Buckaroo

the sun rises in the East and sets in the West also you should always carry a compass, it's very nice in a white-out or overcast when you can't see the sun. did you take the bike? next month you'll need skis or snowshoes

Another nice TR ""Beckey calls Burgundy Spire the hardest principal summit in the Cascades to be reached via any route. I'm not sure I agree with this for a climb that can be done car-to-car in a day (what about something like Swiss Peak in the Pickets?)"" Beckey means from a technical aspect not overall grade. The easiest way up Burgundy is 5.8 it didn't have a free ascent until 1973 the easiest way up Swiss Peak is class 3 from the South. very few peaks have no walk-up.

There's been threads on the beta approach, start, and variations to Dreamer believe you were to the left of Dreamer basically you go up the gully then up and right about 200 ft. the start is to the left of a left facing dihedral. The top of the first pitch has a fixed anchor but you can't see it from the ground because it's at the back of a ledge. Just get up one pitch and look around for the anchor, then you know your on route. The good variation is about 3 pitches up, a bolted 5.10 slab and it's not really runnout. Nelson's has the topo showing a right facing dihedral, there are none. I would put Dreamer right there with Outer Space. It's just harder to find and it rains more. I got rained off twice and the 3rd attempt hit with a graupel storm on the 6th pitch. and watch out for that offwidth crack when rapping off, it's about the 4th or 5th pitch up and it eats ropes, there's about 6 of them down in there if you look.

where they fall and slide down a steep slope and off the edge of a vertical cliff but catch themselves by their ice axe and dangle off the edge of the cliff. Totally impossible. Falling at high speed your axe would be ripped right out of your hands. the rope cut thing has happened in real life, Joe Simpson, Touching the Void. But probably would not happen in the circumstances in this movie. As much as they spend on these movies you think they'd hire a dirt bag climber as a consultant to get the technical points correct.

Zermatt? Assume you're doing the Hörnligrat. There's pretty good info on SummitPost Please write a TR when you get back! photo by Fabioberni on SummitPost The Berghaus looks nice, it's got dormitory rooms also, type "berghaus" in the name box http://www.zermatt.ch/en/page.cfm/your_stay/accommodation/hotel_list

Yeah, should have said my list was not all inclusive. Thanks for filling in. Cotton is bad because it holds moisture next to your skin. Moisture increases heat convection. That's the main reason cotton is bad. Polypro and the other synthetics and wool wick moisture AWAY from your skin. When the triathlon craze came into being there was no product that worked to replace lost reserves during an extended max capacity effort. The energy gels and drinks were created to fill the niche. Citomax and the other cutting edge energy drinks are scientifically formulated and tested to bring maximum nutrition to athletes at maximum exercise levels. Gatorade is formulated to be cheap to produce and profitable. Hence the HFCS, it's only purpose is cheap and it's bad for you. There's a reason Gatorade is found in every 7-11 and Citomax is only found in a supplement store. I raced road bikes for a year. Experimented with several energy bars/drinks. As confirmed by the long time racers Gatorade was the worst of the bunch. I wouldn't even classify it as an energy drink. I wonder if the really good football teams substitute something in the Gatorade cups on the sidelines. Talking going light. In hiking/climbing as in car racing, weight savings is free reliable horsepower. In climbing pounds is what makes the difference, but when purchasing gear you have to pay attention to ounces, because that's were the differences in gear weight usually lies. On all purchases weight should be a primary consideration. If two comparable items are all the same except for weight, choose the lighter item. You can tell a really good climbing shop by the presence of a scale because manufactures advertised weight is not always accurate. Some examples. full zip Gore-Tex shell pants-----------------12 oz. $150.00 full zip Helly Hansen urethane lined pants-----8 oz. $35.00 "Lexan" 32oz water bottle (REI etc.)----6 oz. $15.00 "nalgene" 32 oz water bottle------------4 oz. $10.00 re-used "Vitamin Water" 32 oz bottle----2 oz. $1.50 (and you get a free drink) Packs are a good way to reduce weight. Most packs weigh way more than they should. Example Dana 5,000 cu ---------6 lbs. $300.00 Go-lite 5,000 cu ------1.5 lbs. $100.00 Granted a Go-lite won't be as comfortable but if you start with that you will get used to it and never notice the difference. This kind of thing may apply more to someone smaller. Smaller people having less load carrying capacity. But overall more weight will slow anyone down. Look for dual use items also. For instance Chouinard makes an aluminum snow shovel blade that slips on the end of an ice axe. Thus saving the weight of a handle. It also doubles as a snow fluke. So your ice axe is being used as an axe and as a shovel handle. And the shovel blade is being used as a shovel and as a snow fluke. Another example would be the new line of ultra-lite tents that use ski poles instead of tent poles.

