Norman_Clyde

I got a good look at most of the traverse in May, and was impressed at the steepness of it. The first portion I couldn't see from the S. summit due to cornice risk. The next portion was a very appealing airy snow traverse W. of a steep spire, a couple hundred yards of 60 degree snow. Once past there, it was more like 45 to 50 degree snow, but very exposed to steeper drops below. At that time it did not look like any rock work was even an option, but I'm sure it looks way different now.

I thank the great spirit that you guys are still with us. Here's hoping your bruises mend soon.

Nothing tests your mettle like a solo in uncharted terrain. Way to go!

Great story, mneagle! I was meticulous on the way up to avoid knocking loose any rocks, believing as I do that any party-induced rockfall is bad juju, even when solo. By the time I came back down, I was tired and cared a lot less, plus I had become accustomed to the clattering. I did set loose one 50 pounder with my right foot only to have it roll hard into my left, but fortunately that was the worst of it.

I wondered if anyone had gone for all 3 of these in a day. Those in the know told me that Fernow is too far north of the other two, plus the col between is too low, too far to descend, etc. etc. But see, it can be done!

Climbed most of Mt. Constance solo yesterday. Took the 5:10 AM ferry from Seattle to Bremerton, arrived at the washout just before 8 AM, arrived at the trailhead via bicycle at 8:45. Weather looked promising on the way in with periodic sun breaks. The lake is completely melted out, likewise the first portion of the hike up Avalanche Canyon. Clouds continued to obscure the upper peaks, a trend which continued all day. I had planned to take the North Chute, but on a whim I took the South Chute instead; I had the idea that, since this seems to be the most popular route, the routefinding would be more straightforward. Alas, that may be true on a clear day, but not yesterday. I climbed into a dense whiteout at about 6000 feet, and from there on could not see further than 50 yards. There was one set of old tracks on the snow, which only went as far as the first traverse. Beyond there, I was on my own for routefinding. I must have explored a dozen versions of the "notch in a minor East-West Ridge". I skirted a couple of steep snowfields , avoiding another when I couldn't tell if the whiteness below was lower angled snow, or just nothingness. I made sure to use the Eskimo trick of examining the return route frequently to memorize details. If I hadn't done that, I might still be up there. Even so, after an hour of zigzagging from ridge to ridge in a whiteout, faced with a larger snowfield whose other side I couldn't see at all, only able to see upwards a few yards, no hope of visualizing the summit, I decided to bag it. The return was, like the ascent, notable for a lot of loose rock. This peak is a real choss-pile. At least when you're solo you can't kick rocks down on yourself. (I saw not a soul the entire day.) Some of you GPS users might scoff at this TR, but for me routefinding is one of the primary challenges of alpine travel, and I don't want the GPS to become a crutch that weakens my skills. (I will make an exception for the Muir snowfield.) A GPS might have helped me retrace my steps, but I doubt even with waypoints programmed in that it would have gotten me to the summit, because Constance is so complex topographically that it's very hard to correlate the topo with the guidebook. I think one has to climb this mountain first on a clear day, or with someone who's been there before.

I don't know if the Needles are sandbagged, but the Class 2 rating for Deception is definitely a sandbag. I would define a class 2 as a climb on which a fall down the main route would not be fatal; people have been killed on Deception (according to the ranger, non-climbers who did not have axes, fell and couldn't arrest). The Olympics guidebook is a little imprecise in its ratings in general. I have not done any fifth class in the Olympics so it's hard for me to guess about the Needles. I suspect that due to sketchy rock the not-truly-technically-difficult routes would feel harder than they had a right to.

The one in Wedgwood is right in someone's front yard. Something like 28th avenue and 73rd street. It's about 12 feet high. The road has to curve to go around it. You could give it a try at 3 AM maybe, but the owners would probably object if they caught you.

Re: Silver Star Glacier, last June 8 the only visible glacier-like feature on the route was a snow-filled bergschrund about a foot across. The only visible crevasses were way below the route.

Anybody done any of the wine spires as a day trip?

PP, glad to hear of you taking some time away from studying to climb!

