klenke

That second picture posted by Bill is not a mountain at all but a close up shot of a pile of fresh, steamy bull shit in some farmer's field. That's my guess and I'm sticking to it. Actually, I hope I'm not literally sticking to it.

For Bill's photo: couloir leading up to Forbidden West Ridge. Haven't been there....yet....so just a guess based on mountain positions in background. Looks like J-berg in foreground.

Goddess, where do you get all these cool graemlins? I want some pet graemlins of my own.

Saturday's trip is not my idea, so it shall remain a mystery to you. To me, it shall remain wet. Weather on Saturday is probably going to be worse than last Saturday but thankfully the mountain in question will be less involved. There's a trail all the way to the top. No, it's not Mt. Si.

It is actually a guessed view from a peak in the North Cascades that I have never been to. So, in a way, it's based on a real view. Not Three Queens (which I have climbed), but I can see the resemblance.

This one will really have you stumped.

Even so, I plan on going out and getting wet this weekend. Yahoooo, baby!

If I ever meet one of these aliens coming down a trail, I don't know what I'd do! It could be called the Abominable Snowball. Maybe that was what that strange noise was in the dark on Lewis Peak, Catbird.

I would say no one can feel as bad about punting around at home on a sunny weekend than can a climber. Hmmm, how many times have I been stuck in the city on a nice weekend day wishing I was out there in the mountains? Non-climbers have nice weekends too, but it won't mean as much to them as it would a climber--especially PNW climbers who get a lot of crappy days in between the good ones. Non-climbers also do not know how close climbers can and do come to killing themselves every weekend. We're in control, but one false step and it could be aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.... Interesting to see Erik posting without capital letters.

I don't have a URL to link to, so I have attached a photo of the north side of Lewis Peak to this post (see above). The photo was taken from approximately 4,200 ft at the northwest side of the notch mentioned in the TR.

Looks like we're both wrong, Josh. According to this website (http://www.vermont-st.com/pct/overview.html ), it is 70 miles from Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass. I guess my memory from two summers ago escaped me.

Stefan, I should have the few shots I took back from Kit's Cameras tomorrow around noon. I'll send you the relevant shot(s) of the NE Ridge. Here's what I suspect will be the case for that approach: Provided an approach (say from Barlow Pass) goes without problems all the way to the 4,000+ ft saddle NNE of Lewis Peak, you can then expect a steep rocky area that looks circumnavigable on the north side up a steep semi-timbered slope. Looking at my topo, this rocky area looks even more feasible to climb around on the southeast side, but we could not see that from our vantage. This rocky area can be seen on the topo as the pronounced nub just right of the 4800 contour label north of the peak. Once around that initial rocky area, you will come to a flat area directly beneath the summit by about 200 vertical feet. If you look at Green Beckey [for me, the photo in the 1989 printing on page 57 focusing on Del Campo Peak but with Lewis on the right], you can see some pics of Lewis' east side. You'll see a headwall kind of thing. This is what I'd expect you to run up against coming from the northeast. This headwall extends partway down the NW Ridge (at least down to 4,200 ft), but there may be a way up it. You cannot see this extended part in the photo in Beckey. You can also see the first rocky area I spoke of with the flat area on top on the far right side of the photo. As for seeing it ourselves, we could not directly see the east cliff of the summit area, but there were cornices all along the crest. These cornices would certainly pose an avalanche hazard for a winter/spring climb up that cliff. What you need is a good picture looking northwest toward Lewis from Silver Tip Peak. The picture(s) I took will help you with this determination. I'll just need to scan them and send them to you. ---Paul

