chris

My friend Cosmin has just started a brand-spanking new China Climbing forum. And by brand new I mean 5 members, 4 posts, lots of form but little content. But he needs your support! If you've been to China or are thinking of going to China, please register and join the China Climbing forum! http://www.hostingphpbb.com/forum/index.php?mforum=climbinginchina

My friend Cosmin has just started a brand-spanking new China Climbing forum. And by brand new I mean 5 members, 4 posts, lots of form but little content. But he needs your support! If you've been to China or are thinking of going to China, please register and join the China Climbing forum! http://www.hostingphpbb.com/forum/index.php?mforum=climbinginchina

We just fit four men, comfortably, in a megalight on a three-day ski traverse. I've sat out two major storms, with winds 50mph+ in a megamid in the spring and summer. The biggest danger wasn't the tent fabric failing, but the cords used to anchor it down! In both cases we made it through only a little wet. The biggest drawback is the lack of bug netting, which can be a real problem. If I anticipate that, I'll opt for a traditional tent. Despite my raves, I decided to purchase a BD Lighthouse instead of a BD Megalight, even though they weigh the same and the Megalight has more space. I factored in the considerations that I usually climb with only one other person and I hope to be doing some bigger climbs that will require bivy's enroute. A smaller freestanding tent like the Lighthouse just gives a few more options for where to sleep.

dude, shouldn't you be studying for chiropracty school or some shit? this has to be one of the best thread resurrections of all time!

Its a good question, and my opinion is that commitment is only really considered when distinguishing between Grade V, VI, and VII routes. The American/YDS system doesn't really allow for commitment to be considered like it is in French or New Zealand Alpine Grades. And is commitment determined by how far you are from the pavement, or just when you can take off the rope? You can bail off of Infinte Bliss to the right as high up as pitch 10 - is it still a Grade V? The Mathes Crest in Toulumne is never more than 80 meters above the ground. And in this case, the Twin Sister High Route was very commiting. If at any point we needed to bail for an emergency, we knew it would take a full day and at least 10 miles of hiking to reach pavement.

