Xcott

John grabbed the snargs, everything else remains. Original post updated. Photos too big to attach & I don't have time to figure out how to associate gallery entries with this post, so no pix. - X

For sale, near Hawthorne & SE 20th in SE Portland: - 2 fifi hooks, new condition, $7 for the pair. - Black Diamond ice pro, prior generation to the Spectre, more like the DMM bulldog, single carabiner hole, very little wear & no evidence of falls, for $10. - Bolt drill handle: antique, heavy, much historical interest for Portland-area trash climbers. Free to a bona fide member of the wild breed. Come & get 'em while they last. Xcott sbs-at-easystreet-dot-com

OK, I wasn't able to make the photo show in the message body, but you can view it by following the "attachment" link in the header of the last post.

The following was provided to me by Jeff Thomas, author of Oregon High, to post on his behalf. I've included a few annotations in []'s. - Scott ----------------- "The only information I can add to what you wrote is second hand from Tom who has climbed Mt. Washington at least once every year since circa 1960. According to him a huge chunk of the west face fell off several years ago. I cannot remember what his estimate was but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 foot by 30 to 40 feet. I have a close up wide angle black and white photo of the face taken July 24, 1986 in late afternoon. [Pasted in below; Available in higher resolution by email (~400kB).] It is the same photo which appears on page 77 of Oregon High. [it actually shows more, as the published photo was cropped from below.] Perhaps someone who has taken a photo of the west face recently could post their photo for comparison so that we could get a better estimate of exactly what fell off where. [iain's photo is a beauty, but it'd be great to see something closer up, in case anyone can get the shot.] Jeff Thomas"

I'm the friend of Eric's who busted a heel last year on West Face: my first serious lead fall in 15 years of rock climbing and my own damned fault for opening the window enough to let a series of snake eyes roll through. I'd like to add something to the preceding discussion regarding just how loose the West Face route has become - or at least the particular version of it which I followed - and why this doesn't fit with earlier beta. And yes, I deeply regret not saying this before now, in case it might have made some difference. Skip to the last two paragraphs for the upshot. Last August, when getting ready to start the West Face, I twice had stool-sized ledges of what had seemed solid basalt auto-pulverize out from under me, instantaneously and after having held for 30 seconds or so while I stood there sorting out my rack. Hmmm, I thought, this is strange, as I had been assured that the West Face offered solid rock by a local climbing sage (who is not JT, but can go by the pseudonymous initial X, and of who's reliability on such points I still have the very highest opinion). This of course checked with Oregon High. "Except for the beta", I thought, "I would blow this route off right now, but let's just see if the rock doesn't improve a ways up." Now, so you can consider the source, I consider myself a loose rock climber, having enjoyed all kinds of garbage, including wintertime wet trash adventures in the Columbia Gorge with X. I used to think that was about as loose as it got. The first pitch, though an easy ramp, was the by far the loosest I have experienced. Being new to Washington's west side, I was very carefully following the line (#9) drawn on the photo on pg.s 74 and 77 of Oregon High, and found the first anchor where it was supposed to be. (So yes, I'm certain I was on the route.) A 15' or so traverse to the left begins the second pitch - according to the photos - at the end of which I rounded a corner and stood on a 1' square ledge from which you can first see the next part up close. The rock looked completely different: colored the light brown of freshly exposed basalt, rather than the weathered grey of the rest of the mountain; a perfectly sheer, 70-80 degree incline, broken only by a honeycomb pattern of 1/2" cracks on 10' spacing, extending, I think, at least 100' up. (I associate this memory with the lower portion of the lighter area in Iain's closest photo, shaped like the character for pi tipped on its right side. More on this area in the next post.) It looked to me like continuous 10© or harder, and too unreliable to pull on, as the cracks seemed to reveal that the rock was getting ready to exfoliate a new layer from a depth of 1/2" or so. This is where I turned around, not willing to deviate from the book's line in that neighborhood. (I fell while retreating the traverse.) That evening, I discussed what I saw with a Jefferson County Sheriff who was with the SAR team, on exercises that weekend from their base at Hoodoo. He said that the reason the mountain was getting so loose was the pattern of milder winters in recent years. (X's above mentioned opinion of the rock's high quality had been formed several years earlier, while Oregon High's concurring opinion was published in 1991.) The melt-freeze cycle is now active almost daily throughout the winter, instead for only a few weeks at winter's beginning & end, dramatically accelerating frost-shattering. (This powerful process of erosion is responsible for the peaks of the North Cascades being kept trimmed to a +/-uniform 9000', despite a cumulative uplift of ~80,000' since the North Cascades microcontinent first docked on North America and being made of granitic basement rock - which is much harder than the basalt of old volcanic cores.) Rock quality seems to have degenerated quite a bit on the west face, and, in light of the above facts, that sherriff's is the only plausible explanation I know. - Scott PS: Jefferson County SAR and the National Guard copter crew that picked me up we're the absolute greatest. I can only adequately thank them by endeavoring to pass it on.

