily do-able even in foul weather with a deep, sloppy snowpack in June! heck, some of them are even on Slesse itself!

June might be the worst month to consider climbng the NEB, and many other mountain objectives. There is more rain and fewer hours of sunshine in June than in May, in Vancouver - very unsettled... Plus, I used to notice that the cornices were there in May, and not in July... I've pirated Buckaroo's photo and added a couple lines. There is a gully beneath the toe of the east buttress that'll dump you out onto the snowfields which you can cross beneath the hanging glacier to reach the toe of the NEB. You still pass beneath the hanging glacier, but traversing is faster than climbing, so exposure is limited. I've also climbed the yellow line, in winter, but summer ought to be OK too. The north glacier is far less active than the hanging glacier. good luck

Upper Cayoosh, north off the Duffey Lk road (park at salt sheds). There's a cabin at treeline, and you could ski Cayoosh, Rohr, and Aspen (part skis, part scrambling). If you don't have John Baldwin's ski guide, buy it!

that'd be a fine outcome. won't be long, I suspect, till someone builds a fitness trail up thru the nearby forest, to provide an alternative to the Grind. and the divide back towards Habrich begs for a super-scenic crest trail... not to mention that a few of the nearby crags might see a route or two go up... get enough recreational activity, and the valley, which was completely obliterated by logging in the '60s-70s-80s, might even re-grow and gain park status itself!

Not at all. Just make sure when you arrive to build good snow-walls around your tents. They don't have to be too high - you're trying to deflect the wind, not defend the Alamo! Hip high will keep the wind off the side-walls of the tent, and that's plenty. Better THICK than high - the sun will melt 'em out in a couple days, and thin walls fall down fast. I reckon the Col is one of the finest places on the planet to camp - superb views, not usually much company, incredible routes left and right, dead quiet 'cept when the wind gets up or the seracs fall down - magic! Enjoy your trip... P.S. The one major problem with the Col is that unless the weather is solidly good, you can't fly out, so be prepared to drag all your kit over to the western shoulder of Hickson - there are reasonable landing sites about every 1000 feet all the way down that, right to the Scimitar. In really shitty weather, you'd have to go to the flats of the Scimitar, but you might just get delayed in that case, cuz it's not totally trivial to find your way down, especially in poor visibility.

Ed, I have to respectfully disagree. The Stawamus Chief park is primarily a recreational mecca, and the gondola offers a plethora of new recreational opportunities, not to mention the just plain 'touristy' benefit of riding into the alpine, which will appeal to those less fit, or with children, etc. The gondola does not impinge upon the Chief itself, as is obvious from the attached photo: Yes, there will be a swath cut beneath the tram (as there is beneath the Grouse Mtn Skyride, for instance), but the line lies several hundred metres south of the climbers campground, and roughly half a kilometre from Shannon Falls. The Chief trail comes close to the tram-line only when it traverses south of the campground, then it quickly climbs away from it as it follows Oleson Creek. The traverse trail from Oleson Crk to Shannon Falls will pass thru the swath, for sure, but 20m (or even 50m) is hardly an eyesore in a non-wilderness setting. There is one small (but pleasant) climbing area left of the tramway, above Oleson Crk, but it's in the trees and faces north and I don't think there will be any intervisibility at all. As for the positives, I think anything that gets people into 'the mountains' is good, even if it's just a 'resort' setting. Those sorts of people tend to be more sensitive to 'our' issues when it comes down to logging or mining vs. recreation. The tram will re-open easy access to the superb rock on Habrich and the wonderful introductory mountaineering on Sky Pilot, both of which have been nearly lost to us in the past decade with the deterioration and closure of logging roads. Mountain bikers will be ecstatic, and I can imagine several challenging new downhill runs being developed. Hiking (including loops) on Goat Ridge and across to Petgill Lake will be attractive. I can imagine backcountry skiing in the basins north of Sky Pilot and Goat Ridge. Heck, I can even imagine walking DOWN to climb 'A Scottish Tale' when it freezes, then riding the gondola back to civilization. I respect what you say about the importance of protecting our parks, but they are cultural and social creations, and as society changes I have no problem with 'evolution' of purposes and boundaries. By far the most popular parks in the Vancouver area are Mount Seymour and Cypress Bowl, both of which are heavily 'industrialized' with downhill skiing facilities, yet both offer excellent hiking and wilderness skiing opportunities - and both 'remote' enough to kill people now and again. I love the time I spend on Seymour, for instance - one of my very favorite places! So, overall, I see far more potential for postive outcomes than for problems, and I hope the gondola proposal receives the support necessary to have it go ahead. I'll pop over to supertopo too, to see what's shaking there... Regards, Don

the L4 has better payload and flies faster than the old 206, but with 4 people, especially for 2 weeks, you DO have to pack carefully to get everything into the craft - space, rather than weight, is the challenge. keep most 'packaging' small, so stuff 'goes into' corners. as for 'the old days', and float planes, that was wonderful in its own way, but as soon as choppers appeared on the scene, float plane access disappeared. being able to fly directly to where you want to go, and saving a day or two's walk at either end, is worth quite a bit of money, it turns out. p.s. if you really want to save money, fly in and walk out... still good clean fun!

yup. per Sepultura, Mt Forbes. highest peak in the Rockies south of the Icefields. nice, eh?

...and I drove the Coquihalla to Kamloops and back on the 26th/27th. some snow on the ground at Box Canyon, but not very icy looking... maybe the Falls Lake routes would be OK? otherwise, seems like a pretty darn warm start to the season. Drive BC is showing Cayoosh summit at 1C and weatheroffice has Lillooet at 5C at 11am today... yikes!

Marc can tell you the full story. very nice! I'll dig that out of him next time we cross paths... with so much vertical and/or wide-crack climbing, it always seemed to me to be especially desperate as a winter project. at least on Slesse the climbing is not overly steep. the problem we faced on any of my attempts on Slesse (only one of which made significant progress, but which never got above half height - about at the number '86' symbol on the photo on pg 265 of Alpine Select) was the compact nature of parts of the buttress. at the high point, I climbed a snowed-up groove an entire ropelength, digging for gear at any likely spots, and found not a single placement of any kind, so reversed the pitch and we bailed. a few bolts would have been a smart inclusion (and Nelson and Lewis were wise enough to take them). it's a very hard game, winter climbing 'round here, once you get off the snow and ice lines! and even they are more-than-minor outings... great stuff...

nice work, guys! now, when is someone gonna get onto the Pup's Buttress in winter? Kevin McLane and John Wittmayer tried a long time ago - it'll be ridiculously hard and cold, of course... aid and bivvies... are there any hard winter climbers left around here anymore?

yah, what an excellent climb - close to town, "in" when most other winter alpine stuff is snowed up, serious enough to be serious (especially if soloed) but easy enough to be sorta 'calming' rather than stressful. but based on several ascents, I'd say 'conditions' are far more important than the calendar. it's just as good, and can be as icy, later in the winter, after a high thaw and then a cold snap - plus it seems more like 'winter' in those conditions - and it's usually fzzcking cold, cuz there's often a strong outflow. good times... anyway, I'm glad to see there's still a few people out there getting on stuff like this. now, what about the Sumallo cirque? (p.s. while I've mostly climbed the route unroped (whether with partners or on my own), I'd suggest always taking a rope for protection crossing the little basin above the ramp - that's out onto the lee side, and you'd be in BIG trouble if it slid... if you're on your own, well, that's just a chance you're gonn have to take...)

UG-leee... honorary Scotsman, for sure!