klenke

Hey Squiddy: you have no skeletons to hide and you're over 35. How 'bout you run? We'll get you on the new Replablican Party ballot. You will be funded solely by the generous contributions of your fellow sprayers and armchair politicians. I'll be your champagne, I mean campaign, manager.

"There's not a single person in my acquaintance who is on the fence for the upcoming election." Gee, thanks for making my mind up for me, Squid. What are acquaintances for!

This was Vesper Peak from Big Four on April 25:

Yes, I've had this problem too (as ChucK describes). I found a way to deal with it but I don't remember what that way was.

Maybe the West Ridge of Lundin up next to Snoqualmie Mountain. Be prepared for some steep snow pitches (ice axe usage).

You must mean these snow blocks, Stefan: Maybe it was one of these that let loose and avalanched on us! Steve: I received your pics. They look a lot like mine of the same views. Not much difference in snowcover between April 10 and April 25. Tom: There is really no brush at all doing the approach Beckey describes from milepost 27. We got to the base of the route (Dry Creek basin) in 50 minutes. 10 of those minutes were spent at the log crossing (10 minutes to go 100 feet). It's about one mile from road to basin. How long did it take you to go around the mountain from the ice caves? Remember it is a mile of trail just to get to the ice caves then whatever else (half-a-mile?) to get around the towers on the NE Ridge. It is definitely farther going the ice caves route.

This is not the thread to open that discussion. This is the thread you want to pose the question in.

I have created a Big Four Mountain page on summitpost. Go there for pictures, Dry Creek route information, etc.

Okay, I just made this map for how to get across the Barclay Creek Valley and find the trail approach to Gunn Peak. Follow the red dashed line: See also here.

dlc: you need to be more specific. Your second question is rather vague. Are you talking about car camp locations or alpine camp locations? If you will be doing a traverse, I imagine you're talking about where to camp before the climb (i.e., car camp). In the case of camping on the traverse (if you can't complete the rather long climb in a day), you'd camp wherever you got to before night befell you. Some pictures for your information: Persis & Index from central saddle Index & Persis from the Index Cafe Index & Persis from Pilchuck

Nice. I like this one best: Beautiful views of the North Cascades. Cool tracks along the corniced ridge. Note: the picture titled "the first step" is a broken link.

I think however you wish to do the peaks is up to you, whether camp-to-camp, car-to-car, ingressA-to-egressB, or whatever. You could even take a helicopter but I think we all know that would be meaningless in terms of comparisons and possibilities to foot travel. The real fatuity in such an emprise to knock off so many peaks in one day is in the physical punishment that you would have to endure. You guys are starting to sound like real peakbaggers. Ah me! Maybe, it's not about how many could be done in a 24-hour period but how many you could do in a single trip where you didn't stop to camp or rest in such a way that you were sleeping. If you kept moving, like Hans Florine in the Sierra, you could keep climbing indefinitely...until you fell dead from exhaustion. It's a real sign that Americans work too much (well, except me) such that they have to try and bag as many objectives as possible in the least amount of time.

Josh: me: WSDOT:

Ha ha, Tod. All four in the same day! Have at it. Copper Peak is not a trivial climb. Its east side route would take at least 4 hours round trip...if you were hauling ass. And where are your Dan - split times for your itinerary?

Oh, the ice is there all right. It's just under five feet or more of snow. The Ice Route is a late-summer/early-fall climb, as you know, since you've done it at that time. A good ski tour for sure. How is access to Mowich Lake right now?

Yeah, I found Layton's TR after doing a search on just "Big Four." I'm having trouble with the URL linking. The links to the TRs will be provided in my previous post just as soon as I get them figured out.

Josh: you speak as if people climb it in winter often. Maybe once in a while but not often. What you are probably thinking of was Layton's party. They climbed it in late February 2003. His party may have signed the register if it was locatable. We didn't memorize every name in it, so their names may been in there nonetheless. I jokingly said to the others that we could descend the Spindrift Couloir Route in about 10 minutes. We probably wouldn't stop bouncing and rolling until we got to the Big Four parking lot and viewpoint. Talk about speed descents. The other three didn't go for it though. I guess they figured we still had enough adventure waiting for us on the east side of the peak. Here is Layton's TR. Here is Daylward's TR. Here is a summer TR from Alex K.. Here is a summer TR from Juan Sharp. (now that I think about it, I remember his name in the register, which was indeed damp as he said). I'll probably have some pictures available later this week.

