SEF

I count myself with those who are very grateful these folks are safe, and withhold opinion. We really do not know the facts. Public speculation and criticism based on scraps of information that may or may not be true reflects poorly on us. I will say that, to my knowledge, the unexpected and unpredicted bad weather moved in during Saturday night. For all I know, sensible decision making occured in response to conditions.

Wayne, quote: 2 days ago I lead free every pitch. Excellent work!! Couple questions. 1) When I did the route every other bolt on the bolt ladders were old with home made hangers that would only take small diameter biners. Still the case? 2) The cruxes you mention are the two bolt ladders?

quote: "Auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports. . . all others are games." -- Ernest Hemingway

Ditto what Ben says. Approach from the road hairpin via scramble up major gully then work R to base of climb, which looked to have only bits of avoidable snow last weekend when I drove by. Descend S Arete, downclimbing and a couple raps. You can then scramble down to base of climb to pick up any stashed gear, or if you carried everything, just descend back to the hairpin. When I last did the climb several years ago, we carried only some food and a jug of water each, leaving approach shoes and packs at base of climb, and did not regret it. [ 07-30-2002, 03:00 PM: Message edited by: SEF ]

No epics here. Climbed Clean Break on Saturday with sunny skies and nice temps. A few mosquito clouds were encountered. Hiked in Friday with overcast and moderate temps.

Uh oh. Lambone was just last week asking me about bivi possibilities on Glacier Peak. He was taking a party up Frostbite Ridge this weekend with the intention of descending the Sitkum, which I encouraged him to consider. I recommended a summit crater bivi. (It does have lots of flat pumice and a meltwater pond). Lambone last posted 7/25. Could it be him and friends?

E Ridge is loose rock and snow, sometimes steep. No brush to speak of. W Ridge is the brush bash.

Did one of the rock ribs above the hanging glacier several years ago. Don't especially recommend it. Easy class 5, some looseness. Descent was an adventure. Getting to CJ col was OK though time consuming. I recall a rap or two. Then tried taking the cross country route around Mixup and up to Gunsight Notch. In declining weather (heavy mist) and fading light, we could find no obvious "goat path" despite clambering up and down Mixup's shoulder for 1000 vertical or so, and finding 5th class headwalls and steep chutes instead between us and Gunsight basin. Ended up bivying and rapping down to the valley bottom next morning, then bushwacking/hiking out Middle Fork Cascade River.

Soha, No issues with the Sitkum. Just follow the crowds headed up. I was on Glacier Peak Friday and Saturday. Up Frostbite and down Sitkum. Hard crunchy crampon biting snow Saturday early. In descending from a bivi on the summit, I counted 28 climbers and 2 skiers headed up the Sitkum. The largest group, a party of 11 called "Climbers with Christ", told me they left Boulder Basin camp at 1 AM. They had managed 2500 to 3000 vertical in 6.5 hours. Maybe they didn't get their coffee that morning. I passed another half dozen or so parties hiking in on the Whitechuck trail, probably headed to the same place. FYI, a temporary log crossing of Kennedy Creek is signed with flags before Kenendy Hot Springs. Stopped at Darrington's Backwoods Cafe for lunch going out. Beer menu: Bud and Bud Light. And they were out of Bud.

Hey smoker, sorry to hear the rain kept you off the final pitches. I met you Saturday after we rapped from Total Soul. You definitly have to return. Both my partner and I felt the Anti-fly version of pitch (P5) and P6 and P7 were all excellent. A-F had some very fun laybacking up a dinner plate flake. P6 had some very nice friction with perfect pro. P7 had interesting overlaps/roofs to move up. They had a bit of loose surface grit, but should be better now. We saw a party on that next buttress while we were on Total Soul, up an estimated 4 pitches. Would have been nice to have talked to them. Can't say what they climbed to get there.

