Otto

Climb: Mount Waddington, Northwest Peak - Risse Route Date of Climb: 7/30/2004 Trip Report: A full day of rest after climbing the Wiessner-House route was what I wanted and I took it. Our other partner, Jim Daubert, had arrived while we were out and set up a tent for us. He was fresh and wanted to climb, so he went with the tough Calgarian up Trundler's Point via its Trundler's Buttress route. When Jim got back, he soon mentioned his idea of going up the Wiessner-House route with me if I wouldn't mind climbing it twice in a row! Not likely. But I felt a little bad for leaving without him on the first trip, so I had to come up with a counter offer. "How about teaming up with these Canadians for the Risse Route?", said I. All agreed, so it was decided to start the next day at the crack of noon for our bivy on the upper Dais. Which is what we did the next day, with the snow much softer and bridges more tenuous after five days of sun. Other than the replacement of Jim for Jake, who had come down with an infected toe, with the ever-strong Colin and Nick the team was the same and well motivated. We reached the same high camp on the upper Dais that we had made earlier for the Wiessner-House route. There I found my stove, pan and cup where I'd left them in the snow. I would carry them over the top this time, to avoid a return trip to this camp. We overslept a bit, but Jim saved us by waking me at 2:15am and we were almost on schedule, brewing up and then leaving at around 3:30. The crossing of the schrund was a steep and sugar-snow affair which Colin led without hesitation. As he proceded up the narrow ice couloir I worried about the central section which was without any snow or ice visible. Another loose chimney, this time in the dark? I needn't have worried, as this was the first really interesting section of the climb. With much dry-tooling, stemming across the running stream with crampon points slotting firmly into little edges and pockets in the rock, the section flowed with that heightened focus and determination that makes all else drop away. Daylight arrived on the other side. With a long stretch of arduous front-pointing ahead, I set up a belay in case Jim had any difficulty, not knowing how much of this kind of mixed climbing he had done. I didn't want to stand on frontpoints with calves burning for long! But he came up quickly, cleaning the seven or eight pieces that the two rope teams had placed. Colin and Nick had been perfectly thoughtful of the group, leaving a piece where they thought we might need it, and they were right every time. Hundreds of feet of steepish snow slopes ensued. We made the great right-turn at the envisioned place, the "snowy basin", and angled to the right for several more pitches. Jim and I took over the lead here, and we were climbing pitches now, swinging leads. We kept looking for the route to hit the "flying buttress" but it went on and on so we were confused. I finally came to a vertical, loose rock outcrop right on the ridge we were looking for. Still in crampons, the next pitch was when Jim showed he had absorbed some mixed climbing techniques if he didn't have them before. The steep 5.8 face climbing would have been interesting in rock shoes. I was hard put to follow it without skating off, but made it and did one more pitch before removing the crampons. It looked like good rock climbing from here on out, and it was. The Flying Buttress was an amazingly sharp, narrow blade of jagged rock with huge drops on either side. We would have enjoyed it completely if the sun were not turning red, just a short distance above the horizon. There was no place to bivy, I did not want to sit out a cold night, and the summit spire still looked huge at the end of the ridge. I admit my mind accelerated into a frenzy as we dashed across the knife edge. For instance, I let one rope get horribly dragged and impossible to pull at one point, where Jim solved it by coiling the problem rope as he came, belayed by the other. Another time I let the two ropes tangle terribly, forcing a frantic taffy-pull. Furthermore, the final section where the ridge meets the summit spire was not visible, and I worried that there was a deep gap to be rappelled, or some technical problem to solve to slow us further. It was a huge relief to find that the mystery section was simply met by vertical downclimbing three moves to the final gap. Looking across at the last pitch, an easy snow slope up to a saddle, I finally knew we would make it. When Jim and I got up we realized that Colin and Nick were quite a ways behind us. We reached the snow saddle at 10:15pm and it wasn't until 11:30 that they came up - Jim and I had really moved out when chased by oncoming darkness. We were on the False Summit of the Northwest Peak, so we each hopped up the snow bump in turn to bag that point. But still I didn't know the way down, so we burned up the last of the fuel making cups of hot chocolate trying to stay warm in the wind. We followed Colin up to the true summit from there at midnight, being the easiest way to get back to their tracks from four days earlier. He set up a picket belay and I tottered backwards down the steep snow to the Terrace below, stiff and exhausted. My watch alarm went off at 2:00am just as I was pulling myself into my sleeping bag in my old home snow coffin. It was a cold, windy night but a satisfying 24 hour day of climbing. Colin coming up into the snowy basin Looking down the initial couloir Typical of the verglassed ramp Colin and Nick at the start of the Flying Buttress The last pitch to the False Summit Next morning, the Northwest Peak Gear Notes: Rock and ice. Approach Notes: Bell 407