TR: Lewis Peak (5,608-ft north summit of Del Campo Peak) Short Version: Ugh! Long Version: Brian (Catbirdseat) and I went to go climb Lewis Peak yesterday. I wanted to take a look at the Northwest Ridge route as possibly a good winter climb in the case that avalanche dangers were considerable elsewhere. The route was believed to follow the crest of the ridge all the way, thus making it a good candidate. Brian and I got to the trailhead with no problems. We even stopped on the Sunrise Mine Road briefly to get a picture of the NW Ridge of Lewis. A very light drizzle was coming down. There was very little snow on the ground at 2,300 ft. We left Brian's truck at 8:27:30AM. It had also stopped raining. Initially, we had intended to take a left into cross-country terrain from the trail at the first stream crossing (the one with the old foot bridge), but we wound up doing this at the second stream crossing a few hundred yards farther along. Somehow, though we were now off-trail, we wound up back on the trail and shortly walked right over a ruined Manley's Cabin. I would not have even known it was an old building unless Brian had pointed it out. From somewhere not too far beyond the cabin we made our way up the forested hillside hoping that we had not gone too far up the valley between Morning Star and Lewis peaks before cutting uphill. We knew that the west side of Lewis is very slabby. Luckily, we were able to find a semi-forested BW2 (sometimes BW3) route between slabs up to the ridgeline, whereupon we crested it at about 3,200 ft of elevation. We were following fluorescent tagging, so knew we weren't the first to go this way. After a short break, we continued on. Still, only intermittent snow patches. It was mostly snow-free (but by no means dry) BW1 and BW2. At around 4,000 ft, we came to a good viewpoint of the destination mountain and the sharpening ridge ahead of us. Furthermore, a perpetual bright spot in the clouds to the southeast opened up to a full-blown sucker hole. This really got our adrenalin flowing. Before long, we found ourselves at what we supposed to be the notch where one of Brian's friends got turned back. This is at 4,200 ft on the ridge. From there, I even managed a snapshot of Lewis and Del Campo peaks. The notch is not really a "notch" in the usual sense of the word, but a depression in the ridge crest with an easy slope on the northwest side and a brushy set of crags on the southeast side. We lightened our packs of the snowshoes we were not using (the snow was too soft and the terrain too variable and steep to make them useful) and continued on. In winter conditions (and probably even in summer conditions), climbing directly over the crag(s) on the southeast side of the notch would be very sketchy class 4/5. What we did was descend ten or twenty feet to the west side of these crags (where I would see the last piece of tagging on the way up). We initially scrambled around the corner of a vegetated and treed rock outcropping but could not find a way down or across the other side (slabby canyon), so instead we had to scramble back left on sketchy class 4 terrain complete with loose green belays and even looser rocks. Lo and behold, in going this way, Brian stumbled upon a rappel sling around a tree. We said we'd use that on the way back since we had brought my 30m rope. From the rappel sling, the going was easy semi-forested traversing usually just below the crest for about 300 yards until we got to another cliffy section. Because snow cover was lame, we could not ascend a prominent gully (a crack in the snow at a step prevented access upward). Instead, we had to descend westward (on snow-covered slabs, I presume) about 100 vertical feet until we could find a way to mount the next rock rib south of us. Once we managed this, we found ourselves on a lot more forgiving terrain. That would be the last of the rocky sections. From here, at approximately 4,300 ft, it would be a tiring slog up very wet snow all the way to the top. Brian said he could smell my summit fever. We made an angling ascent back to the ridge crest then more or less followed it whenever the tiny cornices allowed this. We tried our best to avoid the holes around the stunted trees, but still wound up post-holing a lot. Man was that snow wet and soft! Safe, but wet and tiring. It would be easy to self-arrest in, but there's no way you'd keep your feet dry. At about this time, my right gator strap came unbuckled (that's never happened before), but I kept on going just the same. My feet were already swimming anyway, so what's a little more water? Also, did I mention that the weather had begun to deteriorate? We made the now-foggy summit at 2:00PM at right about our designated turn-around time. The summit was pretty nondescript. I think we only knew we were there because we came upon a small cairn at the northern end of a long, flat crest. (I dug briefly around the cairn for a register but could not locate one.) This crest had small cornices built up on its entire east side. We weren't on the summit very long before it started to rain, lightly at first but steadily harder as the day wore on. Oddity: after having a problem with my right gator strap, what should happen? Well, Brian's right gator strap decides to break completely. But he said he'd bear it until we got back to our gear stash beyond the notch. In no time we were back to the rappel station making quick work of the 50-foot rappel (perfect for my 30m rope). Brian's legs were cramping, but up to this point I was unscathed. After Brian repaired his gator, we set out from our stash for the remaining ¾-miles and 1,900 feet of descent at around 4:00PM. It was somewhere on the ridge where Brian made a spectacular tumble down some brush and over a rock bulge (he was not hurt) that I got whacked in the left eye by a brush branch while doing a leap. [My eye is really bugging me now as I write this. It hurts when I blink, even when I keep it closed because blinking the right eye still means your left eye twitches in unison.] We wanted to stay on the Northwest Ridge all the way back to its broad terminus, but somehow still managed to get off of it unwittingly. The ridge sort of compels you to drift off to the west. At any rate, we found ourselves descending more or less off the ridge where we came up--right toward unseen slabs below? The terrain was varied in the last shards of daylight, but mostly it was manageable. Only a few steep sections concerned us momentarily before we would find a way down. However, right as it got almost completely dark, we came to a 50+ foot cliff with un-downclimbable slabs to either side. We thought we might have to rappel the cliff, but I was leery of our short rope being able to make it all the way down to safety...in a pouring down rain, no less. Luckily, I spied a way to climb up and around and down the other side of the slab to our left, and this is what we did. In another few minutes, we had found the trail. And in another few minutes after that, we had found the truck. And in another few minutes we had found the dry clothes. And in another few minutes we had found the Heineken and the hot tea. And in another few minutes we had found the Mountain View Inn for some well-deserved grub. I tried to eat while struggling with my scratched eyeball. Plus, the tearing up of my eye seemed to be making the mucous/tears flow freely out of my left nostril. Lame. [This is still the case right now.] Times: 5-1/2 hours up, 15 minutes at the summit, 3-3/4 hours down. Forgive me if this TR is uninspiring or too long. It's hard to write when you've only got one eye open.

