5.12Dreamer

This is perhaps not too helpful but something 'til you hear more: I was in the park on New Year's (an infamous day). From the Stevens Canyon Road, at the 90 degree bend to Reflection Lakes, you can see the cliff from a distance. But I'm not sure if you can see The Blue Room from there? I noted from this considerable distance, a fair amount of ice, though nowhere near climable then. To give it a ROM, I would say what I was looking at was half formed then--not even top-ropeable but offering promise if conditions continued in the right direction. Since then it got warmer, then it got quite a bit colder and wetter--so maybe...

You can use a rubber wedge under your insoles to take up slop; also, the "cork" inserts called five irons--they are flat insole shaped shims that take up volume, standard boot fitting stuff. REI or a ski shop will probably give you some for free. Also, might be rather obvious but just to cover the bases, there are many thicknesses of insoles and some have a much better heel cup than others so compare them for what will work best for you.

Was up there this past weekend attempting the Gerdine Ridge route. On the NF Sauk approach you get into snow several switchbacks short of the PCT. Surprisingly. there are some snow free tent sites at White Pass. In general, travel on the snow was good. Mostly penetrated only a few inches to boot top on rare occasions. The snow cover allows you to take the Beckey approach through the NER of White Mountain, then hold a traverse at 6400' all the way to the White Chuck Glacier. This way you avoid the elevation loss descending into the White Mtn basin or the longer alternate route (easier w/o snow?) from White Pass. Snow free camping at Glacier Gap too. Very windy, however. We were thwarted by low visibility, navigating to the Gap in a total whiteout. Then optimistically climbing to 9000'in the whiteout the following morning. We would have kept climbing except for seeing signs of slab activity on the Disappointment Peak bypass. One of our party heard cracking and we observed a number of discontinuous fracture lines--time to turn it around. Didn't have time or the desire to persevere the high winds to attempt the DP direct route. Best of luck if and when you make it out there.

Nice shots and good climb; especially like the B&W, which is often underused. Hey, how suitable are those seracs on the far RHS of the Sulphide for ice climbing practice? Accessible? Safe? As in did you see things coming down? Large enough? Hard to tell the scale, they could be huge, or only body height... Thanks!

Nice work! Great weather last weekend, although pretty hot for glacier travel. Hey, did you note what kind of shape the lower glacier is in? Specifically, whether there are exposed seracs rather than still being buried under seasonal snow. I am looking for an ice climbing practice area, as the lower Coleman will be a LONG approach until the road is repaired. Thanks!

Thanks Rat, sounds right although I'm not familiar with the Recurve Dihedral. Searched cc here for that route and turned up nothing. Ice or rock route? Is it up and right?

"Seems odd it (how to post an image) wouldn't be a FAQ." Sorry, I checked again and saw the FAQ item in plain sight. But that method didn't work as you see above. I noted that my draft post said HTML was disabled but I couldn't find where to enable it. Also not sure how to control the image size that a site like Picassa or Flickr will use--the original? If so, I'll have to make a new folder with reasonable size images.

On Sat 2/21 a friend and I did a two pitch WI2+ climb that lies on the other side of the Wenatchee River about 1/2 mile S of the Swift Water area. It is roughly 1/4 mile S of the pullout just S of Swift Water. Curiously, I haven't come across any info on this climb. Nor does it look like anyone has been there recently, as we didn't see any rap slings. But it's a quite a fun climb, and pretty easily accessed once across the river. We crossed to and from the big sandbar just N of the pullout, which made it pretty straightforward in our canoe. There is flagging on either side of the river just N of the sandbar, which we guessed might be there to signal the beginning of the sandbar in higher water rather than indicating a good crossing (there is not much of a shoulder on the hwy there and the bank is very steep and brushy; plus, there are small rapids). In most (all?) seasons I imagine this tight drainage is buried in snow, and the avy danger would be off the chart. Matter of fact, all the snow that fell early this season extends down the drainage to the river now. Given that the climb is well protected from the sun, it ought to be in shape for a while yet. From the highway we thought it might be 3P up to WI4, but we found that there is low angle ground covered in the upper pitch and that there isn't anything above it except for more low angle snow covered terrain. Anyway, it's quite a bit of fun if you're up to crossing the river! I know I saw a topic on this site for posting pictures but I can't find it now. Seems odd it wouldn't be a FAQ. I'll try to put a couple shots in here but I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to web pages.

