Sol

Cruised over to Index yesterday with my bro ty to try out a litttle aiding on the upper town wall. Got to the base of the jolly green dragon a little after 10 in the am. I aided up the first 5.11 pitch, loving my first ever few cam hook moves. Ty lead the second C2 pitch, thuroughly enjoying himself in a nice little seam. After following I lead the third pitch which in our guide book was A2. my question, because I lead this pitch clean, is it still A2 because I clipped a shady knifeblade, and a bolt, or does the rating go up because we climbed it clean (which I know from this website is the norm on this route). Definetly some thought provoking pro for a short bit (for my rookie aid ass). We stopped after this pitch because it was starting to get dark, rapped down, hiked out, drank beer. In all it was an awesome day for us, litttle rain, little sun, lots of rainbows, and was the first real aiding we had done besides City Park solo, and the bolt ladder on Monkey face. I want to go back and finish the route. the fourth pitch is given an A3 rating in the guide I have, what's the clean rating, and is it much more intense than the 3rd pitch? thanks for any info.

has the flagpole been freed yet?

thanks for all the killer info folks. i'm glad I asked.

Thanks for the beta folks. I'll post a tr if we do it. word.

The shadiest buttonhead I have ever seen on Lost Planet Airmen, when we got off route on orbit about 3 years ago.

Anybody got any gear beta for a clean ascent of Cannabis Wall?? Also, is it more funner to rap the route or continue to the top via Crescent Ramp??

thanks

After a couple lame descents in which we had to make our own rap anchors with gear and downclimb glacial ice with nut tools, I think its time for a north wall hammer. Can anybody recommend one, or do you know where to get one ( i think MEC carries somethin)? Also any comments or stories about when your NWH saved your butt, or took your partners eye out, or something. Word.

Okay I won't, what about the Great Game folks?

I've been in love with crescent crack ever since I first layed eyes on it. Just wondering what kinda gear I should bring up it. Gear to ?? Also how much spice is involved with the great game cruxes on ye ole squaw. I want top go get it, but I've heard conflicting views about it being difficult to protect or runout at the wrong places. Any thoughts??? thanks. oh yeah, and has anybody climbed the millenium falcon yet?

Tuff sucks, gorge is good. Cruel Sister 10a in the lower gorge, awesome handcrack. If you must climb tuff- Spiderman 5.7 3 pitch, good. Pioneer route Monkey face 5.7+ easy aid.4-6 pitches. Sunshine dihederal 5.9+.

Dolphin at J-tree. I still have scars on each side of both ankles.

topped out on dragontail in a whiteout a couple weeks ago. couldn't find the two rappels to snow creek glacier so we made our own. in all: two cordeletees, one red tri-cam, a couple old locking biners,and 20m of a 60m 9.8 when the rope got irretreviably stuck after we rapped over the bergschrund onto the glacier. first time i've left more than a biner. luckily we found a ton of booty on orbit this week.

If you want some gear that will help you in an avalanche get a avalung. Other than that, the name of the game is ride the avy out. If shit breaks, point it until you stop, then look back. if you fuck around and try to pop your bindings, you wil waste time and get buried. If you are really serious about backcountry riding, and are still fixed on the releasable bindings, get a split board. Last year I had a burton splitty pro-dealed, as they were not designed for the cascades it is a love/hate relationsip (mostly love though) due to over complicated technology and ice build-up. But, the bindings do release quite easily from the board. PM me if you want more info.

was just out there to climb clean break. hard not to notice the potential for many new routes. nice job. cheers.

