Don_Serl

awww, SHIT!!! like Will says, a superb person, low-keyed but remarkably talented and highly motivated. damn... that hurts...

photos?

i reckon the universal alpine pin rack is 1 thin blade, 1 long thin bugaboo, one each #5 and #6 lost arrows, a baby angle, and a mid-sized long leeper (i guess no longer available). you only really need pegs for thin stuff, since bigger cracks protect well with nuts and/or cams. if pressed, just take a couple lost arrows (thinner is better, so #5 is a bit preferable to #6) - they'll go in almost anywhere, and they're strong enuf when well-placed to rap off with confidence - i've gone thru a LOT of 'em over the years. cheers,

I'm working my way thru Crocket and Richardson's "Ben Nevis", an interesting history of mountaineering on "Britain's Highest Mountain" (as the subtitle reads). Chapter 2 covers the first climbers, thru the period between 1866 - 1896. Prominent amongst them was one William Wilson Naismith, who is remembered for a variety of Scottish climbs and the eponymous 'Naismith's Rule', by which one can calculate the time required "for men in fair condition" to cover a certain amount of "easy" terrain: "namely, an hour for every three miles on the map, with an additional hour for every 2,000 feet of ascent" - still a very useful estimation tool today. What boggled me, however, was the description of Naismith's personal ability to cover ground. After noting him as "always a prodigious walker", the authors describe the time when "at the age of 60, in July 1916, he walked from Glasgow to the summit of Ben Lomond and back again; 100km in 20 hours, including stops. When asked by his young nephew John Fergus what food he carried on this expedition, Naismith replied that he found a bag of raisins in his pocket quite good". Great gods! Not many of us could come close to that, I suspect, even at a considerably 'sprightlier' age! Of course, modern ultra-marathon times for 100kms are in the 7 hour range, but Willie wasn't equipped with shorts and Nikes (luckily, since he'd likely have perished, given the Scottish weather), nor was he 'running'... Cheers,

contact Brian Jones at the Canada West Mtn School - they often have guided parties going in and MIGHT have extra capacity you could share (or 'rent'). NOLS also still seems to do an annual traverse or two thru the range, and gets resupplied a couple times. obviously, almost all of the helicopter traffic in and out of the wadd is with Mike King at Whitesaddle, so he's the key guy to stay in touch with. keep in mind that the Kings are 'country folk' and that they've earned what they've got, so outright 'freeloading' isn't much a part of their world-view - but they sure understand the concept of a deal, especially if it's approached openly and straightforwardly. good luck - nice to see there are still people around willing to put energy into 'the bush'! p.s. it's "Plummer" hut, named for Paul Plummer, not 'plumber', as in butt... cheers,

...and i see that ECB posted this a few days earlier. http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/918251/Ben_Nevis_1976#Post918251 oops. still, nice vid...

and why aren't you smiling, Dane ole boy? (cuz the KIng Eddie's still a couple hours away, perhaps?) [nice photo...] cheers, don

marc-andre turned me on to this classic footage of john cunningham soloing ben nevis in 1976 (hadrian's wall, i reckon). as an enthusiast for combining motorcycles and hiking/climbing myself, i think i was even more impressed by his barehanded sortie across the highlands on his old british twin (BSA maybe?) - altho the bugger was amazingly fit and fast, eh, both on the approach and on the ice. and super-confident in his feet. so nice to watch a true master at work... cheers, p.s. no, i have NO plans for riding to marble canyon this winter!

i hear the east ridge got climbed - very fine looking line. check out this scurlock photo: http://www.pbase.com/nolock/image/77323931 east ridge facing camera. peak is only 2606m (8550 ft) - hard to believe, with all that glaciation, eh? good going... cheers,

good call Drew, respect where respect is due. Stan Henderson, Fred Parkes, Mills Winram - Aug 10, 1927. tough old guys. Mills just died back in Jan 2006, aged 98! saw his lantern slide shows of Slesse, etc. best was his tale of the first ascent in 1931 of Mt Meager, a tottering volcanic spire. when they reached the "top" (Neal Carter, Alec Dalgleish, Tom Fyles, and Mills - as strong a mountaineering party as you could find in North America at the time, I reckon) they were confronted by a further, slightly higher, inaccessible blade. so they threw rocks at it till it toppled over and they were on the 'true summit'! Mount Parkes - remember it...

ever done the west ridge of the north twin sister? same rock - think about the steep sections of that route, then stand those up continuous for 1200 ft. frigging awesome... is this the best moderate alpine rock route in SWBC?