Caveman, I'll echo several others, having done that solo several years back. Sitkum can have open crevasses, I saw several that were open 1-2 feet and easily stepped over. For a nice loop, head over the summit and descend via Rabbit Ears to Frostbite Ridge then down and around E of Kennedy Peak, then down meadowed ridge and way trail to below the Kennedy HP. FYI, I've seen Frostbite as a lark of corn snow glissade, or very icy.

Very sad indeed: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134469872_rainier07m.html Two more dead on Mount Rainier By Gina Kim Seattle Times staff reporter Eight days after three people perished on Mount Rainier, the 14,411-foot volcano yesterday claimed the lives of two more climbers. Benjamin Hernstedt, 25, of Tigard, Ore., and Jeffrey Dupuis, 21, of Big Flats, N.Y., were taking the popular Ingraham Glacier route on the south side of the mountain when they appeared to have slid down a steep slope, said Jill Hawk, chief ranger of Mount Rainier National Park. Their bodies were discovered from the air around 5:30 p.m. at 12,500 feet and were recovered by a Chinook helicopter a few hours later. It's not clear when the accident occurred, although a park ranger happened upon the two men at Ingraham Flats, at 11,200 feet, at about 9 p.m. Wednesday, when they were beginning an ascent to the summit. He asked why they were making the attempt earlier than most. "The weather had been cold and windy, and he noted that they were traveling without overnight gear," said Hawk. "It's very common for experienced climbers to travel light, to do a summit climb and come back down, but you always want to be sure that they're experienced." Hawk said most climbers leave around midnight or 1 a.m. for the summit. "That was one reason why the ranger questioned them," she said. Earlier yesterday, rangers got a call that a climbing party had fallen into a crevasse. A guide and two clients fell, but the guide managed to extricate himself. After assisting in the rescue of the two clients, rangers checked on the tent of Hernstedt and Dupuis. "It was obvious that no one had been there for the evening," Hawk said. "It had been all night, 17 to 18 hours. They should have been back to the tent from the summit." The search began for the men then. According to cards they filled out before their climb, neither had climbed Mount Rainier before, Hawk said. It appeared the men had reached the summit and were descending when they fell, she said. On May 29, Cornelius Beilharz, and Grit Kleinschmidt, both 26 and from Germany, and Keeta Owens, 21, of Lebanon, Ore., fell high on the mountain in fierce winds and a whiteout. Andreas Kurth, 29, also from Germany, was the group's lone survivor.

The vision espoused by the "pay to play" proponents in Congress and the USFS is cohesive and troublesome. "Pay to play" is the premise for Disneyland. We are now asked to accept that premise for no more than simple access to OUR National Forests. The originators of this crazy idea have a consumer mindset and would have us think we are purchasing a product from them when we climb or hike. I find that fundamentally offensive. The fact that business plans are getting more attention from USFS than forest management and stewardship plans really bothers me. Revenue generation and permit policing are taking resources from resource management. We are told that USFS has a shortfall of revenue that must be made up with "user fees". That shortfall is not an accident, but a design by some in Congress who want the user fee system and want Corporate-Government partnerships in managing our national lands. We can afford to subsidize timber, mining and grazing interests on our national lands by the millions, but must soak the public to let them onto the public lands? Give me a break. FYI, 80% of the trail maintenance is done by volunteers. Apologies for the diatribe, but I wanted to get this off my chest.

Congratulations PackOnMyBack on a nice climb. To set the record straight, only one Mountaineer party was on Shuksan last weekend, not two. BoeAlps, however, did have two parties.

The question is decidedly not what we should do to preserve the economic business interests of the town of West Yellowstone or the snowmobile industry. The question to me is what must be done to preserve and protect Yellowstone NP the way the founders of the park intended. I hope my descendents will be able to experience the park in the spirit that it was conceived. That is what guides my vote. For those interested, here is one journalist’s look at the snowmobile issue: http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=11107 In Yellowstone during winter, you cannot easily escape the noise and smell of snowmobiles. In the view of many, it has become a winter theme park for snow machines. Do you really think we are caring for it as our forefathers intended?

