cluck

Climb: Mt. Hood-Sunshine Date of Climb: 7/12/2005 Trip Report: Played hooky from work on Tuesday in favor of a late-season climb on Hood's Sunshine route. Our willingness to shirk our employment responsibilities was rewarded with a fabulous climb and some great conditions. We left Cloud Cap at 1:30 AM and headed up Timberline trail for the west moraine of the Elliot glacier. We figured this would be faster than climbing the east moraine toward Cooper Spur and traversing the Elliot glacier between the icefalls. We were right! Traversing under Lag Crags: Slogging up Snowdome in the dark: Routefinding in the pitch-black, moonless light was a bit of a chore, but not overly difficult. Gaining and following the west moraine was a breeze and getting around Lag crags wasn't too tough. From there it was just a matter of following a compass bearing until it started getting light. We crossed a couple tiny crevasses starting to open up aronud 8500 feet on Snowdome so that prompted us to rope up. However, we didn't encounter any more until Anderson rock. The bergie under Anderson rock: We couldn't decide which way to go so one rope-team did an end run of the crevasse to the right while the other team did some funky scrambling straight over Anderson rock. Both approaches took the same amount of time. End run: Scrambling over Anderson rock: Horseshoe rock presented another more challenging bergschrund. It can be crossed just left of Horseshoe rock but that would require heading through an obvious shooting gallery and then up steep slopes above a gaping crevasse. We couldn't muster the courage for this so we opted again to head right in search of a snow bridge. We found none and ended up traversing nearly to Cathedral ridge before we could swing around the end of the crevasse and head straight up to the ridge crest. Traversing below the Horseshoe rock bergie: Heading up to Cathedral Ridge: We gained the crest of Cathedral ridge just below the Queen's chair. From there it was just a matter of sprinting up crunchy rime ice slopes until the summit ridge: Reached the summit at 9:00 am - 7.5 hours after leaving Cloud Cap. The descent down the south-side was a sinch. The pearly gates and bergie are in very good shape for July. This was my first time up the Sunshine route and I was impressed. It's long, but a great route becuase of more complicated routefinding and technical challenges. The snow was crunch and firm - not what we expected for July but a welcome suprise. Gear Notes: Pickets were handy

WOW - that package looks way hardcore. Maybe I should start eating that instead of the wussy Mountain House stuff!

The vast majority (like all) of climbers choose to climb Olympus without pack animals so it shouldn't be so suprising that most folks around here think it's a silly idea. That being said, you're free to do however you want. But we reserve the right to poke a little fun at you anyway. Try not to take it personally

First off - thanks for braving the abuse and actually posting your point of view here. It's much better to hear your story first-hand rather than having everyone speculate about your motives.

North Sister is a climb for sure

Using ski porn to bribe others into doing your research for you?

I don't think we're trying to "parent" you, just policing our own. Local climbers are affected (either directly for those in SAR or indirectly through media and public perception) whenever someone gets hurt on local mountains, so we have an interest in weeding out potential accident victims. Nobody here knows you so you got grilled a little. Try not to take it personally. In any case, I'm sure we're all happy you're safe and appreciate the report. Better luck next time

September 2003 we did the Tatoosh Traverse round trip in a day from Longmire. After 19 hours, we had bagged 11 peaks and stumbled down the talus slopes below Unicorn Glacier and out to the Snow Lake trailhead. Exhausted, my partner drags out his backpack rain-cover (emergency bivy equipment) and collapses into a quivering ball in the parking lot while I retrieve our stashed mountain bikes and prepare for the ride back to Longmire. We sat in that parking lot under the moonlight in stalemate for nearly an hour before I was finally able to coax my partner out from underneath his "bivy cape" with some Red Bull that we'd stashed earlier with our bikes. It provided just enough energy for us to pedal slowly back to Longmire and much deserved warm beer and day old Subway.

Forecast calls for dry weather with freezing levels between 6000 and 8000 feet for most of the week. Based on that info, I guess conditions on the north side of the mountain should be quite good this weekend. Keep an eye on the telemetry data and avi forecast all week and use that to estimate conditions.

Sure - there's plenty of skiing on Jefferson. A lot of people get some spring turns in on the west side by hiking in from the Pamelia Lake trailhead.

Nice! Sounds like you made short work of the rock step that stumped my parter and I a couple weeks prior. Isn't that couloir fun!

The way I would do it would be to traverse from the notch at the top of the fly around the summit block to the southeast side (near the Lane-Denman col). The standard route goes up a 3rd/4th class gulley on that side and should be pretty straightforward. Last year we tried to go straight up from the notch at the top of the Zipper and it didn't look hard. We ended up turning around because we encountered some man-eating moats and there was evidence of the prior day's wet slide avalanches everywhere. But the climbing was easy - just a 35 to 40 degree snowfield with a short transition to rock at the top. Here's a picture of the southeast side of the mountain after we backed off. The Zipper notch is just above and right of my head. Finishing via the west ridge directly sounds more interesting though.

I ridden the lift with skis and a full climbing pack before and never even gotten a second look from the lifties. But I've always had a lift ticket so I'm not sure what they do about the one-way pass thingy. This time of year the conditions up high should stay good all day so you can certainly get away with a later start. But climbing in February is still different than climbing in May so be sure you know what you're doing.

