Sol

Tyree and I went and repeated Darin and Matt's Areyete route last wednesday 8/15. We had a blast and thought the route was both high quality and aesthetic. The whole bollard set-up was pretty shady. It seemed like the picket we were using to backup the junk-show was sticking out of the bottom of the snow fin, it was so thin. But nonetheless it worked. Definetly used some short knifeblades, and it seemed like a stubby angle could tame the runout on the first pitch a bit. We climbed it in 7 60m pitches and a bit of simulclimbing. Cheers Darin and Matt, a fine line. Go get it. Some pics: Nightmare on Bollard Street: The immaculate pitch 1: There's a line. The Upper Arete: Mmmmmmm, Alpine Climbing We had originally planned on taking the labor day route up the pyramid to the summit, but a lack of energy and sunglasses nixed that idea. Any beta on the labor day route? Can anybody draw it in?

pitch 2, shorts over polypro direct.

bouldering yo!!!

shhhhh.....

Trango S with Goretex rocks!

yeah scott, we did change climbs in the middle of the thread. for some reason we decided to debate the ratings of the NE face of Main Gunisght in the middle of this gato negro thread. post a tr dood, that looks like a quality face. have you guys at NCMG heard of any repeats on hardy?

Awesome job Darin and Matt. Darin picks another plum.

So that's why the "10b" start completely kicked our ass! yeah that start of P1 is hard but would you consider it harder than P4? P4 felt like 11a to me and martins, so we graded it 10c. blake said 10d and you said 10c. who knows? personally, i prefer the sandbag over the softy.

PM sent on #8 metolius

Scott: its so hard to rate new routes. the little bit of new route activity i've done, we rated about 2 letter grades below what the climb felt like with trango s's hanging off of our harnesses, repeat ascents have confirmed the lower grades. lesson: sandbag to cover your ass. looks like the NE Butt of Hardy. 3rd ascent of dissapearing floor route with direct finish FA?

Scott: the 2nd pitch seemed like good, solid 10a, awesome climbing, thanks. Layton: with the addition of our new 2 nut anchor, you can now rap with one 60m rope. Off white's suggestion for an alternate descent sounds enticing.

looks like a great trip kevin, great photos. Even us married men still get out eh? how did you fight off the magentic pull of the gunsight range, you were so close! Sol and Ginnie Jo

hey, I am looking for a roomate to share my 2 bedroom apartment with from september 1 to jan or feb 1. My wife is heading east to do her student teaching and we can't really afford to keep me in the apartment by myself. For those climber/student types the place is perfect. The crib's about 7 blocks from campus in the York Neighborhood, quiet, warm (in winter), and spacious. Its one of 4 apts in an old victorian house with chill folks in all the other pads. Rent is $300/month plus 1/2 of utilities (usually < $40 month). No cable TV or house phone but we do have high-speed wireless internet. Also you'll be rooming with our 3 fantastic cats: Biscuit, Mr. Black, and Noodle so folks with allergens beware. the address is 1428 Humboldt #4 if you want to do a drive-by. any interest email me or pm: solwertkin@gmail.com sol

Hello all, My wife Ginnie Jo will be starting her student teaching in Wenatchee the first of September. She is looking for some climber types to live with in the Leavenworth/Cashmere/Peshastin area. A room in a house with some mildly evolved humans, or any leads on a studio or one-bedroom apt/house would be greatly appreciated. About her: she's got plenty of alpine routes under her belt, leads 5.10 trad/sport, and has a huge bouldering pad for her latest endeavors on the small stones. Besides all that, she speaks spanish fluently, teli-skis, eats healthy, and enjoys radio theater(?). With all her climbing girlfriends and buddies on the westside she'll be very excited to connect with some cool local folks who want to send, or just hangout. Give her an email: ginniejoblue@gmail.com thanks, sol

Trip: Les Cornes - Springbok Arete Date: 8/1/2007 Trip Report: Last week we climbed the celebrated Sprinbok Arete in the Anderson River Valley of BC. What a route! It was my second attempt after adventureboy and I failed to even find the river valley last year. We left bham in the early afternoon on wednesday figuring to have plenty of time to make the approach and bivy near the base. Unfortunatly it was like a waking re-occuring nightmare, and we spent many hours wandering around on the wrong logging roads, lost, trying to make sense of it all. Luckily it all came together, and we made it to the roadside, bug-infested bivy around sunset, intent on now climbing car to car. A 5 am start saw us alder-ing our way up to the base which wasn't nearly as bad as others have made it sound. A little schwacky but its short, there is a path to follow, and you gain very little elevation. The Arete from the base: I started us off on the first block. Four mediocre pitches and a bit of simul-climbing brought us to the base of the fierce fingercrack of pitch 7 (McLane), where we swapped blocks. Scenic: Tyree lead on up the hard 5.9 fingercrack and the off-width, but whoops, ended up on the wrong wide crack. We climbed a clean long off-width to the right of where we were supposed to be. After fucking around for a little bit we rapped off a nut back to the route. Ty smoked the orange head wall pitch hooting and hollering, having a good ol' time. Awesome and steep. Flakes, fists, and hands: The quality of the rock kept on improving as we continued on via a fun flake traverse. I took over for the 10c fingercrack, and the immaculate 5.9 layback and elegant slab above. Quality: Ty took us to the summit from there via never-ending finger locks. A quick pound and we moved on to the au cheval. "Gut-churning" Compared to Gato Negro the descent was casual. The worst rap was prolly the first one. And the running water was well appreciated. 4 raps and some downclimbing brought us back to the base. Overall we did the route in 10 pitches with some simulclimbing. Car to car in 15 hours. Its the best route i've climbed in BC and lies somewhere in my top 5 favorite alpine rock routes. The grades are nice and stout. Highly recommended. Because you can never get enough Steinbok: Gear Notes: Twin 60's. Rack of doubles to #2, singles through new #5. Couple RP's. Approach Notes: Dont ask me.

