Gary_Yngve

for what?

I remember doing mostly single rope raps and downclimbing on the route itself, which was pretty fast. We were a team of four, with Steve Firebaugh directing our efforts into an efficient 6.5-hour car-to-car push.

The choice on how many pickets to make was: "I own two pickets. How many pickets do you own? One. Guess we'll have three pickets." I'd consider buying and carrying more pickets if they weren't such a pain to rack. I've tried all options (over the shoulder, on the harness, center-clipped, end-clipped, etc.), and in every situation, they'll find some way to stab you or get in your way.

Climb: Mt. Baker-Coleman Headwall Date of Climb: 7/9/2006 Trip Report: Justin Evans and I decided we wanted something a little less burly than a 2-day Logan trip, so we settled on the Coleman Headwall, despite knowing that it would make Aaron jealous (Aaron and I bailed off the Headwall last year, and Justin and Aaron were chased off the North Ridge on July 4th by lightning). The views were gorgeous on the hike in, and we tried to scope out the route. After three hours from the trailhead, we passed by the Black Buttes camp, mobbed by at least thirty people. We marched half an hour further (not nearly as far as I thought we went) to a flat spot where we set up camp, ate dinner (fortified with some hot Thai peppers), and watched the snow turn golden. A huge system was to the north of us, as the forecast had predicted, and the temperatures were dropping. We boldly set the alarm for 3:45 AM and went to bed. At around 2:30 AM we were awakened by the first sounds of the conga line heading up the C-D. Around 3:30 the train was still continuing, and we decided to wake up. We geared up and buried our bivy gear so it wouldn't blow away. We opted for the high traverse (drop just below the base of the nose), which probably had a little more vert, but had minimal routefinding issues. I underestimated how much time it would take (I really should know better by now), and we were at the base of the route proper around 5:30 AM. The first portion was moderate-angled snow that was softer than we would have liked, but we kept going, expecting to find icier parts above. The sun had risen and was lighting up the surrounding valleys, but given the headwall's NW aspect, it would be a long time before it got sun. We then ran into an obstacle. Ahead and to the left, massive leaning seracs. To the right, a dirty-looking stairstep that was a mix of ice and neve and some crap, but afforded decent pro and good rests. I led up about a full ropelength of the stairsteps and continued up the gentler snowfield above, which was fluted with runnels scoured from previous rock/icefall. This part sucked for several reasons: 1) I had made a 90-degree turn just after the ice step and had some ropedrag. 2) I was kicking steps into what would have been nice neve had it frozen. 3) I was hungry and thirsty but wanted to speed through the objective hazards. 4) I was starting to get the urges to take a crap. We traversed up and left aways, traversed across a snowbridge (not visible on the route photo), and continued up a little more, where we saw a nice ramp to take us out of the hazard and onto the center of the headwall. I passed the lead to Justin, as I was mostly out of gear (placed 3/3 pickets and 5/8 screws), and he led the ramp (gained by crossing another snowbridge) to a snow arete. Here we refueled and rehydrated, not having eaten/drank anything in three hours. I decided I could keep the brownies baking until the summit, as it didn't look that far away (note the foreshortening visible between the two route shots), and we believed we were past the crux. Justin took over leading (breaking trail) from here on. First we had to cross the crevasse stretching across the face. We found a spot that looked like an easy 6-foot step, though the problem was it wasn't ice or even neve, it was soft snow. After much groveling, including a false start, Justin made it past the step. He belayed me up this portion, though it was much easier for me, as he had already dug out the placements. We then simuled quite a ways up more kick-step snow until we scooted to the right past the final crevasse. We thought we were home-free, and we were glad to be on the summit soon. Clouds were starting to come in, and our time spent on the lower face without food/water was catching up to us. We got quite a sting in the tail when we discovered that the face above the crevasse was hard ice, almost like the melt-freeze associated with water ice. This portion, though it took screws well, was tedious and tiring. Finally we passed near the rocks, where the ice had softened somewhat on the surface and gradually gave way to easier snow and a gentler slope. However we still were not on the top! Each time we (Justin, me, and my intestines) thought we were getting closer, the slope would just ease off a little more and still keep going up. Our pace slowed. The snow changed to ball-bearing ice crystals, and the clouds dropped closer and closer to us. WTF? The weather forecast was supposed to be much better than this! The system was supposed to be further to the north, and the real mess wasn't due until Monday. Finally we were on the summit. Visibility had gone down to about 200 feet, and Justin was freezing his ass off waiting for me because I was literally freezing my ass off. But boy did I feel better. We then got the hell off, as the visibility dropped even more, and it started to rain ice pellets. The descent was easy to find, thanks to all the traffic on the route. But we took our time going down, thanks to fatigue (we were too hurried by the storm to eat or drink anything on the summit) and crappy snow conditions (in some places slush over ice). When we got halfway down the hogsback, the storm eased up, and we downed some much-needed food and water. We made it back to camp pretty quickly after that and packed up, glad that we hadn't summited any later. We hiked out, chatting with a friendly Mountain Madness guide and his client, and bumping into a few dayhikers. But the Buttes camp was all but deserted, the weekend being over. The hike out went really fast, thanks to the cooler of beer waiting in the car. Thanks for the good trip, Justin! Gear Notes: had 3 pickets and 8 screws. 4 pickets and 6 screws would have been better given the not-well-frozen conditions

We saw some folks from a distance doing that on Baker. They didn't get hurt, but we didn't feel like waiting for them (they had to pack up camp which was a ways from where we were) to offer our friendly advice.

hee hee hee Anyone else imagining Zidane headbutting RuMR?

