klenke

Hey, Fred wears the same rock shoes as I do. He's taking after me, I see. Man does that make me feel special.

Dude, call the ranger station over there by Cle Elum. They'd know. Ingalls Pass trailhead is over 4,000 ft, so you probably will not be able to drive all the way up Teanaway Road.

I dislike the tacked posts too, but I have trained my eyes to read directly below them. Perhaps as a compromise, it would be nice if there was a horizontal space maybe about the height of a regular thread header between the tacked and the regular threads. This space should be made a dark color to easily separate the two.

Too many logs come rollin' out on that road destined to be reduced to pulp or sawed into siding. Aint no way that road would not get fixed! The last time I drove down to Lake Cavanaugh there were two loaded logging trucks parked on the side of the road. The drivers were having lunch, I guess.

Definitely quick to go right up Colonial Creek from the road. Benefit for camping on East Ridge of Pyramid would be the ability to view the route from a roughly horizontal eye-angle as opposed to from below. You can plot/see the route from camp, then aim directly for it the next day. Binoculars would be handy. I would estimate one hour to get to base of Colonial from the East Ridge of Pyramid. Camp on the ridge is roughly 5,400 ft.

Was up doing Snowfield Peak on December 1. Seems like it would be quite feasible to get to the base of Watusi Rodeo by way of the Pyramid Lake/Pyramid Peak Trail. You can camp on the East Ridge of Pyramid then contour around the head of Colonial Creek to get to Colonial the next morning. Might be a slight problem crossing Colonial Creek (contour too high and it's a waterfall).

Hey, MattP, if you go up the Anderson Creek way, be sure to give us a TR. That's about the only way I have never been. I have always wondered what it's all about. Tried to find the "start" of the Anderson Creek route once by driving into an old mobile home park. Couldn't find the start. Did something else instead. Can't remember what.

It would cost you a little cash and a little loss in quality (depending on the establishment's scanner quality) if you ask to get the shots scanned to CD-ROM at the time they develop the film. Places like Kit's do this. I'm pretty sure it costs less than $10. If time is money, that's money saved. Why do all that work of scanning yourself. Let someone else do it. Then again, if you only have a few good shots, probably not worth doing the CD-ROM thing.

I agree with Bronco about the Proctor Creek drainage. A few years back I tried to get to Mt. Index from the head of that creek (in the SE corner of Section 34). BW4 and BW5 bushwhacking level. First of all, if the road is not gated at Hwy 12, then follow the logging road to the wye at the NW corner of Section 27 then continue on to the spur that goes up to the normal West Ridge trailhead. If you stay straight and don't go up the leftward spur, you can go another mile to where the road used to cross the head of Proctor Creek. Severe washout there. At just before this washout, there is an open area to park at. The USGS map shows a dashed road leading east then north for about 4/10th of a mile. This road is not drivable. It is severely overgrown. It eventually turns into what would seem like a streambed. This could be the old road. From there, I followed this streambed up, negotiated some cataracts, and eventually got up to the ridge line (BW3 & BW4 since I stayed mostly in the open but log-strewn and cliffy stream course). I got cliffed out on the ridge at the corner between Persis and Index so gave up on Index and went back to tag Persis. To get to Persis, I had to scramble below the ridge crest due to gendarmes until eventually getting to the 5,000-ft notch immediately SE of Persis' summit. A steep gully around the corner led up to the summit. This gully will no doubt be snow-filled and potentially dangerous at this time of year. Since the starting point where you leave the road is ~2,600 ft, you may not have to ascend very far to get into snow-covered brush. In actuality, this could be an easy alternative route if the brush is snow-covered. Going back, I had BW5 for 60% of the way down. Some of the worst bushwhacking I've ever experienced (and I could see my car waiting for me for practically the whole descent). See attached topo map for a view of the area and my ascent/descent routes. I undertook this climb in mid-September 1999. Other note: it is usually not possible to drive to the south side of Mt. Index due to a gate near Lake Cavanaugh in Section 33. I was able to go back there once in the early 90's, but not since.

Tell us about the "spectre."

I wanna know what bozo deemed me worthy of even one star? Or maybe its collusion. Maybe multiple bozos gave me one star.

Mr. Costie could have been misquoted as well. When I talked to the reporter, he was not using a tape recorder, so what I told him he paraphrased at best. In my case, what I really said and what Mr. Welch wrote were close enough to be acceptable. I can't speak for Mr. Costie's interview.

Attached to this post (see top of post) is a topo map I just made of the area. The latitude/longitude location seems a little too far east and closer to Cement Creek than I would have thought. This is the purple X. The red X seems more plausible. Of course, my software could be in error in acquiring the location.

Tread Tramp, We left at 9:10PM so you did just miss us. You saw the enormous crowd at Letona when you got there. There's just no way we could party there without getting crushed to death. So we went to other 'less' crowded places. Figger Eight and his girlfriend (can't remember her name) and Denise went to a scheduled party. Dave Schuldt took off on his bike--almost without paying his share but he thought the better of it. Jules went home, I believe (if only temporarily). A friend of hers from REI also made an appearance with his girlfriend. Chris W and I went down to party in Fremont. At 4:20AM, I left him at a large party about a block west of The George and Dragon Pub. I really doubt he went snowboarding today! What did I do today? Well, let's say that I just got up less than an hour ago. I had to shove the trash can by the bed out of the way before I put my feet down. I'm not going to say whether or not the trash can was used. ---Paul

Huh?

I'd like to come to one of these Pub Clubs for once. It was a 2002 New Year's resolution to attend at least one of these this year. Looks like this will be my last chance. So, is that it: the Latona around 7PM?

Damn it! This makes two years in a row I've lost a climbing friend in an avalanche. Last year, Georgia. Now this year Don Dovey. I last saw Don in November. We had planned a few out-of-state climbs for next summer. I met Don on Mt. Thomson in June 2001. We had done four or five climbs together including a couple Leavenworth excursions. Most recently, we climbed Mt. Index in May. My commiserations to the Dovey family.

Hmmm. My dad lost his digital camera in Cancun this month. Maybe it wasn't your fault. Maybe it's a global conspiracy the way they're disappearing like that. Looks like you didn't make the summit on Saturday. Schucks.

Tomdav's photo: My guess is south side of Mt. Stuart somewhere. Perhaps up in Ulrich's Couloir.

Just thinking outside the box here: What's the accuracy of a GPS device these days? Within 10 meters? (Please don't imply that I'm thinking you could use a GPS in lieu of a beacon. I'm just thinking of a possible future invention that would be an amalgamation of GPS and beacon technologies.)

"been in at least one fist fight while climbing" Right on, I can say anything I want. Cool beans.

That's deep in there. Beware of bigfoot. Or, worse, cavemen.

Here's an idea for a topic for this thread: the winter solstice.