JoshK

? By getting extremely lucky to not die?

Hi, does anybody know if the summit of W McMillan is large enough to bivy on, or if there are established bivies close to the summit? thanks, -josh

rofl!

And does that make bush the enabler? After all, the free market is always right...right?

God, what a f'in moron. Can't he just shut his mouth for the next few months and spare us more damage? wall street got drunk says bush

Sad for Aaron that unlike the rest of these poor people, 30 seconds of telling somebody where he went would have saved all that arm-hacking. :-|

The traverse from the car to the summit.

It's good to see life returning to where it naturally was before humanity wiped it out.

Finally out of the forest and in to Terror Creek Basin: Colonial, Davis, Snowfield: Triumph and Despair. Accidental 1600 ISO = ugly. Western side of the Southern Pickets from bivy: Chop, chop: Alone, aloof, dramatic: Shrundage coming down from Ottohorn-Himmlehorn Col: Mustard Glacier: Wayne rounds the corner lower on the buttress: I thought these rocks looked cool. Fury in the background: Sorry for the lack of more climbing photos. We were climbing straight in to the sun, which made looking up difficult, let alone taking photos.

Trip: Mt. Terror - North Face (Buttress), Stoddard Route Date: 7/20/2008 Trip Report: With the high pressure system still firmly in place, Wayne and I decided it was time for another trip to - where else? - The Pickets! We climbed the North Face Stoddard route (named such in the Beckey guide). The climb is also commonly referred to as the North Buttress. We approached the climb via the Terror Creek "trail." While there is technically a trail in most places, we decided it was more appropriately refered to as "the way" since it takes basically the only path that goes without seriously f**king yourself. Four miles on the old road grade leads to the start of a few miles of traversing through old growth to the crossing Terror Creek. Terror Creek is crossed on a very large OG (aka Original Gangsta, also aka Old Growth) tree. It's unmistakable as Wayne pierced a giant 8 foot spear of wood through a crack in the tree right in the middle. The next section of the approach is a hill climb I can only describe as impossibly steep. It's not fun. Upon reaching a saddle, a wooded ridge is followed up in to Terror Creek basin. This section also has steep parts, and plenty of chances to be sucked in to gullies and what not. After reaching the basin we had the good fortune to be able to take advantage of this year's mega snowpack, and crossed on easy snow to a bivy just uphill of the Chopping Block. The next morning we woke early, put on our crampons and traversed the Cresent Creek cirque beneath the western half of the Southern Pickets. We ascended to the Ottohorn-Himmelhorn col and descended the glacier on the north side, contouring down to the toe of the North Buttress of Mt. Terror. The glacier has a shrund and some impressively large cracks. Thankfully there was enough snow that we were able to take a straightforward path. A small step across a moat allowed us to access the bottom of the buttress. Anybody who knows Wayne (or knows of his exploits) will know that he likes his ridge crests. Taking nasty 3rd class ledges or bypassing sections on the crest for bypass gullies wasn't in the plan. We stuck dead on the crest of the buttress and the climbing was flat out awesome. This appears to be the same line taken by Stoddard in 1984, as he described the same type of climbing and the crossing of the false summit gendarme that we did. The rock is very solid by any Cascades standards and while not technically stiff, it is fairly consistent 5th class on the ridge crest. A few cruxes along the way added some "wow, that was sweet!" moves, including a great exposed step around a corner (5.7-8??), a nice section of textured face (5.7?) and an easy 5th climb up a shark-fin near the top. After the false summit, 3rd (maybe a little 4th too) class scrambling leads to the summit. We were not able to locate a register. A couple of rappels brought us down to the notch between Terror and The Blob. We were lucky enough to have snow filling the descent gully back to the basin. Without snow I can only guess at just how shitty this gully must be. Our final reward was the hike back to the Bivy. The sun was at a perfect angle to turn Cresent Creek's snow filled basin in to a solar toaster oven. Back at the bivy, a safety meeting slowly brought me back to sanity after having my brain fried by the shiny white hell. The next morning we began our descent with an impressively early 10:30am alpine start. This approach sucks less going downhill, but still sucks - a lot. The impossibly steep hill basically becomes downclimbing in a few spots. Once back across Terror Creek we let our combo of cockiness and tiredness get the best of us. We lost the trail and violated the principal we had so diligently stuck to up until then - always find the trail. Instead we did the typical "well, let's go up or down, we'll hit it eventually." Bad move. Within 30 minute we were wandering through ever steepening old growth discussing the fact that we were going to be trashing out Goodell Creek in the dark. Thankfully we hit a stream bed that you cross on the old road shortly before the road-end bivy. We started climbing up the wash and literally 30 seconds before we were set to start schwacking down the drainage again I hear Wayne yell that he had wandered on to the old road. Great success! Beer and chips awaited us back at the car, along with a large group of late middle aged women at the group campground. They were yelling something at us on our way out, but we couldn't tell if they were hitting on us or threatening us. We did see they had a mammoth table of booze. We drove off before we became cougar bait or dinner for them. In retrospect, this climb is an absolutely classic. It was one of the most fun routes I have done. The combination of scenery, exposure, great climbing and solid rock is hard to beat. The mammoth approach and long cirque traverses make the climb a serious physical undertaking, but it was well worth the soreness and collection of "cat-fight" scratches all over the legs we were rewarded with. Thanks again to Wayne for the great climb and partnerage. Oh, and thanks again to the Pickets for giving so much, and taking so much in return! (Pictures to follow...) Gear Notes: Fairly standard small alpine rack. A cam up to 3" did come in handy in a few places. We used a 60m rope doubled up, which is what I would recommend. Approach Notes: STAY ON THE TRAIL. No matter what, if you lose the trail, spend the time to find it again, even if you have to backtrack. Plan on spending a full day on the approach. Even if you do it in less time, you'll likely be pretty beat by the time you make your bivy.

