klenke

Climb: Beebe Mountain-East Ridge to East Face Date of Climb: 3/25/2005 Trip Report: To be imperfectly frank, Beebe* we be for a day. We was Mike Collins and myself. Mike and I wanted to get ahead of the forecasted weekend gloom, so we set out on Friday to climb Beebe Mountain via its East ridge and face. We parked here (c. 2,600 ft) at a nice little pull-out spur beside the creek and left the car at 8:30AM. Right off the bat there is steep terrain to deal with: 300 vertical feet of steep forest and minor cliffbands above the road. The sides of my ankles burned from the immediate exertion of it. But once we got through that it was more or less easy going all the way up to Pt. 5639. The underforest was mostly open although there were the ever-present windfalls and a few segments of tightly spaced young trees. We encountered a smattering of snow over the duff and this made things slippery. We even passed a woodpecker condominium near Pt. 5639 and shortly after we passed it the pecking began in earnest. I can't imagine camping next to such a niggling noise. Once onto the flatter ridge beyond Pt. 5639 we strapped on snowshoes and began a leisurely stroll onward in modestly forested terrain. At first I was concerned at the cliffs I was descrying through breaks in the trees straight ahead. Uh oh! Was the East Face that cliffy? Surely not. My concerns were assuaged once I realized it was the 800-ft North Face I was seeing (picture). The East Face was merely a steep snow slope. Yet this slope also had its issues. Was there an avalanche danger? How much snow would there be on it? It seems obvious there would be a crust underneath whatever powder existed there. As we got closer it appeared the best line was on the far right side of the face near the edge of the North Face. It wasn't much of a rib at that right edge. More like a corner but more or less out of the way of the more avy prone slopes to the left. We continued up the steepening slope, keeping right in the trees that were rapidly coming to an end. The conditions were getting more and more difficult for snowshoes (moderately hard crust) but this also pleased us since we now realized there wasn't enough powder for avalanche concerns (at least not with the cool, overcast skies). At the last, small band of trees we took off the pods and put on the 'pons. They proved quite useful. From there on to the summit the ground alternated between bare crust to 10 inches of powder over crust. The going was slow and the weather was deteriorating just enough to dampen our desires to run the ridge southward to Pk 7160+ ("Tarheel"). Eventually, the summit crest loomed close as we arced right toward a cornice and looked down on the attractively-iced North Face. I pressed ahead for the final push. As expected, the cornices were not an insurmountable barrier for our attack. But the crust transitioned to leeside knee-deep powder as I angled toward the chink of least resistance. Plod plod plod. I did not know it then but the big cornice to the right was the highest point (and probably the summit when bare). The summit of Beebe Mountain (7416F, 1056P) was beclouded. Fleeting yet abstract views were all we would receive. Though it had been a 5 hour, 15 minute ascent (could take a mere 3 hours in easier conditions), we were no longer in a hurry since Tarheel was out. We loitered and loitered but the clouds wouldn't part. We really wanted to see Elija Ridge to the WSW since it is on both of our wishlists. Here it is in the left side of this picture from Ruby in January. Here is Mike at the summit with the south crest beyond--just about the only significant view we had from the top: The descent back down the East Face went quick. We'd have to wait until we got below the cloud deck to get any views of the immediate topography. At the base of the face we waited at least half-an-hour for Jack Mountain and Crater Mountain to throw off the clouds clinging onto their flanks. The weather was improving slightly. The return was easy except for the steepish forest east of Pt. 5639. Snowshoes couldn't handle the light puff over duff so we took them off. And I said to Mike, "Don't think for a minute this is going to be any easier without snowshoes on." It wasn't. "Controlled sliding" is what I termed my descent technique. Back at the car in 8 hours 15 minutes. 5,000 feet total gain approximately. Maybe 5 miles roundtrip. The top 1,800 feet of this climb could have been skied and more than once I wish I had some planks. Not worth the hump of ski gear from the road, although most of the forest would be skiable if there were enough snow. Here is a shot of our route (pink arrows) from the north from the vicinity of Little Jack. The green arrows would have been our down route had we gone over to Pk 7160+. * So who was Frank Beebe? From Poets on the Peaks, pgs. 11-12 (©2002, John Suiter): "Frank Beebe...had first come to Washington from Ohio in 1895 at the age of 20. On the train west, [he] had fallen in with some prospectors on their way to the 'Glory Hole' on [nearby] Ruby Creek. Feeling lucky, he went along with them and spent a hopeful season panning the streams, but in the end came in to Bellingham, where he took a job in a shingle mill. Later, Beebe made his living on fishing boats in Alaska. But the Skagit had gotten into his blood, and in his middle age, he began making trips back to Ruby Creek, no longer seeking gold, but trapping for ermine, marten, and mink. Sometimes Beebe camped at the shipwrights' old abandoned cabin on Granite Creek; around 1920 he decided to claim it and moved the whole thing, log by log and shake by shake, down to the shady flat in the fork of Granite and Canyon creeks [three miles north of present-day Beebe Mountain]....Over the next few years Beebe added a shake-walled kitchen and a sleeping room. In 1928 he went to work for the Forest Service, and his place became the guard station. When Frank Beebe eventually retired and moved back to Bellingham, the Forest Service purchased that cabin from him and maintained it until the late 1950s." Gear Used: snowshoes, ice axe, crampons Gear should have left behind: 30m safety rope Gear could have used: skis for the upper part but not worth the carry weight up from the car. Approach Notes: From the west, drive North Cascades Highway to the Canyon Creek Trailhead then continue ~3.3 miles to where a creek is flowing out of a canyon. There is a 100-ft-long spur road into this canyon. Park here. It is about a 1/4-mile before the East Creek Trailhead, which is on the east side of the road.

