Off_White

That's been one of my favorite outings in the Cascades. It's not that the climbing is so brilliant or it's an earthshattering route, but the total package is such a delicious trip. Did you descend the West Ridge? That way down makes for a great circumnavigation of the peak. Thanks for the pics, the snowy ridge shot is just classic.

Oh good, I feared this TR might dissuade you. Stay on the path and you will climb no kitty litter. Help me Obi One Cajone, you're my only hope.

Oh, and today being the 4th of July, many of the regulars have party and family obligations (myself included) so it's entirely likely that there will be no one out here. On the bright side, for me at least, some early morning beat the heat warriors did a few routes and I got to catch a ride.

We can also argue whether that hold was chipped or merely aggressively cleaned. Well, I say they all were chipped in 1912. From the article in Washington Geology: "A famous event occurred at the No.2 quarry on Feb. 17, 1912. It was called the 'Big Blast'. Two three-foot diameter tunnels called 'coyote holes', with a combined length of 1,400 feet, were cut into the base of the outcrop (Fig. 8). The tunnels were carefully backfilled with two train car loads of explosives (43,100 pounds of black powder and 1,200 pounds of 60 percent dynamite). H.P. Scheel saw the blast as a wonderful opportunity for publicity. Tenino residents turned out, officials arrived from Washington and Oregon, and camera crews came from Hollywood to film the explosion, probably for newsreels at cinemas (Roberts, 1912). Tenino residents were asked to secure fragile possessions in their homes against the expected ground motion. The 'Big Blast' was one of the largest single detonations in Washington history (Fig. 9) and it was larger than expected (an estimated 500,000 ton rockfall). It buried the quarry's rail spur with boulders (Fig. 10), damaged nearby quarry buildings with flying rock (Fig. 11), and pelted onlookers with rock fragments despite their 'safe' distant viewing positions. The cost of the event, including repairing the damage, totaled $20,000. However there was an additional cost—the huge concussion pulverized as much as 40 percent of the rockfall, making much of the rock either too small or too incompetent due to microfracturing for its intended purpose at the jetty."

Sorry Charlie, but Harry knows of what he speaks. Oh, you can go bash about on some glaciers (not a really great solo idea) or find some sort of snowish approach, but we're into the narrow window of alpine rock season. You're a recent California transplant, right? The Cascades are quite different from the Sierras. You might find what you're seeking by going further north, but you'll have to pry some info out of the Canadians, and approach beta can become crucial. You're better off cultivating a partner and go do some of that good stuff in the Stuart range.

This is about what I recollect... Does this look familiar?

Sorry if I sandbagged you into something distasteful, no offense taken of course. Got any shots from on the route? I don't recollect any tree climbing, but the corner in the middle and a good upper finger crack sound right.

Perhaps he thought he was flirting.

That was mostly a joke, but I did hear some grumbling just a few months ago when Darin posted a pic of Roan Wall in some summer stoke thread or other. Thanks for the report, that looks like a swell day out.

Yup, this thread is several orders of magnitude more information than has been readily available before. Get any death threats yet Darin or Blake?

Seems like Lowell Skoog keeps one, he can cough up some great detail on routes he did a long long time ago. Not a bad idea, but I've sort of gone the brown-paper-sack-full-of-slides route myself.

It's not a great place to feel timid. First pitch of Online, the closest thing to a trade route, has at most two pieces in a full pitch. It's easy slab though. In large part, friction climbing is a confidence game.

Well, you can't say that he doesn't understand commitment...

Well, it didn't come from Washington Pass, I'm almost certain that stuff doesn't grow up there. You can "scratch" it by letting a hard shower spray hit it, but be forewarned the sensation just might make your eyes roll back in your head and cause you to pass out, so be sure to have a spotter handy.

I'm pretty sure that face was climbed by a couple of visiting climbers from Colorado a few years ago, rotten 5.4 kind of affair.

Phil, isn't the big mega gully what ya'll skied? Nice pics & TR, thanks.

1978 is still less than 30 years ago. Funny, I just now put another coat of oil on the 70cm wood hafted axe I used on that trip.

I got a feeling Bob will laugh harder than me when he reads this comment. Post of the day if you ask me.

Yeah, my guess is that the altitude allows for a summertime melt freeze cycle that we just can't get here. Lower altitude does have some plusses though when you've just left home at sea level for a trip. There's a thread now in the California forum about some of those yummy Sierra gullies. Time was September was the month to do those things, but I think there's been enough climate change that my sense of timing is archaic.

I moved here from CA back in 1979, and it took me awhile to realize you just don't get the kind of alpine couloir action that you do in the Sierras. As a rule, snow gullies here do not transform into blue ice over the summer, they disappear instead. You won't find much in the way of the wander-anywhere-you-want off trail travel you get in the Sierras (particularly the eastern parts) either. Still, the Cascades can offer a huge amount of adventure and solitude. Have fun.

Well, the original post was pretty sweet too: pudgy welsh cellphone salesman with bad teeth moves people to tears. Who doesn't love a good underdog story? I know it's come out that he's had training, but so does everyone on those shows. Glad to hear he won.

Yes, I have great hope for the world. 0bK63uSTTNs

Joseph, it's an interesting question, and I don't know the answer. I had the sense that your statistic was manufactured to support your conclusion, a common move for anyone arguing a position. FWIW, most of the areas I climb at have a mix of routes. I'd be interested in trying to figure out some real numbers, and not in some meaningless internet poll kind of way either. As a first given in sampling our population, I'd like to suggest that if they never make it out of the gym, they don't count. They have no impact on the non-commercial outdoor world, and they're no more climbers than someone who works out on a rowing machine can be considered crew. Anyway, what we're fretting about is the impact out on the rock, right? My time in gyms suggests that you may be correct that a number of people take up gym climbing for a fairly short period of time and never really go anywhere with it. I don't think these are the people we're really concerned about, unless you're developing a business plan for a climbing gym. As a sample of climbers, lets talk about the folks who come to my Wednesday night gig. There's a fair number of people in the regular crew that I would know some of their biography, their age range is from 15 to 55. The crag itself is a quarry that has been converted into a bolts only sport crag, so it doesn't self select for climbers who are necessarily gear oriented. The ratings range between 5.10 and 5.12, arguably a middle range of grades. As a set of questions, how about: Age? Years Climbing? Started indoors or out? Leads sport? Leads gear? Ever FA sport? Ever FA gear? Ever placed a bolt? Suggestions for other questions? I think it would be best to keep them simple and quantitative rather than narrative, since I doubt anyone here wants to read 30 climber biographies in a single thread. Some sort of tabulative summary would be more concise. I dunno, maybe this is a stupid and boring idea. I think Taanstaffl's narrative is reasonably ordinary, and her arc of development as a climber from the gym to the outdoors is not particularly rare or special. Then again, I suppose that's my hypothesis, so I'd have to say that 80 to 85 percent of gym climbers who move into the outdoors eventually become gear leading climbers with alpine aspirations who never place bolts.

If I hit my thumb with a hammer, it will hurt.