Picketeer

Access Creek does have its attractions . I do strongly recommend that the north side bushwhack be chosen. It is not the full grovel through thornberry and devil's club that is the south side whack.

Beautiful pics! In July, '06 climbing Pigeon we saw a huge avi crash down the se face of Howser Tower you can see in your photo.

Since many newbies are reading this thread and reading about climbing Hood routes, I just wanted to echo a couple good points. CLS is quite correct in that Sunshine is a more technical route than Cooper Spur, mainly due to the less direct approach and crevasses in route. When I have climbed Sunshine, I have descended by Cooper Spur. I would not recommend descent of Sunshine. Ryland is right on in his discussion of the perils of descending Cooper Spur. If in a difficult situation (time, energy, conditions), definitely descend the South Side route. If climbing Hood (or anywhere in the Western US), I suggest going to the NOAA website (there is a link on the skihood.com website) and obtaining a pinpoint forecast. Blessings to all on the mountain: climbers, rescuers, family. Mitakye Onsin

I agree with k.rose. I was at Indian Creek in March and climbed in Donelly Canyon and on Supercrack Buttress. Incredible Handcrack is a great climb but just gobbles gear (save some for the crux near where the crack curls back right). Also, Donnelly Canyon faces southward and the stone was baking by noon (in mid March!) and so we worked lines on Supercrack Buttress in the afternoon (this seemed a fairly popular scheme) since the lines near Incredible Hand Crack get some early afternoon shade. Be sure to check out the Yellow Submarine and Tortoise rock formations just before the turn-off for Indian Creek. Awesome, particularly in the twilight--one of those fine road trip sights.

Last Saturday, Bush told us while visiting Riga, Latvia last week that: "We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations — appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability." He must have just skipped over the "Except Uzbekistan and Pakistan" part.

Well, how many routes are there at Smith these days? Ten years ago there were about ~1000. I guess there are 1200+.

Climb: Ingalls North Peak-South Ridge Date of Climb: 7/14/2004 Trip Report: Packed in from the Teanaway Road trailhead to one of great campsites on the slabs below Ingalls Pass on Monday, 7/12 afternoon. Fantastic view of Mt Stuart and of upper meadows of Headlight Creek from camp. Planned to climb on the 7/13. But thunderstorms dissuaded us from leaving camp in the morning. Showered intermittently throughout the morning of 7/13. Cleared off in the afternoon and we set off for Ingalls Lake for a quick reconnoiter. Still continuous snow around the lake. The slabs leading up to the gully descending from the S. Peak-N. Peak col are mostly snow-free, still plenty of snow in the upper gully. Met a couple of guys taking a break at the lake on their way to Mt. Stuart. They said they were planning to climb the North Ridge. My climbing partner Eric wished them luck, having done the climb twenty-five years ago, recalling for the captive audience tales of his bivouac on the summit with no water and food and arduous descent down Cascadian and then back over Goat Pass to make it back to his camp and food. The North Ridge climbers-to-be casually took this in. One of them mentioned he had previously climbed the North Ridge four times. We wished them luck. I was stoked to go at first light on Wednesday and surprised Eric by arising and motivating him for a proper "alpine start". The weather was ideal--nearly cloudless conditions. We got trudging at about 5:30 am. Made it to the base of the climb beneath the dogtooths at 7:00 am after much fun cruising up the slabs. Snow conditions in the gully were great--just an axe for easy progress up the snow. We climbed on one 60 m 9mm doubled rope. No problems reaching an anchor in any ~ 30 m pitch. There is one very dubious anchor slung around a killer block that can be avoided by climbing up to the next anchor (two beefy Metolius bolts). Cimbed the route in my hikers(hooked my rock shoes to my harness--but never needed them). Eric climbed in his Sketchers (are those like real tennis shoes??) We detected perhaps one 5.6 move (as indicated on the variation shown in Beckey's topo), else rest is easy class 5 or easier. The roped climbing concludes at the top of the dark horns (we did not avail ourselves of the "belay cove" shown in Beckey's topo) and is a quick scramble to the summit (actually two summits, the more eastward has a cairn atop it and is clearly higher than the westward summit). We summited a little after 9:00 am Raps are from good stations. We avoided the manky block anchor by doing a full 60 m rap (with our one and only rope) from the 2nd rap/belay station (1st rap from station atop the dark horns) and doing a short easy downclimb (10-15 ft) to the next station (webbing slung around huge block on large ledge). We put a couple pieces in a convienient crack and belayed down this short downclimb just to be on the safe side. Two ropes would eliminate the need to downclimb or else use the manky block anchor. From this point to the deck was straight forward two short raps with some class 3 or 4 downclimbing. We saw two more parties nearing the top of the gully after we reached the deck at the start of the climb. A fun climb with great views of Stuart and Lake Ingalls. I was particularly struck by the beauty of the upper Jack Creek drainage. The rock quality is good and route takes a natural line. The exposures of polished serpentine rock along the route (and also coming up from Lake Ingalls to the col) are stunning (and very polished, glad not to have to friction up some of that on sketchy pro!). One question: what is the major mountain massif that one sees to the west (20 miles?) from Ingalls Peak?

Any idea of the type of rock or its quality? Looks like a good number of single pitch climbs might be available on these crags.

Put something in that will last awhile--3/8" bolts. The "missing bolts" are not referring to the bolts on the Pioneer Route aid pitch, which are 5/8". Putting new 1/4" in Smith Tuff will just swiss cheese the stone when they inevitably work loose and have to be replaced. I was climbing Ancient Art in the Fisher Towers outside Moab in March (conglomerated mud/sandstone-stuff has granite and quartz cobbles embedded in it) and the belay placements were pincushioned with crummy bolts, manky 1/4" bolts and old holes. Let's try to avoid this at Smith!

That road is killer! "Instead, we decided to go to 3 O'Clock Rock and sample the fine Darrington granite we had heard about . . . Of course, the drive up was a piece of work. When we got down to the car, back rear tire was flat. We decided to camp and limp into Darrington the following day on the pseudo-bike tire spare. There we became aquainted with the fine staff of "The Station". Decent folks."

Great job on E. Ridge! I also have been fouled up at that 2nd stream crossing. It took us a quite a bit of hunting around before we figured out that we needed to head up the creek several hundred feet where we finally found some cairns and tread. I remember that once we exited the creekbed we passed a rocky bench area with some old fire rings and then over a small ridge before heading out on the long heather traverse up to the notch/col heading down into Terror Basin.

The Camp IV area in Yosemite Valley has an awesome collection of boulder, many with multiple V-rated routes. Smith Rock also has good bouldering. Check out Alan Watts "Climber's Guide to Smith Rock". He has about twelve pages devoted to bouldering.

Thanks for the directions Jopa!

Did the route a number of years ago on a summer solstice weekend. Took the right hand side of the glacier up, then made the schrund crossing and reached the ridge near the large pinnacle (Mohler's Tooth?) that is prominent on the right ridge skyline above the schrund. The route from there is a pretty straightforward ridge traverse to make it over to the summit pinnacle, where one has to make a very steep (to me) traverse to gain the scramble routes to the summit. I would go very soon since the schrund crossing will get sketchier (and the rockfall more intense from the headwalls) as more days go by. Also, I might recommend camping at around 7000' near the glacier snout above Jeff Park. Good luck!

Despite the Dome glacier broiler, it was great to have sun rather than rain on summit day! The views are outstanding.