skykilo

Ross leads the 2nd pitch of the Gendarme

Ross on the first pitch of the Great Gendarme

I'ma tug myself here with some pictures I just got. They may be point-and-shoot products, but the Gendarme still gets me STOKED. Ross on the Lower North Ridge above the Ice Cliff Glacier

Maybe not for you stud. I lose real trails with the regularity of a caffeine-overdosing vegan.

We talked about that bushwhack and decided against it; I left it to Ross' judgement on that one. Stuart Lake was great for the approach. The descent was really time-consuming, but that was mostly because we didn't know where we would drop to the north. Go around all those towers low until you get to the flatter portion of the ridge and it wouldn't be that bad. Right after going around the 3rd or 4th tower on the West Ridge, drop where the ridge flattens. Teanaway may very well be easier all told. Hard to say.

HOLY SHIT! I wish we'd climbed it a week earlier. I like booty. We didn't find anything on the route. Descending the W Ridge and NW Butt we found a nut, an ATC, and several brand-new rap slings just laying on the ground.

I'm reading the new Harry Potter. I just bought Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Besides that, Theoretical Nuclear Physics Volume I: Nuclear Structure by deShalit and Feshbach.

Fawk the numbers. I'm not really qualified to grade anything anyway. All I know is it was funky fingers, thin feet in a few spots, and BEAUTIFUL granite. It was actually spicier following Ross' lead to the base of the first pitch, looking at a nice 30' pendulum into the moat. It wasn't his fault though; there just wasn't any pro.

(That was sarcasm. I really don't mean to bust your chops or anything. Your rants are somewhat amusing.) I'll add a few of these:

No. Even if you approach predawn or whatever. You can rap or scramble without hitting ice until it is so low angle it will never matter. I can't believe you're asking this question you f'ing wanker! These climbs are so far from cutting edge. Pathetic little hikes in an unimpressive range...

If you do the Complete North Ridge you can avoid all snow travel. I would ditch both the ax and the 'poons, as long as you don't plan to descend Sherpa. It sure was hard dragging my ass outta bed at 6:30 this morning to make that German Chocolate Cake for Barb! Thanks for another great day Ross! No pictures with blood???

Right arm, Tony. OK if I post a route photo? You could draw what you thought was your line on it. You got lost going up Crescent Creek? INCONCEIVABLE!

That's 'cuz you did Backbone Ridge you f'ing chump. Dude was talking about Serpentine. You know NOTHING.

Classic. I always love the YOU WILL FUCKING DIE! admonitions. YOU CAN'T DO THAT! You should go post on homeboy's Mt Hood NF Gully TR; that's a really prime spot for the YWFD genre of post right now.

John was absolutely right about no 'poons or ax. Thanks for the word, bird. Sweet climb, especially the pitch in the awesome right-facing dihedral with fingers, hands, and then chickenheads everywhere. We had serious home-driving issues, too. F'n dangerous no doubt.

The schrund was wall-to-wall on the Taboo Glacier on July 24th. It is still possible to do the traverse, just access Torment from the Eldorado side.

Climb: Burgundy Spire-North Face via Paisano Pinnacle Date of Climb: 7/31/2005 Trip Report: Ross and I decided to take a look at the Paisano Pinnacle-Burgundy Spire linkup yesterday. It sure is a blast. We left Seattle circa 3:30. Left the truck a little after 6:30. What an easy approach! Down a little talus, over the creek, and up a beautiful climber's trail that really gets the job done. After interminable steep hiking I kept thinking, "I hope the trail saves a little vertical for the climb." We climbed Paisano in four ~60m pitches. Lots of fun little moves and great position, but never really sustained. Generally excellent rock with a few spots of looseness for the alpine ambiance. After a break on the pinnacle, we scrambled the beginning of the North Face before climbing it in 3 pitches. We stayed left instead of heading right, which gave Ross a beautiful lead up a slab, past a manky old 1/4" bolt, then through a few cool crack moves with breathtaking exposure toward the east. I finished it with a very traversey pitch and some off-width yo-yoing. 4.5 hrs from rock to summit, is this really a grade IV? I don't know, but I CAN tell you that Tootsie makes a mean chicken pot pie. Thanks for another great day Ross! Gear Notes: 60m x 9mm rope. 11 cams, 11 nuts, a few hexes, and 2 'tards Approach Notes: What approach?

Sorry Mark, no Dick shots. I just saw the cover of the new climbing last night and thought, "Wow, that looks sweet. Where is that?" Oh, duh. That's probably the funnest climb I've done. It only has one flaw. There isn't nearly enough traversing. Good thing we started the morning off route.

Don't do it Colin! I heard this freaky report of a guy who did that. Somehow DWR plus sweat and body heat make the little fibers interlock and shrink. You won't notice anything until you're in the hills and you wear your jacket. Out of nowhere, BAM, it'll shrink and put you in a strangle-hold and you better have a knife to get that sucker off you before you suffocate. You'll be lucky to escape with your life and the loss of a down jacket. I'll accept a sixer for the life-saving beta. Sky

Are you talking about filling the gas tank OR getting an oil change???

Well now that you went and got yourself a betamax photo like that, with it lookin' SUPER-PHATTY, I'd say you're pretty much obliged to go ski it Phil. Oh yeah, sweet photo man!

From your location I can guess which truck was yours Mike. That really is too many f'n stickers.

In all fairness Ross and his Libra antics probably weren't as funny as my episode on Damnation last fall...

Ross and I headed to Index this morning. Nevermind the drizzle, a nice breakfast at the Sultan bakery helped us keep our hopes high. We began on Libra. I won't say anything about Ross and his lead of it; he can out himself. I was happy to cruise it on top rope without ever weighting the rope this time. Maybe I'll lead it next time... Next we went to Roger's Corner. I had fun leading the first two pitches after a couple slippery attempts to get across the slab to the initial hand crack. Ross made nice work of Breakfast of Champions. Now that is a sweet crack! Slightly overhanging with sweet hand jams and great feet. I'll be climbing that again and again. We still had some time before Ross had to head to work, so I led the fist crack that starts Lizard, to the sickle-shaped crack above it, to the funky Blockbuster off-width. Thanks to the Mountain Madness people for letting us climb by their stuff on the fist crack. It was probably pretty entertaining for them to watch me teach myself how to do an arm bar for the first time after several attempts at the Blockbuster. Finally Ross went for his revenge on Libra. It wasn't pretty, but somehow he got up the thing. Public Enemy, coffee, and now the lab, yeah boyEEEEEEEEE! Cold lampin'...