Alpinfox

Your summit pic is not working. Nice TR! I'm surprised how little snow there is for May! edit: Picture seems to be displaying just fine now. Probably just my stupid POS computer.

1st picture is busted, 2nd picture = last picture. Who IS that old tubby guy anyway?

You're right. It is pretty low angle and in most spots I don't think snow would be a big deal. There are a couple of 5.6 spots, but they are steeper and will melt/dry out faster than the rest. I climbed it much later season than this, so I don't really know what it will be like now. Pretty area If you go up there, please take a knife and bring home some ratty rap slings. The anchors up there are some of the worst I've seen anywhere. I carried out about 10 old slings!

I DO want to climb out there, COR is incredible!, but it's a sheeetload a' drivin!

Ivan the terrifying said: Aren't you 6'7"? You should be our designated muscle if anyone ever catches a gear thief. Maybe we should get you a beeper?

Skyclimb, Did you perhaps mean the ROYAL GORGE in Colorado? That would be quite a rappel!!! I enjoyed rappelling off of bridges when I was a kid. Had to run from the cops a few times which was kinda fun. I imagine in this age of "heightened national security" you could get yer ass locked up for that sort of thing. I have a real honor-society, never-does-anything-wrong, type friend that got arrested a couple of years ago for traversing underneath the Montlake Bridge! He was pretty scared because he's CANADIAN and thought he might get deported. But they just let him go.

Why not just wear the trail runners w/ some strap-on pons on the climb? Or wear some lightweight hiking boots for the hike AND the climb? Olympus is climbed in warm weather so an insulated boot is not required and it has no steep snow/ice sections which would require a stiff boot. If you have some circulation problems in your feet (Raynaud's syndrome or something) then consider bringing a chemical toe heater pack along and using it for the summit day. Weighs much less than insulated boots. It seems excessive to me to bring two pairs of footwear on a trip like Olympus, especially when one of those pieces of footwear weighs 4+lbs. However, to each his own.

Took me a while to find this TR, but nice work Dru! Looks like a pretty trip. How much did the chopper cost? p.s. I don't know how to rate a thread???

COR is a 10hr drive. If you have four days off you's gonna spend two of em drivin' you crazy nut.

My early climbing experiences coincided with setting up rappels and big rope swings off of bridges in colorado. I think rappelling can be pretty fun; especially long free-hanging rappels. Its a novel experience for a kid. And rope swings are SERIOUS fun. We would tie a big loop of webbing around the middle concrete crossbar under this one bridge and then jump off one side or the other. The webbing would rub back and forth on the concrete and I actually broke an anchor sling once! It was backed up of course, or I wouldn't be able to tell this story. Gave me a bit of a fright though. *POP!!!* That was the end of our bridge jumping for that night.

Nice tr jja! You did better than me; I didn't even get out of town!

Badass! Jedi, to put a picture in the body of the post: Find your picture in the gallery and right click on the image and click on "Properties" At the bottom of the little window that pops up you will see the URL address of the image, something like "http://www.somewebsite.com/images/blah123.jpg". Select that address and copy it (Cntrl + C). Now make a post and select "image". A little window will pop up. Paste the image's URL into that window and hit return. Here is one of your images: Nice TR! Thanks for sharing both of you! p.s. Anybody know what Kevin K. is planning on doing in there?

Nope, Fred didn't say anything about it being overbolted. He seemed to like the route as far as I could tell, though he thought the approach/climbing ratio was a little high. He has told me that he is not too fond of climbing in the Icicle in general because of all the driving in between the crags required. He is pretty reserved with his praise for climbs in general, although he did say that Serenity/Sons of Yesterday crack in Yos is "fabulous". Everything else is, "OK" or "it's alright" or, if he really likes it, "pretty fun". I think Fred's favorite type of climbing these days involves ski-planing or helicoptering to the base of a (relatively easy) unclimbed route or mountain and sending it. He showed me some pictures from his "black book", which is really just a box full of fedex folders and manilla envelopes full of AAJ articles, pictures, slides, and route descriptions; he's got a lot of projects lined up! You ain't heard the last of Mr. Beckey!

The forecast I listed above is from www.noaa.gov This forecast also does not look good: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/data/state_report.html Another bad forecast: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/forecast/default.aspx?zone=WA026#Forecast One more bad forecast: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=98826&hourly=1&yday=142&weekday=Saturday A good forecast!!!: http://www.intellicast.com/Local/USLocalStd.asp?loc=uswact14221&seg=LocalWeather&prodgrp=Forecasts&product=Forecast&prodnav=none&pid=none So who you gonna believe? I'm thinkin' I'll just stay in town and and and and maybe look for photos of really big housecats.