Thanks for the clarifications and the extra info; I agree with your statements on comparing (not) the Nepal to the Extremes. And I definitely agree with the extra leverage a larger boot exerts on its shank. I've been amazed to watch people climb ice in small boots that I could never use in a Size 13.

Dane has given some very good and thorough info so I'll just add my personal experience with the Extreme and Nepal boots. I bought the Extreme last year to replace the prior design (yellow) that was 1/2 size too tight. Climbing one season on each of those I felt that the Extreme was perhaps not quite as stiff and that the "lightweight" construction was not worth the loss of durability. At the time I bought the Extremes I noted in the LS catalog that the boot was supposedly at most a couple g's lighter than it's predecessor--not at all worth the sacrifices IMHO. I will acknowledge they are nice for approaches and rock, but so were the prior design. Now, for steep ice I find the Extremes too flexy when coupled with a "semi-rigid" crampon. I don't agree with Dane that the Nepal and Extreme are close in stiffness for a large boot (Size 47). The Nepals seem far superior to me on steep ice, and their lacing system is also far superior to the Extreme. You can really get your heels locked down in the Nepal and the removable tongue insert saves your shins from the agonizing pain the Extremes can impart when really cranked down. If one is going to use the boot for long approaches to alpine rock and moderate ice, I'd probably stick with the Extreme or look at the Prime (not familiar). For pure vertical performance I find the Nepal blows away the Extreme and with snow covered approaches they seem fine. This season I parlayed my Extremes to buy the Nepals and I have been very pleased.

Boeing Alpine Assoc (BoeAlps) is holding a club outing in Lillooet this weekend (1/30-2/1). We'll be in the typical spots (Rambles, Marble, etc.) and we'll try to minimize impact and be good neighbors. And perhaps most importantly, leave some ice on the routes for the rest of you to climb!

Bug--do you say Rat Creek for the N and W faces? For the SF, having gone in via the Eightmile Road and the Snow Creek Trail, I would choose Hook creek. Spotly--three hours of hard work is nothing compared to either of those approaches! Four of us went in via Toketie Lake (Selected Climbs approach) a few weeks ago. It was apparent to me that the guidebook description of a camp and a climbers trail precedes the huge November windstorm a couple years ago. That storm knocked over a lot of burned trees left standing from the fires, covering much of the "trail." I believe the camp area is gone too, as we didn't see it going in or coming out. The entire area off the Snow Creek Trail there is filled with downed trees. To approach via Snow Creek is very arduous--five miles off trail travel gaining 4000', a lot of it over boulders and trees. But you can follow sections of the trail on the climber's far RHS of the talus slope, which saves a good deal of energy. I would go that way if you're interested in spending time at Toketie Lake, which has lots of great looking rock. For the Rat Creek Group, Hook or Rat Creek now seems the best to me. Some beta on the Snow Creek approach--there is a TR that added to the Selected Climbs Snow Creek approach description, something along the lines of "When the trail leaves the creek for the last time ..." It might be more clear to say that at about 3.1 miles and 3200' you will first experience the trail leaving the creek and ascending through some switchbacks. Keep going past where the trail crosses a newly reworked streambed, which is lined with granite rocks. Shortly past this is where you should look to leave the trail and cross the creek to the boulder field on the other side. You'll need to climb up through the boulders a couple hundred feet or so before you can pick up the trail on the far RHS. You can travel some long sections of the trail, leaving it for the rock when blowdown covers it. As for the Eightmile road, three of us attempted to approach The Mole that way in July 2000--I cannot recommend it as you lose a lot of elevation descending to Rat Creek then have to wrangle through tons of alder to cross the creek. We never fully made it to the other side with enough time to do the climb and pull back out the same day. This was with an early start from our bivy on the ridge opposite Rat Creek. If you also want to spend time elsewhere in the Enchantments the best idea might be to approach from Shield Lake--that looks like straightforward travel through the more level and open area or the Enchantments.

No doubt, Lambone. Sorry about the smart aleck comment, just couldn't resist as I was hoping to see a report on Synchro anyway. Did you look at wading the river? Two weeks ago when we saw the log gone we thought that might be preferrable to the long traverse across the breakable crust. Although I haven't done it, I'm sure I've done far worse so I agree with whomever wrote that the traverse is not a big deal--in normal conditions; with the hard crust and the boulder field it could suck enough to just wade the river, should it not be too deep.

Dang, that's what I call fresh beta--it's not even Thursday and you've already climbed it and reported on it!