colt45

I found 5 draws on the ground at the base of Cherche La Femme today (8/15/13). PM me a description and I'll get them back to you.

The road is indeed open and drivable to the 3 o'clock rock trailhead (and ~1.2 miles beyond). We had a great time climbing Total Soul, the route (and most of 3OC) was totally dry. There is a lot of snow at the base and an ice axe was useful -- no need for crampons though, as the snow was soft even at 8am. Exfolation Dome looked pretty dry as well. We did not look at Green Giant Buttress.

Anyone been to Darrington lately? I am wondering about road access & specifically whether Green Giant Buttress or 3 o'clock rock have a reasonable chance of being dry....

To the left of the aforementioned hand crack is a full-on OW (5.10+??) Tilting the hydraulic wall would make it a 105 degree overhanging offwidth, now that would be a good workout!!

Looks like a great day out! My wife and I were an Excalibur on Saturday (by the way, did that photo turn out?) and we were amazed at how much rock is in that valley--it's definitely one of the most impressive areas I have been in Washington.

I am posting to get in contact with the party that was on Sloe Children on Thursday 6/9/11. If you see this post, I have your gear--PM me and we can figure out when to meet. Thanks!

That's an awesome project!! I imagine that the CT scan would not make it to the final HAPE susceptibility testing protocol for multiple reasons, although I have heard that there are simplified versions of spirometry that are cheap and that can be easily performed in a non-hospital setting. For the purposes of the research study, it should be interesting to see whether the various physiologic parameters that are measured end up correlating with anatomic findings on the CT. Let us know what you find!

Sounds great! Yuko and I will contribute $200.

Thanks for the "pre-spray", Pax! I posted some photos from our trip here: http://mikes2500.blogspot.com By the way, we thought of you during the trip as we were checking out the La Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires:

There were free hanging daggers on the far left as well, not nearly as large as the curtain but still big enough to cause some serious damage if they failed. In this photo it looks like there might even be an old fracture line above the left side icicles:

One detail I forgot to mention is the significant amount of debris (partially snow covered) at the base of the climb when we hiked in, possibly indicating a separate collapse earlier in the season. The ice chunks seemed far too large to be due to climber-induced icefall. We totally ignored this warning sign, but fortunately luck was on our side... In addition, I found other reports of Louise Falls partially collapsing in the past: --------- "A large portion of the hanging pillar on the right had fallen a few days before, causing minor injuries and sudden bowel release to a couple of climbers below it" [link] --------- "the next day the pillar collapsed and killed another ice climber." [link] ---------

Trip: Canadian Rockies - Various Date: 1/6/2009 Trip Report: I had a great time on my first trip to the Rockies. I was also fortunate enough to survive, allowing for a possible future trip. During the week we hiked in to climb the uber-classic Louise Falls: While leading the pitch, I briefly considered belaying at the ledge 30m up, but elected to continue onwards. After traversing to the left about 20 feet, the entire right side of the climb collapsed in a massive roar. I ducked and held on tight as many tons of ice flew past, incredibly not harming me or my belayer. The rope stretching diagonally between us was buried by basketball-sized ice chunks though... It is fortunate that I did not cut the pitch short, as both Frank and I would have almost surely been squished by ice at the fixed belay directly below the ice curtain. We decided not to push our luck with the free-standing pillar of the second pitch, so we rappelled off at its base. Louise Falls is an enjoyable climb in an easily accessed, scenic location but I probably would not climb it again if there were free-hanging daggers present. More photos from our trip are here: http://mikes2500.blogspot.com

Anyone had problems with bees in the Pressure Chamber? There seemed to be a sizable swarm near the top of the pitch on Saturday, so we opted to rap down and finish via Iconoclast/Outer Space (which is a pretty awesome option by the way).

To descend, we went north along the ridge, mostly utilizing a system of ledges a few feet down from the crest to the east. The ledge system led south initially before dropping down and heading north for a couple hundred feet. This led to a flat area of the north ridge where we contoured around to the west side. Starting down from the summit. This is near where we angled to the right (east) to access the ledge system: We then rapped from an established station to the glacier to the west, clearing a huge moat en route: We then walked north a little bit on this glacier to access the notch at the base of EMS's north ridge. We descended a loose gully to access the glacier to the east (2 more single rope raps). On our climb (9/14/08) this involved a mandatory horizontal jump over a 4-foot wide schrund (partially visible at the bottom of the photo). Other photos are here in case anyone is interested.

hey Aaron, Check your PM's.