Grade V=more than one day

Climb: Twin Sister Range, North Cascades-Twin Sister High Route Date of Climb: 5/12/2006 Trip Report: Twin Sister High Route, Grade V, 4th class, snow/ice 60 degree ascent, 45 degree ski descent. Possibly the first recorded ski traverse of the Twin Sister Range, North Cascade Mountains, by Mark Allen, Greg Balco, Paul Kimbrough, and Chris Simmons. May 12, 13, and 14, 2006. Photos for this trip can be found in the Gallery, Twin Sister High Route 1 to Twin Sister High Route 67. I'll try to edit in links to the pictures in the days to come. This trip was inspired by a previous climbing trip to the North Twin Sister Peak in February 2005. In the fall of 2005, I started to trace out a possible traverse route on topographical mapping software. During the 2006 winter, I found three other excellent skiers who were foolish enough to say yes; Paul, Greg, and Mark. Mark and I met a month before the trip to look over the route and peer at a series of photos provided by John Scurlock. The route looked possible. The whole team met again in two weeks before the trip to look over the route, John’s photos, and discuss gear requirements. We met Thursday night at my house to pack and make some final food purchases at the grocery store. Early Friday morning we cached Greg’s car at the end of the road for the North and South Twin Sister Peak climbs, and my girlfriend Patsy dropped us off at the other end near Hamilton. The access information is described below. Friday, 12 May 2006, Day One: We didn’t start where we originally intended and we needed to get a view of the range to get our bearings. Low clouds and snow showers kept us guessing until a lucky break in the weather while crossing an “artificial alpine zone” provided us with the view we needed. An hour and a half of skinning gained us the spine of the range immediately below the southernmost named summit, Step Sister Peak. Following the ridge north required a final boot pack to the summit, earning our first descent of the trip, the North Face of Last Sister Peak. From there we crossed the ridge to the east again and traversed the glacier on the east aspect of Nancy Peak, crossed a cleaver nick-named the Southern Divide and gained the glacier below the east aspect of Barbara Peak, which we provisionally named the Ripple Glacier. We climbed and skied in a zigzag pattern across the Ripple and Trisolace Glaciers until we reached the Saddle Slabs and Twin Crests, our camp for Friday night. Saturday, 13 May 2006, Day Two: We got an early start and skied down the eastern slopes of Twin Crests and the Twin Crests Glacier before climbing back up to camp, shouldering our packs, and crossing the Saddle to the west side of the range. Dropping packs again in the bowl underneath the South Face of Little Sister Peak, we watched Mark ski the proudest line of the trip, climbing and descending the South Face Couloir. Afterwards we hiked up to the summit ridge of Cinderella and skied the North Face, continuing down the Greater Green Creek Glacier before heading back up to the Little Sister-Cinderella Col and continuing north along the west side of the range linking together the little glaciers and cirques on the west slopes of Little Sister, Hayden, and Skookum Peaks, before finally hitting the ridge wall blocking our access to the Sisters Glacier at 4pm. This proved to be the crux of the trip. Difficult 4th class and steep snow with heavy packs and skis required us to rope up. We also discovered our first mistake – Mark’s 9mm rope turned out to be 20 meters long, not matching up well with Greg’s 8mm 30-meter rando line. With only one thin rack for both teams, I led the first short pitch without a pack, belayed everyone up, and then rapped down and re-climbed the pitch with my pack on a top rope while Mark led a second shorter 20 meter pitch to the snowfield. Since Mark and Paul had the shorter rope, they led the way as we simul-climbed the following 100+ meters of steep snow to the ridge top. We gained the ridge with perhaps a half-hour of light left. John’s photos and the map show the Sisters Glacier clearly reaching the ridge top at the lowest notch immediately south of South Twin Sister. Instead we were looking down at 100 meters of rappelling. The ridge terrain was protected by numerous gendarmes, so we opted to rap off the ridge top where we were freezing in the wind, and finding our way down. We had to pull head-lamps out after the first 20 meter rappel to a horn. From there, we tied the two ropes together for a single strand, 40 meter rappel, which Mark down-climbed. Being his idea, and not realizing I was waiting for him to offer “Rock-Paper-Scissors”, he took my silence as refusal and offered to do it himself. Thank God. We were all pretty hammered at this point, and I was not happy. Another single strand, 50 meter rappel over a blank, verglassed rock wall reached the glacier. We left the rope to collect the next day and stumbled down to the flats of the glacier finally setting up camp at 2:30am. When we finished dinner and hot drinks, we were all nodding off over our bowls and the sky was beginning to brighten. Sunday, 14 May 2006, Day Three: We were forced up at 9:30am by the bright light and heat of the day. A hard discussion over breakfast reached an agreement to forego an attempt to retrieve the ropes. As it turns out, the 8mm rappel line was rubbing over two rock edges, and neither Mark nor I were willing to risk jugging back up the line with a Tibloc and Reverso. We looked around to see if there was an easier way to climb up and traverse over using the hanging end of the 9mm strand to belay with, but saw nothing. The rope is still there and both of us expect to return later this year to retrieve it. At 11pm we skinned and climbed up to the notch we had hoped to reach the day before and discovered why we had missed it. A full 40 meter pitch of 5th class chimney would have been required to reach the notch from the west side. This would not be possible for this team or with our packs. Our curiosity satisfied, we skied a couple of laps on the Sisters Glacier before descending below the North Ridge of South Twin Sister Peak and traversed across the Sisters Glacier to the North Ridge of North Twin. Once again, our intended notch looked good from our side on the east, but was cliffed out on the west. We continued lower down the ridge to the next notch which did prove passable. However, we ended up 1000’ below our intended route and a final skin gained us the bench below the North Face of North Twin Sister. A final descent through mashed-potato snow lead to a clear cut and road beneath the West Ridge where we were forced to take our skis off at 3800 feet. The final 5 miles of hiking in our boots finally ended when we crossed the welded steel of the Middle Fork Nooksack Bridge, and walked over to Greg’s car. It was over. Conclusions and Lessons Learned: We traveled 30 hours in three days, covered 21 miles, gained 12,000 feet, descended 14,000 feet, skied every single permanent snowfield/ice field/glacier except for the Twin Glacier according to the USGS topo and made significant descents from the North Faces of Last Sister, South Twin Crest, and Cinderella; and the South Face of Little Sister. There are two ways to access the Sisters Glacier which must be reached in order to finish the traverse. We don’t recommend following our route over Mirage Peak. The first possible route is to cross the Greater Green Creek Glacier to the east of Hayden and Skookum Peaks and climb a steep snow couloir that leads directly to the Sisters Glacier. Another possibility is to climb the South Face of South Twin Sister and descend the North Face. A 60m rope would be ideal. Two 60 meter ropes are necessary if you choose to follow our line. A speed traverse would probably work best from North to South, because one could descend the Sisters Glacier Couloir to the Green Creek Glacier instead. We originally had hoped to climb and ski the North Face of South Twin and then ascend the South Gully of North Twin to ski the North Face. Saturday’s climbing over the ridge, our lack of sleep, and the incredible heat that hit us on Sunday put a stop to any of our ideas. We gave a number of provisional names to a number of features to make conversations easier: Nancy Glacier – located in the east bowl of Nancy Peak Southern Divide – the cleaver that forms where the NE Ridge of Nancy and the SE Ridge of Barbara Peaks merge and separate the Nancy and Ripple Glaciers Ripple Glacier – located in the east bowl of Barbara Peak Trisolace Glacier – located in the three basins NE of Trisolace Peak Twin Crests Basin – located NE of the Twin Crests and Saddle Slabs Little Sister Cirque – located in the west bowl of Little Sister Peak Hayden Cirque – located in the west bowl of Hayden Peak Moraine Cirque – located in the north bowl of Skookum Peak Northern Divide – the great headwall between Skookum and South Twin Sister that separate the Green Creek and Sister Glaciers Mirage Peak – the 200-foot tall summit of the South Ridge of South Twin, which we climbed up and over at its highest point Twin Glacier – located in the bowl on the west side of the ridge separating the North and South Twins North Twin Glacier – located in the basin NE of North Twin I’ve tried to keep this based in fact as much as possible. The crazy and funny stories that come with this trip should be heard with a beer. Chris Simmons Gear Notes: Typical backcountry ski and avalanche equipment. Each member carried a transceiver, shovel and probe. Greg was on tele-gear. Ski crampons 1 Megamid tent 2 pocket rocket stoves with four canisters, two pots, and one tea pot ice hammer 1 picket rack: 6 knifeblades, stoppers #4-#10, #0.75-#1-#2 cams, #10 hex, 2 ice screws, 4 shoulder length slings with biners, two double length slings with biners ropes: 9mm, 20 meters & 8mm, 30 meters Each: helmet, harness, crampons, ice axe, belay device, three locking carabiners, one cordellete Approach Notes: The Upper South Fork of the Nooksack River is closed by the Forest Service as Critical Elk Habitat from 1 November to 1 July. This effectively eliminates accessing the ridge from Baker Lake. The logging services follow suit on their private land upstream from Howard Creek. I convinced the Forester at Sierra Cascade Industries that this trip was part of my studies in Adventure Recreation, contributing directly to my degree and my professor vouched for my academics. We received permission to be dropped off via the roads up Howard Creek, provided that we were careful around and didn’t interfere with logging operations that were in progress. Crown Pacific sold their land holdings to three different logging companies and those three companies have an agreement to minimize non-business access as much as possible to minimize interference. I don’t expect to get this permission again. Next time I plan to use our back-up plan, which is to drive as close as possible to the summit of Mount Josephine, hike up and over, drop down to the South Fork and climb back out to Bear Lake. This route is only 3.8 miles as the crow flies, but 9.5 miles of logging roads. The good news is that if you wait for the snow line to be at or below 2000 feet, this could be accomplished entirely on skis. Otherwise, bring a pair of shoes.