Why post an action shot of him like this for a missing person report, then? How about a better picture of him (i.e., one showing his face)?

Wow, is he climbing that roof free? Nice! (Maybe it's not as overhung as it looks due to camera tilt.) Was his trip to Vegas a climbing trip or a gambling trip? I suppose the latter if his name is "The Gambler".

Here is a good panorama from Stetattle Ridge showing Davis (#3) and its NE Face in relation to the surrounding topography: View west from Stetattle Ridge highpoint

A picture worth posting to this thread. You can see why the area would offer excellent technical slab climbing. Tang Tower from Pootie Peak (Fallacy Peak):

Does it matter if a success followed all of those failures? Most failures before a successful ascent: 5 --> Mt. Index (main peak); 3 --> Cashmere Mountain; 2 --> Jack Mountain, Lennox Mountain, Lundin Peak Most failures without a successful ascent*: 3 --> Malachite Peak; 2 --> Elephant Butte, Kyes Peak, Gunn Peak, Mt. Stickney, Whitehorse Mountain, Mt. Curtis Gilbert; 1 --> numerous (probably around 40 total) * not leaving the trailhead/car does not count here for me

Irish Gas Station Taking a wee break from the golf course, Tiger Woods drives his new Mercedes into an Irish gas station. An attendant greets him in typical Irish manner, unaware who the golfer is. "Top o' the mornin' to ya." As Tiger gets out of his car, two tees fall out of his pocket. "So what are those things, laddie?" asks the attendant. "They're called tees, " replies Tiger. "And what would ya be usin' em for, now?" inquires the Irishman. "Well, they're for resting my balls on when I drive" replies Tiger. "Aw, Jaysus, Mary and Joseph!" exclaims the Irish gas station attendant. "Those German fellas at Mercedes think of everything!"

The FBI are on their way to your house as I type this. Some of the gruff guff from you liberal puffs concerning this steroids debate and the intercession of Congress is making me laugh. Keep up the assinine.

"Yes, but were you using them to increase your Peakbagging score card????" No, those would be stairoids; or sgorroids if you're Scottish.

I notice after there was vociferous complaint at the lack of TRs being submitted that they have made a comeback with a vengeance (mostly in N. Cascades Forum). Hell, look at the first page of the forum right now.

I doubt the number of offenders in baseball was a "small group." Probably 300 players +/- 100 over the last 15 years. Canseco is an ass (always was), but he's probably not making it up either. We all want our hero players to not have used them. Our bias might color our convictions toward them.

The two photos were taken about 100 yards from each other. In fact, the same terrain is visible in both. The left-edge Class 5 part in the first photo is the right-edge rib with the tree in the second photo. The tree is visible in both shots. I understand Dru's irony comment. When rock climbing, I'd rather visit clean, aesthetic rock any day. The bushwhacking thing doesn't apply to rock climbing for me.