I'm pretty new to a mountain search & rescue team (more rescue than search) but so far I've found it to be an extremely rewarding experience. The people are great to work with, the training is fun and the missions are a real rush. It's an amazing feeling to know you're making a contribution to saving a person's life. Our organization is entirely volunteer so everyone's there because they want to be. At the very least, it gives me another excuse to get out into the mountains and sometimes I even get to ditch work to go play. It's not all glamorous work - sometimes you're pounding miles of trail in the rain and recovering bodies is never fun - but it is important work and certainly more exciting than my average day pounding a keyboard in a box. Plus, I'll probably never read to blind children or volunteer at the old folk's home, so this is a way I can do some community service in a field I really enjoy.

Nice! I've wanted to climb that one as well but keep getting enticed by the Zipper. I love the gulleys on the NF of Lane. They look so badass from the road but once you start climbing them, you find that they're really easy. It almost feels like cheating.

Are you for real??? I would think that soloing the north face gullies with skis on your back would be quite a challenge. But then again, after thrutching off route on the Steel Cliff while lugging your skis, you probably know your limits better than I.

We headed up to Mount Rainier National Park early Saturday morning with delusions of climbing the Lovers Lane couloir on Lane Peak in the Tatoosh range. After leaving the Narada Falls trailhead with overnight packs, we ditched the excess camping gear in the meadow underneath the North Face of Lane Peak and headed up toward our intended route. We took one look at Lovers Lane and decided it was way too thin for our liking. Instead we opted for the Zipper - normally a much easier climb. With the extraordinarily low snow, we encountered some spicier-than-expected conditions in the Zipper. Mostly sugar snow over rock with the occasional smattering of verglass ice. About 100 feet up the couloir we encountered a small 10-12 foot rock step that presented some difficulty. I fashioned a nuclear-blast-proof belay from 2 cams and a knifeblade and my partner set to work identifying a proper path over the obstruction. The left side was a 60 degree featureless slab covered in 1/4 inch of verglass ice. The right side was steeper but appeared to have some features. After fruitlessly scraping at the snow in an attempt to uncover the hidden holds that would unlock the puzzle, my partner was stumped so we switched positions. I met with the same frustration. It was aggravating to be confounded by such a simple obstruction. Had it been summer and the rock dry – we could have easily scrambled up it. However, the same feature covered in ice and snow proved quite a challenge. I decided to don my crampons and have a try at the icy left side again. By gingerly hooking one tool on the thin ice and frantically flailing my feet about in search of tiny ledges to plant my crampons onto – I managed to squirm my way over the bulge amidst a shower of cursing and sparks. Not pretty, but at least we were up. Next was another 400 feet of 45-degree step kicking up the coulior. This was relatively mindless but enjoyable nonetheless. The steep rock walls towering above and ever-present giant Mount Rainier looming behind provided a very cool alpine setting. About ¾ of the way up the couloir, we found ourselves cliffed out a second time. This rock cliff was about 20 feet tall and near vertical. My partner flailed for 30 minutes in a vain attempt to will his way up the rock face but it became clear that we weren’t going to be able to make it up this one. What was a barely noticeable steeper section of snow last year was now an unbreachable rock wall guarding the exit. We reluctantly accepted defeat and, tails tucked firmly between our legs, began descending back toward camp and cold beers. We spent the night under a clear sky with a bright moon illuminating the mountain as it sneered down at us.

Interesting. That seems like a fairly encompassing and well written summary of a very complex subject. I do get annoyed by the oversimplified statistics though. Like saying that 1 in 10 avalanche deaths are female proves that males are more reckless in the backcountry. What if only 1 in 10 backcountry skiers are female?

This discussion has been tossed around before: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/390510/page//fpart/1/vc/1 Personally, I won't risk it with my ropes. The rope is just too important. But then again, maybe I just haven't done enough research to put my mind at ease.

Yup - that would be Lane peak. The Tatoosh range is like a playground. Good to know that things are shaping up nicely. Thanks!

The Chevron station in Govy sells the passes too. For that matter, just about every establishment sells passes. I know the Huckleberry Inn restaraunt is open 24 hours and I'll be they sell 'em. If if were me, I'd just head up to Govy and take my chances on being able to find a place there.

Saw you topping out the little bouldery crux you described. Sounds like you had a great climb. Good on ya. How about that weather? Sure was warm and calm for December.

Did you pay any notice to the North face gulleys on Lane Peak? Just curious if they looked "IN".

Here's a little eye candy... Looking accross Devil's Kitchen at our intended route: Higher up and getting lost in the rime ice maze:

Yup - that was us. The goal was to gain the ridge and then finish via the upper part of the Wy'east route. We ended up turning around about 50 feet shy of the ridge. The ice was totally rotten and we were moving way too slow trying to pick our way through the maze of rime ice cliffs & gullies. Looks like this would be a fun route in good conditions. Unfortunately, we found rotten ice that wasn't bonded to the warm choss underneath. The gullies between the rime cliffs didn't have enough snow in them yet and it made travel difficult and protection impossible.