I'm really trying to figure out how far up the valley its located.

So I'm doing some documentation of place names in the Twin Sister Range, and I'm investigating the Green Creek Wall. I haven't been there myself, and I'm a little unclear about precisely what elevation and aspect its located at. Can anyone tell me?

Seattle Fish Company. 4435 California Ave. S.W., 206-938-7576. WEST SEATTLE Great stuff!

Why? There's no precedent for announcing your permit or respect-for-authority permission when climbing anything else, is there? And I think too many people here on this site are giving Patagonia way too much responsiblity for Potter's actions and PR. Patagonia (to my knowledge) does not pay in advance, or hire before hand, photographers or cameramen to document climbs. Instead, independent phtographers and camaeramen, who have developed working relationships with climbers, take the photos and film and earn their income by selling the publication rights to magazines and gear companies. So Patagonia most likely had no foreknowledge of this event. This also explains their press release - why would they fact check the legality of a climb of one of their ambassadors. If you're prepared to drop Patagonia because they provide sponsorship for Potter, than you better do the same for the hardware, rope company, and shoe company that are sponsoring him as well. I can easily believe that Dean asked for clarification of the rules and received verbal permission, only to find out later that the ranger was wrong. In 2003 I was told I didn't need a backcountry overnight permit if I was planning on climbing a peak in one day, only to be stopped on the approach, and made to wait while a "provisional permit" was filed for me over the radio. I had called the ranger station in advance to clarify that permit process, and afterwards a second ranger clearly stated that I shouldn't have needed a permit too. So either two rangers were wrong in giving me the go-ahead, or three rangers were wrong to hold me up for 45 minutes to get me a permit that I may or may not have needed. While my personal experience didn't occur in Arches NP, it does serve as an example that the mistake may not have been entirely Potter's.

