slothrop

Yup, I got there Friday night. We saw a white car parked in front of gate... poor bastards probably got there just before they opened it. Hey JayB, what did you climb this weekend?

eric8 and I climbed Colchuck this Saturday via most of the north ridge. We had intended to climb the north buttress couloir, but forgot the important points of the route description ("From the lower W extremity of the Colchuck Glacier... just E of the prominent lateral moraine...") and just started up the first promising couloir we found (6.45am). The couloir we chose is to the right of the moraine, above a lightly treed slope, and doglegs right after a couple hundred feet below a short cliff of yellowish rock. Mellow snow climbing (45 degrees) with rock pro and trees to sling leads up to the ridge. We climbed a short rock step to below the formation labeled "The Sandpiper" in brown Beckey (45 minutes in). The rest of the route was a long slog up snow slopes on the west side of the ridge. There was plenty of wallowing, but the snow was stable and good for kicking steps in most places. It got a bit steep (60 degrees?) and exposed on the last section below the summit, which seemed to go on forever. We spent just over four hours on the route. A party of two summitted via the n. buttress couloir just after we finished eating our lunch on top (or in Eric's case, losing our lunch ). We only managed a couple short glissades down the Colchuck Glacier -- too much fluffy freshiez. The hike out just sucks, especially the slog back up the slushy road. It was a good day to be out. We had a little wind and spindrift on the latter half of the ridge, but the weather was fine. I met a couple friends down at the lake who were going to try for the third consecutive weekend (!) to climb Colchuck. Hopefully they'll get it today.

The road to the Stuart/Colchuck Lake trailhead (Mountaineer Creek Rd.) is not gated, but a fair-sized tree is down across the road about 3 miles in. Beyond that, the road gets snowy, but it's melting quickly. Two more (smaller) trees block the road just shy of the trailhead.

Giant is a fun one for sure, and easy for the grade. Bring a 1-inch cam to protect the first move into the crack, or don't if you climb at Smith all the time and are accustomed to distant first bolts.

Looks like it'll be a fine weekend for being in the mountains.

Yeah. It was raining, so I took off my hardshell and went elsewhere to climb. I enjoy my freedom to climb where I please, not where my class is scheduled for the day. Too bad for the students and instructors. They probably would have had more fun in the sun at Vantage. Fourteen people on a tiny rock buttress is a horde.

Nice, Erik. Is that from the "How to Climb 5.12" book or something? If I could only trust my gear enough to climb like that...

The Mounties were everywhere this past weekend. The scrambling course was encamped at 8-Mile and I saw plenty of helmet nametags at Vantage, where we retreated to after Sunday morning's rain. Mountaineer's Dome aka Beginner's Buttress was swarming with GoreTex-clad folks on Saturday. Was that the scrambling course?

Aren't you from Colorado, JayB? That's a breeding ground for Whack MCs, or so I hear. Were you a NOLS instructor? Do you require "consensus" in order to make a group decision?

You should be able to search and find recent discussions on this topic. AFAIK, they're both good enough, so just buy the one that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy when you look at it.

Another vote for Moonshine Dihedral, the first 5.9 trad pitch I led. I think I placed 14 pieces in that thing.

You da man, erik Anyone done the Marsupials traverse? Looks fun...

Watts is talking about the first crack pitch, which looks not too hard, but I haven't climbed it. If Watts says 5.9, it's probably 5.8 to Index hardman Erik. The lil' red book sez the upper two pitches are 10a, but there are really only two hard moves: getting over the bulge to start pitch three and getting up another bulge halfway into the second pitch. You've got a bolt in your face both times. Whatever. It's fun, go do it. Ya beat me to it, Geek.

There's a fun 3-pitch bolted route on Koala Rock. The upper two pitches (5.10a) are Thin Air and you start with Suck My Kiss (5.9) or the first pitch crack of Thin Air if you want to bring gear. The route has great position and feels almost alpine when the cold wind is blowing. I think there's some good bolted stuff over by Brogan Spire, too. Well worth the short hike.

Putting knots in the rope between climbers while walking on a glacier seems like a bad idea. I'd much rather have an unknotted section of rope to work with while hauling a fallen partner out of a crevasse. I just don't see how a knot is possibly going to prevent a crevasse fall, and any effort spent on tying intermediate knots would better be spent practicing your self-arrest skills. Are you going to a top-rope-only crag? I suppose you could TR on a static rope, but I wouldn't want to, since I can't always trust that my belayer, however attentive and cautious, will always pull up every bit of slack. I don't want to fall on a static line from any height, thanks. I'd rather bring a dynamic rope so I could lead, anyway. Carrying a second static line for TR seems like too much work.

Yahoo! Nice job, dru. I just got back from a week at Smith, where several hard (for me) trad leads have banished my timidity. I sprained my ankle in lead fall in January, but now I'm itchin' to head out to Index for more.

ABCs == Smileys, which are cheep at REI outlet. They're anodized and I like 'em.

Went out all weekend, but any plans for proper celebrating today were ruined when someone car-doored me while I was riding my bike tonight. Fucked up my bike, my shoulder, and my plans for a leashless ascent of Moscow later this week at Smith.

I walked around my neighborhood late Saturday night with my new pack on, stuffed with rope (10.5x60, of course), rack, helmet(!), and harness. I thought about trying to climb a building or something, but I couldn't find anything I wanted to free solo with a pack on. Police cars kept driving by, too. I am a bigger dork than all those Mounties put together. It was frickin' Saturday night! At least Mt. Si is a mountain!

It's a chestbeating term to me: a sick route is whatever route you just did and want to brag about.

Yeah, I'll take 'em! When are you coming to Seattle pub club to deliver my goodies? I love those things. More effective for snaffle-killing are PowerBars at < 40 degrees F. At those temperatures, the PowerBar exhibits the hardness and tensile strength of steel for significantly less weight. TJ's honey sesame sticks are, along with honey-roasted peanuts, among the greatest snack foods on earth.

Them's good eatin'!

"Naw, it's just ice cream."

BWAHAHHAHA! I'm only laughing because it hits so close to home.

Yeah, I think I'm going to put my dividend to good use and trade up for a Khamsin 52 or something similar. I just want a light alpine weekend pack with a few goodies. Something between a burly Dana-esque fortress and one of those GoLite garbage-bags-with-packstraps.