Off_White

Arrgh, and he said he liked it too.

I gotta say I'm sorry for the folks who work where that is NSFW!

yeah, but spill the beans already!

Right on Pope, possibly the best post you've ever made. Those are some great shots, need any help cleaning up the scans? I've got a slide/negative scanner that will give some great baseline data to start with, and with a large scan its just a matter of patience to make old images look great. Of course, if you come down to Tenino to do the scans I'll make you sport climb in my yard, but I promise I won't tell any tales out of school.

Oh, but please keep lobbying your east coast legislators regarding refusing funding for repairs for Washington forest roads, we all love that kind of ignorant blabber from you right coast jerk offs.

No wonder you get kicked to the curb with your arrogant east coast crap. Stay back there in your crowded corral, I assure you no one out west will miss you.

Thanks for working the numbers out into a real world scenario Snoboy.

Trip: Mt Washington - SE Buttress Date: 7/20/2009 Trip Report: It's been a few years since anyone has posted a TR on this route, so I thought I'd post up about my recent jaunt up the Outer Space of the Southern Olympics. My friend Doug and I had plans to take him out on his first alpine climb, but work intruded and shortened our time frame to just one day round trip from Olympia. Having fond memories of climbing a route on the SE Buttress of Mt Washington 21 years ago during the summer I got married, I'd long been interested in repeating that ascent. The latest Olympics guide included a description for a route that was rather different than the line I recalled, and I was curious to see what all went on up there. Doug and I headed out from Oly early Monday morning, with stops for food and gas. We started hiking up the familiar approach to route 2 a little after 9am. The lower part is in every way superior to route 1, a lovely steep winding ascent through open old growth forest, with some steep rocky scrambling up high leading right into a gully, and some more rocky ledge hiking leading to the landmark notch which leads right into the lush alpine basin where the approach to the SE Buttress diverges from route 2. lush basin The lower shield wall, roughly 7 pitches tall, appears here. We headed up the mild brushy steep scramble to the left margin, as per the guide description. Now, I'd climbed this face long ago, and didn't recall the pitches and rappels from the guidebook. In fact, I remembered having an eager goat follow us up the first three 4th class pitches. Looking at the wall, I can only think we took a classic line of least resistance from the bottom of the wall, it looked vaguely familiar to my aged brain. This time around we followed the guide's lead to the line of most resistance, the left hand arete of the wall, presenting the cleanest looking rock. The first pitch was readily apparent from the end of the scrambling, the peculiar sight of a bolt 30' up providing a goal. An additional bolt lured me on, though the guide promised "two bolt belay" proved elusive, and tiptoeing from one scant protection point to the next distant one finally led me to slung horn belay at a full 60 meters. This horn had a perlon cord and a dyneema sling with wire gate biner around it. It still has a perlon cord. Doug led up the next bit, heading straight up past some difficult bits and then rightish to meet the ridge crest, ending at a belay at an obvious flat notch on the ridge. He did great dealing with the loose rock and devious protection. The rock was generally solid, with some surface looseness, but good placements were widely spaced, typically offering maybe three points per pitch. We continued up, following the natural line, sometimes traversing right, sometimes heading up. The 5th pitch offered a full pitch traverse to the only dodgy belay. Several placements offered possible security, but the lack of a secure stance guaranteed that any swinging fall would bear gut wrenchingly onto the belay. Fortunately, the mid 5th climbing did not engender any separation between climber and climbing surface, and Doug led up to within a half pitch of the parapet at the top of the shield wall. This shot at the top of the 3rd pitch shows a typically inventive slinging of a small horn behind my happy mug. We continued to the top of the parapet at the top of the shield wall, roughly 7 pitches. Only the first would want a 60 meter rope, and the last was no more than 30 meters. A long web-o-lette wrapped around the base of large horn features offered the most secure belays on most of these pitches on the most continuous portion of the route. Scrambling across the parapet zone led to the first rappel. We added a sling to this rappel, and it looked pretty decent. Somehow, when I had climbed this route several decades before, we didn't make a rappel but downclimbed somewhere or other. This time around I was happy to latch onto the rap rope. The upper half of the route offered complex route finding, and the exposure coupled with occasional 5th class steps did not inspire us to completely dispense with the rope. The guide promised 2nd class after the first rappel didn't really materialize, and we kept the rope on with a token piece or two per pitch. Complex terrain a little ways past the first rappel. 2nd class? I didn't really think so. The second rappel, which I also didn't recall from my earlier ascent, was not super encouraging. Multiple strands of faded perlon and partially torn webbing encircled two loose blocks and the base of a small very dead tree. A back up old hex was tied to the amalgam with another faded partially cut piece of webbing. We added a sling to the rap extension and backed up the nasty mess with a cam while I (the fat kid) tested the anchor. I don't really know what would be the great solution here, but the rock is crappy and the loose blocks are temporary, I could have easily kicked them off with one foot. Someone oughta make a real anchor here. The crux of the route presents itself after the second rappel. From a belay in the notch, head round the right side of the next pinnacle. Doug chose the steep crack on the left with a face climbing style option. Protection was the best on the route for this fine bulge. From the top of this gendarme, a casual walk leads down to the next notch. A solid but only modestly protected pitch of mid fifth leads over the top of the next gendarme, where one coils the rope and scrambles to the regular route 1. All over but the hiking We dropped gear and scrambled to the summit for full completion of Doug's first alpine route. Woot! The slog down the summertime version of route 1 was more than a little tedious. This stuff is a lot more fun when it's still covered in snow The middle headwall was especially odious. If the now dry upper portion of route 2 hadn't looked so ugly and sketchy I'd have opted for that line just to avoid this crappy steep scramble. Still, small bits of beauty presented themselves, such as this lily in the flat avalanche basin before the final drop to the road. I'd definitely recommend this outing. The fairly compact rock and sparse protection makes it relatively serious, but things are overall pretty solid and the length is roughly 14 pitches if you include the exposed 3rd & 4th class. It's at least as significant as the Serpentine Arete, and since it's only a little over an hour from my house, I won't be too surprised to find myself back here again next year. As far as grading, I'd take the guidebook grades as indicative of what you ought to be climbing with no risk of falling. The bit of 5.7 after the second rappel is the only hardish climbing, but the overall route is fairly serious. For those who want more specific beta, here's a big version of the shield wall with a route line drawn on it: link And here's a huge picture with annotated side view of the upper ridge: link Gear Notes: We brought a mid size alpine rack and used it all. 1 set Camalots .4 to 3, 3 smallest wired hexes, 1 set wired stoppers. We got some minimal use out of a set of rp's and pink & red tri cams. Approach Notes: Park at the outside curve after the road crossing of Big Creek, be sure to find the boot track up the open forest. Tennies is fine, hiking poles rule for old guys.

