chris

Climb: Third Pillar of Dana-Regular Route, III 5.10- Date of Climb: 7/20/2005 Trip Report: So on Tuesday my friend E. and I decided to climb the 3rd Pillar of Dana. E. hadn't climbed it despite living in the area for 15 years, and I had always feared it was just above my leading ability. But I'm trying to push myself this summer to be a stron 5.10a/b leader, so I was gunning for it. It was originally rated 5.9+ in 1976, but the rating has slowly grown to 5.10a or 5.10b, depending which guide book you read. We left Bishop at 6am for a fairly reasonable start. And it would have been, if we hadn't stopped at the Mobil for breakfast and then ducked into the Meadows to talk to some friends at YMS. But that was smart, because we got beta for a much better approach than what's in the guidebooks, and we were soon at the base of the route. We finally took off at noon, the only two people on the Dana plateau. The clouds were starting to build, but we rationalized that we could rap the route if necessary - we spotted a lot of rap anchors from earlier parties. E. started with the first pitch (5.9), which was 5th class for 50' and then low 5th/4th class for another 100'. I got the first 5.10 pitch, the crux was this flared corner. That gave E. the third pitch (5.8), so as consolation he also got the 4th and crux pitch (5.10b). We didn't find it as hard as it had been hyped up to us. The 5.10a finger crack went quickly, and the 5.10b face moves were not difficult. E. thought the finger crack was harder than the face climbing, but he climbs 10c/d off the sofa. The fixed pin at the crux looks fine, its the rock around it I wonder about, but the moves weren't so bad as to justify plugging in a lot of gear around it. I got the final 5th pitch, which looked really intimidating. Chris McNamara's topo didn't help, calling for a 5.10b finger crack leading to a 5.10a lieback. But E. really encouraged me to go for it, and refused to let me back down. Bless him for that encouragement, because I found the finger crack incredible. It was perfect for my reach and thick fingers, giving me secure jams even if it was just the first knuckle of three fingers. The 5.10a lieback proved actually to be harder for me, very sequence-y, and I messed up the feet first try and backed off. Tried one more time and backed off. Tried a third time and fell onto my gear - whoah! That when E. gave me a shout to look around. A huge thunder cell was hanging over Mono Lake, and the anvil of another could be seen behind Dana, slowly moving towards us. In the interest of expediency, we decided that E. should finish the pitch, so I lowered down, we switched ends, and E. moved up. With his shorter reach he found the 10b finger crack a bit harder than me, but he ran through the lieback like a good rope gun should, and made quick work of the remaining 5.9 terrain. We topped out to a wind and the sight of Mt. Dana hallowed by a huge Thunderstorm cell behind it. Except for a few drops, the storm never reached us. This climb is classic. I liked it so much that I'm willing to go back again this weekend with a few friends, and hopefully I'll get to lead the fourth pitch or redeem myself on the 5th. It also opened a huge door for my self-confidence. The Sierra's are rocking - come on down!! Gear Notes: Bring doubles of finger-size stuff. All the pitches are 150-160' long, so lots of slings. Approach Notes: An alternate approach that takes you up out of the flys sooner is to park at the south end of Tioga Lake near Tioga Pass Resort. Hike up the hillside to gain the ridge seperating Ellery Lake from Tioga Lake, then follow the ridge to Dana Plateau.

Give Shasta Mountain Guides a call - they're happy to report route conditions.

I agree with lawgoddess. If you cache a car at the snow creek lot, the hike up asgard and out snow lakes is my favorite.

I've done the traverse twice, both times from Unicorn to Eagle. Once in July 2000, and again as a ski tour last March. The summer traverse was done in a day, with an extra summit climbed south of Wahpenayo. We used two cars, left one at Longmire, and drove to the Unicorn TH at the other end. I think we started at about 7am, and made it to Longmire about a half-hour after dark. We didn't take a rope - really didn't need it - but line would have made the descent from the peak immediately west of Unicorn a little easier. The downclimbing was really loose. The traverse was mentioned in Climbing or Rock and Ice years ago as a "classic," and their description was the Unicorn-Eagle. Heading all hte way out ot Boundary would probably necessitate a bivy.