My Honda doesn't get 30 mpg anymore unless I'm driving interstates and highways (at constant speed). The car is old and has nearly 270k miles. Once while driving around Yellowstone I got 40 mpg! It probably gets about 20 mpg on logging roads, which is still pretty good considering. It doesn't have the greatest power on highway hills but I can shift down (manual transmission) on steep logging roads to make up for this deficiency. Plus I drive fast on these roads, which further reduces gas mileage (always slowing down and reaccelerating around bends). The car lacks adequate interior heating due to burned out coils, causing consternation among passengers . It's also worn in the shocks department. There are a myriad of other problems. One of the most annoying right now is the busted spring on the back hatch latch (I'll spare you the details). Because it's a POS, I can beat my Honda to hell (i.e, go to places and at speeds others would blench at) and not feel at all bad about it. Last year someone backed into the front left bumper while it was parked in Seattle. I could have cared less. The dent didn't affect the drivability. Stefan takes his beater Accord in some odd, rough places himself, but I think his lack of clearance gets him more than he wants to admit. And yet, I'm still amazed at what he was willing to do on the road up to Mission Peak. My opinion is don't buy an SUV with 12-15 mpg. You'll be sorry when gas goes up to $3.00 a gallon. And you thought assmonkey was joking about that last year. Let's say you drive 3,000 miles per year doing climbs. Here's the math at $3.00/gallon and 15 mpg: 3,000/15 x 3.00 = $600. And that's at 3,000 mpy--a conservative value (especially for peakbaggers such as myself).

I'll have to see this commercial just to understand what ice climbing and glaciers have to do with Lexuses. Or is that Lexusi?

I wanted to go left onto the fun rock, but my decisions were overridden by more senior personnel. Too bad, as it probably would have been the best climbing of the day. Class 4 doesn't generally cut it for me personally when I know I have the gear to do harder stuff.

Sweetness! Thanks for the TR. Davis is very high on my list, but I always seem to forget about it. I've always thought the NE Face would be a great route. Thanks for clearing up the uncertainty regarding Klenke's Element. "And yes, I do brush bashing too with Klenke. Enjoy the brush? No. Deal with with the brush? Yes." Speak for yourself, Stefanator. I luff brush. I luff it, I luff it, I luff it. Okay, that's a lie. But I'm still luffable. Or is that laffable?

Pullen pulled out a Pullenesque. It was painted with arabesque. But I digress...

If you wish to know why John wanted to call it "Fallacy Peak" you'll have to read his report. Here is John Roper's TR (different pics than mine).