Did I volunteer to be your therapist? Well, okaaay ... but we'll have to take this up later - I'm shutting down & heading out to mt. washington (in a non-club incarnation, so nothing to be anxious about ).

May we all learn from your experience

Thanks, doc. Guess if I hang around here a while I'll get hip to "trundle" & so on. (6 years in europe left me in a sorrily un-hip state, and I never got clued back in.)

For years, I've wanted to get into outdoor ed, but the hours & pay with OB & the like don't fit, so I set my sights on teaching basic school with the mazamas, since it affords the most creative leeway for the instructor and a moderate time commitment; That and I get an outlet for my interest in the finer points of rock & crevasse rescue & wilderness first aid through helping teach those classes for other courses. Anyway, to do all that, you first have to go through the club's leader development program, and leading illumination and washington are my last two requirements. That said, I'm very conscious of issues with club climbs in the larger scene; We'll try to be good up there. - XC

'Right there with you, Erik. Let's get together for some multi-pitch at beacon, pete's or lamberson and make our plan. When you out next? I'm on washington tomorrow, beacon sunday and illumination for group duty on wednesday; flexible after that until back to mt. washington for more group duty on 9/5-6. Need to get up razorblade this year, too & into any other sweets within ~2 hr.s of pdx ...

I've heard that the rock is loose in the 4th class sections and good in the 5th. With a rating of 5.7 (sound right?), I'm wondering what the deal is with that gendarme. Assuming it solid, could the bailing behavior be motivated by exposure? Iain, have you been up it or know anyone who has? Many thanks - XC

Hi Wayne, Thanks for the big picture. But where's Trash Climbing fit in? I mean in the vein of Tim & Mike's outlandish gorge adventures: Nesmith Super Direct, Patagonian Trade Route, Mystery Pillars ... Tim was calling it "Patagonian Adventure Climbing", while Mike was for "S**t Climbing", but after sampling a couple routes I suggested "Trash". It's an old and honorable, demanding form with its own unique challenges and wide ranging possibilities, if less refined & widely appreciated these days, for which our hoem region is uncommonly rich in potential. Tim was saying that he'll include his unpublished guide to this aspect of the gorge in the next edition PRC, so it'd be only fittind to provide the idiom with some degree of recognition, eh? - XC

"Mixed climbing" in Oregon can often mean a combination of consolidated snow, rime, rock of widely varying quality, sword ferns, tag alders, high angle dirt and barely congealed volcanic mud - especially if your year-round quest is for always new climbing within day range of Portland. There is one essential instrument for full self-expression in this strangely rewarding medium (trash climbing) ... A couple of the old-timers (Jeff T., Mike S.) have these old Camp hammers with short 35-40cm) ash handles, a piton head on one side and a nice long "trash" (ice) pick on the other: a tool designed in days before beta, when climbers would take a direct route to any objective picked from the skyline. I have been watching for years, and maybe one will show up at the annual Mazama used gear sale every couple years, but Schoen always beats me to it anyway. ANYBODY??? OK, I could break down and consume a late-model third tool, but you gotta understand my style's at stake here. Any & all leads deeply appreciated. - XC

Razorblade is as described in the back of PRC - an alpine jewel of quality rare for Oregon. Day climb from Portland. I'm interested in revisiting Machete (9) & Gillette Arete (10b), and maybe developing something. Haven't hooked up via this site before but hear this is the place to find more climbers for whom tenuously steep, dirty & loose approaches & and just a few loose blocks only enhance the appeal, and ... Well, I'm into staying bold & getting old as well; So having developed a taste for backcountry navigation, wildnerness first aid & self rescue, appreciate climbing with others who are into that stuff as well. I can climb M-Sa most weeks. Best to all, XC

Would you be WW? I just posted a question about Castle Crags as a rock route - hearing from Tim that you put that up. Planning a first trip to Lamberson on 9/13. We'll focusing on the sub-5.10's & maybe TR'ing the upper whatsit wall on the far right - unless someone wants to come along a lead some of the harder classics. Tim says the HR crowd may have been doing some development up there. - XC