Gary_Yngve

"Had one of the best faces in the northwest all to ourselves on a gorgeous Saturday despite a beautiful day." My theory is that there's just really not enough people who are strong enough, fast enough, and/or motivated enough to crowd the harder (approach-wise or technical-wise) routes. Sunday maybe more folks on SF (had the weather not been crappy), as it would allow an overnight on a weekend. Routes like the IngallsSF, LibBell/Beckey are always crowded, but when's the last time you've heard about crowds on JBerg, SF Prusik, Backbone Dtail, Ptarmigan Ridge, EF Lex, etc.? The only exception that comes to mind was when three parties ended up on NF Terror, but all had their shit together so everyone had a merry time. I guess the other exception is winter routes because they are so condition-dependent.

hmmm, were you intending to climb beckey-davis or burger-stanley?

Alpinfox, if I put the back strap around my tennie, it would slip up to my ankle, and then the pon would pop off. Have a better idea? It actually wasn't uncomfortable on my Achilles (in the mtns I was wearing a pair of socks). The previous thread, which I did not know about (thanks Fern) looks like it has a similar rigging.

Can you bypass all snow coming down from Goat Pass to the base of the CNR? I think you could minimize your snow on the Stuart Glacier to just a short section, but below that are cliffs interspersed with gullies, and I'd think those would contain snow? Or is there a way to the base of CNR from Stuart Pass?

The traction for traversing and going up was good on moderate frozen snow. They actually performed better than 10-pt Al Stubais on low-angle glacier ice because they were steel. The downsides would be: -need to face in when going down anything too steep -can't frontpoint with them -with tennies, you can get into a situation where the points want to shear through the soft top half-inch of snow but you really can't kick that good of a step Crossing talus, I could sometimes have my heel on the rock and never have the points touch. Kinda neat, I guess. DirtyHarry, figuring out how to put these pons on tennies in such a way that they wouldn't pop off was not a simple task. Go fuck yourself. Or a sheep. Whatever you find first.

Though a prusik jam can be annoying, it's user error not to set the prusik prior to releasing the load. You can also use an ATC or other such thingie to mind the prusik should the pulley misbehave.

The only caution is that you might need to go from 6mm prusiks to 5mm prusiks for an 8mm rope.

Also depends on time of day. Early morning, poons were required (perhaps unless you had boots that could really kick in hard) for access to the upper NR. Late in the day they may not be. But the last bit across the glacier is decently steep and exposed and I definitely felt more comfortable with an axe.

Climb: Forbidden-East and West Ridges Date of Climb: 7/2/2006 Trip Report: smaller thumbnails: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/gyngve/Forbidden/thumbs.html Ruth and I rented a car and drove to Marblemount, intent on climbing NE Ridge Triumph on 4th of July weekend. We were denied a permit, but we were able to get permits for Boston Basin and get copies of the pertininent pages of Selected Climbs. We climbed the East Ridge of Forbidden, leaving our boots, axes, and pons at the base (a snaffle nibbled on our boots overnight). Up top, we cooked a gourmet meal of tortellini with sundried tomato antipasto and goat cheese, plus some miso soup and avocado. We bivied just below the summit (there's a nice spot for one person about 20 feet below to the north, slept tied-in). After breakfast, we downclimbed the West Ridge and climbed back up. We descended the East Ledges with 6 single-rope rappels and then hiked out. We were surprised by the solitude we found in what is supposed to be a popular place. Now for the photo enslaught. Hiking in. Climbing the East Ridge. Summit. More alpenglow (previously posted): http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/590336/an/0/page/1#590336 Views during breakfast (I need to go back and correct a little tilt): Climbing down the West Ridge. Climbing up the West Ridge. View South. View North. Descending the East Ledges. Hiking out.

I tried out a pair of the Camp steel 6-point "half-"pons on Saturday. Took me several attempts to rig it so it wouldn't torque off (the instruction manual is useless / inutile / unbrauchbar / inutil). Some important points: -The pon shouldn't be too close to the toe. -The straps need to be tight when the ankle is slightly flexed. -The straps need to be rigged to keep the rear part of the pon from pulling from the shoe. Once I figured it out, it worked great (better and lighter than an aluminum full pon on bare glacial ice). Tennies and pons aren't that comfortable, but for a small pocket glacier, they work great. Here are some pics of how I rigged the pon:

Critical mass is usually around 8 PM. Some folks (DS) need to leave early to get up early for work, and some folks (CS) need to arrive later because they need to spend time with the kids first. They have a happy-hour 6-7 with two-dollar pints of micros, which I might try to make. If no one else is there, I'll just grade and try not to get any beer stains on their papers.