Climb: Wiessner-House Date of Climb: 7/25/2004 Trip Report: Knowing the dangers of glacier travel with only two people, and the fact that our third party member, Jim, could not join us for two more days, had Jake and I worried about leaving the safety of base camp. This was a flat spot on the Dais Glacier under Trundler's Point where the helicopter had just dropped us with all our gear for two weeks. So when we conferred with the other two guys who shared our ride and we discovered we had just the same itineraries, we decided to go for the Wiessner-House route without delay. With four days of clear weather forecast, Jim would understand that we just could not wait. Two hours after arrival by air, we were packed with three days worth of food and gear for the Main Summit of Waddington. The feeling of dislocation was acute, having gone from the hot, brushy landscape along the shore of Bluff Lake to chilly black and white in less than half an hour. I led out with my partner, Jake Larson, just behind, headed for the upper Dais. Our two new friends from Canada, still covering up their gear cache and getting ready for the climb, were Colin the Calgarian and Nick from Vancouver, both of the BCMC. They would prove to be most excellent adventurers and helpful companions in the days to come. After weaving around crevasses and gliding across snow bridges we arrived at the base of the route some four hours later. Colin and Nick were interested in looking up the initial gully, which meets the glacier at a sharp angle, so dropped their packs and walked further up to the head of the glacier to assess tomorrow's initial challenges. Jake and I began digging the trip's first "snow coffins", shelters of delightful security and coziness. Awake at 2:00am and moving at 3:30, we moved up the gully debris fan with its breaking crusty snow by headlamp. This finally narrowed down to the good hard ice of the gully proper and much front-pointing. Colin led the way past the initial "great pyramid" of rock we designated as the first identified feature. Climbing together with little need for protection, we crossed many linked stretches of neve on a ramp perfect for puncturing with picks and front-points. The next waypoint we discussed was the large buttress we would cross in front of, and it soon became clear that this would be tricky traversing on snowy rocks and less secure snow. Traversing into the Triangular Snowfield was itself a bit unnerving, but looking up at the ugly ice runnel that Colin was gearing up for had me worried. Were we following a true Calgarian ice madman, who would take us off route just for a leashless thrill? We didn't know yet, but we didn't need to find out since my level-headed partner led out with the rock bypass around to the left! Eventually we worked up to the Amphitheater, a steep snowy dish with two ugly gashes cut straight up into the headwall - chimneys. Separated by a huge "ear" of rock, the left-hand one looked like it went into roofs and blanked out. The right one was probed by Colin, who went up it about 30 meters and found very loose blocks and sent down a few for closer inspection. After a while, he rappelled back down, and I decided to have a look. I removed my crampons but stayed in the plastic boots and got up about 40 meters, then angled left through two bulges at about 5.9. Then I realized I was at the huge "ear" of rock between the chimneys and the route blanked out. So, I lowered down leaving a nut and its carabiner, back to the 40 meter level. The only possibility must be straight up, and I thought I saw something hanging out of the crack at the overhang above. I climbed the 10 meters up to it, but it was only an icicle and I was almost out of gear, with no good belay there. I down-climbed back to the 40-meter level where there was a stance, and had to decide what to do. The day was getting old, I didn’t think I was on route, and I wasn't sure this would even go past the overhang above. I set up an anchor of three nuts and a piton; I could have called my partner to come up, but instead I rappelled back down. My chance for the "diretissima" was over. The evening was pressing in on us, and Colin had already rejected the original route chimney as too iced up. He started up the Beckey finish variation, much to my relief, glad to still have a potential way up. It was difficult rock with perilous loose blocks. My partner, climbing last, pulled off one as large as a dining-room table and had it momentarily pin his leg to the wall on the way down. He was left hanging on the rope, and had to prusik up to the rest of us. After three pitches of all this, the sun was about to set. There are no flat ledges on this mountain, it seems, so we had to settle for a small sloping one for the four of us. I chopped a seat in the ice so I could at least sit in my bivy sack with my legs hanging down the slope. Jake wasn't so lucky, and had a miserable night of a full-body slide arrested only by his harness. In the morning, I got to lead and found the best rock on the route. Two full pitches led directly to the summit block, and the night's pains were forgotten. It was another cloudless, sunny day with congratulations and summit pictures all around. The descent down the Southeast Chimney was uneventful and joyful, though marred by my stupidly losing my camera and a glove out the top of my unsecured pack. The Stroll was all relief to be moving back towards base camp, with a stinger: about 80 meters of front-pointing up to the area of the Northwest Summit had me planting two ice screws for peace of mind. All this took so much time that we decided to bivy there, on the flat Terrace, while Colin and Nick had the energy to climb the extra distance to the Northwest Summit. It was good be back in snow coffins. However, it meant an extra day of not much food. We found running water at Dais Col, where we lounged and drank and rested. The descent from the Col required only one belayed spot, a picket protecting a step over a crack which spanned the entire width of the slope below the Col. After that, we found our tracks from three days before and followed them back to base camp. Otto in high camp on the upper Dais Glacier Approaching the summit block From the summit Gear Notes: Rock and ice. Approach Notes: Bell 407