this is a modified REI half bag. I bought it years ago, cut off the ripstop shell and sewed a two layer goretex shell onto it. Seams are neither taped nor sealed, but it's worked well over the years, both as a sufferfest shelter and a child's sleeping bag. It's roughly 48" long, and it should go to some budget minded climber who will put it to use. I'm in Olympia, shipping is available at additional cost.

Yup, what Dick sez. Some super grainy things will make you bleed, and old guy skin gets thinner, but generally speaking the key is careful patient movement. Panic = skin trauma.

When melted out, there is a decent and solid rock alternative, I think its about 5.4

Did Rob make that one up?

Not necessarily famous, but 5500 views in about 10 days is a fair bit of traffic. The answer to why you are stuck in the middle of all this is the key issue. It happens to you wherever you go, right? It's not posters of any given board, it's the sheer drama of the can't-help-but-look at the accident waiting to happen, the combination of your sheer determination and utter lack of foresight or experience. Pete may have been making a funny about a hoods-in-the-woods program, but it's actually a very good idea.

I used some 1/2" flat webbing, like you'd use to make a strap to hold your foam pad on your pack. It made sickening noises when weighted, looked pretty sketchy around a sharp horn, and made me feel queasy. Can't say I'd recommend it, but it was cheap.

It looks really swell and like very reasonable climbing, were it not for the approach I'm sure it would be an instant classic. Hell, it probably would have been an instant classic 25 years ago. Nice to see an FA of yours and think, "hey, I could do that."

I was wondering the same thing, I think there's a little bubble of new registrations all drawn by the desire to stick their paddle into this odoriferous kettle and give it a little stir.

Thank you for registering just to post this important opinion.

Nice trip. Everyone seems to go up that rotten rock pitch these days, and it sounds like a terrible solo way to go. It must have been earlier season or a cooler climate when my buddy and I did this route years ago, because the couloir seemed like the natural choice and we had maybe one break in the snow all the way up it. We used the rope in there, as much because we finally broke it out to make the rappel as anything and it's hard to retrieve your third classing psyche once you add the rope to the equation. Your encounter with rock steps and chockstones sounds much harder than what we found, but with a rope and a belayer its probably still more enjoyable than the steep rotten rock funk.

I give this thread a D+

Exactly! Climbing never particularly made my kids happy, it was okay in small doses, and they loved being out and about, but it wasn't their obsession. My wife and I always figured it was more important that the kids have something good they were really interested in than what exactly that thing was. You just keep tossing opportunities at them until something sticks. For my son, it turned out to be competitively rowing traditional wooden longboats which led into crewing on tall ships. My daughter was into horses and now fiercely attached to playing the fiddle. The key is that the motivation comes from them, and for their own benefit, not just to please a parent. Rudy, I'm sure you could find examples of other kids you and your wife know who don't have much of anything they love aside from TV and such. They'll provide a contrast that should help soothe your wife's anxiety. Things change over time too, my son would definitely consider him a climber these days, and he's one of my favorite climbing partners ever.

Wow, that sounds like a full day. The rap adventure sounds anxious, I'm guessing that wasn't the Bedayn. Good thing you gots skillz. As an aside, cc.com's free and unlimited photo hosting in the gallery is a pretty great feature of this site. Good policy admins:

I've posted alternate descent beta from the Whine Spire before, but here it is: From the top of the spire, a short bit of downclimbing on black cornflakes leads to the notch with the main wall. A simul block on solid rock leads to the summit ridge, traverse over to the West Summit of Silver Star (some low angle snow schooching, a little grotty 3rd class), and pick up the descent gully on the far side of the summit. Head down the (obvious) gully, watching for a giant cairn on the right hand bounding ridge. Pass that cairn and hike down the shoulder until you can peer over into the basin you started from, and head down the casual talus. 1-1/2 safe and casual hours tops, probably less for all ya'll fast and hard peeps.

As a lost and found, this is pretty funny, but as a TR its a little weak. You gonna show us any pretty pictures and tell us a story?

That's pretty much the normal opinion on the subject for those who actually perform the SAR, isn't it?

Leor, I'm glad you don't drop the pictures in favor of shaving a few more minutes off your times, your TR's consistently have some very lovely landscapes. Thanks.