Gary_Yngve

Last July I took some friends up Hidden Lake Peak, and there was a fair amount of snow. Check out the latest reports on wta.org for "snow on trail" warnings.

Ice was great today. Soft snow lower on the ridge. High winds on summit.

I feel that the Metolius curved nuts are a little awkward and can be hard to clean. I like Smiley's Wedgies (basically same as the BDs, and now ABC Huevos or something) and DMM Walnuts.

Dragontail may be in the way. Prusik only goes up to about 8000 feet, while Dragontail is around 8800 or so. But I don't know what the exact view looks like -- we were clouded in a few weeks ago.

I was with the Mounties on Daniel this weekend. We were near Peasoup Lake early Sunday morning with about six inches of freshiez, high winds, and low visibility. We decided to turn around not because the conditions were so bad but because the group dynamics (nine people, some of whom were feeling weak, sick, etc.) combined with the conditions were just too much. It's one of those things were speed is safety -- a small group of experienced climbers would have had no problem summiting, but nine climbers, six of whom were basic students, is a little different. I thnk the whole "sign up weeks in advance for a climb" along with the "need X rock summits and Y glacier summits to graduate" makes people less likely to change destinations and more likely to cancel climbs enroute rather than beforehand.

Yeah, we crossed at the cable car, bushwhacked for a few hours, and then ended up camping back at the campground. The next morning we crossed the river but still couldn't find the trail, so we fought our way straight up Easy Ridge, running into the trail about a hundred feet before the top. Highly not recommended.

I just got a Canon Elph S400. A little pricy, but the sweetest features you can find in a camera for its size.

One simple solution is not to carry such a heavy pack. What all did you have to carry (besides the rope) that made your pack so heavy?

The UW climbing club will be holding a barbecue at the UW Rock. Although the food we purchased is intended for club members, feel free to hang out, play on our slackline, etc. The bbq will be starting at 5 PM.

I hate it when those goddamn Mounties occupy the whole fucking mountain. The Mountaineers suck!

Jule already wrote up a great trip report: After getting all hyped up to climb Liberty Ridge this weekend, but getting (again!) thwarted by the weather, I felt antsy and had to get it out of my system and go climb some other ridge, which turned out to be the S ridge of Kyes Peak. Fortunately Gary came along, to saved me from soloing in a very lonely place. Kyes is one of the peaks of the very cool Monte Cristo group, and at 7227 (or so) the highest. It can be approached from several different directions, including the Upper Pride Glacier which is rumored to be a good ice climb. We took the S ridge, to which you get from the Blanca Lake trailhead. We got to the trailhead Saturday night, walked up to the saddle where you join the ridge and where lovely little Virgin Lake is located, and camped there. It drizzled a bit overnight, and we woke up to profuse cloudiness. Fortunately the ridge is foolproof to follow, because if you don't you fall down many hundred feet on either side. We knew it was a long climb (16 miles round trip), but were still surprised by how long it was! The ridge stretches for about five miles, and most of it was climbing over rolling cornices at the ridgetop, with the occasional interspersed rock outcroppings and cascadesy tree acrobatics. We couldn't see a dang thing most of the way to the summit, but it turns out you don't really see the summit anyway until you get to the false summit, which we reached via a short steep snow finger after a long slush traverse. Once on the summit, the cloud ceiling started lifting slowly, and revealing snippets of awe-inspiring scenery, lofty cragginess and tumbling ice and water. Except for a guy who climbed the peak from Monte Cristo in January (wow), we were the first ones up there this year. On the way back, we followed our footsteps, up and down every bump on the ridge, not wanting any epics caused by clever detours. A very aesthetic, athletic scramble! This picture captures most everything about the day... quintessential Cascades goodness.

Are you the top dot or the bottom dot?

We lazily slept in late on Sunday (got up at 8 AM) and got back to the cars in the early afternoon. We saw your car parked on our drive out and we considered stopping to leave a note, but we were too lazy.

Whoops, hope I didn't mislead anyone... we hiked up to Colchuck Lake Friday evening, camping there, and camped at Asgard Pass Saturday night. We decided to make the trip comfortable as opposed to yet another "long day." We had enough supplies to last us through Monday (we planned to spend another day playing around up there), but we came back Sunday because the snow was soft, the skies were cloudy, one of us had a cold, and we felt that the trip was already a success having summited Prusik.

Three of us climbed the West Ridge of Prusik on Saturday. The route was in great shape -- snow-free except for a few ledges on the north face. We hauled boots and ice axes up, which were very useful on the 40-degree snow for the traverse back to the pass. We used two 60m rappels to get down, with the first being the full ropelength. We came in and out through Asgard Pass. Colchuck Lake is rapidly melting out, though the lakes in the upper basin are frozen solid. Flotation was nice to have in the upper basin. Saw two folks on Triple Cs... an avy came down the first couloir after they had passed it. Heard later that they bailed because of the unstable snow. Saw/heard lots of other avys...

When we did Sloan last year, we approached from Bedal Creek instead... worked quite well, and no stream crossing neessary.

My problem is the reason why I'm angry is that I have to work instead of climb. (I've been stuck in the city for the four past weekends , mostly due to my evil advisor )

"Angelo was walking towards the coat room today, when he clipped one of the classroom tables with his hip. Feeling slighted, he cursed at the table and swung his leg to kick the corner he'd bumped into. He missed the table leg by inches and sent his foot smashing into the underside of the table. He screamed and bent down to grab his toes, banging his head against the topside of the table. At this point Angelo started crying, fell on his butt, and started trying to take his shoe off. He leaned forward to untie his shoe and hit his forehead against the edge of the table. After this he just curled up into a ball. I have never seen a tard lose a fight with an inanimate object quite as badly as this. "

When we did the Tree Route, we did three more pitches on the upper buttress. They were roughly the same difficulty as the earlier pitches.

Or Trask's ass.

Maybe they got different units... measuring the Scarpas in pairs and the Koflachs by individual shoes.

I prefer this version of the chart:

I know! I know! Somewhere where there are cams for sale!

Exit 32 was quite fun the other day. We had the place completely to ourselves. Many of the routes can be set up with top ropes as well. The rock was a little wet, but that made things more fun! Mmmm... fisting wet cracks... We also got a blank citation for not leaving the parking lot in time, and that they graciously left the gate unlocked (we left at 9:30, though the sign said open until 10:00). Whatev.

I heard there's a new edition of FotH in the works.