Of course I am referring to the same confident climber of Alpine rock that would not need to rope up on Forbidden's W. Ridge and other such places. In general I am not that person.

Wait a week and I'll join you. I had already planned a one day Constance climb on the 22nd. I'm sure there is still snow on the Terrible Traverse at this point. I did a Google search a while back and found some excellent photos of both traverses, if you're wondering what they are like. I don't have the URL, but I found them using "Mount Constance Trip Report". I still haven't been beyond the top of North Chute but I found the photos reassuring. A confident alpine rock climber would probably not need a belay on the finger traverse. The Terrible Traverse would depend on snow conditions, of course.

The Hoh is indeed spectacular and I'm glad I finally got there last year. The downed old growth in the Western Olympics is so thick that when you walk through a sawed out gap in a downed Douglas Fir, it's like walking through a gateway in a big stone wall. However, I will confess that on the way out my feet had become so sore I could no longer take it all in with pleasure.

These descriptions of 5.9 cracks on pristine granite are making me salivate. This board needs a salivation gremlin. Any help out there?

Another interesting detail about Pete Schoening's heroic save on K2: it was not a boot-axe belay, but a hip-axe belay.

Alasdair, I'll tell you why society has the right to require you to wear a helmet. Taxpayers like me don't want to float the bill for you to spend 30 years in the nursing home. Even if you don't flinch at the cost of all those adult diapers, you should at least flinch at the thought of needing them for the rest of your life. This is a fact that helmetless libertarians have to face, that they cannot exclude themselves from society's standards of compassionate treatment, even if they want to. Of the two bad bike wrecks I've come upon in Seattle, one was on the BG, at the sharp curve between Blakeley and the 45th street viaduct. The guy went off the trail to dodge somebody and hit the fence. He had a helmet on and still was knocked cold. There is no better investment I can think of than protecting your fragile brain with a helmet.

As of today there is still plenty of snow heading up to Pineapple pass, but the avalanche fan heading up to Chair Peak basin is a real mess. The smooth surface has melted away leaving the old hard ice blocks, so even glissading is tricky. Some of the talus has even melted all the way out. What a difference the past two hot weeks have made! Spring is about to spring into the past.

Cool!

It is true that your brain runs on glucose under normal circumstances. However, your brain's plan B, for when glucose runs out, is not to use protein from muscles. Instead, your body breaks down stored fat and turns it into ketones . These are various organic compounds which you would not usually associate with sources of nourishment for human beings (acetone, for instance). Your brain doesn't want muscle, it wants fat. Most people on a diet end up in a "ketogenic state" where they're turning fat into ketones, their breath smells funny because they're breathing out vapors of acetone and other such products, and they feel a little stoned because high levels of the stuff tend to do that. It takes many hours of fasting to bring on a ketogenic state in an adult human being, but a child who has not eaten in only few hours will have ketones in his/her urine. People in concentration camps and other starvation conditions use up their stored glycogen pretty quickly, and eventually end up with blood glucose levels of close to zero, but they don't die because their brains are running on ketones. Protein does not get converted into ketones, but into acetyl CoA ( the main hub of the Krebs cycle, but don't ask me any more than that). This means that you are not going to burn muscle unless you've starved yourself for several days, taking in no protein at all. Once you run out of glycogen, your body turns to fat next.

I soaked in the springs for about half an hour after climbing Glacier. I was tired enough not to care about the muddy color. Unfortunately it's not quite hot enough to relax your sore muscles. After 5 minutes or so it no longer felt even warm. When I got out, every muscle in my body seized up instantly. Where this hot spring is concerned, the idea is better than the reality.

Put it in print! Inquiring minds want to know!!

Sounds like fun to me. Let me know if you need someone else to join you.

I forgot to mention that I carried a cast iron skillet on my head. The original Norman Clyde is still my hero. If I were living up to his memory, I would have soloed the Tooth in big hobnail boots, carrying a hemp rope.

I went up there last June hoping to climb Burgundy, which was still plastered with snow. Burgundy looked scary to me, but the Rebel Yell route on Chianti looked classic. When I go back that's what I want to climb. Now all I have to do is work on my 5.10 trad leading skills.