...not to mentioned Kevin McLane, who soloed the frigging Tower more than 30 years ago, back in the days when he occasionally seemed to not care too much whether he lived or died. (he lost the route, of course, high up, and had to climb considerably harder terrain to reach the 'safety' of the summit... SHEEESHH...)

sounds like you kinda had too much info, jason. you'd probably have been better off just figuring it out yourself - especially as the easily available info is conflicting and/or confusing. isn't it interesting how easy it is to make ANY situation fit ANY description, in the midst of it all? 1. the description on page 274 of Alpine Select is pretty accurate, except for one critical point. it's been quite a while since i was up there, so my memory may be hazy, but i don't think it's anything like 150m back from the drop-off to the top of the correct descent gully - maybe more like 50m? or probably less? whatever, it's the first notch in the ridge back south from the drop off. the word-description then is fine: scramble down a bit to a jammed block, do one rap northeastward, and a second gully (not visible from above) 'appears' opening northward. the rest is casual (altho there are easier and harder ways down thru the forest into the cirque). 2. the accompanying photo, however, is wrong, wrong, wrong! the dashed line on the east side section leaves the ridge FAR too early, and there is no traverse whatsoever on the 'correct' route. it's hard to tell on such a small photo, but i think the correct rap gully is the tiny shadowed line barely left of the actual ridgeline (immediately RIGHT of the bottom of the indicator line for the "summit of ridge". maybe this dashed line is why people end up doing a long exposed dirt/heather traverse? anyway, DO NOT GO THIS WAY! 3. jeremy's topo describes a third method of passing the 2nd "critical routefinding" section - simply rap the rib dropping northeatward just before the summit of the ridge. this will be the rib immediately north of the "correct descent gully" mentioned in #1. and jeremy's 2nd rap will place you into the second 'hidden' gully. (and jeremy says it's only 30m back from the summit of the ridge, which agrees with my recollections re: distance.) 4. for those of you who like to wander and who have pathological fears of rappels, i understand it is possible to trundle down a long way westward, then traverse northward and eventually climb back to crossover pass. altho why you'd want to do so, aside from the exercise, is beyond me... (i think this was done a time or two in the ancient past, before the linked gullies descent was discovered) p.s. jeremy's 1st 'critical routefinding' section is not very critical at all. there are two notches (a fact which he neglects to mention) - go thru the top notch. period. then follow your nose. easy-peasy... btw, i've been down this route 4 times i think it is, including once in winter, and i reckon it's far preferable to slesse creek and the long way back around (which i've also done, much to my exhaustion). final thought - take a digital photo or two on the approach, then call them up on the descent - could help getting down into the cirque the easiest way. (didn't somebody post a while ago about using the westernmost gully and finding it good? altho i always felt drifting east - left - was just fine)

nice outing, superb location. in many ways i like it better than the waddington range. btw, that was the pretender, not the serf, that you climbed later. the serf is way off to the east of the throne. cheers, don

yes. also note, my take anyway, the 10b right variation (where Springbok and Sprung Cock coincide in the topo) is more logical than the harder finger crack on the lefthand face. cheers

nice going, great route! for those of you who haven't been up there, it could be useful to point out that the start of the route (the chossy pitches) lies up the rectangular ramp above the snow well up and left of the lowest extent of the rock (i.e., the route lies near the left skyline in this photo). yah, i'll say! sticks in my memory as one of the very best pitches i've ever done in the mountains. so, can u confirm i'm getting this right? after the orange headwall, you climb up a little and traverse left maybe a short pitch (i think we did 2 very short pitches to improve communication and minimize rope drag), then you turn upwards again and climb a steep left-facing dihedral, kinda black and lichen-covered initially, two steep sections then it opens out. is that what you're calling the 10c? (i ask cuz we pulled on 2 or 3 nuts thru here, and i've always been curious how hard it would be free.) actually, it would be interesting to know more about the approach... do you have Alpine Select? there's a good detailed map on page 126. where were you able to drive to? are the bridges in on the main anderson river (18.2km) and the side stream (N anderson)? where did you park/bivy? (it sounds like there was confusion at the time, but maybe it's clearer now...) congrats again - that'll make the summer! cheers,

