Off_White

Yes, you can tell by the rack of brake bars that he's a professional.

Joe, try searching some of the trip reports in this forum, the route is relatively popular and there have been a number of TR's. I believe the entire slab is somewhat protection deficient, but it's not the hard part of the climbing either, and I haven't heard of anyone, mere mortals included, who was terrified by the route. Dry conditions are desirable though.

You know, for kids.

Hey, check it out, we're opening some new routes at the quarry. It's all good, innit? Private property and all...

Alpine experience doesn't necessarily have to include knowledge of the Canadian Rockies or being on the inside of that little joke, though without understanding the reference you'd never get the snicker buried inside Mike & Erik's rating of their Mox route at 5.9+ A2+. Kev, what Kurt's alluding to is that some of the most fearsome climbs in the Rockies have that grade, which bears no actual resemblance to what you might encounter on the route. Sort of like 5.9 was a scary scary rating back in the Joshua Tree day, you'd never know how hard the route actually was until you'd climbed it.

You hit the nail right on the head. You'll see, tricouni nails will make a comeback, just like retro nerds who are proud to use 300 baud modems.

The cordelette is one of those new fangled things I just haven't gotten around to checking out. I get stuck in the rut of what seems to work for me, and just don't make the time to add new things to the repertoire. I still tie in with a figure 8, tie my rappel ropes together with a double fishermans, have never used a GPS, and appreciate the value of a good hip belay. That's not to say that old ways are necessarily better, maybe it's just that I'm a little simple, but I do like having some things hardwired into my system that I can do intuitively without thinking about it much.

Well, I thought they called it 10b back when I did it maybe 25 years ago, but I wouldn't argue with 10c as a grade for the route either. The crux is the 15' boulder problem to get established in the crack, which is strenuous but solid, and substantially easier than the lower bit. I bet the pin in the bottom part is long gone? I've had a little history with that route. My friend Alan tried to free solo it, had a little meltdown in the chimney rest pod up towards the top and had to have a rope lowered to him. You can imagine that led to a little hilarity after he was safe on the ground. Last year a fellow I used to know committed suicide by taking a running header off the top of that crag, no one has found anything entertaining about that event. I don't think you'll find a lot of support out there in the world for calling it 11a, and even if it was that hard, onsighting at a grade first climbed over 40 years ago is not the stuff of legend. If it was your first lead at that grade, well hell, that's well done. It's a great route and highly recommended. To be on the safe side though, it's best to avoid referring to anything that's 5.10c as relentless or the ghost of crazypolishbob may rise up to smite thee.

Start of Clean and Jerk, innit?

You mean climb 5.10b? Even I can climb 5.10b.

I love the first pic, "John, this doesn't look like Serpentine Arete, are you sure about this?"

thanks for the update, silly as it may seem, I have been wondering.

This is not spray. Yes, it is.

excuse me?

Thanks Dru, I knew I could count on you to deliver.

It's been awhile, but I think they were DB. Who would we be poking fun at if it was RCC or EM? I must need another cup of coffee.

So, a failure of the marketplace? When people say "culture" they mean an Olive Garden next to a Multiplex theater.

I descended the Sherpa in September years ago, it wasn't fun. We had no crampons, and the gully was an inch of slub over rock hard snow. We rapped the whole thing. There was one set of slings, all red and all with the same initials. Each anchor was totally bogus, but a solid sling anchor was within three feet of each bunk rap sling so we just relocated them. Sometimes it took a little excavation with a nut tool.

Chehalis Range up in BC

We're born naked, after that it's all drag.

Yeah, that way of sorting kicks Little Tahoma from #3 to #64, and puts Stuart towards the top while pushing Bonanza to the middle of the pack.

Well, it would be sort of silly to have the three summits of Rainier take the top three slots and bump something like Tupshin off the list. List construction does involve a degree of arbitrary rule creation, but knocking off any version of that list represents a lot of adventure and days out in the mountains. Paul, thanks for dropping by!

*sigh* Yet another thread that would benefit from Mr. Prominence himself, HRH Paul Klenke.