marcus

Climbed Ainsworth yesterday...awesome route. Did 3 60m pitches with simuling, would also work as 4-5p. Very long, techy last pitch(recommend 70m ropes if you don't wanna simul WI4). 60m v-threads the whole way now with rap sling on tree, climber's left at top. Get on it - routes like this in our backyard...hell yeah! Got yer note Wayne - but I had to drive straight to work afterwards. Have fun!

With so many nailing routes going clean now using the wide arsenal of modern trickery, your time might be better spent growing your skill set in a different direction. Competent use of cam hooks, HBs, Aliens(including offsets, rad for pin scars),Zeros, Lowe Balls, Tri-cams, hand-placed sawed-off pins, and more aggressive hooking can enable you to forgo the hammer in most instances. Learning these now standard tricks of the trade will let you move faster - even in those spots where you really might have to occasionally pound one in. And it'll make those boring old 'trade routes' far more engaging!

Hiked to base of Ainsworth Left today - dropping pretty substantial debris. Mid-30s at car, but felt much warmer higher up. Drove further up the Gorge to a colder pocket where my partner styled a 50m line in WI4 condition out of the Starvation lot for his warm-up lead of the season. 40F with much visible route degradation since yesterday on the drive back... Starvation: no Cabin Creek: no Lancaster: no

Aside from the good-time runouts...Mike failed to note that the real scariest part of trip was that we watched "The Weatherman"! AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Good on ya, guys! What was the appoach time on Twin Lakes trail?

Nice job, Dan! Who're ya climbing with these days?

Thanks for the assist!

zzzzzzzzzz...

Up on Cloudcap Tuesday...about 18-24" of recent snow under a crust from Saturday. Unfortunately the crust is insulating the lower snowpack, slowing its consolidation. At the very least, bring floatation and a lot of patience...use your judgment. However, ridge routes on the West side are building up some good rime right now...

Have any of you eastsiders been out to Strawberry Lake recently? Road conditions? Route conditions??

As of 11/8, all Cloudcap gates are still open - 4wd recommended. Today I reached the upper gate(ca. 4700'), but saw a couple other rigs get stranded. Major windfall on the road a couple of hundred yards past upper gate, plus significantly more snow higher... Hiked up to Cloudcap TH: A couple of feet of powder under a crust from Sat pm. Floatation would be helpful above 5500'... Looks like the lower Cooper Spur ice is in decent shape

Ouch! Maybe I should consider myself fortunate that I couldn't get it. However, I saw some interviews(Steve House, et.al.) that looked interesting...

Has anyone checked out podClimber? Its a podcast show produced out of Bend. Interviews, spray, etc. I found the website on rockclimbing.com(podClimber.com) but have had some trouble downloading it...

For one tool in the mountains, gotta be the Co-brah. Does everything decently. Sensitive enough for scratchy mixed, nice balance, carbon fiber dampening. However, beware the dreaded 'cobra pinky' until you get your swing dialed... Unfortunately, Cobras don't have an effective leashless mod and you don't wanna drill that carbon fiber. So if you're going leashless, consider BDs Vipers, the Taakoon or the Quark: all leashless-capable, yet low-profile enough to be used in the mountains.

Holy schmankies!! HB offsets are like bread & butter for pin scars - best ever! I just ran down & got an extra double set from my local shop in a panic when I found out...

Outstanding gents!

With a limit of 100000 bytes on attatchment files, how do I best compress or format photos/scans to fit? And how do I paste them directly onto the post, rather than folks having to click on an 'attatchment' button?

Here's a cruddy scan of our approximate line of travel... (see attatchment)

Will folks lose their address books as well?

