colt45

Sounds like we went WAY past the correct turnoff...we followed a flagged trail up terror creek for at least a mile! here are a few more photos: Impressive wall on an unnamed peak that we passed on the approach: Inspiration peak from the south. Our route is the right skyline. The right side of the south face, from partway up our route. It's incredibly steep, and it looks like the rock quality is amazing. It also looks hard and unprotectable though. View of Triumph and its striking North Rib. The only good rap anchor we saw on the east ridge (maybe from the first ascent?). I think the south face rappel we did is the way to go. The lieback pitch: Jason looks for a way up to the ridge from the north side: The spectacular summit traverse: Wandering around on the descent. This was similar in looseness and exposure to the east ledges on forbidden. Eventually we did a rappel here and found a fixed station lower down. Note on the descent: The south face raps we did seem like a good option. It seemed set up for rappelling with 2 60m ropes, because every other rappel had a bomber station, but we found, or created, adequate stations in between which allowed us to get by fine with one 60m rope. The only trick is when you do an overhanging rappel from the slung block at the west ridge notch: I had the ropes over the east side of the block, but realized I needed to move west to get to an anchor (because the anchor I was going for looked sketchy on closer viewing). This required tying off my device and penduluming 20-30 feet, placing two pieces on the way...Jason flipped the rope over the west side of the slung block and was able to go basically straight down to the same place.

The long routes are probably 20 degrees cooler than the city. For example when we climbed Lev29 (which faces directly south), it was 92 degrees in Vegas but we were perfectly comfortable. Early in the week, when temps in Vegas were in the 60's, we wore lightweight puffy jackets for belaying. It was slightly off route about halfway up; I agree that the rock quality was good overall. An unexpected fall can definitely change your perceptions though! That would definitely work, but in my opinion there is no reason to rappel the route unless you are bailing from partway up, in which case it would be possible to get by with a single 60m and a few bail biners.

Trip: Red Rocks, NV - Off the beaten path Date: 4/19/2007 Trip Report: After a few trips to Red Rocks, I thought we were running out of routes to climb. But it turns out there is a lot out there besides the usual line-ups like Epinephrine and Crimson Chrysalis! In addition to some great climbing, we ran into some great people--Gary Brill and Mark Fielding on Frigid Air Buttress, Fred Beckey at the Las Vegas public library, and Joanne Urioste near the old Oak Creek campground. Frigid Air Buttress (5.9+, 9 pitches): Has a few cool pitches, but they are separated by ledge systems. Watch out for some loose rock (Yuko took a 15' swinging fall when a hold broke). This pitch, near the top, had the best rock on the route: In this photo, The Woman of Mountain Dreams is marked with a green line and Dogma is marked in red. The Woman of Mountain Dreams (5.11, 16 pitches): Awesome adventure route. The 5.11 water streak pitch: Some loose rock near the top (photo tilted; steeper than it looks): Dogma (5.11+, 17 pitches): Spectacular, one of the best routes we have ever done! 5.11 crack pitch on the lower section of the route: Approaching the Horseshoe Wall: Climbing the upper section. The angle is hard to capture; the route is continuously overhanging for 5 pitches. In this photo my arm is pointing straight down, as is the quickdraw visible above me. The rock quality is incredible. Basically, take Prince of Darkness--make the holds a bit more positive--and tilt it slightly beyond vertical. We have done the relatively straightforward First Creek descent off Mt Wilson twice, but since the Brock & McMillen guide recommends rapping Dogma instead we decided to give that a try. This works but is a huge hassle and takes a lot of time. Plus we came up WAY short on some of the raps with our 60m rope and had to do intermediate rappels off single protection bolts in a couple of spots...so if for some inexplicable reason you really want to rap the route instead of walking down, I would bring a 70m. Sick for Toys (5.10+, 4 pitches) Cool slab route. The boulder mentioned in the route description fell over, and someone bolted a new direct start to make up for its absence (this section felt like 5.10+). Looking down pitch 3: We rounded out the trip with a lap up Levitation 29. I had climbed it before so Yuko led all the pitches. Here she is on the roof pitch, en route to her impressive and casual onsight of the route: We intended to walk to the summit of Rainbow Mountain afterwards, but we couldn't really tell which of several high points was actually the top. So we eventually headed down. Our time was up, so we headed back to Seattle (although before leaving, we had already compiled a list for our next Red Rocks visit...)

I was also there Sunday (on skis). As a ski objective, I think car-to-car SS is worth doing several times!

