Otto

Thanks for the excellent TR with the great photos! I like the relaxed tone of the writing; it captures the mood of your peak bagging sojourn. Goodness!

Thanks for the good TR with cool crevasse photos!

Hey Dan, good to hear from you. I was sure hoping to give that pitch a try before someone else got to it, but the route seems to have jumped up in public notice! You know, in all the times we went up there last year I never was on lead for that pitch! Also, I think you will like the final pitch we put on it. I remember how horrified you were when I clambered up the mess over by the umbrella tree, finishing on its very roots. Now it goes straight up that steep 10-foot wall on good finger cracks, with plenty of pro. People seem to like the last two pitches. Joy! Bill Enger

Wow, thanks for the charming report and photos! I like the one of the umbrella tree from above; hadn't thought of that perspective. I'm really glad you enjoyed the top two pitches; it was such a blast digging my fingers into those cracks after all that smoothness below! Untouched stone, nothing like it. We are aware of the broken bolt on pitch 6. DavidW is going up there later this week, but he's not bringing a hammer! He basically said he's not gonna be the route custodian. I can't blame him; we're busy. If I can squeeze in a day up there, I'll bring the drill and hammer...

In my book collection I see: 1) Darrington & Index Rock Climbing Guide, Fred Beckey, 1976, The Mountaineers The four-pitch route is named "Tatoosh". 2) Rock Climbing Leavenworth and Index, Rich Carlstad and Don Brooks, 1976 Doesn't include it! This is the first book I followed around to the classic routes when I was starting out. The section on the Lower Town Wall jumps from the Narrow Arrow to "Quarry Quack". 3) Index Town Walls, Jeff Smoot and Darryl Cramer, 1985, Sky Valley Publishing Co. The four-pitch route is named "Tatoosh". 4) Washington Rock Climbs, 1989, Jeff Smoot, Chockstone Press The four-pitch route is named "Free at Last". 5) Washington Rock, Don Brooks and David Whitelaw, 1982, The Mountaineers The four-pitch route is named "Free at Last". 6) Index Town Wall Climbing Guide, Clint Cummins, 1993, compilation self published The four-pitch route is named "Tatoosh". 7) Sky Valley Rock, Darryl Cramer, 2000, Sky Valley Press The four-pitch route is named "Free at Last". Here's what I think happened. The four-pitch route was originally done with aid and called "Tatoosh". Fred got that in his 1976 book. Smoot used the information in his 1985 book. The line was freed by Mead Hargis and Jim Langdon and renamed "Free at Last", not sure exactly when. Smoot got the word and used it in 1989. Brooks and Whitelaw agreed and used it in 1982. Then Cummins muddied the waters and used the original name in 1993 - not a local, he must have missed the change. Cramer set it back to rights again in 2000 - "Free at Last" it is. Of course, I will be happy if folks who've been paying attention to this stuff will chime in and correct me.

The OP said: In the Garth Bruce guidebook, he says to check for route updates on the website: info@northbendrock.com So I had high hopes for some good info there, but sadly it is not kept up to date. It's rather a shame, since he has built a nice format; it looks ready to add stuff to. There is a nice b/w photo of Endless Bliss, though...

Thanks for cluing him in, js. Lucky, even better would be to pick up a copy of Rattle & Slime, the Darrington guidebook CD. It has pictures and topos of the new routes in the Squire Creek drainage. Be sure to get the new 2010 version.

Congratulations! Nice to see a full TR of this route.

Good question, I noticed the same thing years ago. A partner who showed me around Index called it Free at Last, this was in the mid-1980s. I hope you get an answer!

Wow! Adventurous stuff there. Way to go! Takes balls to rap off down the Witchdoctor; just looking down it makes me shiver...

What to do with all those curvy bits of metal? Wind Chimes!

