telemarker

I'm thinking about taking the day off work this Thursday in the hopes of doing a couple routes on Snow Creek Wall. If interested, send PM or email: touring29@gmail.com. or Text: 509.699.9810 Okee doke! If no takers, then I'll just go to work I guess... John

Bump. Looking for this Saturday...

These are the old style Koflach double plastic boots with removable liners, obviously. They're big, clunky and heavy. They're actually in really good condition. I donthave want toto ship these, nor do I want to take the time to upload a photo. For God sakes they're for practically free. Yours for a six pack of Deschutes Ale or Stout. Preferably cold. Meet me in Leavenworth or thereabouts. PM or email. John

Here's a photo I took last Saturday that may give you a general idea of where you will hit snow in Hook Creek.

Cool photos! The Full Boar splitter is compelling. I have to climb that someday. Man that granite looks Delish up there. I think I remember Ben Stanton talking about climbing around on that wall at some point in his prolific Icicle wanderings. Not sure...

pm sent on wiregate biners and stove.

Uh, yeah, I think these may be a bit beyond a resole.

Gracias.

This Saturday 6/1, is anyone available for a couple routes on snow Creek wall or some pitches on Castle Rock? I have the day free if anyone wants to get out. PM me or email: touring29@gmail John

Trip: 8 Mile Buttress Escape - Mr. Tremendous-Hello Kitty-Buzz Bomb Date: 5/25/2013 Trip Report: It's springtime and you know what that means. As you enter Icicle Canyon, and the roadside is lined 3 Subarus deep until Bridge Creek Campground, you know it's time to find an obscure climb and to go up high. 8 Mile Buttress fits this bill. There are many options, but the link we've done over the years and keep coming back to, is the Mr. Tremendous-Hello Kitty-Buzz Bomb trio. Mr. T is the harder next door neighbor to the popular Tree Route. It's two pitches are fairly sustained slab and edges with just enough bolts to ease your mind. Pitch one starts with a committing move over a small roof followed by smeary slab climbing up a blunt arete for almost a full pitch at 5.9+. Kyle working his way up Pitch One The second pitch is the business. Fun climbing surmounting overhangs on great holds and "okay" pro leads to a stance below the bulge offering a cruxy highstep onto tiny divots. The bolt's at chest level, so you can relax a little, but after pulling the move, it is runout. Move directly left after the crux, up positive edges then back way right to the finishing runout slab. Kyle at the crux Spoiler alert. Kyle shows you where the hidden jug is. Surmount this and you're in slab heaven/hell, your choice. Top out and hike a few hundred feet to Hello Kitty. Two pitches of 5.9+ climbing. Pitch one is a mix of bolts and gear on fun, positive edges and nicely cleaned granite. Kyle working his way up pitch one. Pitch two starts with easy slab that takes you to a hollow flake that graces the climber with perfect hands jamming for 30 feet. Kyle following pitch two When the positive edges end, you're bailed out by generous chickenheads that take you to the splitter crack. Top out this section, and again hike a few hundred feet to Upper 8 Mile Buttress. Upper 8 Mile, outfitted by the hard work of Ron Cotman and company, is high quality. All the routes have new bolts and chain anchors. The best lines are scrubbed clean, and really, you can hike directly up to Upper 8 mile and easily spend the day there, as well as on Smorgasbord Crag. Swingline is one of my favorites up there, but today we chose Buzz Bomb, 2 pitches of 5.10b. BB is located on the east side up the buttress. It's a bit of an anomaly for the Icicle, as the route features steep edging, i.e., no slabs. Pitch one is a lesson in committing mantels. However, all the moves are nicely protected, and take gear as well as qd's. Kyle following pitch one One up here, you get a good look at how far above the morass you are. Pitch two is more steep edge pulling as Kyle shows Pitch two of Buzz Bomb interrupts the steep edges with a steep finger crack that will have you laughing. Reach the anchors to great views up valley to Axis Peak and Mt. Stuart. It's like being in the alpine without being in the alpine. Two raps off brand new chain anchors back to your pack and the easy hike back down. But before bounding down back to your Subaru, do take a moment to drink in the silence and contemplate the Rat Creek crags and beyond.