I was there for a week around July 4 in 97, and temps went from cold, windy thunderstorms in the 40’s to chasing shade in the 80’s. Showers were available at the store in Elmo. They sold guides then in the ranger station as well. Water is available at a pump at the end of the Breadloaves. Did Tribal Boundaries early one morning – we got there at 7:30, and had it to ourselves for 15 minutes. Then 4 more parties arrived. It's popular. Ditto on the Bloody Fingers climb, very nice finger to hand crack. Several climbs not mentioned that I liked were Just Another Pretty Face and Beauty and the Beast on Parking Lot Rock, and Scream Cheese. These are all in the 9’s and 10’s. Some of the formations do need two ropes to get off. Keep that in mind.

Erik, why do you consider an anchored belay unsafe? If it is because the belay is less dynamic, then fundamentally every anchored belay setup for multipitch shares the same danger. Yet virtually every belay off the deck will be anchored. Yes, I know you said you were referring to sport climbing, but the issues of dynamics still apply. I agree with mattp that ropes are designed to provide the dynamics needed. Far worse, of course, would be to belay out from the wall with no anchor. If my partner outweighed me by something in the possible range of 50 - 100%, I would prefer to be anchored when belaying as well, since a whipper by the climber would otherwise launch me off the ground towards the first piece of pro. Another question is whether any added fall distance of the climber may present a danger - with nasty things like pointy rocks or ledges to hit. Conversely, a steeply overhanging route may well benefit from a more dynamic belay, possibly keeping the climber from being abruptly slapped into the wall from a fall. I'm again with mattp; each circumstance should be evaluated by its own merits. Blocking trails with gear or belays is always bad manners. Unfortunately, many people seem oblivious to that.

Given the interest in this issue at Mt. St. Helens, i thought you might be interested in the following Seattle Times headline: EPA backs snowmobile ban in Yellowstone, Grand Teton Link: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=snowmobile30&date=20020430&query=Yellowstone Rest assured, this is contrary to the wishes of the Bush Administration, and certainly the Snowmobile Industry.

Keep in mind that the GPNF public position is that they will not consider regulating snowmobile use on St. Helens until their next forest plan review, which they say is several years away. Getting any kind of change earlier will require a lot of pressure from users and/or congress. Skip Card climbed St Helens himself last Sunday, and told me 200 climbing permits were issued for that day. We are not talking about small numbers. The snowmobilers are a powerful recreational group. The Forest Service receives considerable funding, much financial support, and many grants from the snowmobile industry, from state agencies, from powerful clubs and from many individual users. Continued letter writing and noise to elected officials and sympathetic columnists like Skip Card is needed to make a dent.

About 6 or 8 years ago I did the traverse, N to S. It was a heavy snow year with similar depth as this year, done late April. Getting to N Brother was straightforward once the notch is located on S Brother shoulder to cross. The same notch from the east basin is obvious. Most of the traverse will have significant exposure and steep snow. The final notch on a N to S traverse faces a steep rock wall, 30+ feet, which we found wet and slimy from a large snow mushroom sitting atop the wall and dribbling down. It was unprotectable, and problematic for us. Once up that, steep snow led to the top. The descent from S Brother is straightforward – you can follow the masses.

Tom is correct about the managing authority of St. Helens. It is administered by the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. National Park rules don’t apply. Reed Gardner, the Monument's Deputy Manager, took a position in his email to Tom that the monument is managed to: quote: allow for multiple use of the area. The feeling was that the area be used by all and that the Forest Service should not restrict use of the area to one use over another. I am asking Mr. Gardner to reconcile that equal use concept with the notion that one user group is required to register, obtain permits and pay a fee of $15 per person (with a penalty of $100 citation if they fail to do so) to access the same land to which another user group has free and unrestricted access. Mr. Gardner also mentions that the monument quote: administer mountain climbing within the carrying capacity of the resource.My question is, what was determined to be the carrying capacity of climbers, the carrying capacity of snowmobiles, and how are the numbers of each monitored and enforced? I am aware of quotas only for climbers after a certain date. IMHO, snowmobiles should not be permitted where they would adversely affect the Monument’s natural, scenic or aesthetic values, disturb wildlife or damage other park resources, cause safety hazards or conflict with other recreational uses. A 4800 foot elevation limit to snowmobiles is advocated by Off-Piste magazine in a link provided in the thread earlier. Sounds reasonable to me, and I’m letting the monument know that. Making noise in this forum won't change much. You need to make it with the Monument and/or elected representatives to do that.