Climb: Fallacy Peak - West Ridge Date of Climb: 3/13/2005 Trip Report: Here I was once again at the Boulder Lake Trailhead. Third time this winter. This time I was with John Roper and Fay Pullen. We had two objectives but only one would we wind up visiting. Days are shorter at this time of year. Our primary objective was Pt. 4800+ half-a-mile south of the outlet of Boulder Lake. This point is shown as 4,895 ft on the 15-minute USGS Mt. Stickney Quad. Either way it doesn't quite have 400 ft of prominence but, by the looks of it from various vantages, it's a worthy objective nonetheless. And if the rock jocks ever open their eyes and strengthen their trailblazing resolve, they might find the fantastic South Face of this peak. Darin Berdinka & Gene Pires have been there and know what I mean. Their name for Pt. 4800+ is "Pootie Peak" to go with the nearby pinnacle they climbed that they called "Tang Tower." What's with their toponyms? In case the obvious isn't obvious, here is the not-so-obvious. Whatever you want to call it, the peak could offer quality rock climbing adventures off the beaten path. From the end of the overgrowing road to Static Point, a 1.5-mile romp through either open forest (close to the river) or moderate brush will get you to the South Face. Here is Roper's photo of Fallacy from the northeast in April 1991 (Tang Tower is on the left). This is how the peak should have looked for us ordinarily. But there has been nothing ordinary about this winter. Starting out from the car at 7:40AM (1,650 ft), we got to the 3,700-ft lake in good time and took a break. The lake is more frozen over now than it was in early February. From the lake, we mounted Fallacy's alternately brushy and open lower north ridge. Several routes to the top presented themselves, including the timbered upper North Ridge and the Northwest Face. However, we had earlier seen a notch on the West Ridge and so decided to have a look at that. The West Ridge appeared lower angle on the map. But I just knew it would be a sharp crest like the nearby West Ridge of Frostbite. The notch required about 70 vertical feet of brushy Class 3/4 to get to. Once at the notch we geared up while admiring the amazing southwest gully. It's one long slab climbing paradise (maybe 800 vertical feet of it). I haven't seen Infinite Bliss on Mt. Garfield but I imagine it looks something like this though a little steeper. I took off up the initially narrow crest on fairly solid rock. It was barely Class 4 at the hardest but I had John belay me anyway. When doing something new on a ridge, one never knows what difficulties may lurk around unseen horns. Fay prussiked her way up the rope then continued ahead on easier rock to scout out a route. Here is that first pitch with the exfoliated (and probably untrod) West Horn beyond (though I think it may be easier to get to from its west side). We had come to the apex of the southwest gully where it becomes a headwall. For scale, Fay is in the yellow jacket at left. Several rock climbing options exist. We considering going left onto the Northwest Face but it didn't look that aesthetic nor workable in the long run. A nice hand-crack went up the cleft in the headwall. Still another option was to traverse right on brushy ledges to round the corner. There might be better climbing on the southwest side. I traversed across on alternately frictiony and licheny slabs until the rope paid out. Then we did a running belay to the corner. From this corner I could see we were good to go. Up to this point we were still uncertain. Possibly no one has gone this way before. There is no information out there. But that is adventure in the grand style. We continued up a short distance to another minor Class 4 section. We stayed in the brushy dihedral but all sorts of harder but more aesthetic climbing could be found on the rib at left. After the brushy dihedral we walked and scrambled all the way up to the top, passing one last false summit before getting there. As mentioned, there are no known reports of anyone climbing this peak. However, Darin has said Chris Greyell and Dave Tower have called this peak and others around it the Boulder Crags. It stands to reason that if they named them they might well have climbed them too. As we neared the summit, just in case it could be an FA, we let Fay be the first to get there since she had told us she had never made an FA. But, alas, as we approached, a suspicious pile of rocks smothered our hopes. It was a definite cairn at the summit. Ah, no matter. Still a fun climb. There were lots of nice views, but the greatest eye-popper was good old Frostbite a mile or so to the east. Here is its summit tower. That South Face just begs to be climbed by someone. The yellow dot marks the location of where we mounted the West Ridge back in early February (see this report). The horizontal distance from that dot to the summit is a lot farther than it appears in this foreshortened image. For the descent, we chose a steep-ass gully on the Northeast Face. We downclimbed the pygmy evergreen choked gully knowing that we couldn't fall down the mountain if we tried. However, the little trees did come to an end and we were presented with a quandary of barely downclimbable slabs and ledges. Since we already had the rope out, we decided to make one rappel down to a snow finger. We then took this down and leftward to the 4,300-ft notch on the North Ridge. A direct descent (or ascent) of the North Ridge was not worthwhile due to a large gendarme (closed contours shown on the map). Fortunately, the west side offered a bypass (where we came up) and soon we were back at the lake. And soon thereafter (okay, 85 minutes later) we were back at the car. Distance = 4 miles of trail x 2 ways + 1-mile teardrop loop on peak = 9 miles total Gain = 3,300 ft. Time = 9.5 hours (for us) Difficulty of West Ridge: Grade III, Class 4 Gear Notes: Small rack, 50m rope, double runners. The West Ridge is not the easiest way up. The easiest way would probably be the Northeast Gully where we came down but this might depend on conditions. If snow-filled, you could take the gully all the way to the top. It would be at about a 40-degree angle. Approach Notes: Drive to Olney Pass, sign in at the bathrooms, continue past Spada Lake and the Static Point turn-off, past the Greider Lakes Trailhead, to the Boulder Lake Trailhead (just before the end of the road). It's about 10 miles to the trailhead from Olney Pass.