Becky says for the South route, ascend the path on the Sahale arm, then follow the western margin of the Sahale Glacier to the final rock slabs. Climb the SE corner (a gully is easiest) to the sharp rock summit, the last bit is class 3 or 4. Crampons advisable after mid summer. Summit 8680 ft. If you can lead the glacier on Baker you should be able to solo Sahale up and down. The glacier on Sahale probably doesn't even need roping up, it's not that big like the one's on Baker. My advice though is to descend the same why you ascend. Keep an eye out for black bears, if you camp overnight hang your food at least 100 ft away.

We didn't climb Serpentine. I went by myself and climbed the descent. You weren't stupid just got benighted, it could happen to anyone. Even though you don't have pics cuz you lost the camera it would still be an interesting TR. Sometimes the forced bivy TR's are more interesting than the ones that went as planned. When you go up without a full description of the route and descent, that's called beta-min climbing, some people do it on purpose just for the adventure.

""My Goal! My family and I WILL climb Mt Rainier before the fall of 2013!"" Realistically you should be able to trim that down to 2 years or even 18 months I would start by hiking to Muir and maybe do Baker first, then maybe Adams by the easy route then Rainier other good training hikes are Tiger Mt, and Big Si. If you have bad knees pack 40-50 lbs of water up and dump it before coming back down. ""3. What are the "Must Have" things that each climber must have with them? (looking for a list of things...boots, water supply, other equipment, How much food and what kind, etc, etc)"" Boots crampons axe harness prusiks/slings 2 locking beaners top and bottom polypro wind/rain jacket wind/rain pants (prefer full zip) Helly Hansen is affordable puff jacket gaiters thin gloves ski gloves mits knit hat helmet sunglasses 2 qts water sleeping bag bivy sack or tent foam pad stove and pot (team) Food on summit day. If you climb it in 2 days, treat it like a marathon, or triathlon because that's what it is. These kinds of athletes eat no solid food on race day. Cutting edge nutrition for this kind of effort is energy gels or energy drinks. Not Gatoraid but something like GU gels and Citomax drink as examples. Always try this kind of stuff on a training hike to find what works for you before the big day. ""4. Why do people always write that they start the climb from Muir at Midnight or 1am? Why not wait until the sun comes up?"" Depending on the weather the surface snow starts to melt about 1 pm. You want to summit and get back to Muir/Sherman before that. The snow bridges over crevasses get weak from the melting. ""6. What exactly is Altitude sickness?"" When you go from sea level to 14,000 ft your body internal "pressure" has to adjust to the changing ambient altitude pressure. Like when you go on an airplane and your ears pop, that's part of the adjustment but it's throughout your body and takes days to fully adjust. Sea level to 14K is about the limit in one day and most people have trouble with that. You will feel weak and lethargic and won't want to eat anything. Other worse stuff can happen like pulmonary and cerebral edema. People have died going to 10K. For Rainier I suggest going to 4K a couple of days before, it makes it so much more enjoyable, otherwise it's a marathon effort. ""7. What is "push breathing"?"" you purse your lips as you blow out, to pressurize your lungs and hopefully force more oxygen into your bloodstream. ""9. What is your list of Newbie Mistakes that you have seen or heard about?"" Using cotton longjohns instead of polypro, big no-no. NO cotton allowed. Not taking the puff jacket, even in the summer. Going to Rainier, even just to Muir without knowing how to dig and use a snowcave. People have died in the summer because of this. Taking poorly fit loose crampons or dull crampons. Going un-roped above Muir. ""10. What are the chances Jessica Alba will be free to go with me on my first attempt?"" Every bit as good as the chances that Kim Kardashian will go with me on my next attempt.

"I've got 4 pieces, I know that's not quite enough" "If I really start to sketch I've got this daisy that I can clip off" LOLZ!!!

Yeah, I'm starting to doubt Croft climbed Colchuck or Dragontail, unless he did the walkups. From Argonaut he says he went to the Enchantment Lakes which is on the other side of Colchuck and Dragontail. If that's the case then Telemarker's linkup of Backbone, Prussik, SCW is more technical terrain.

I think I talked to you guys as you were hiking out and we were hiking in. I ended up descending the icefield from the col to Aasgard with alum cramps and a small axe. It was a 15 ft 5.5 step at the top and about 100 yds of 30 deg crunchy ice. Also talked to a guy that went around Witches Tower, but that looked like it was a further distance. You should do a TR, it sounds like you guys got the full meal deal. there's beta on this descent on SummitPost

AND they took their accident journal offline, whut up whit dat?