Though JS Hamster and I climbed this route nearly 3 weeks ago, I decided to post a late TR becuase the route itself was quite fantastic, and perhaps one might be inspired to go climb it after reading this, you should. Left the car on monday at about 5 PM. Nice easy approach up silver star creek, took about 2.5 hours. Bivied about 50 yards from the base. Perfect bivy sites: flat, running water, 2 minutes from route. Cooked corn pasta power dinner than layed in sleeping bag and stared at the amazing first pitch. Jumped on route at about 7 AM the next morning. First pitch is a good as they say. Perfect vertical splitter, with good rests, for 100 feet. I lead this one, giving hamster the second pitch, the clean break. fun climb through overlaps, balancey at times, hamster smoked it, all there. Next pitch lead us rightwards up dirty corner to chossy flake belay. From the flake belay the 4th pitch dropped down right then up to a belay below a finger crack with fixed pin. I lead this next one, easy climbing to pin, able to back it up with a number 3 slider nut, very thin 10a face climbing lead left to more weird crack to belay. Coule proablay link the three previous pitches into two with rope managemnt skills. easy pitch lead from here to base of wide crack. super fun wide crack for 35 feet or so, had brought a 3 and a 4 for this pitch, but the 4 wouldn't fit so was forced to run it out 25 feet to good placements. moved right from good pro on easy face to thin stem crack to belay. right about at this pitch we noticed smoke down in silver star creek right near where we had approached. crazy. about as soon as we noticed , so did the forest service. We hunkered down for a round of bong hits as a forest service copter began making the first of seven water drops onto the fire. Mostly easy climbing with the exception of a few hard arete moves lead from here a number of pitches to the final 10a "wild" handcrack that led to the summit. Topped out at round about the 9 hour mark. More bong hits ensued. then eeeaaassssyyyyy walk off down the backside to sunset col (really one of the easiest descents I've ever done for a route this long) then back around the frontside of the ridge to bivy sites. packed up and hiked back to the car for cold beer. though they had managed to put out the fire earlier, it had sparked up again. Luckily we skirted easily aroung the smoke. in all, a killer climb with incredible aesthetics, about 7 pitches of 5.10ish climbing, and lots of finger and hand cracks. we brought a pretty beefy rack, which did come in handy, would recommend two 3's and nothing larger. also, slider nuts came in handy, but of course, were not necessary. in a day would be quite feasible, but with such plush bivy sites either way works. go get it!

Nice TR Jshamster. hell of a climb.

1. Backbone Ridge on Dragontail in a day. 2. On-sighting Clean Break (juno tower). 3. Leading wide gendarme pitch on N ridge of stuart with a single #3.

thanks for the beta y'all. went and climbed it. see TR for more info.

Need something long to go do next week. wondering about restricted access on these peaks because of the wildfires: sleese (i'm sure its closed), redoubt, yak, life on earth (habrich). any info would be helpful. thanks.

Hiked in on tuesday the 2nd with my lady tradchica, and our former geology teacher, an old skool cali-climber from way back. Left the car around 2, made the bivy just below the col around early evening. took a while because the teach was quite a bit slower than us with a big ol' pack full of heavy, old gear. bivy was great, running water close by, astounding views of triumph and the pickets. left the bivy around seven the next morning. climbed one stretch of the glacier but mostly bypassed below it on the slabs. shed all extra gear below the ridge. jumped on route. I led with two 8.9mm ropes while both seconds followed on a single strand. two looonnnggg simul blocks got us from the beginning of the route to the last step. lead two classic pitches through this, then one more simul pitch through the heather to the summit. hazy forest fire views to the south and pickets, backer, shuksan to the north. 6.5 hours from bivy to summit. was quite slow for myself (I like to climb fast), but not so bad for a party of 3. descended via 5 double-rope rappels, 2 single, a stretch of simul-climbing, and a bit of unroped downclimbing. witnessed a giant serac topple right where we were going to be traversing. once back to our gear we killed big water, i took a long overdue bong toke, and we traversed back to camp. got back to camp around 8ish, for a 13-hour day. having lead all of the climb, including the rope-tangling rappels, I resigned myself to the sleeping quilt to roll joints as trad chica cooked dinner. ate. slept. woke up early and watched the sun rise next to the pickets. left. In all, I think i've climbed too many truly classic routes this summer to say much about this one (dirty, not so aesthetic climbing, long descent, manky rap anchors). but, nonetheless I am happy to have ticked it off the list, as anyone who has viewed triumph close up can attest, it is a much too dramatic mountain to ignore.

Thinking about heading out there in a couple of days. Nelson said its good through september, but beckey warns about a moat and wet ledges in the late season. anybody been up there lately. just wondering how hard it will be for us to access the ridge. Also, are the bivy sites large enough to accomadate a megamid. thanks for any useful beta.

When jshamster and I did that one a couple of years ago, that crux pitch was my first 5.9 lead ever. if you think darrington is run-out go check out tuolumne meadows, or even closer to home, static point. everytime I go out to darrington I applaud the first ascensionists and subsequent retro-bolters in their creation of safe, fun-routes, with well-thought out protection. one question: climbed total soul via the superfly pitch this summer. was that bolted on lead? with hooks? just wondering.

where is that, whoa looks good. Classic crack 5.8+ Icicle creek, leavenworth. Slot machine 5.8 Bulletheads, Squamish Breakfast of Champions 5.10 Index

dude, I work out at a restaurnat on chuckanut and have drove by that thing before it was cleaned and it very much resembled a jungle. drove by today during a break from work, and it looked cleaner than i'd ever seen. thanks, i think.