Bummer. I wanted to go to this, but: Tonight. Numerous thunderstorms in the evening. Becoming widespread rain showers and numerous snow showers overnight. Snow accumulation up to 1 inch. Snow level 5500 feet. Lows in the lower 40s. West wind 15 to 20 mph and gusty. Saturday. Rain showers and a chance of thunderstorms in the morning. Becoming rain and mountain snow showers likely and a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Snow accumulation up to 1 inch. Snow level 5500 feet. Highs in the upper 50s to mid 60s. West wind 15 to 20 mph with higher gusts. Saturday night. Rain and mountain snow showers likely and a chance of thunderstorms in the evening. Becoming rain and mountain snow showers likely overnight. Snow accumulation up to 1 inch. Snow level 4500 feet in the evening falling to 3000 feet overnight. Lows in the lower 40s. Chance of precipitation 70 percent. Sunday. A 60 percent chance of rain and mountain snow showers. Snow level 5000 feet. Highs in the mid 50s to lower 60s.

A google image search for "close talker" returned this result:

You can check out AlpineDave's trip report HERE

Yeah but you're part Sasquatch aren't you? 400lbs or something? My Neutrinos work just fine for my average-sized mits. Another thread about lightweight biners

I climbed CA with Fred Beckey on Wednesday (5/19/04). It was his idea. I don't know who told him about the route, but he somehow got his mind set on it. I was a bit surprised that he wanted to climb a [cough]overbolted[/cough] "alpine" sport route, but what the hell. We drove out Tuesday night and made the mistake of pulling into one of the official campgrounds. The next morning we were just about packed up and ready to pull out of there without paying when ranger rick pulled up and asked for $10 . I won't do that again. Fred and I seem to share the dirtbag climbers' disdain for these campgrounds and the exorbitant fee they charge. He said, "Damn government... you might as well just throw the money out the window...they're just gonna spend it on the fuckin war" The hike up to Bathtub dome took a while. We stopped at that slabby thing just east of BD and did a one-pitch route called "Chitlins" (I think) that seemed pretty hard for 5.8. We then hiked up to Condor Buttress and started on Condorphamine Addiction. Condor Buttress. CA is white streak at far right of buttress: I led pitches 1&2 and spotted a nice pair of boxer shorts at the belay. Read more about that HERE. Then, to my surprise, Fred said he wanted to lead the next pitch! Here he is starting pitch # three: Here is another picture, note the hat rotated into "sendbot" position: Fred also decided he wanted to lead pitch #4, so here he is starting that one too: We took a break at the top of pitch four and surveyed the Icicle Valley. I quizzed Fred on the names of all the visible peaks and who climbed what on them when. "That's the blockhouse, I did the second ascent on that... That's the lighthouse", etc. etc. He knows a lot of stuff (duh) but he also kept saying, "it's in the guidebook". We stopped at the top of pitch four because Fred's back was hurting a bit and some storm clouds were rolling in. Two quick 50m double-rope raps got us to the base of the route and we started hiking down. A beautiful hike down from Condor Buttress: When we got back to the car, we ran into a couple from Bend (Travis and Sophia I think?) who had climbed the central route on Bathtub Dome. Fred is pretty stingy with his praise for climbing routes, so I knew he enjoyed the route when he said, "Yeah... It was pretty good". We left the car at about 8am and returned at around 5pm. I believe this constitutes a new octagenarian speed ascent for the routes we did and I can provide a GPS record and several snaffle-eye witnesses for verification. Stimson Bullit eat your heart out!

STEAKSAUCE!!! Sorry...

What if the rope momentarily parted like those metal rings magicians use and then fused back together right after passing through the slings? You didn't happen to say "Abracadabra" or anything like that while rappelling did you?

Yeah, but is it being held by two gay guys in speedos with dirtlips?

Yeah, those were the ones I wanted too, but I couldn't find them on sale anywhere. The Burton "Trampons", which are exactly the same as the Stubai pons, can be found on Ebay for ~$30, so I bought em. Thread

So here is the story as I imagine it: Setting: A beautiful spring day at condor buttress. A light breeze carries the scent of lupine and wild onion up to the two intrepid MountainEars as they scramble their way up the bold new alpine testpiece "Condorphamine Addiction". We join the story at the top of pitch two. MountainEarOne: "Damn its hot up here!" MountainEarTwo: "Yeah, it's hot" MountainEarOne: "I think I'll take my boxer shorts off" MountainEarTwo: "Yeah, that's a good idea" MountainEarOne performs the dramatic, and non-UIAGM-approved, removal-of-skivies-while-wearing-climbing-harness trick. Houdini would be very impressed. MountainEarTwo: "Damn those things are stinky!" MountainEarOne: "Um, yeah" MountainEarTwo: "And they are pretty worn out too" MountainEarOne: "Yeah. I think I'll just leave them here" And here they are: Please remember to pack out your trash.