Climb: Big Four Mountain-Dry Creek (Avalanche Alley!) Date of Climb: 4/25/2004 Trip Report: Here is a "least-tagged summit" candidate for you: Big Four Mountain (6,160 ft). A register placed on the summit in 1993 has only seen about 20 parties sign it since then (meaning it only sees a couple of ascents per year). This dearth of summiters might be considered odd given the peak's deserved fame. On Sunday, April 25, myself (Paul Klenke), Stefan Feller, Greg Koenig, and Juan Lira climbed Big Four Mountain via the "standard" Dry Creek Route. "Standard" does not imply "not difficult." It implies only "least difficult." This was a long route with much happening. Suffice it to say we summited. We were the first party this year. I think the previous party summited last May. Long Version: (because I didn't know it would be this long when I started this trip report) As per other notes and Beckey's guide, we parked at milepost 27 on Mountain Loop Highway (this is where the river veers close to the road for a stretch about 1.5 miles NE of Big Four's summit). It appears the old log across the Stillaguamish River is now gone. However, fortuitously, there was a new log across the river. This log is located straight downhill from the road about 60 paces uphill (east) of MP-27. The log crossing was exciting. The fat (base) end was on the north (road) side and was about 14 inches in diameter. It is fairly close to water level all the way across. Ordinarily, you could walk this log. But that would be risky, for the water is about 15 feet deep below it. If you fell in, it would be uggglleea-a-uggla [girgle noises as you fail to touch bottom; have you ever fallen off a windsurfing board in deep water? well, it would be like that.]. This meant that we had to cross it first on our butts, then later on our knees, then later, once use of balance poles was allowed in the creek, on our feet. On the south side of the creek there is tagging everywhere. It makes it quite easy to follow the route to Dry Creek basin and the start of the route. The brush in the underforest is pretty much non-existent (BW1 max). We arrived at the basin in less than 50 minutes from the car. The lower basin has been inundated at its center by a large avalanche debris pile. We walked up this debris to a toe of rock coming down from the right. Behind this toe we followed a wide gully (canyon) around and back to the right. When this petered out right of a waterfall, we crossed over right (north) to the next gully over. This gully was wide at first but got much narrower. It essentially leads up east toward the towers (of the Tower Route; i.e., B4's NE Ridge). It may very well be the case that this gully cannot be climbed in late season once the snow has gone. For us it was snow all the way. We spotted a pretty nice looking rope hanging off the slopy rock on the right. Juan took a look at it and it might have become booty had he been able to pull it out of the snow (it was sealed in the snow pretty good; who knows how long the rope had been there). So here's where the fun really began. At the apex of this gully where it finally opens up to the rock wall below the towers we took a break. We were following other tracks to this point. The tracks began to traverse left (as the route intends) to get to the prominent couloir on B4's SE side. We followed those tracks. As we began heading out, Greg comments that whoever made the tracks was pretty stupid for traversing right below a bunch of large snow blocks perched precariously on a slab above. The boot path crossed only about 400 feet underneath these! No time to react if a block or two should let loose. Well, we got to the base of the couloir about 10 minutes past the blocks and what should happen? Rumble rumble rumble! Our tracks were obliterated. Phew! That was close. The couloir's angle is about 30 degrees. At about halfway (c. 4,800 ft), there were rock outcrops in the center. This forced us up and right around them. I tried my own path through the rock outcrops but got stymied. A funky class-4 scramble with downsloping rock (no positive holds) on the left and steep snow on the right was not what I had in mind but it had to be done. I finished off that butt-clencher stuff first then cut right and rejoined my partners. Two more sketchy traverses on suspect snow/rock got us to the upper couloir where it opens up into a sort of basin (c. 5,500 ft). What to do, what to do? The head of the couloir was hemmed in on all sides (the north face of the south peak [Pt. 6040+] is quite a sight to behold!). The tracks we had been following disappeared about halfway up the couloir. Whoever it was, maybe they witnessed an avalanche and high-tailed it out of there. The normal route goes to the notch at far left but it looked hella slabby with a steep snowfinger leading up to the slabs. It looked improbable from our vantage so we looked right. On the right (north) side of the basin there was what looked to be class 3-4 scrambly rock with snow patches and fingers. Could we find a route up through that mess? Such a route looked doable...from a distance. Juan led out and the rest of us followed. We got to an impasse a few hundred feet up. A steep snow traverse with zero run out gave us consternation. What do to? While the others waited below, I took the 60m rope we had with us and went to take a look farther up the face. I scrambled (free climbed) two rope lengths on class 4/5.loose rock to a tree. I could see the route would go but it would entail more class 5. Our dearth of pro (we only had pickets and runners) and the fact that two of the four of us were wearing plastic boots meant that it was a no-go. (Later I would discover that my high position by the tree was really close to the true summit yet so far.) We decided to climb the snowfinger on the left side of the basin thence the steep slabby red rock to the notch. As I rappeled back down to snow, the other three got to the snowfinger and commenced climbing it. From my vantage about 500 yards away they looked like spiders on a wall. Could it be that steep, I asked? They stalled at the top of the snowfinger. They were waiting for me to bring the rope as the slabby red rock apparently was too steep and wet to be climbed without a belay. They didn't have to wait too long for me. From near and in a cave in the moat at the top of the finger, Greg belayed Stefan up the slab while I looked on and Juan kept his weight (feet) on the pickets so they wouldn't pull. It didn't take long for Stefan to get to a suitable belay spot behind a large snow block in a deep moat. He slung one horn en route. That was his only protection for the 130-ft pitch. The three of us followed on the remaining rope. The wet slabs were class 4. If dry, they would be an easy class 4 or hard class 3. After that, we pretty quickly got ourselves up to the top of the col to the notch above (right) of the lowest notch. From the upper notch it was largely class 3 scrambling or BW4 through scrub pines to get to the summit ridge. There was one sketch, no run out, 40-foot snow traverse to gain the ridge. That might have been the mental crux for me. The summit area is actually quite flat despite the appearance to the contrary from the highway and B4 rest stop (the ice cave trail approach). The summit area was 95% snow but, fortunately, the true summit was bare enough that the register (placed in 1993) was visible. Some notable names (to me, anyway): Roger Jung twice (one entry was 4.5 hours up on 1/18/03), Ronnie Parker, James Fishburn, Dallas Kloke, Don Beavon (he did a traverse up from Hall Peak to the NW and then down the Dry Creek Route). There were other names but they escape me at the moment. We returned to the upper notch then thrashed (squeezed past) some unsavory BW5 scrub pines to the lower notch. From the lower notch, we rappeled down to about the halfway point of the steep snowfinger. We opted to return straight down the gut of the couloir instead of up on the sketchy north slope. The gut (center) was heavily scoured by previous sloughalanches. In no time we got down to the rock outcrops at about 4,800 ft in the couloir. I had told the others that these downsloping rock outcrops could be downclimbed by doing the crab walk. Boy was I wrong. Sorry guys. Anyway, we managed to get around them by doing steep snow instead (lots and lots of face-in snow downclimbing on this climb). Okay, so here's where some more fun happened: Below the rock outcrops it was necessary to cross a avalanche channel. Juan was way ahead of us and had already glissaded out of the couloir and out of sight around the corner. Stefan had crossed the channel and was waiting for us. I had just moved in and out of the channel (it required some funky hard snow moves to get out of) and Greg was last. Stefan began glissading. When Greg was about halfway across the 12-foot wide channel we heard a rumble from above. Suddenly, a slushy avalanche poured like a waterfall over the rock outcrops some 100 yards above. I've never seen Greg move so fast! We watched as two or three more avalanches barfed over the rocks. We were safe to one side but the avy was still quite the disconcerting spectacle. This was even more the case considering that we had been in the gut of the couloir above the rock outcrops only 20 minutes before. If the avalanche had occured at that moment we would have all been swept over the rocks and would have received untold injuries. The rest of the hike out was uneventful until the log crossing. The hard avalanche debris declivity was bone-jarring after such an involved day's worth of climbing. The dry creek bed (which, incidentally, was now the wet creek bed in the vicinity of avy debris outlet due to the extremely warm temperatures) was more of the same. Somehow Juan swung too far left on return to the river. I was following him but lost him in the trees. Meanwhile, Stefan and Greg were behind and going in another direction. When I got to the river there was no sight of the log. It turns out I was about 700 yards downstream of the log. Arriving at the log there was no one around. I gingerly crossed the log as the sounds of a car horn rang out to me. Had Juan arrived there already? Or was it Stefan & Greg? Or all three of them? As it turns out it was only Greg & Stefan. Juan was nowhere in sight. What had happened to him? We waited for at least 20 minutes, honking the horn here and there and calling out for him. Eventually, Stefan took his car down the road to look for him. Juan had wound up walking across the river (thigh deep, he said) way downstream from the log. Stefan brought him back to us. Humorous epilogue (a study in Murphy's Law): Juan had stashed his car keys under the front tire of his car. Somehow during the day the car had shifted forward slightly such that the keys were no longer retrievable (extractable). So here is the catch-22: Juan can't get his keys to get into his car so he can move his car so he can get at his keys. With much futzing and prodding with various implements, he was able to get his keys out from under the tire. To add insult to injury, the beer he had opened had fallen over and half had drained out into oblivion! Gear Notes: Used: Two pickets, 60m rope, runners Should have had: A few pieces of rock pro perhaps. More advanced notice of avalanche doom coming our way. Nothing to read here. Nothing at all. Carry on.