Sounds like yous tawkin bout trailer trash.

Yeah, those guys owe you some beer!

I'll need to try that. Only have done it with vodka.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2134266654801392897

Sweet, I'm looking forward to the show!

You can walk a #4 Friend up the crack and climb it on top rope. By the time you get tired of doing that, the fixed Costalot is only a few feet ahead. You can get a 2/3-expanded #3.5 Friend in a constriction too. And you can protect the horizontal crack traverse with smaller cams. After the fixed piece (currently slung with turquoise perlon), the difficulties are pretty much over, and you can protect with smaller pieces. The fist/offwidth section can't be much longer than 20 feet. We really didn't understand why it gets the hype that it does.

621 g

DMM 4CU #4 : 2.7"-3.4" 190gm BD C4 #4 : 2.7"-3.6" 278gm

Interesting, so you found a way around the drilled skyhook placement halfway up p3. I followed that part, so I don't remember much about it. The cam hooks would mainly be for speed in lieu of placing gear (and would mean lighter rack or less backcleaning). I assume some studs are comfortable with placing a cam hook on each aider and chugging -- my wimpy preference is 1-2 cam hook moves in between gear.

summit of Forbidden. A TR of that will appear in a few days.

no hammer (no pitons/bashies) small nuts (i seem to remember offsets being nice just above the roof) 1-2 cam hooks 1 sky hook

I'm using my 3rd Canon S400 (one fried itself and one was lost after a ski crash). I think next year I may buy a DSLR (I'd love to have more aperture control, 24mm-300mm ranges, and a polarizer), but I'll still have a point-and-shoot for the more technical/risky routes. Some things I did to get nice colors: -Plan the trip/photos according to the orientation / time of day / light -Exposure-bracket some shots (my camera tends to overexpose sky, water, snow, and granite, and darker vegetation has a more pure color that will shine with some saturation). For some of these, just +0 or -1 stops sufficed; for others I applied a "digital split filter." -Correct any colorcasts in the image prior to boosting saturation. (often you can identify something in the image you want to be gray/white and get it there either by tweaking levels of each channel or my neutralize with match color) Here's one more image that got misplaced:

Climb: Granite Mountain-ridge traverse from Paddy-Go-Easy Date of Climb: 7/25/2006 Trip Report: Dylan answered my request for a "mellow" lakes trip and brought along Tyler and Kim. Knowing that it was going to be hot, we left Seattle at 6 AM. We were pleasantly surprised that it was overcast, and we made quick time to Paddy-Go-Easy Pass (this trail doesn't screw around the way that Cascade Pass, Longs Pass, and Blue Lake do). Wildflowers were great, and the cloudy sky made for great photography. We rested and took a swim in Sprite Lake. Then we started up the ridge, which for the first half, is the rough red rock found on Ingalls. Abruptly the rock changed to granite. The ridge was adventure-scrambling, with the occasional turn-around from a highpoint because it was too darn steep on the other side. Given the others' skill levels we didn't bag all the highpoints (traversed past them) -- apparently there's a mineshaft on one of them. We made camp at some half-melted tarns on the flanks of Granite Mountain. I was happy to have my GoLite Lair2 Nest bug shelter. The clouds started to clear as the temperature cooled, and the setting sun set them afire. I got up before dawn and tagged the summit of South Granite. The register dated from Sept 2005, and the only signers since were a party led by the Goodmans (they're everywhere!). The sunrise was muted, so while pretty and enjoyable, I didn't get any photos that really wowed me. Guess I've seen a lot of dramatic sunrises. I got back to camp and woke everyone up. After breakfast and packing up, we tromped up to the summit of (North) Granite and soaked in the views. Mt. Baring, The Cradle, Stuey, Daniel, Snoqualmie Pickets, and four volcanoes. We hiked down to Robin Lakes, where we took a swim and watched the goats. Then we hiked down to Tuck Lake, following cairns at first to the north (GreenTrails has it labeled but not USGS). At Tuck Pot, we met a group of three and played a cool frisbee game (175 grams -- I didn't skimp!). We stood on rock islands about 100 feet apart and tried to throw the frisbee to each other. The hilarious result was a lot of diving into the water and missed catches. We then hiked out past Hyas Lake, feeling sorry for all the people hiking up in the heat. At the trailhead, we still had a mile of hot dusty road to get back to our car. A kind couple let us hop in the back of their pickup truck. I was amazed by the solitude we encountered on a prime summer weekend. There was a family camped on the other side of Sprite Lake, but otherwise, until we got down to Tuck Lake, we didn't see another soul. Gear Notes: sneakers and no ice axe! Approach Notes: the road to Daniel is much better now, though there's still the Scatter Creek issue