All right, chucK, good going! It looks like you took the hard version of my weekend - climbing Chianti the first day, cool! We were bivying on the knoll directly below the East side of Burgundy col on Saturday evening. I suppose you had already passed by. Would have been fun to run into you! Myself, I wouldn't have been ready for another hard climb the next day, too much work/couch time recently. Great 2 days for you!

Climb: Chianti Spire-East Face, aka Rebel Yell Date of Climb: 7/11/2004 Trip Report: I would add this to the list in that great thread on Good Offwidths and Chimneys in the Northwest, but someone already mentioned Rebel Yell. I was worried about the 2nd pitch 8" wide 5.9 with numb toes and fingers. But I got through it, and the sun came out during the next pitch. Also, the crux pitch 5, being odd, would go to my partner so I knew I had it made! That pitch is truly amazing, a real jam fest, Jake did it in fine style. Pitch 6 stays just as wide as the top of 5, a little wider even, and goes on and on. I liked how when you think it's over, then come to a short detached block that is arm-bar wide, or a wild layback, or some wierd combination of the two. Big fun on a great route.

I talked with you guys just after you touched down. I've done the same thing, going all the way up that first gendarme. It's such good climbing, why not? BTW, we got in to Marblemount just before the Good Food place was closing. The lady asked if there were any more of us out there. I mentioned there were two other guys on their way - did you find some food?

I just read through this whole thread, and my favorite chimney has not been mentioned. Namely, Rollercoaster Chimney at Midnight Rock near LeavenWorth. A great day can be had doing what I've liked to call the Offwidth Tour of Midnight/Castle: The Fault, Damnation Crack, Easter Overhang, The Flame, Rollercoaster Chimney.

What is "cbr west face"? cbr?

Thank you for posting this good report. It must have been a lovely day on good snow and rock. Fine pictures, too. Cheers!

Wow, way to go chucK. The descent sounds horrifying. Did you look down the normal descent on the other side? It might have saved some wear and tear on the sphincters. Anyway, good show, lads.