I can barely make it past the first overhang on top rope! That thing is burly. I've had better luck on Das. That's a great lead Sol!

Just on Upper castle alone, in addition to what Pete said: 1) Mf Overhang Right, 2) MF Direct, 3) No Such Thing as a Free Lunge, 4) Dans Dreadful Direct, to the 5) Hangdog 6) Satanic Verses 7) Rainbow Connection... An onsight lead of any of these routes would be impressive!

Interesting. Why would you "intentionally" leave the camera at home, but post a link that gives detailed route info, with photos? Or maybe i'm interpreting it wrong. Maybe your climbing camera is a large format 4x5 view camera, and thus did not want to be burdened with the extra weight?? Nevertheless, thanks for the post about climbing options in the area.

Nice report. The ICG certainly does not look skiable. Isn't it normally a lot fatter this time of year??

Great Report Kevin O! You're a busy guy. Are you still interning at CWH?

Thanks Veronica! Like they say, It's hard to take a bad photo in Yosemite!

Hey thanks Rad. Reading it again seems like it happened a few years ago, although every time I bump my fingertip against the rock, it's a sharp reminder of the ordeal. I wonder how long frostbitten digits take to lose that sensitivity?

Trip: Yosemite Exposure - Various Date: 5/15/2013 Trip Report: I'm not one of those guys who can walk up to El Cap and send it onsight, first try, like this tenacious youngster. I just don't have that type of talent. Rock climbing in general does not come easy to me like it does with a lot of talented climbers who post (and don't post) on here. I'm terrible at on-sighting, whether multi-pitch, big wall or single pitch. Thus, I have to get things wired, sometimes relentlessly, or else it's not an enjoyable experience. Not the best style I know, but I have to work within my personal constraints. This year I made up my mind to return to Yosemite as much as possible to see if I could desensitize my fear of being up on El Cap. Kyle Flick and I bailed from Dolt Tower in 2007, again out of fear more than anything. I perceived Yosemite, and El Cap, to be too overwhelming and left it to a future date. It wasn't a total wash though, since we managed to climb the RNWF of Half Dome. I've made several trips down to Yosemite so far this year, playing on El Cap and The Nose. It's starting to feel better, though there is that intimidation still lingering. I've gotten to climb with cool people, like the German Jakob Braun: And my friend Dustin Moore from Oakland: I've run up to Dolt Tower three times since February, each time the route feeling a little less daunting. I'm hoping that a few more trips and I'll be ready to climb something on El Cap. Dean Olin, Spencer Wickler and I spent five days down there last week, hoping for The Nose but getting slapped down by two days of weather, crowds, the relative humidity wasn't exactly where we wanted it, my hemorrhoids were flaring up (John Sherman excuse), you name it. As a consolation, we climbed what probably most Nose bailers climb to assuage the sting: Central Pillar of Frenzy. Yes, splitter cracks like the Nose, but 27 pitches shorter. We were left with a lot of time on our hands, so at around noon on Sunday, 5/11 we made a spontaneous decision to climb Lost Arrow Tip. The climb is more up my alley, resembling more of a Cascadian adventure than a Yosemite one. Lots of hiking for a couple pitches of climbing, vs. 10 minutes of approach for 32 pitches. Yosemite Falls was swollen with the recent sweltering temps. The noise of the falls was present all day, even from our site at Camp 4. It was too loud to be considered white noise. The trail was bustling with tourists, and I managed to score a bite-sized muffin from one of them on the way up. So, Lost Arrow Tip. If you only had one opportunity to do one two-pitch route in your life, I would choose this one. This is a full-on technical, emotional and physical challenge. On paper it seems pathetic. 4 miles and 3,000' of hiking for what? 220' of climbing? And the climbing isn't even that memorable. But taken as a whole, climbing next to the constant roar of the falls, rapping down into the dark notch with a couple thousand feet of exposure to each side, the expectation and anxiety that you have to do a Tyrolean Traverse to get back out, all of this makes the LAT one of the best Yosemite experiences I've had thus far. Rapping into the notch to get to the start of the route: Two 60m ropes and passing the knott 2/3 of the way down get you to the start of the climbing. Use the remaining slack in the second rope as your lead line, which is plenty to crank out the two pitches. Dean jugging the first pitch off-width. Pitch one has several new ASCA bolts and a couple pins. Our rack was a single set of cams and a few stoppers. The off-width protects sufficiently with a #2, #3 and #4 camalot. There are nice crystals outside the crack to aid in upward movement, and it's mostly low angled, much like the o/w on Backbone Ridge. Salathe Ledge offered up expansive views of the Valley: Dean busted out pitch two, taking us to the top. You will NEVER forget the step out over tons of air off of Salathe Ledge at the start of pitch two!!! Dean traversed first back over to the other side and set up the other two ropes for Spencer and me to follow on our own Tyrolean. A few shots of the ordeal. Dean committed to the traverse: My turn, up there with the ravens. Dean Olin photo. And trying to add mid-Tyrolean perspective: Spencer's turn: The approach, climbing, logistics, and deproach pretty much wiped us out for the day Monday. We did our best on Serenity Crack, but could go no further into Sons. The highlight was a Peter Croft sighting. He remarked on the heat and questioned our sanity at starting the route at 1pm. So, that's the saga so far. More to come...