The images look fine to me. I'd have to run experiments to see if how much of a space savings 75-90% quality in Irfanview affords (and how low before noise/artifacts become readily apparent. A few of your images exhibited slight color-casting (e.g. the snow in your 2nd pic has a greenish tint), a byproduct of either the film or the scanning process. Photoshop has cool semi-automatic ways of fixing this, but not Irfanview (in Irfanview you can tweak color-balance, but it's not intuitive how to do so to correct the colors the best way).

Before I got the 5mm tech cord stuff, my cordalette was bulky 7mm, and I often found myself leaving it at home (or wanting to) on a lightweight alpine trip.

I'm lazy. I went to Pro Mountain Sports and bought 5mm techcord already precut to 20 feet.

IrfanView supports batch operations such as upping saturation. My concern about the batch processing is that it's hard to know what the magical settings are without a projector to test it on. You may notice banding in the greens and blues but unsaturated reds, or banded reds but yellowish bluebird sky.

Unfortunately, I think the problem is usually in the digital projector. Affordable (<$5K) digital projectors have noticably poorer sharpness/colors than LCD monitors. If you can get access to the projector beforehand, you have a chance of possibly tweaking things to look better on the projector. Also remember that the darker the room, the better the projected image will look.

Haireball, I think that's a great idea. Miraculously, a bad accident was avoided by sheer luck up in the Mtn Loop this weekend when two gym/sport climbers were adventure climbing, one fell, and the other was ripped from the belay anchor. Attachment point to the belay anchor? A gear loop...

It always rains on 4th of July. late-May to early-June is always wetter than people expect. Usually there's a cold-clear spell in late Dec and again in mid-Feb. If you have steady high pressure forecast, the weather is usually bomber, aside from thunderstorm activity or the Pickets.

Trogdor, I really want to climb SF too, though I prefer visiting the area in Aug-Oct.

Am I invited?

Early signs of shock include pale/cold/clammy skin, shallow/rapid breathing, and a weak/fast pulse. Perhaps reduced level of consciousness. Important to note differences from patients with increased intracranial pressure (closed head injury): slow/bounding pulse and possible irregular breathing. First the body is trying to compensate for inadequate perfusion and maintain blood pressure. Increased breathing/heart rates and shunting blood from the periphery accomplish this. Eventually the body is unable to maintain blood pressure. Informally, this means the body is in deep shit and likely can't dig itself out without serious help (ALS, IVs).

That's also a good technique on brushy low-angle raps, e.g. from the top of Exfoliation Dome.

Your rope gets stuck 500 feet above flat ground because you forgot to untie a knot. The face above you is blank. Your choices are sit and wait for help, with a bad storm brewing and no bivy gear, or prusik up the questionably stuck rope. That sounds like DYING to me.

Dru is correct. A knot can get stuck in a crack when tossed on a windy day, and if you're tired, you can forget to untie the knots when you pull the rope.

Russ, good job getting everyone else down safely.

Regarding Condormorphine Addiction being a good/bad choice for a first multipitch climb, I think it's one of the best ones out there -- lots of bolts and single-rope rappels. There have been other incidents lately regarding climbers who are strong in the gym but who may not have all the knowledge they need to do mountain stuff. A close call recently involved a climber anchored off a gear-loop who was ripped from the belay when the partner fell. Miraculously both did not fall far even though they were on 4th-class terrain. How is a climber supposed to get the requisite knowledge to safely make the transition, aside from a mentor or a formal class (Mountaineers, Boealps, WAC, etc.)?

I met Emily in Vantage a month ago. Ruth and I had just topped out on the Sunshine Wall and were walking around to find the nearest rap anchor. We managed to walk past George and Martha and came to a route being top-roped. We waited for the climber (Emily) to finish, as we chatted with a Vantage regular who also just topped out and had some strong opinions regarding the Kropp plaque. When Emily got to the top she decided to have her partner lower her and let us clean their anchor and rap their rope. Later in the day, I set up a fixed line for my friend Kevin to take photos of my styling Air Guitar. Emily was climbing one of the bolted lines to the right of Air Guitar, and Kevin got some pictures of her. She and her friend were nice folks.

sweet!

I agree with Dru. At this time of year, Baker is probably the better place to go.

Were you the guys camped at the base of the E Ridge on Eldo? We saw lights there and were wondering if you guys saw ours. A group was also heading in to do Eldo W Arete...