rat

at the risk of ruining someone's adventure, here is some recent info on this area. some of this may be on bivouac.com but i am not a member. 1. mclane's approach times seem pretty accurate. 2. winged evil awaits at gentian pass. there are more scenic and less buggy sites along polemonium ridge. 3. mclane's instruction manual is far off the mark for the sphinx. the north ridge is only 170 meters long. it might have been 6 pitches of "sustained" climbing in 1973 with mountain boots and a 30m glacier rope. for most people it will not be worth the walk but is an excellent route if you are traversing the range. unfortunately, we weren't. do not descend to the southwest col---instead, it's best to traverse back to the start of the ridge via 3rd class terrain under the east face. seems like the only people who climb this (or, at least sign the register) are park rangers. 4. the col nearest castle peak has better rock than the one near phyllis' engine if you are heading to mt. davidson. the crux of the n.e. ridge might be getting to it---we didn't, but we didn't try too hard either. the glacier outflow has changed---stay closer to the north/northwest face than is shown in the photo. the route looked nice from above. a beautiful area.

seems likely. thanks for the info.

as dan is unlikely to weigh in on this, i will supply the reality check and full disclosure: grade III (climb and descent. plan accordingly if doing it rt from the parking lot.). technical grade 5.10 (furry and strenuous in spots but not in the "hard" 5.10 range.) f.a. claim is up for grabs because we found a really old nut, minus its perlon, a short ways up pitch 2. no other tat. the old guy rested in one spot leading pitch 1 and the young guy rested once leading pitch 4. the middle-aged guy styled his pitches as usual. mike's topo, while excellent overall, has a few errors from the top portion of pitch 3 onwards. if you get that far, you won't need a topo. this is an insignificant blade of slag. i would have rather climbed chipped and overbolted routes at duty dome or the real pearly gates.

anyone who would NOT recommend the index traverse and goes on to complain about a bit of brushy downclimbing ought to move to colorado. fucking wank.

give an oregonian a living wage... throw your empties out the window.

your lack of cuss words is disturbing. i suggest you smoke more crack, worship satan with more zeal and shrink-wrap your cats.

thanks.

has anyone been there recently and care to fess up some info on road access? thanks, will call canfor eventually.

the approach to the sherpa-argonaut cirque does have a bit of brush but it is not bad---half a day like nolse said. the descent to sherpa-argonaut col is fine. you can use lighter shoes and won't need an ice axe. the same probably can't be said for the sherpa glacier. and the cirque is a cool place. it's a good route with just a bit of gravelly rock near the notch where the more technical climbing starts.

i crash around in the brush a fair amount and,in my opinion, there are no more ticks this year than normal. i occasionally hit patches of them (like 10-15 in a short distance) in both brush and forb covered areas. no big deal...just check often. they are less numerous than and don't whine like mosquitos (or you wanks, for that matter). if you get one, ease it out by its head like chuck's post says. if you pull it out by the body you increase the chance of it transmitting anything in its midgut. i've known two people that had them embedded in their scrotums.....that's just poor personal hygiene and lack of attention from the wife.

"speak no evil". it's truly an embrassment that the perps of this bullshit are locals. eventually somebody is gonna snap. just to avoid thread drift, i bet cattalk, whoever he might be, would likely agree. fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. we now return you to your regular programming......

now if you could just find a #5 camelot.....i hear the grace period is quickly ticking away......

fuck off, podunk.

kudos. that's a cool website.

might have done it by now if i owned a snowmobile. gordon briody and mark shipman sledded up to trinity and attempted a route on the face years ago. not sure if shipman went back to complete it. it hasn't quite been in shape/haven't had a partner/too chicken to solo when i've checked it in the fall. john scurlock's photos seem to be creating momentum.

it's gated at fish lake sno-park.

the photo of buck fails to show the 1500' of thrashing required to get out of the alder-choked avalanche catch basin below the face. the approach is frought with danger. the rock is rotten green schist. you will undoubtedly die. but you must take a number and get in line to do so.

sorry, i meant razorback ridge.

very cool, and asterisk-free, ascent. how were snow and ice conditions back there? anything dripping down near backbone ridge?

a little clarification: we descended the north face, not the north face couloir. the skiers also descended the north face. however, it appeared that conditions were not to their liking and it looked like they downclimbed about 1/2 to 2/3 of the face before skiing.

goat creek sno-park east of mazama. there are also some spots along the lost river road beyond the mazama store.

russia (altai mountains near border of siberia, mongolia and china), china (sichuan), pakistan.

bullshit.

the pdf loads slow on a dial-up connection. wait long enough and you'll be rewarded with gems like "when i lived and climbed in the seattle area in the 1980's, no such book (the washington ice guide) existed so i had to pretty much create the sport of ice climbing in washington, and such an adventure it was...."

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