MtnHigh - I'm glad your friends returned home safely

Climb: Mount Stuart-Northwest Spur Date of Climb: 7/18/2005 Trip Report: On Sunday night around midnight NOLSe and I left Ingalls Lake trailhead and spent the cooler nighttime hours hiking towards Goats Pass. Making the pass in four hours - due in no small part to NOLSe's nocturnal trailfinding skills - we curled up under a rock, swatted bugs, and did windmills to stay warm for an hour awaiting dawn. Soon we traversed the lower moraine towards our intended objective, Stuart's Razorback ridge. Once onto the Stuart glacier however, our oblique angle made it more difficult to discern features and their exact locations. We crossed the schrund of an inviting-looking spur and traveled some distance up on good granite, only to see Razorback ridge off to our left! Keeping the rope handy for quick deployment, we continued to solo up fourth- and fifth-class terrain to the feature's termination, still well below the West ridge. Bypassing more difficult-looking terrain above and to our left, we traversed a couloir onto the upper Northwest buttress, ultimately reaching the West ridge near the West Horn. From that point we followed the West ridge to the summit. Descending the Cascadian and across Longs Pass, we returned to our car in just under thirteen hours(12:58). I'm unsure of this feature's exact name or ascent history(if any), but it's location (appoximately midway between Razorback and the Nortwest Buttress) prompted "Northwest Spur". A quick scan of current CAG & recent AAJs didn't produce any pertinent info. NOLSe had the camera, so he'll put up some pix for reference. The route travelled maybe ca. 8-900 ft(with an additional 4-500 ft finishing on the Northwest Buttress) up mostly good Stuart granite with some wet slabs down low, lots of lichen, and of course some loose terrain to avoid. We stayed mostly to the ridge crest, traversing left or right occasionally as needed. Postscript: NOLSe was a caffeine-fueled driving machine that whisked me from my doorstep to the trailhead and back again...cheers for that!!!

I heard from some Cham guides in Alaska last year that late October-early November can be great for autumn mixed routes...'best time of year' for some stuff they said.

Climb: SEWS south arete, Mount Triumph NE ridge Date of Climb: 6/21/2005 Trip Report: With a few days off and the rolodex of PDX alpine partners looking thin for the week(finals, injuries, weddings...you name it!) I decided to grow myself a new partner instead. Meet James: Good backcountry experience as a seasonal firefighter and the ability to pull V6. Oh, and he's never placed a piece of gear or been more than 30m off the deck in his life. No worries. Time for a little Alpine 101. Sunday we ran up to SEWS's south arete and, after a quick primer on the basics of simul-climbing, ascended the route in 45 min and downclimbed, taking time at the chimney to show James how to rappel. Monday we jogged into Triumph in just under five hours and took the afternoon to introduce James to crampons, ice axe and basic glacier travel. Tuesday morning we set out under broken skies onto Triumph's NE ridge, simul-climbing to the summit block's base(ca. 6680ft?). Here we watched dark clouds moving in fast and turned tail. We downclimbed and rapped the ridge back to the base. By the time we'd returned to our camp, full-value rain and lightning had descended on us. Ditching our rack in a moat, we hid under a tarp for three hours, counting lightning strikes(!) and watching clouds rip through the col around us. At 7pm it let up just long enough to sucker us out of our hole. Ten minutes down the trail more electric weather motived us to shift gears and hightail back to the car in 2:47. Typically I prefer to post TRs just on condition-dependent routes - but James had such a great showing on his first time in the mountains, I thought it was worth mentioning. What did you do on your first alpine climb? Oh, and James said Triumph was harder than any V6 he's done...does that make it V7? Gear Notes: 60m 9.4mm rope 9 cams to 2.5" 1 set of stoppers 8 slings 4 draws Approach Notes: Thornton Lakes trail is snow-free. Lots of water available at the col.

Thanks for the thorough TR, Mike. It was an awesome day out with great mixed and snice climbing on good-enough andesite rock in full conditions. Rime Dog (III 5.9,200m) P1: Climb right-facing mixed corner(5.7) for 80 feet, move around left to right-leaning ramp above. Belay at top of ramp at the base of wide gulley. 50m P2: Ascend gulley on right side, negotiating occasional ice steps to base of headwall. 45m P3: Climb steep & wild right facing corner for 50 feet(5.9) and traverse right above to exposed slab/ramp. Belay above at base of corner. 50m P4: Ascend tricky corner(20 ft, 5.7) and climb open snow & rime steps to West Gable. We rapped into the south chamber without incident - although inspect any rap anchors you might find. Ours were a little funky.

Has anyone been up to the lake since the warmer temps? Conditions??