Actually Divot, I'm about 1200 miles south. Thanks for your constructive feedback.

Treating me gooooooood....

Nice thing about the Android's is that you can adjust the clip point to your personal preference. I really like them, and I've never had them spontaneously unclip.

Climb: Bear Creek Spire, 13720 ft-North Arete, III 5.8 Date of Climb: 7/16/2005 Trip Report: So, my friend M. was chomping at the bit to do her first "alpine" climb. She's done a lot of cragging and roadside multipitch, but nothing farther than 30 minutes from the pavement. So we made plans to go in for BCS last weekend. M.'s been flying a desk all winter, and was not psyched to try to do it in a day, so we planned to go super-light for a sleep over instead. I fit everything I needed in a Serratus Genie (26L). After the foam pad in the sleeve, sleeping bag, bivy sack, shoes, harness, rack, windshirt, sweater, knit cap, sandwich, six cliff bars, six oreos, and helmet I didn't have room for water. So the bladder was rolled up and stuffed in empty - guessed I'd be risking-it from the streams on the way in! M. took a small BD pack. It didn't quite pack as well, and her helmet, shoes, down sweater and rope had to hang outside. We left the car a little before 4pm. Mosquito Flats kept its name for the day - we had to stop at Long Lake for a second DEET application. But the hike went fast - we were at Dade Lake in 2:30! There we ran into two other teams, one local, the other from LA. Team LA was heading for the NE Ridge, while Team Bishop was also gunning for the North Arete. That's cool, there's more than enough room for everbody. They also thought they would be moving a bit slower, and volunteer to leave 15-30 minutes after us from camp. Nice... Dinner was cold sandwiches with oreo cookies for dessert. The six of us (M., myself, and Teams LA and Bishop) hung out and watch the sunset behind Mt. Dade and talk about the climbs on BCS, climbing in the Sierras, soloing in Toulumne, water issues in E. California, blowing up the aqueduct, blowing up Hoover Dam, WWII dam busting bombs, WWII history, war, the presidency... Thunderstorms have been building up every afternoon this week, so we leave camp (a garbage bag with our sleeping bags, M.'s 3/4 foam pad, one set of ski poles, and my straw hat) at 4:30. No food to store means no bear cannister to store it in! Chris McNamara's time estimate to the base is way off - he estimated 45 minutes, and it takes us 1:30 of fast step kicking up mild snow slopes. We get on the route and take off at 6:15am. The first pitch is pretty fun, my lead, 5.7 jamming. After 50 ft. M. gets psyched out by the routefinding and downclimbs pitch 2, so we switch rope ends and I lead out again. The route goes more sharply to the right than we thought. Two more 4th/easy 5th class pitches lead us to the crux. 50-60 feet of 5.8 jamming and stemming lead to another 100 ft of 5.6 running it out. As M. follows the pitch I watch little furry cottonball clouds increase in size exponentially, becoming not so cottonball-like. Oh-oh, time to move a little quicker! After pitch 5 we traverse for a pitch, climb two more airy pitches of low 5th class sticking to the arete. We finally simul climb the last two pitches to the base of the summit blocks, and that's dispatched quickly at 12:45pm. It took us 6:30 to climb the route, exactly as we had hoped. Team LA has been hanging out on the summit for an hour, and after congratulations are shared they begin their descent. The weather seems to be holding - the clouds are still growing but nothing is big enough to start playing mean - so we hang out for an hour too. At the end, I look at the anchor. Its a five foot tall horn that has three shoulder length slings hanging only six inches from the top. That's OK, except for the fact that the bottom of the horn seems to be 3 - 4 feet of rock keystoned in by two more blocks of a similar size. With the Shark Fin accident still fresh on my mind, I didn't like the idea of levering that anchor, but nothing else was as suitable. So I took two cordellettes and was able to re sling the anchor down by the base of the horn. No at least we wouldn't be trying to pull down the block on top of our heads! A single rope rap lead us to 2nd class talus, leading us to the BCS descent notch, leading us back to the snowfields. 45 minutes later we were back at "camp." We finally made it back to the car at 7pm, tired but happy. The North Arete on Bear Creek Spire is really unique in that you can see the mountain from the carpark 5 miles away. The North Arete is plainly in view, facing you head on. You don't really get to see any other angle of the mountain until you start the aproach from camp. This was a perfect climb to experiment with some of the "fast and light" ideas I had considered. With stable weather, it worked out great. Gear Notes: Bivy gear - sleeping bag, bivy sack, and 1/4 foam pad Rack - Stoppers from #4-11, TCU's from purple - orange, BD Cams from #0.5-3, eight shoulder length slings with biners and two short shlings with biners (perfect) Approach Notes: The aproach is almost entirely dry. A little snow between Long and Treasure Lakes, but it was melping fast and I wouldn't give it a week.

