jonah

Totally. The only people who care about those stupid climbs are people with talent, fitness and ability. Those people are so gay. So I completely agree with you Larry, except for the really obvious problem that guidebooks don't include new climbs and a guidebook doesn't help get you to an area that DOESN'T HAVE A GUIDEBOOK, which is the point of this thread...

It's possible there is helpful info on this site, but it simply not organized to be an online route database like the other site I am (admittedly) pimping. I can't just open cc.com and go to a section that simply describes objectively all the climbs at WWI, for instance, and I definitely can't do it without someone interjecting that Blah blah route is "gay." (see comment above)

I guess, but this site has no formal organized system for posting route info, and every post seems to degenerate into a huge string of a few people spraying off topic. I just think that other site is nice because it is simply about content, is a helpful resource, and isn't a forum where you are likely to be criticized simply for discussing a climb.

Brent, you should post some of the problems on mountainproject.com. I think the reason nobody in WA boulders is nobody knows where all the problems are and how good they are. Goldbar rivals squamish, but nobody goes there because there is so little info about it, I guess.

Go to Mountainproject.com. The directions for Gold Bar are the same as for Zeke's. Detailed and up to date. Good luck!

I'm not trying to start a debate about whether there was ice or not, despite the 50 degree temps. Just giving people from this side of the pass a heads up that you shouldn't expect spring conditions. There is still a ton of snow and ice in the canyon, though the ice is definitely rotten-looking. The point is that it is there, and in crazy places I wouldn't expect, given the temps. The slabs on Pearly Gates, for instance, were covered in ice on Saturday. But whatever floats your boat...

Went to Leavenworth on Saturday, thinking that all the sun and mid-40s temps would have melted some of the snow. there was some bare and dry rock on the north side of the icicle, but an amazing amount of ice was still in on the south side. And there is a ton of snow. Couldn't even make it up Mountain Home road in 4WD. This is ridiculous. I keep waiting for the climbing season to start, when I should be hauling out the ice tools...

DFA - Nah, I'm still in Seattle, of course. I have no idea why my profile says Nashville. Though TN does have some of the best climbing in the US.

Nice. Well, if they're not in the guidebook, you should post them at http://www.mountainproject.com/. Pretty cool resource for getting beta about new routes out there, which, I think, Washington desperately needs.

Yeah, but who wants to climb slabs anyway? Chek will be dry enough in spots and warm enough to climb, won't it? I'm getting desperate to get outside...

I know I shouldn't bite, but I have to, because I have raced with Buzz and know he is an amazing athlete and cool guy. I also know that none of you have done what they did, nor could you, and all your griping makes you seem jealous and childish. People, there is no "Boulder Conspiracy." These guys aren't chestbeating or making any real money doing this. I know it makes you feel good to denigrate others' accomplishments, and I understand a lot of people around here feel threatened when "outsiders" come in and do impressive things in the PNW. But how about being a little gracious and just giving the guys some credit for doing something really hard and fun?

My Benjamin is in the mail. Thanks, WCC.

Climbed it about 7 years ago. Started raining on us on the last 2 pitches. We skipped the first one, I think, by rapping in from the top. There were some shitty 5/16" bolts for an anchor below a little roof. Maybe someone has replaced these? Fun hand crack, about 2 camalot size, and if I remember right a #3 was good to have, too. The crack had pigeon shit in it, though, which was pretty nasty. All in all a fun route, but like I said, can't vouch for the bottom. I hear it's sketchy.

We did the approach to Chair Saturday, Jan 8. It was a hellish 5 hour wallow through waist deep powder. And that was with snowshoes. But there is now a nicely packed trail up to the ridge. Get on it while the approach is still chill.

It would've been worth it if I hadn't skiied a run with bad coverage for the last run of the day and caught an edge on a shitty little sapling sticking out of the snow and sprained my ankle really bad.

Nope - never sent it. Climbed most of the 12s around it and in the years since I left 4 or 5 of my close friends have sent it mostly out of boredom because they had done everything else. Most of them felt it was 13a, too, until they sent it, then said it wasn't. It's kind of hard to rate things at the lake, I guess, because it's very old school and is a weird techy quartzite that you can really dial in, so by the time you send, the climbs feel several letters lower. But I know when I was a pup Bagatelle was rated "F11A," while most things that are considered 12 now were rated "F10." Who knows what that all meant. It is a cool place though, and if you can lead well there, you have a great head. That was always the running joke there, though. After doing something and someone would ask you what it was, you'd say "11d, but Lynn Hill said it was 12c."

Pete probably did, but I don't think he had led it by then, and Bagatelle isn't 13a. Pathetic that I know that, but DL was my home crag back when. You from the midwest, too, Dru?

Also, as long as I'm on a soapbox, I think that people tend to downgrade climbs on the lower end, which causes a lot of ill will and angst amongst gumbies because they figure "if the 10s I thought I had done are really just 8s or 9s, I'll never improve." When in fact climbing 12 isn't some ridiculously huge athletic achievement - if you can climb 10 sport, you can do 12, too. I think it's just hard to tell the difference between a sport 8,9 or low 10 if you've been climbing awhile, so we all tend to downgrade without really knowing it. OK. Done ranting.

OK. I agree with that. But that's not how things are graded these days, thankfully. Churning, for instance, would be about an 11+, if that were the case. Shit, Wedding Day is harder than Heinous, for instance - I'm not surprised a novice has trouble with that beast.

Saying Reed's is hard (it is) is different than saying everything else is easy. I am talking about the general scheme of ratings nationwide. In that context, the PNW doesn't seem soft compared to the rest of the country. It seems mostly about right. And comparing a classic trad climb to a 50' bolted climb of the same grade is apples to oranges. I figure 11+/12- sport equates to about 5.10 trad, as far as overall difficulty.

I don't think the ratings out here are all that out of whack, for the most part, if you are considering onsight ratings. I've only been to nevermind once, but found the 10s and 11s pretty tricky on the first go. You really have to search around for awhile and end up using a worse hold than you have to. Yes, the second time is a walk, but is that what the grade is really based on? Is an 11a there actually only 5.9 after you have climbed it 10 times? I dunno. And I thought Little Si feels pretty solid, too. I hear people talking smack about ratings that have only dogged the moves. Well, yes, most people CAN do all the moves on chronic their first go. But the individual moves don't make that thing hard. Saying an enduro crag is soft because the individual moves are not bad is like saying marathons are easy because you can run a 5k. And that holy grail of hard ratings, Index, has its share of pitches that seem a little light in the shorts on the onsight, so it seems a bit skewed to hold it up as a paragon of solid ratings. I haven't climbed enough at Index to have much perspective, but my impression so far is that it's not out of line with the valley or eldo, neither of which are all that out of line with little si. My 2 cents.

Outer Space Chain Reaction Liberty Crack ALL Squamish bouldering Astro Monkey

I've always loved the idea that it's not an onsight if there's chalk or draws already there. Because the REAL obstacle to climbing 14b is being able to clip a bolt and see a hold. Yeah... That's why I say there is no such thing as an onsight of a splitter crack. The sequence, holds and gear are all right there in front of you before you even get on the climb.

Jeb Mortimer at Greenlake Animal hospital is the best around.

Staying on trad routes within your ability is a great way to never improve. If you're not falling, you're not learning, and if you think you need a pad to push yourself beyond your current limits, of course you should use one. To anyone who thinks that if a spotter can't protect you, a pad can't either, you've been climbing in some pretty tame areas.