Kevin McLane, climber, guidebook author and publisher, will give a slide presentation this evening at the Mountaineers at 7 PM. Some very fine and classic Cascade Climbs are in his books (on both sides of the border). Come check it out. Free.

All organizations, including ours, have room for improvement. I continue to invite your constructive suggestions. We are a volunteer club run by members for members, not some monolithic corporation. We do take "stewardship" beyond words in guidebooks: we require it of our students. They must participate in a qualifying activity, most commonly in trail maintenance or re-vegetation projects. We work closely with a number of conservation organizations in this effort. This requirement from the Seattle climbing course alone results in some 1000+ man hours of volunteer work per year. An InvitationIf you are responsible for a specific project of this sort in need of volunteer help, please get in touch. We want to make as many opportunities available to our members as we can, with special emphasis on projects related to climbing for our climbing students. The WTA, the Access Fund, and a number of other conservation organizations are all making big efforts to help preserve our mountains and crags and access to them. We invite you to join us in providing them the support they deserve. Some specific resources to help anyone interested get connected on specific projects are at http://www.mountaineers.org/conservation/trailm.html.

http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/do/weekendr/weekendr.htm(very bottom of page) Closure of The Bends and Royal Columns officially stated to end April 15. Golden Eagle Nesting. No bridge at Royal Columns.

Thanks to those who have taken time and thought to give me constructive feedback. Organized climbing instruction, ours or anyone else's, is not for everyone, but it has its place and will remain a part of the landscape. No course is perfect. Limitations are assured. One person said that we learn climbing best through doing, not by talking, a philosophy with which I totally agree. We are trying to move more in that direction. I did mention our use of mentors (I'm one of those "nearsighted" mentors myself). We are trying other ways to make more hands on practice too. The Mountaineers will, by necessity, always have some degree of regimentation in our courses. Although that can be a good thing, we realize that it's a tempting target, and often poke fun at ourselves about it. "Attitude" was cited by someone as a problem when dealing with Mountaineer parties on climbs. Again, let me know when this occurs, but I cannot take any action based on some unspecific old incident. Most leaders with us are respectful. Speaking of attitude, how do you characterize the attitude displayed here? A number of folks on this board have emailed me privately, asking me not to judge the whole from the behavior of a few. Some here are welcoming or offer sincere criticism, both of which I accept as very valuable. Others only want to insult or demean others or are simply hostile and seem to find humor in it. I don't take the voice of these few to represent all of the people on this board. I'd ask you to not paint all Mountaineers with the same brush. I cannot reply in detail about every post, but I am looking further into the "yellow school buses" story. Speaking for Seattle, we have never used such buses to transport our climbing students, in Leavenworth or Spire Rock, or anyplace else. I'm told that 30 years ago we used grey Trailways buses on some occasions to transport students to Mt. Rainier for snow field trips. I'm asking other branches if they used the notorious buses "several years ago", but right now that seems unlikely. Limiting Basic Rock climbs to less than the current 6 may have some benefit for other parties on particularly high traffic climbs. To have any significant effect, a reduced party size would need to be adopted by all of our branches, not just Seattle. And maybe other clubs. I am willing to use my influence to work on such a change if this message board can give me reasonable climbing objectives where it is needed. My greatest influence is with Seattle. Thank you for the opportunity to post.