Jon: What about our favorite thread list. I use it to keep a lot of information filed away on future projects or route info that I want to follow up on. Should we print all that out too?

WTF? The Tram provided the best access to the BC, not to mention the Hobacks/the Bowl, and Corbett's. It placed Jackson on par with Whistler and Snowbird. They better replace it with something. Besides, the tram building is built! Why not simply replace the towers, machinery, and cars but keep the base station alive?

It is hotter than two s ing in a wool sock right now. The thermostat at the Washington Mutual Bank said 107 degrees! I'm heading into the hills in the morning.

No worries! It made for a good laugh

Well, I know you said you weren't going to follow this thread, Inacan, but I hope you're checking up on it. Thanks for the work - I'm confident that it will be appreciated. As for your thoughts in the above quote - the group and the forum exists - check out the Washington Climbers Coalition's website. Another possibility is to give the cascadesprayer.com community a heads up before a big project like this. It seems that if you get 3 pacific northwest climbers together, at least one of them reads this forum (the other two probably don't read, or just watch fox news). CC.com is an excellent way to warn off bystanders. We've already seen BoeAlps, the Washington Alpine Club, and the Mountaineers use the board for this purpose. Just my $0.02...

Not for me - the nearest Saint Joe's in Reno...

My geography might be all screwed up since I'm in Cali and all, but isn't Burgundy Spire - and all the Wine Spires - at Washington Pass? Doesn't that make them in the North Cascades? Isn't the Alpine Lakes Wilderness south of the North Cascades? I dunno, maybe I need another glass of 3-buck chuck...

amen

Just wait 24 hours, then the fun really begins...

Yep, you either go way-way early in the morning (it starts to really heat up around 9am) or arrive after 6pm. Another bouldering possibility is in Rock Creek, underneath the Main Wall. Boulders are scattered amongst the aspen and pine, along the creek. It'll be 20+ degrees cooler than Bishop, and its only 30 minutes away. Details can be found in the Mammoth Area Rock Climbs guidebook, Yellow cover.

Excellent! If you're talking about Wheeler Peak, 13,000 ft, located on the Wheeler Ridge, then according to Secor the North Arete was first climbed in 1991. Here's what he says" "'Wheeler Peak' 13,000 ft+; 12,966 ft; "1.4 mi NE of Broken Finger Peak "This is the high point of Wheeler Ridge. The north summit is the true summit. The northeast and southwest ridges are class 2. First ascent August 14, 1945 by Don McGeein and Virgil Sisson. "North Arete. Class 5. First ascent 1991 by Claude Fiddler and Jim Keating. This route starts from the junction of the north and northwest face." R.J. Secor, The High Sierra, pg. 331

You can always drop in at Wilsons for directions. RockFax has alot of guidemap information, but the original Buttermilk guidemap is out of print. Photocopies can be made at Wilsons too!

Have you tried contacting the current guidebook author?

I've heard its happened once in '97 or '98. But this wasn't a "clean" FNA - the climber in question was witnessed wrapping himself in a parka and sleeping bag during breaks.

Did you just pull test it, or did you bounce on it too? I'd imagine it wouldn't be too hard to reach cable failure if you bounced on the piece, even if it wasn't intentional.