Oh yeah, that's right. That's one of his oft-done climbs. That must be why Granite came to mind in terms of having punter stories to relate.

In Wrecker's picture, the summit of Olympus is the rock point on the extreme top right of the photograph. The glacier in the foreground is the Blue Glacier.

Bring extra clothes along to change in to back at the car. And remember, the most memorable climbs are sometimes those that were most miserable. They're the type of climbs that make for good stories at pub clubs. No one ever wants to hear about those uneventful climbs up to Granite Mountain in perfect summer conditions. Zzzzzzzzz.

I think you transposed the numbers for the height of Whitney on the picture on your main page. It should be 14,494 ft (or thereabouts). You have apparently also transposed the numbers on picture page 2. Nice TR though.

Will do. In actuality, I had thought about possibly descending by the NE Ridge, if things looked feasible that way, and then going back along the NW-trending ridge north of the basin north of Lewis Peak (i.e., going back along the ridge that leads directly back to the logging road). My main thought for doing this was to get some good pics of the NW Ridge of Lewis, etc. from a different vantage. Plus, I love making loops trips.

"Don't forget that some chicks think it would be a dream date..." I'd like to add that to find or have a girlfriend that would willingly engage in such laborious and possibly painful exercise would be a dream girlfriend for many of us wannabe hardcore male (or female if that's your persuasion) climbers.

I agree with Josh. The way my CC.com browser is working, if we get up to 10 pinned posts then there will be no regular posts still on the front page, meaning one more irritating mouse click will be necessary to see the only posts that matter to 99% of us (the click to go to page 2). Or, it'll mean I create a bookmark that goes directly to page 2, if this is even possible. The pinned posts serve no purpose to me except the first and only time I read them. And I'm willing to bet this goes for most other users too. Twould be nice if an improvement can be made in this regard.

FYI: Catbirdseat called the Darrington R.S.. They said the MLH is still open to Barlow Pass

Yeah, take a girlfriend on something she wouldn't want to do but did so because she loves you so much might get you a stalk of devil's club permanently lodged in your .

Don't know if the climb is a go yet. I need to call my buddy Jim tonight since he and I are the main two to be in on this climb idea. Send me a PM with contact phone number and residence location. Others are interested in going too, so it seems this climb is generating more interest than I had anticipated. Logistics will be worked out probably around 7:00PM tonight. Looks like NOAA is predicting a nice weather window: > SATURDAY...CLOUDY WITH A RAIN AND SNOW TAPERING OFF IN THE MORNING AN > INCREASING CHANCE OF RAIN AND SNOW AGAIN LATE IN THE AFTERNOON. SNOW LEVEL > RISING TO 6000 FEET. AFTERNOON PASS TEMPERATURES 35 TO 40. WIND IN THE > PASSES EAST 5 TO 15 MPH. This may be laughable. We'll see. If so, who cares? 'Tis always fun to plow around in the snow.

Josh, Lewis Peak via its Northwest Ridge is accessed via the Headlee Pass/Vesper Peak trailhead, not Barlow Pass. Consult a mapbook. The turn-off to the Headlee Pass trailhead is about 2-3 miles west of Barlow Pass on MLH.

"No, it is definitely not a walk in the park. It is also known to be quite brushy. I would be concerned whether the sparse snows of this year have covered all the devils club and slide alder. It sucks to punch through with snowshoes and get stuck in branches. " Come on, where's your sense of adventure. A little devil's club tickling the sphincter doesn't hurt that long. Besides, I'm perpetually ensnared in a boscage of devil's club anyway. It'll be like a walk to my kitchen for me. Attached to this post (see top) is the cropped topo of the climb of Lewis Peak. I expect there may be a 1/4 mile of bushwhacking near the trailhead, but eventually we should be getting into snow. Mattp, your 3,300 elevation point is well taken, but since this is a relatively straight forward emprise (thus mitigating route finding issues), I don't expect the elevation gain will be a problem.