Thus the results imply that girth hitching a sling to a biner INCREASES the strength of the sling?? Or else the testing/sling strength variability is fairly large, and girth hitching has no effect on strength? It seems like some statistics would be needed to figure out what is going on here.

Thanks, those numbers are very reassuring: they seem to match the data from Black Diamond's girth hitch tests which were performed with brand new 8mm runners: link For example, in Black Diamond's tests, for 8mm spectra + 3/4" nylon, the 8mm spectra broke at 11kN (8 samples total): similar to your value of 11.5 kN. It seems like the most relevant test would be to have several new runners, and several that are 1 year old, 2 years old, etc (all having similar amounts of use within each batch), and pull-testing them all on the same machine, with the same protocol, on the same day.

Which descent did you use, and was the canyon flooded? I'm heading to RR in a couple days and will likely climb a route or two on Mt Wilson.

I think finishing inti watana via res arete is a good option (although I have never done the lower part of res arete--I have heard mixed reviews of that route). This way you get to climb more pitches and summit the mountain.

Really? What page? I'd be surprised if that thing ever formed real water ice. I don't have the book with me, but IIRC it is mentioned at the end of the Big Four description under "rumors of ice" and is said to be similar to the lines on Pyramid.

"Washington Ice" mentions some good moderate ice lines on Vesper's North Face, but I don't know if they would be "in" right now...

Anyone been up Cascade River Road recently? The forest service website says it is snowed in before Marble Creek...but the site said the same thing two weeks ago and the warm weather must have melted SOME of that snow.

Anyone driven Cascade River Road recently? The forest service website says it is snowed in before Marble Creek...but the website said the exact same thing two weeks ago, and the warm weather must have melted some of that snow...

Thanks for putting this together. Vanishing Point looks amazing!! Great work on both the climb and the film-making.

3,200 meters of climbing??? Sounds like a worthy objective!

Right on! Hopefully you took some pictures?

NWAC's website seems to be down right now, and NOAA doesn't seem to agree with their forecast. Central Cascades: Today: Sunny. Freezing level 2000 feet. Afternoon pass temperatures in the mid 20s to lower 30s. East wind in the passes 10 to 15 mph. Tonight: Clear. Freezing level 2000 feet. Southeast wind in the passes 10 to 15 mph. Friday: Sunny. Freezing level 2500 feet. Afternoon pass temperatures near 30 wind in the passes light.. Friday night: Mostly clear. Freezing level 2500 feet wind in the passes light.. Saturday: Mostly sunny. Freezing level 3000 feet. Afternoon pass temperatures in the upper 20s to mid 30s wind in the passes light.. Saturday night: Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain and snow. Snow level 2000 feet. Sunday and Sunday night: Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain and snow. Snow level 4500 feet. Afternoon pass temperatures in the upper 20s to mid 30s. Monday through Wednesday: Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain and snow. Snow level around 5000 feet. Afternoon pass temperatures in the 30s.

A friend of mine used a 9.6mm blue water rope 2-3 times a week for close to a year. It held at least 100 lead falls, and there were no durability issues. I have never personally owned a BW rope though.

Way to go, Eric & Jason! Thanks for the report.

Arc Teryx pants come in tall sizes. link

I have never weighed my pack, but given your description it seems like 20-25lbs on climb is a lot? eg: Pack: 1 lb 2 quarts water: 4 lb Sleeping bag: 1 lb Sleeping pad: 0.5 lb Ice axe: 1 lb Food: 1-2 lbs Puffy jacket: <1 lb Headlamp, sunscreen, and other misc stuff: 1 lb This adds up to ~11 pounds.

4 hours would be pretty slow for a speed ascent of LC, given that the Nose--which is three times the length and much more sustained--has been climbed in under 3 hours.

I think of simul-climbing like soloing--except that if the climbing gets slightly challenging, the leader or second can anchor in and give a fixed belay at any time (this is especially handy when long stretches of scrambling/low 5th are interspersed with short steps of more difficult climbing).

I just saw this movie too--I highly recommend it. It's amazing that there is still the myth of a controversy, despite years of absolute scientific consensus on the nature of climate change. I think Gore drew a good parallel in the film to the former "controversy" about the link between smoking and lung cancer.

So is it also not an onsight if you get to a crux section and downclimb to a stance a couple times before sending?

I bought an iron at Fred Meyer for $9.99, which I use on the "low" setting.