Self defense. If a snaffle chooses to do battle with a climber, it gets what it deserves.

I would recommend starting at Snow Lakes, and going out via Colchuck lake. i did this early season a few years back (walking mostly on snow) and it was a great loop. I heaved my mtn bike in to the bushes at the mountaineer creek trailhead and rode it back to snow lakes trailhead and it didn't take too long. Just watch out for cars coming up the forest road if you choose to haul balls down the road on a bike - which is fun. The ride is short enough that a car shuttle is uber-overkill, not to mention a total waste of gas. -josh

Very cool looking climb. Gotta love walk off descents, eh?

Sorry. No deal.. When they try to crawl in bed with me or dance on my face it is not ok. Fred has a nice essay about this at the beginning or end of one of the chapters in the green guide. It has been not ok for 100 years. LOL. No doubt.

Yeah, the point and shoot I brought (instead of lugging my SLR like normal) seemed to focus poorly in certain liughts. It may well be user error too... Kyle, the Park Creek descent is absolutely what I would use next time. The walk back around was far crappier than the map made it look... -josh

I took back what I said about them having too large of a rack. (that sounds funny...). I was just saying that the skill of a climber can definitely influence how much gear they would bring for certain climbs. Me - I suck - I want a rack with like triples of everything, floating next to me, suspended by a helium balloon. But yeah, anyway, this drifted way off topic, sorry for the hijack to the original posters. Great TR and good climb.

Real men deal with bachelor creek! J/K, i'd avoid that hellish mess at any cost as well. I've done it with skis and know that pain. *Ugh*

Awesome!! Any line you would compare the steepness to? It's hard to tell from the photos which, honestly, don't make it look very steep at all. Pictures are big liars though!

You aren't serious are you? I think it's well established that climbers are likely to carry more gear on a route that stretches their climbing limits and less on a route that is well below their level. I'm sure their rack was great for their climb, and there was no reason for myself or anybody else to doubt that - I'll admit that. But saying that two climbers of drastically different skill levels will/should climb with the same rack is totally unrealistic. But back to the real point - this IS a great route, and well worth doing. It is better than the west ridge in every way, and most notably doesn't involve some shitty sketchy gully to access.

What a great week of climbing! Nice job on the climbs and taking the plan from post-it to reality.

My most memorable cold weather memory was -30C with a breeze and a light snow at Bow Lake Falls off the Icefields Parkway in the Canadian Rockies. I belayed in complete painful shivering hell and watched with horror as Ravens 60m below picked open the drawstring and buckles on our packs, ate what they could and scattered the rest all over the approach ice. It was truly disheartening. The aftermath, however, is what provides the memory. After finishing that pitch, we descended, put back on our skis and headed back across the lake asking ourselves why we even left the hostel that day. We drove back to Rampart Creek, discussing the fact that Audi deserves a reward for the sheer ass heating power of their seat warmers. Our mission: to get the wood fired Sauna so hot that the metal chimney would give off a glow that night. We spent nearly two hours walking between the room and the sauna (myself decked head to toe in down gear for the 10 minute task, being the pussy that I am) throwing more wood in to the stove. When we deemed the sauna good and ready, we headed out to it with a full bottle of Southern Comfort. Every so often we'd have to go outside (via its two door airlock system) and insta-chill for 30 seconds, enough to make one run back inside the human-cooker. The temperature differencial of 70 or 80C (or somewhere around there I would guess?) made every 30 second trip outside a life-changing experience. After an hour or two a group of four other climbers arrived toating a one gallon freezer bag of Canada's finest national crop. Hours flew by as we swapped stories, fueled by booze and greenery. I'm sure the air inside the tiny wood hut was getting my non-smoker friend high as balls by this point. During a run outside for a piss I established that the mission had been accomplished. The chimney of the sauna glowed a dark orange. The next morning my partner and I were so completely and totally obliterated by the hangover we decided to call a "rest day." One of the climbers from the group of four found himself in a similar shit-canned state and the three of us spent the day comiserating and hanging out in the hostel's common room. Eventually we rallied and took a little scenic car tour to check out some conditions, and even managed a fifteen minute hike down to Sunshine Falls. It was...fun. :-)

I would have to agree that rack seems HUGE, esp. for somebody who can climb .10 in the alpine.

It's a peak well worth the time. The scenery is amazing, and the "incredible waterfall" is not overhyped - it is truly beautiful. Sure, the drive is long, but if you are able to, throw in an extra day for a "bonus" climb of easy Mt. Spickard. It's summit features great views of Redoubt itself along with a full spread of incredible peaks on both sides of the border.

Robert Byrd was a racist 50 years ago Jesse Helms was one until the day he died. and your frequent and ready use of racial epithets makes you one too, asshole And I suppose he also fought desegregation and blocking any sort of civil rights legislation as a member of our government? Nice try...but unfortunately, you phael.

Maybe because this is a TINY amount of progress SEVERAL YEARS after it was promised to us? Defending the Iraq war as anything other than a near disaster and a mistake shows a stunning amount of ability to blind one's self from the facts in order to avoid admitting just how WRONG you were.