and patrick delany blew a V-thread on (IIRC) moonlight falls in the kananaskis. the whole block the thread was in sheared - luckily, he was first on rappel, and had a back-up screw in. it was cold, but not extreme, and the ice was not sun-rotted, just fine winter ice... i always have screw as a back-up for the 1st rapper, and if i'm 1st, i tend to tie the bottom ends of the rope together thru the bottom rappel on a multipitch climb to protect the 2nd. i remember chris bonnigton (again IIRC) saying he'd personally seen two lives saved when upper rap anchors failed but the victum didn't go all the way cuz of the ropes being tied to the bottom anchor. yup, you'd fall a hell of a long way, but you might well survive... cheers,

what you need to avoid finding it in slog conditions is a big warm break, follow by plunging temps. we've kinda been piddling around in the middle most of this winter, so i would suspect it hasn't firmed up a lot vs 6 wks ago. you could likely climb it in april if you had a clear nite and a very early start. it'll freeze tight overnite - and you just need to get up it before it thaws. a bunch of us did it overnite one time (leaving at midnite, topping at 5 am), and it was a gas! too cold on top to wait for sunrise, unfortunately... good luck. p.s. this is a great way to deal with lots of spring climbs, btw. climb 'em before daybreak, then laze around all day in the hot sun. VERY relaxing!

interesting reading. always good to see 'testing' instead of speculation. so let me add some 'speculation'... to me, the differences between orientations are noticeable, but not very dramatic, esp when one thinks that we often rap off 6mm or even 5mm cord, or 3/4 to 1/2" webbing. (actually, i'll only rap off 1/2" as a last resort - its tensile strength is only about 1000 lbs (500kg, 5 kN) - too close to 'the line' for comfort). the failure point with these lighter materials is likely to be the cord/web, not the ice. and i suspect that horizontal loading lighter cord/web shares the load into the two strands better, so material failure (rather than ice failure) is less likely. plus it's just plain easier to use (and place) a horizontal V-thread. nice to see the reinforcement of the notion that one anchor is just NOT good enuf on ice - i guess the implication is that some people climb off single anchor belays - fools! btw, did u notice that the death-falling climber in figure 17 came off because he burned out using leashless tools - but that was only because he was not wearing crampons! cheers,

No, I think the ice may have been softer or something as it was warmer for us. I was pretty easy to get sticks on the first or second swing. the only evidence of prior passage was on the back-side of the curtain. with significant water running, the front face was 're-virgin'. i got two good screws into the 'edge' of the column before swinging out onto its face to avoid the worst of the drippiness, and i was immediately pleasantly surprised that while the ice was vertical and while it looked tenuous from below, every tool placement was one or two swings and totally bomber, plus there were lotsa little knobs for the feet. the vertical section is only maybe 4 or 5 body lengths - i placed one more screw (again, totally solid, i reckoned) - then it started to kick back a bit and 'the crux' was all over. a fine route, in fine conditions. btw, thanks for the beta - it helped! as for the downed trees, it's now a highway across the creek. makes the bluffs suddenly easily do-able. the trees are BIG and well above the waterline - they could be there for the next 50 years! my only worry is they'll wash away in the freshet if other stuff lodges against all the dangling limbs and the creek sweeps the logjam away. the solution to THAT is to lop the limbs with a chainsaw, which i plan to organize. this access solution is too good to not 'manage'. cheers,

yah, mr weatherman jmace says: forecast is for 5C at 1500m and 14C in the valley and that's only because some cloud cover may inhibit further heating. gonna be drippy... cheers,

fuck money, i'm going climbing!

good one, guys. REALLY good... finger crossed... cheers,

yup, not bad. and sorry jesse - couldn't not post up... cheers,

yah, and the forecast shows rain starting friday or saturday? damn...