Thanks for your comments! It sounds like you had a great time. Not sure I agree with you about the top two pitches being dirty; they can be done without actually touching the dirt. But yeah, it's not like the white waves of granite below... Good on you for doing the Daddy! Otto

Sounds good. My bad, I was reminded by my partner that we were also there earlier in the month, on July 4th, which is when we thought there was no sign of earlier passage through the ferns. What do you think of the crack pitches 19, 21 and 22? How hard have you tried to free pitch 20? Did you take any pictures? Can we expect a TR soon? Interested!

Hi jshamster - I understand that you were there on Tuesday, July 6 and climbed the route. We passed through the following Friday, July 9 and saw a pristine fern field just above the creek. So, I have to conclude you use a different start up from The Beach, just after the creek crossing, to get into the forest. I'm interested in finding any braided trails in there. It seems awfully dense with brush. Do you plunge into the ferns at a big, white boulder? Like this:

Very nice, that's a cool spire. Thanks for the good TR. Under the snow on the steep approach gully is a mine shaft you can look down into, with yellow tailings all around.

We took a look at the bottom of the Slab Daddy route on Squire Creek Wall on Friday. It is completely snow-free and ready for action! We couldn't help noticing we were the first party through the fern forest at the start of the wall approach. We bashed a very nice tunnel through it, good to go. We also scraped away fallen branches, etc, from the boot-track up through the forest - it's in the best shape it's ever been.

We did the first pitch of Flies 'n Bees, as recommended in Rattle & Slime. Fun pitch; those flakes seem solid to me. Sloth, you say you whipped "off the bolt under the overlap" - is that like the second bolt on the pitch, the one with some old back-off slings attached?

Great pictures and TR. Thanks!

Good stoke for more slab pitches, thanks!

mattp, it looks to me like he is to the left of Revolver, on Penny Lane. It looks like the second pitch, which is 5.8, not the fourth pitch. (Remember not to include the initial "approach pitch" up to the first chain anchor in the numbering. Nor the first pitch of Silent Running if you approach it that way). It is possible there is an old route up the brushy cracks in the middle, possibly called Picadilly Circus, but DavidW doesn't show it in his guide. Anyway, he would probably know.

I agree with gene. Even further, it's bad form to lower off of chain links, as it wears down the chain and eventually someone has to replace it. (It may not be difficult to replace, what with quicklinks, but still, someone has to go to the trouble). I was once chastised for lowering off chain at Red Rocks, at one of the over-popular crags. A local made a snide comment, I thought about it, decided he was right.

I haven't done it up high, that looked impossible. Done it twice down low, with a hook in the midway bolt (or was it a pin?) both times, where it is fun! Can't imagine the athletics involved with less rope out.

Trip: Three O'Clock Rock - Revolver, The Rash Date: 6/23/2010 Climb: Three O'Clock Rock, Revolver, The Rash Trip Report: Yale and I took off yesterday and went up to Darrington on that fine and cloudy day. I tried to do the fifth pitch of Revolver but failed. We rapped off, went over and did The Rash. Yale at the start of Revolver's approach pitch. Got wrench? On the second pitch Yale on the fourth pitch Cool features up here Yale pulling the overlap directly as there is a wet streak blocking the way around to the next bolt He floated it Yale led the first pitch of The Rash with its cool flakes. Otto got the amazing Rash Then we did Dirt Circus, more on that later. We saw only one other party, on Luke. Another fine day on Darrington granite.

I went back up with partner Yale and added some chain to the second pitch belay anchor. Previously, had a fun conversation with my physicist buddy Steve Z. from Albuquerque. In which I was reminded of the trig function by which you can calculate the force on a bolt in a two-bolt anchor. X = a bolt Y = the other bolt, horizontal with X w = the weight of the climber plus rope, etc. F = the force on the bolt X t = the angle between XY and force vector F w and XY form a right triangle. So, from trig: Fsin(t) = w ...switching it around: F = w / sin(t) Remembering that the sin of 0 is zero, as t gets smaller the denominator approaches zero - infinity! = big bad force on the bolts. Conversely, the longer the chains, the denominator approaches 1 and the force on the bolt is just the weight of the climber. So, we brought up some chain for the second pitch anchor.

To finish my Revolver rebolting blog, I offer this tableau