On to Wolf's Head. The classic East Ridge... Airy hand traverse around the towers is the name of the game. these are my faves, awesome shots. It's nice to see stuff like this in the lower 48 So there were other parties there while you were there? Notice the other climber in the background of one of the shots. so the dog was just tied up in the middle of no where? Well he probably would rather be waiting 2 hrs there than waiting a week back at home

respectfully disagree. Hopefully you're not having as many near death accidents as in the ANAM. So learning from others mistakes is what it's about.

you're probably correct, they just come up in a search for dragontail

You are basically doing a ridge traverse until Stumpy Hill/Mt Parkes. At the #2 crux you have 2 choices either climb the ridge up to the summit of Crossover peak that cliffs out and backtrack back down just a bit to a gully that drops down to the right, one double rope rap or 2 single. OR about a pitch before the summit look down right for a dirt/heather slope that skirts down and right of the ridge and climbs a little back up to the end of the raps. 45 deg hard pack heather and dirt, exposed with a cliff at the bottom. Sort of sketch, I used my cleaning tool to self belay. From the end of the raps is the start of a trail that continues on the left of the ridge and leads to the ledge below Stumpy Hill/Mt Parkes headwall. After you get below Stumpy Hill/Mt Parkes descend to 200 ft below the bottom of the toe of the buttress on the SE corner of Stumpy Hill/Mt Parkes. 5200 ft.(first water) At this point start traversing directly across to the East. (maintain elevation) Pass a field of very large granite boulders with a large 1/2 dead tree at the top. (bivy spots). Keep going East about 250 yards and as the angle starts down cross a very large nearly flat granite slab. 5100 ft. From the right (South) edge of this slab pick up a shallow drainage. Follow this drainage down about a 1/3 mile, steep in spots. This drainage is wet early season and dry late season. It goes straight down ESE? through pretty open forest. If you follow the drainage carefully you will come to the top of a rock gully (4400 ft) that goes straight down South into the main basin below the toe of the NE buttress. This bypasses a lot of forest and the bushwack as described in the Topo. You can see this tree canopied rock gully if you approach through the basin. Be aware the gully is steep class 4 in spots and has potential rockfall. From the basin take the climbers trail back to the memorial plaque and out. Edited per Dru and Red Becky guide, Stumpy Hill per McLane is really Mt.Parkes.

Don Heller, Jan 1974, on descent after Triple Couloir Hope Barns, Kathy Phibbs, Jan 1991, Triple Couloir Otto and Max Vaclavek, Sept 2007, scrambling Andrea Basque, Aug 2008, scrambling on start of Serpentine. So really rough guess 4 climbers per week since 1974. 7,280 climbers in 35 years. So .082 percent deaths.

the broken one in the photo on Deberdinka's post, the 12th post

A buddy and I want to try Dragontail weather permitting. I've heard over the years of some people dying there and did a search. Since 1974 at least six people have died on Dragontail. Does this seem like an excessive number? Like for some reason is the Stuart range more dangerous or is it just a higher number of climbers? Like I've never heard of anyone dying on the Liberty Bell group, just saying. Are there any estimates for the number of climbers in the Stuart range verses the number of Climbers at WA pass since 1974? Or is it the fact that the Stuart range is more alpine and WA pass is more roped technical climbing?

Concur, it's way more than a 1/4 mile, probably more than a 1/2 mile and there are several pieces of culvert but the correct piece of culvert is about 1/2 filled up with dirt, and the culvert is just resting on the old road, not buried in it.

If it was carbon steel the entire corroded area would be dark brown. Stainless might do that after a century submerged in salt water.

That hanger is definitely aluminum. It's massively corroded but not with ferrous rust. It has some slight ferrous rust staining, probably from a ferrous bolt nut or washer. Stainless will not corrode like that. Aluminum can be identified by the sound it makes when tapped with another hard object. It's hard to explain you have to try it for yourself. Just tap it with a beaner. Once you get used to this ID method you can even tap with your fingernail. Try it, compare a beaner to a steel piton by tapping. Aluminum can also be ID'd visually although this is not as certain when you start talking coatings. Another clue might be thickness, would imagine these aluminum hangers are thicker than a normal stainless or steel hanger. The magnetic test is inconclusive for aluminum because stainless is also non magnetic. Can't imagine why they would make aluminum hangers, unless it was some kind of short term application. Or some kind of rigging that needed to be light but was inspected/replaced often.

If you can do it in 29 hrs roped you should def be able to break 24 hrs solo.

There's never any water on this route, but there is snow. Was there any snow on the giant bivy ledge at pitch 15 or so? If you had to place gear and rap down a gully at the Part II crux you went off route. There is one short fixed rap there then you get back on a trail and continue along the ridge for about another 1/8 mile before you drop down below Stumpy hill.