Climb: Mount Stuart-Stuart Glacier Couloir Date of Climb: 4/18/2004 Trip Report: Climbed the Stuart Glacier Couloir on Sunday. There was not much water ice in the couloir, being covered by 4 to 6 inches of snow from the past few days. There was plenty of graupel filling all the cracks in the rock section of the climb, making for interesting brushing-off holds and dry tooling. Getting an apine start was easy enough under a clear night sky, and the three of us were right at the base of the couloir at first light. We steadily fell behind any reasonable schedule, for various reasons, and saw any hopes of walking out in daylight vanish like the sun had done. There was no pausing on the summit as it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We wandered around the 9,000 ft. level for three hours, looking for the top of the Sherpa Glacier in whiteout, snow falling in a steady wind. I just did not want to descend the Ice Cliff, again, so I went down too far past it. We finally got a vision break at 6:45 and figured it out. Down to the tents was a grateful romp down the knee-deep fresh ski slope, to camp while it was still light. With just enough light to break down camp, we wearily trudged the next five hours out through the night trees. Following the long tradition of dragging in to work with no sleep for 26 hours or so, I made it through the next day. Awake from 3am Sunday until 5pm Monday, I believe I'm holding on to the possibility that I'm not too old for this yet. It's taking all the next week to recover, however! Spring climbing is so fine, though, we can't help but make plans for the next one. Regards, Otto

I really like my new Nike Cinder Cones. Very sticky soles, they did great on the wet slabs below the pocket glacier on Slesse. I didn't crampon up for the avalanch debris, but I liked the comment someone made about universal bindings! However, these shoes are expensive.

After parking a car on each side of Slesse Mountain, my partner Jake and I got three hours of sleep and started out at 1:30am on Saturday, 7/19/03. We were hoping to make it to the summit that day, and since we wanted to do the complete Northeast Buttress route from the buttress toe, we knew it would be a long day. The climb went well, though we didn't make it to the summit the first day. We made it to the good ledge below the final headwall, and it was the only place on the route with snow on it. So we had a great evening of rest and melting snow and drinking, drinking, drinking. We had to rope up and climb a pitch just to get up to the slabs below the infamous pocket glacier, since there was ice and snow all over the short wall below. We crossed under the pocket glacier at about 6:00am and started up the buttress toe at 6:30. About four hours later a large chunk of the glacier fell off and rumbled down the slabs, a sheet of white death about 50 yards wide over our approach route. We were surprised how many dirty, bushy 4th and low 5th class pitches there were in the middle of the route. We kept misjudging where we were trying to match up with features on the topo. But we didn't go far off-route and by the time we got to the crux 5.9 cracks leading to the overhangs we knew we were on. However, I made it tough by trying to go around the overhangs on the right; they looked scary to me. I did some mid-ten face climbing instead. Found some bail-out booty right where it was hardest, and came away with a nice new Wild Country no. 2 Friend. I got to the bivy ledge at 6:30pm, out of water and thirsty, looking at that beautiful pile of snow. Things had been going so well, I suppose it was fitting that some anxiety should creep in. During the night the stars were blotted out and a light rain fell for a short while. We awoke at 4:30am on Sunday to find the sky overcast and mist streaming past the North wall on a breeze from the South. We couldn't see far in that direction, so we didn't know how bad this weather might get. We climbed up into occaisional rain spurts, feeling committed with retreat cut off by the horrible icefall at the bottom of our route. If we tried to descend the buttress, we would have to cross under the glacier late in the day. Fortunately, the weather gradually cleared, and by the time we made the summit the sun welcomed us in full. The descent was quite direct, just following the line of rap anchors all the way down the standard big rotten gully. It's much easier than bothering with the original route, where you have to find a place to climb up and to the right. Then we contoured way over to the right and picked up a trail to the Knoll. Then the foot-beating began, the incredibly steep Slesse Mountain Trail. Jake said he found it odd to be wishing for a switchback. That trail is steep, unrelenting, and a long way down. It's good to be back down. I'm still drinking a lot of water, the scratches from the Magic Carpet are healing, and my foot swelling is going down.

On Friday, did Exfoliation Dome via Dark Rhythm with chucK.