Ha ha, funny how information travels so fast on this website. Sergio and I attempted Gunn Peak today. We saw your ski tracks including the ones in your attached picture. It appears you ascended Pk 5842 and Pt. 5760 to 5842's north (saw ski and boot tracks). We failed on Gunn's main summit but managed to climb to the East Peak (6,160+ ft). The ledge on the north side that leads to the summit was literally an 80-degree snowslope . Our consolation prize was Pk 5842. What you say about the approach is pretty accurate. Here's what I would add (not that it is entirely necessary): The trail to the logjam is flagged to the east of the wide area on the spur road (where the fire pit is located). In 100 yards the trail gets to the logjam crossing. It was easy for us though slick. A second crossing of the creek is necessary shortly thereafter. This one was a little harder due to unsecure 8-inch rotting logs. The trail that cuts off at the overgrown logging road landing (wide area at a corner of the road with large alders growing in the clearing) was not flagged. I could see how it could be missed. The trail is basically about even with a pile of woody debris in the center of the clearing. The trail winds up through second growth for a few hundred feet then goes into older growth, whereupon it is easily followable as long as you pay attention. The slew of debris on the trail makes it hard to keep an eye on at times. At about 4,000 ft the trail begins skirting the rock walls at the south foot of Pk 5842. Alder and class 3 scrambling is to be found (including the odd class 4 rock sections). Later a steep dirt/duffy downclimb to a picturesque waterfall is encountered. Cautious moves get you down into the waterfall creek. The other side of the creek is more steep gully with ample green belays. Beyond there it gets easier (though still steep at times) to the major basin draining south from between Pk 5842 & Pk 5760 (not the aforementioned Pt. 5760, which is a different rock promontory). Gunn Peak Climb Notes From the saddle to below Gunn's southwest side was pretty straighforward for us despite the thermal truncheon beating down on us from above. The gully leading back up and right to the snowfield below Gunn's upper south side was steep and a little hard in the early afternoon. Plus, there was an annoying moat forming at about center. However, we managed to get up it without belay. (On the return we opted to rappel it with our two 30m ropes.) Much human-caused snow sloughing occurred on the upper snowfield. It was interesting watching the flows move as slowly as molasses. After failing on getting Gunn, we managed to boot up the east side of Pk 5842 in about 20 minutes from the long saddle on its east. More specifically, we finished the climb on the SE ridge/side. After that we managed to get back to the car from that saddle in about 1 hour 45 minutes. 5.5 hours from car to Gunn's East Peak. The East Peak only required class 3 scrambling from the central notch.