That was a good story to read. And it was entirely believeable...until the "Joe" incident. Then it took an up-on-two-wheels, hard, banking turn toward cliché. The story was just too perfect in the terror sense. The ropes being pulled into the cave, the post-event hallucinations and nightmares, the unlikely rendezvous with Joe at the city overlook, the desire for closure. The ending was also a good read but quite obviously untrue (made up). Furthermore, in back reading (retrospective analysis), the foreshadowing events become much more apparent. If it were a story like most of the first part where they're enlarging the hole, there would have been more ponderings on the writer's (and B's) part on plausible explanations for the strange goings on--more analysis, as it were, after the fact. There is some interesting discussion about the story here. In particular, this guy seems to think he's proved it's fiction: "Actually, I have proof that it's fake. I recently received this story, and was intrigued by how well-written it was. I stumbled across this site while looking for answers. I then had the idea to look for various versions of the page. I could only find two mirrors according to Google. I took those two mirrors and headed to the 'Way-back machine' at http://www.archive.org . From there, I learned the earliest version of those sites were in 2002, and if that was true, this guy either had to be lying, or was alive and well. Besides the idea that his friends/family had posted it, but why? You think they would have taken it to the news, not the Internet. So I kept looking and found a PDF version of the story (http://www.dougaustin.com/tlcaves/pdf/Hupman's%20Terror.pdf), but this time it had different names. Right-off I knew this had to be a hoax. But then I noticed an author, Mr. Thomas Lera, and a copyright date of 1987. Evidently, Mr. Lera wrote this short story in 1987 and just picked 2001 as a date in the near future (other stories of his point to 2030+ etc, I've found). Obviously someone simply thought it would be funny to post his story online and change the names, since the dates had finally occured. Afterall, we can never have enough spam in our inboxes, huh? lol. This also accounts for why the story was so well-written, and was able to keep my interest. It just seemed too good to be true lol." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I was interested to find out about this Floyd Collins person. There is a band called Floyd Collins. They named themselves after this unfortunate caver from 1925. I found this on the web (source): Synopsis (Taken from CD liner notes) FLOYD COLLINS is based on true events which occurred near Cave City, Kentucky in the winter of 1925. For many years, the farmers and landowners of this area fought a series of bitter "cave wars" in which they competed to discover and operate the largest and most beautiful caves in the region. Many farmers found expansive and decorative caverns on their own properties which they opened for tourism and profit. Floyd Collins, who lived nearby on his family's farm, was an avid cave explorer and had already opened his own Crystal Cave. But the enterprise never brought Floyd the recognition and wealth of which he dreamed. On a rainy January 30, 1925, Floyd set out to explore Sand Cave, hoping to find a new cavern or a series of underground tunnels which he believed linked all the caves of the region. Winding his way into the earth with only a dim oil lantern to guide him, Floyd uses the echoes of his voice to sound out the cave. As Floyd squirmed feet first through a tight passageway 150 feet underground, a small rock fell on his left foot, wedging in between him and the ceiling. Floyd was trapped in Sand Cave. The rescue attempts at Sand Cave began with a handful of locals, including Floyd's family and fellow cavers ,who were confident that the trapped man would be quickly freed. But as night fell at Sand Cave, and Floyd's brother Homer crawled into the passageways to spend the night with his brother, it became clear to the growing crowd that the rescue operation would not be a simple one. Although many tried to reach Floyd with supplies or comfort, few made it, turning back either because of the narrowness of the crawlways or the sudden fear the cave inspired. One of the few who reached Floyd was a cub reporter from the Louisville Courier-Journal named William Burke "Skeets" Miller. Because Miller was "no bigger than a 'squito," he was able to slide down the narrow chutes and sit with Floyd in his cell-like cave. In the course of eight visits with the trapped man, Miller conducted a series of interviews which relayed to a quickly growing readership a firsthand account of the experience of being buried alive. As days turned to weeks at Sand Cave, the local rescue attempt soon ballooned into a national crisis demanding outside engineering, dozens of miners, the National Guard, and the Red Cross. In the midst of factions disagreeing about the options for saving Floyd, the Collins family tried to remain strong, with Homer continuing to lead efforts to get to Floyd's foot. Yet because of numerous factors including the weather, the crumbling walls of the cave, the tightness of the squeeze, and, at times, simple confusion and fear, no one could rescue Floyd. Enticed by daily reports from a growing number of reporters at the site, an estimated 20,000 onlookers gradually arrived from all over America - some hoping to help, some hoping to get a glimpse of the now heroic Floyd, some hoping to exploit the crowd by hawking souvenirs or selling balloons. As the circus at Sand Cave reached its height with jugglers, medicine men, preachers and movie crews scrambling to get it all on film, Collins was all but forgotten. Around him swirled the first great media circus of the modern era. Although a series of cave-ins blocked the passageways to Floyd, cutting him off from the outside world, Floyd's sister, Nellie, dreamed of a way to lead her brother from his prison; Homer eventually clashed with the authorities and was banned from the site as a vertical shaft was begun to reach Floyd. With the rescue efforts entering their third week, Floyd remained alone, left to contemplate his own fate and impending death. On February 16, seventeen days after he had entered the cave, a shaft finally reached Floyd Collins. He had died of exposure, exhaustion, and starvation three days earlier, on Friday the 13th. The carnival at Sand Cave packed up and went home.

Darn, where's Jules when you need her to post. This is exactly her line of work.

Gawd! You saved the "worst" for last. Here's another: A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she lay her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry, your pet has passed away." The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure? "Yes, I'm sure. The duck is dead," he replied. "How can you be so sure", she protested. "I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something." The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few moments later with a black Labrador retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog and took it out and returned a few moments later with a beautiful cat. The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed the bird from its beak to its tail and back again. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly, jumped down and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck." Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys, and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman. The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$150!" she cried. "$150 just to tell me my duck is dead?!!" The vet shrugged. "I'm sorry. If you'd taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20. But what with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it all adds up."

Thanks, Darin. Cool B&W pic. In both our realities it is Pt. 4800+. That wasn't a name on my part; that's just its elevation. Speaking of Greyell & Tower, I believe I saw those slabs they climbed on Prospect's east side. The same general features and angles as Pootie and Static but not as long:

Road to Static Point was open last Sunday. It generally stays open but it is a good idea to sign in at Olney Pass anyway.

Thanks.