My cure for sun damage and skin cancer prevention is to just have Jake photoshop a tan on me. Uh, despite appearances, I do not own or use a GoPro while climbing. For the record...

Ahh! Much better Jake! I don't understand what you said but it made me chuckle anyway.

^^+1 That or a gripped leader as I frequently am.

good God! Who is that shirtless ghost? Get a little sun already.

Thanks Veronica and Drep! Jake did really well. There were even moments when it looked like he was rock climbing.

Trip: Snow Creek Wall - Tick-less ascent of Iconoclast Date: 5/4/2013 Trip Report: That's right, I think I found one tick on my arm the entire day. I didn't hear Jake Evans or Kyle Flick complaining of ticks either, so I think they had similar luck. Iconoclast is a lot of fun, and a lot of challenge. There isn't a "gimme" pitch on the whole thing, other than the 3rd class scramble from the ground to a small platform to start the Remorse travers to one tree ledge. The funky slab crack of Psychopath is a handful, and somewhat of a mental game. I think some people climb the crack straight up, while others (me) layback the crux part, move out left on a couple positive chicken heads for a few face moves, then perform a gripping barndoor back into the crack up higher. The next pitch looks worse than it actually is. It feels like 5.8 climbing around two roofs and over a completely detached block that will crush you if/when it ever decides to succumb to gravity. This was the location of natural rockfall three years ago. The yellow wall follows, with steep, slightly overhanging climbing that goes from thin locks to jug hauling, to smeary laybacks to finish it off. This is my favorite pitch of the route, and always challenges me. The final pitch of Iconoclast is a sustained 180' of varied climbing. Make a committing traverse way beyond and right of a lone bolt to another way committing move to a good crack for gear. From there, snag the arete and swing out over the shield. It's lower angled, but still feels exposed in the 90 or so feet of chickenhead yarding protected by one lone bolt. You get relief near library ledge in the form of a beautiful 5.8, locker hands corner to the anchor. The bonus of Iconoclast is one gets to finish on the final headwall crack of Outer Space. I've always used Iconoclast as an early spring climb to gauge my baseline for how well I've maintained fitness over the winter, given the challenging climbing and sometimes committing moves. Well worth a few more trips throughout the year! Flick kindly demonstrating the barndoor back into the crack on Psychopath The climbing certainly doesn't let up too much up higher Jake takes his turn Top of yellow wall The 5.8 corner of glory Of course sometimes, you have to wait your turn on Outer Space

Just what I need on that traversing around and hangin for dear life, some residue wd40. I'll put some on the key footholds just for you Gene!