Sick!!!! A proud send of a proud line.

Classic route, fast time. You can easily walk off with climbing shoes; soft sand skiing back to the base.

Some b'ham mounties almost killed my wife and I when we were coming off of the Torment-Forbidden Traverse in the exact same spot a few years ago. I'd have been pissed if my boy took off with the rack without saying anything.

Links work now.

Rad!

Nice. Did you guys free it? If so, what did it go at? I did NW Buttress descent about this time last summer. Not too bad, not too rad. Kinda grassy, kinda loose, really long. We downclimbed most of it unroped and did maybe 3 raps. You wander back and forth along each side of the ridge crest via the easiest route. Prolly better than the melted out sherpa glacier descent this time of year.

Trip: Whine Spire - Gato Negro IV 5.10b Date: 7/25/2007 Trip Report: Last week Tyree and i climbed Gato Negro on Whine Spire in the WA Pass area. Overall, we thought the route was high quality, varied, and just plain fun. The climbing surprised us at being not as steep as we had anticipated, and the grades seemed a bit inflated. Though its proabaly one of the top 5 pitches i've climbed in the area, the crux 3rd pitch, felt no harder than 10b, and overall i think most of the grades will drop a letter grade or two as the placements and the route gets cleaned up. We climbed the direct finish to the false summit at around 10- which really seemed to complete the route nicely. The descent was rowdy! One 30m rap off the summit brought us to the middle of nowhere, where we placed a 2 nut anchor which got us into the gulley. About 900ft of pretty damn loose unroped downclimbing ,with one more shady rap off of a chockstone, brought us back to our packs. A couple of pics: Looking down at the bolted 2nd pitch, a worthy improvement: Shot of 5.9 flakes and cool overhanging double cracks taken midway up P3: Fun roofs on P8: Direct finish to the false summit: On the summit: The wildest thing that happened to us all day, occured at the base of the route back at our packs. We're lying around lamping, indulging in our pleasures, when all the sudden I jumped up and looked uphill. A basketball-sized rock was catapulting towards us a couple of hundred feet away. We managed to barely dodge the rock, and a few more that it picked up. I must have been using the force 'cuz you couldn't hear the rock at all. We had completely let our guard down. Be careful out there folks, it ain't over til it's over. Gear Notes: Rack of doubles to #2, single #3,#4, and #5. With new rap station it can now be climbed with a single 60m rope. Approach Notes: Easiest approach in the wine spire area. Topo Link Cleaner topo w/out new 2nd Pitch

HOLY SHIT. way to keep it together out there boys. congrats on the climb and the self-rescue! that #2 looks like fricking play-doh.

yo, i want to go climb springbok arete. last summer adventure boy (issac) and i tried to climb it, but every spur we took off of the main logging road and the main logging road itself ended with a logging operation smack dab in the middle of it, and was therefore impassable. i know the road to the anderson river valley peaks is not accessible to the parking area it once was, that's ok, we are more than willing to bike out there, but what is the beta with the roads: washouts, logging ops, maps, etc. i don't want to go out there and wander around for 5 hours like last time. we got a key, we just need the beta. while were on the subject of the anderson river valley, anybody have any info on the NE butt of steinbok? i know the edwards-spagnut was repeated a few years ago by a party who added bolts (lame), im more interested in the flavelle-howe. what i really want to know is if that shit is really worth climbing, or is it as compact and dirty as McLane makes it sound in SWBC select? any insight would be appreciated, thanks much. sol

ive been unable to download photos into the gallery for a couple of months now. I'm using the JPEG format with a MacBook, size 495X660 for vertical shots and 494X371 for horizontal shots. i have successfully downloaded photos with this computer before. now it says i have a problem with filesize. i usually export my photos from iphoto onto the desktop with the above mentioned size constraints and then download them, but its just not working. any thoughts or advice?