Climb: Mt. Langley 4274 m; 14,042 ft-Southeast Slope, Class 2 Date of Climb: 6/25/2005 Trip Report: On 25-26 June I climbed Mt. Langley with D. and M. This would be D. first High Sierra summit and M.'s first time to 14,000 ft. We met and grabbed breakfast at the Bishop Grill (*-) before driving down to Lone Pine and on to the Horshoe Meadow Trailhead (10,040'). There is a trail on only the most recent maps that connects Horshoe Meadows to the Cottonwood Lakes - older USGS maps and all the guidebooks are incorrect when they insist you have to start where Cottonwood Creek crosses the road! Three easy hours of hiking, with two substantial breaks, got us to the west side of Long Lake (11,100'). We relaxed for the afternoon and went to bed at dusk. Our "alpine" start was at 5am on the 26th. Due to some last minute shenanigans, and without me providing pressure, it took us over an hour and a half to leave camp - we finally stepped out at 6:40am. The crux of the climb was making it over New Army Pass (12,300'). I stuck to the trail for as long as I could, including cutting steps across a 100' wide snow slope for D. and M., but we finally came up to a final steep snowfield, aproximately 50' short of the pass. The slope was steep - 30 degree start, gradually picking up to 60+ degrees for the last five feet. We had crampons and ice axes, but D. experience was limited to glacier travel on moderate slopes and M. had no experience at all. So I carefully cut steps to another rock island, and worked to improve the steps from previous parties up over the lip. I then carefully spotted M., then D., up and over the final front-pointing. From there it was pretty easy going. We dropped down to Army Pass (11,800'), and climbed up the lower slopes towards Langley. A cool moment of "ahhhhh" was had when we spotted a fox running across the mountainside at 12,000'. A short section of scrambling got us around the headwall at 13,000', and we finally reached the summit at 12:45pm. Photos were taken, lunch was eaten, ibuprofen was handed out to D. for his back and M. for her headache, and then we headed down. Getting off of New Army Pass proved to be harder then getting on. The top three inches of snow had softened up considerably, and I wanted D. and M. to be able to see their feet as they downclimbed the lip. I tried to kick in a new boot pack to the right of the old, but discovered the snow was rock hard underneath those three inches of mash potatoes. I ended up traversing further to the right to a rock promontory, where 10 feet of Class 2 down-climbing and a 10 foot traverse accessed a lower angle snow slope directly above the trail. I was able to carefully direct and spot D. and M. one at a time through the rock section and then join them on the trail. Afte that walking back to camp was a piece of cake. All that circus getting over the pass ate up a lot of time, though. We finally got back to camp at 6:15, and were packed up and ready to leave at 7pm. I was really expecting to be back at the cars in two hours, and became very concerned when we reached the half-way point on the trail 1:30 later. M.'s headache had hit her with a vengance, and it was actually making her nasueas (sic?). Nothing to do but keep descending the final 3.3 miles to the car. At 10pm, M. said, "Don't stop walking, 'cause I don't think I can start again." So I took her pack, threw it on top of mine, and kept moving. We finally reached the car at 10:30pm. D. and M. were absolutely knackered, so I drove them back to their hotel in Bishop. I finally got to bed just before 1am. We met the next morning to sort out the gear and have breakfast at the Inyo Country Cafe (****, corner of Warren and Academy). What would I do differently? I'd bring a short length of rope to get over the pass early season (I've never climbed this peak before 15 July before). It would have allowed me to provide a quick belay up and to simply lower D. and M. down to the trail during the descent, saving a lot of time. As for the hike out, we actually moved slower hiking out then we did hiking in! The next morning M. admitted to have been fighting off an illness for the past few days. Sounds like the exertion and altitude allowed the bug to gain an upper hand for a day. It took us 6 hours up and 4:30 down. In normal conditions it takes about 5 hours up and 3 hours down. I also spoke to several other local guides who still use old Army Pass from Cottonwood Lake #4. They argue that its just as fast with a rope as the bypass is without, and if the weather is threatening it provides less time exposed to the risk of lightning. Something to consider. If you're a strong endurance climber, consider doing this trip in a day! I'm sure that by the end of July the snow over New Army Pass will be completely melted out and it should be easy moving all the way to the summit. Gear Notes: We used: Ice axes Crampons We should have had: 50' length of rope Approach Notes: Park at Horshow Meadows - the TH is well signed. All major intersections along the trail are well posted.

The Falcon Press staple-back is the only current guidebook to the area. You can purchase it from the Fifth Season in Shasta.