Lets get rid of the Llama. Be willing to allow more risk to re-enter the equation when climbing Denali. What I'm reading here is that the service (high-altitude rescue via helicopter) is too expensive for its intended community (climbers on Denali). So let's get rid of it and accept the fact that more people will die or epic.

Ravenna Park is in Seattle, running alongside Ravenna Boulevard. Duh. A simple Google search for "ravenna park" get this as the very first hit: http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/parks/parkspaces/ravenna.htm

It would appear that Arches National Park is adopting a new approach of "look, but don't touch" when managing visitors into the park. God forbid somebody may actually move around and through the environment in sight of others.

OK, I may get flamed for this. Why are the arches closed to climbing? 1) Fear of falling over. What do you think the odds are of an umpteen-ton arch standing so precariously that a 200-lb climber can tip it over? 2) Fear of damage. Concern that bolts, gear placements, fixed anchors, and multiple rappels will damage an arch. This concern is valid. But the NPS doesn't say why climbing is banned on USGS named arches, just that it is banned. I think Mr. Potter addressed these concerns admirably by climbing solo and then rappelling without fixed anchors. I was imagining a counter-balanced rappel utilizing someone on the ground connected to the opposite strand of the rope. 3) Climbing on named features is bad, becuase it takes away from others enjoyment of natural views and scenery. Well thank god this policy isn't in effect in North Cascades National Park, Rainier National Park, Yosemite National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, Grand Teton National Park, or Devil's Tower National Monument. Now, despite saying all this, I think that what Dean did was illegal. The regs, however poorly written, were pretty clear prior to his ascent. He should just bite the bullet and take whatever penalty there is. Everything else about this thread - threatening climbing in the park, or Potter's employment with Patagonia - is simply hype and spray by us, a group of people who need to spend more time climbing and less time reading about those climbing more than we are. Me included.

I need to take a Dremmel tool to a pair of ski crampons so that they fit to an older generation of Frischis, and a bench vise to widen the crampon wings so that an 80mm crampon fits an 82mm ski. We're heading out Friday morning. Is there anyone in the Bellingham area who can help me out?

Whittaker Mountaineering, next door to the Bunkhouse in Ashford, sells cannisters.

Nice work

His best moment is going to be when he moves out of the Oval Office.

Dru- If you read the link to your own post, you'll discover: "Hey, if you are in Bellingham, I am finishing up a slideshow/movie tour there on May 4th (Thursday at 7). It will be at Western University (WWU in Fairhaven/Bellingham area)I am doing a show/movie presentation on Queen Maud Land, Antarctica and a new area on the Border of Kyrgyzstan and China. The show is free, rated R, there will be live bluegrass, and a sweet raffle for the Access Fund. If you are bored, grab a sixer and come check it out. Laughter will be involved. Climbing and mentally unstable related, so what the hell. Libecki" Special thanks to my girlfriend who made me check your original post. She's always right!

I'll check tomorrow - I didn't see any mention of tickets or prices on the posters around campus. Dru-man, if tickets are needed, I'll get you one. What about Fern?

It looked like the perfect dumpster guide for climbing bums.

The Talon

Bill Simpkins has spent a lot of time up there - try PM'ing him.

A friend of mine is a glacial geologist - he helps date glacial flow rates and depths by isotope dating rock debris deposited by the glacier. He gets to go to some pretty kick ass places to do this, like Antarctica. And since his specialty is a very "hard" science, you can't sit on your ass in a lab - you have to go out and get samples. Oh, the horror. He's now a post-doc at UW. He lives in a nice house (with house-mates), drives a new-model car, and can take time off to travel, bike, or ski as he wishes. Its enviable. If you can handle academia, I'd really encourage you to pursue it..