How about somewhere near Exit 0?

Sexual chocolate said... "Blah blah blah...I'm an ass...blah blah blah."

With all this recent political talk of whether Senator Kerry is or is not deserving of the medals he received (three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star), I thought I'd educate myself on the requirements to receive these medals. The Purple Heart's qualifications have always been fairly obvious to me, but I realized I didn't know what you needed to do for the Bronze and Silver stars. This website lists the major medals for the U.S. Army (not including the Purple Heart): Americal Organization. The page covering the Medal of Honor is particularly noteworthy. I didn't realize there had been over 3,000 recipients of it. For some real inspiration, read the citations for the 13 Americal Division Medal of Honor Recipients. For those who were mortally wounded, this is how you're supposed to die for your cause and country. Emotional stuff.

Barry, you've got to stop working those 168-hour weeks!

Well, the tent did not actually belong to me but one of the guys with me on the climb. I guess technically the poles belong to him....until I pay him the $200 for losing his tent off my pack. Incidentally, here is the tent as deployed: And here is the tent as last seen on the back of my pack at the top of the Eldorado Glacier snow dome: Since Sergio has already put a new tent on order and since I could use the lost one should it get recovered (it's better than the one I currently own), and since I intend to go back up to climb Austera Peak this summer and look for the tent then (fat chance finding it), I think I'll at least be waiting a while before parting with the poles. Contact me after the end of the summer and I may be willing to give the poles to you by then.

I saw a story about this on TV recently (on the news, I think). Thanks for the heads up.