colt45

I have always done it as 2 pitches with a 60m rope, i.e. one pitch from Saber ledge (I think every route on upper castle rock goes in 2 pitches). From Saber ledge you would come up slightly short of the summit with a 50m but the last bit is an easy scramble.

Just got back from a few days at Red Rocks myself: while 2 days of snow slowed us down a bit I can confirm that there are lots of sweet crack climbs, and some of them are actually easier than 5.13. Red Zinger (10d): Our Father (10d): I disagree with Alpinfox regarding Beulah's Book, I thought it was awesome! Other cool climbs we did that are worth checking out include unimpeachable groping (5.10+, 7 pitches, fully bolt protected) and the super classic dream of wild turkeys (~12 pitches, 5.10).

Base of el cap may not be a good idea due to icefall danger from the summit. Also yosemite really is not the best beginner area as there are very few easier climbs that are high quality (and the few that do exist are extremely crowded). The Leap is a much, much better destination in this regard. But if yosemite is where you want to go, check out the Supertopo guidebook. A few good moderate yose cragging areas include sunnyside bench, bishop's terrace, knob hill, and camp 4 wall.

Maybe 45 degrees at the very top and 40 the rest of the way? The weekend's deep powder made the run very forgiving, but in firmer conditions it would be a different experience altogether.

I think we were the second group down the run today; it was nice to have the slope pre-tested! (although obviously we checked out the stability before committing to it). Crooked Couloir also had plenty of fresh powder, good stuff. Unfortunately we skiied Phantom late in the day after it crusted up, so we didn't even look at the waterfall option.

Actually 4 climbers (2 pairs) seem to be visible in the photo, check it out: high-res version here

There was also continuous rockfall in the Quarry area yesterday, with something coming down every minute or two. Not that there is any reason to be in the Quarry, but some of the rocks bounced around to the base of Thin Fingers.

I plan to get renters insurance to cover my gear (e.g. in case it's stolen from my car); has anyone had good/bad experiences with specific companies? I heard that some of them put limits on coverage of sporting goods. And what would be REALLY nice (but perhaps unrealistic) is a policy that would also cover camping gear that's left in a campsite for the day, or a pack stashed at the base of a route...

Thanks for the info, I just picked up some 404s on ebay. I was at the marmot store recently and they have a box of replacement parts for 404's behind the counter in their rental department, although I don't recall if they had crampons.

Anyone know the difference between these two models of binding? I can't find any info about the 400 but I found some for sale online, and from photos they look similar to the 404.

I have done a lot of the above mentioned routes in late Dec/early Jan and have never been TOO cold (even on shady climbs like epi, crimson chrysalis, price of darkness). Also while the descent for olive oil is in the shade, I have done it in winter 3 times and have never had any trouble. And it seemed to be comfortable temps on the route regardless of when we started (7am, 10am, and 12pm). But maybe I have just been lucky.

Climb: Persis-Index Traverse- Date of Climb: 10/9/2005 Trip Report: Yuko and I did this traverse yesterday; it's a lot of fun but is longer than one might expect with some tricky route-finding. We ran into a very experienced climber going solo who was able to help us stay on track. In total it took 10 hours car-to-car, with good visibility on the way out and a white-out on the way back. The summit was fully encased in fog, so we'll have to return another time to actually see the view! Beta: (1) when traversing the ridge behind Persis, be sure to stay low passing point 5205--then cut up to the ridge when you reach the small lake. (2) at the basin below the summit of Index, we went up on the left via a gully that led to some 3rd class scrambling. This was easy and quick, and may be preferable to the center and right options mentioned in Smoot which would take much longer. Gear Notes: lightweight boots, no axe.

If you have any interest in splitter granite cracks, definitely do Central Pillar of Frenzy and Serenity/Sons! In my opinion, Valley ratings aren't that different from Leavenworth (and are easier than Index) so you should have lots of options.

Awesome! Thanks for the detailed trip report. Backbone has been on my list of routes to avoid because of the horror stories of loose rock up high--it's good to know that this section can be avoided.

Climb: Wine Spires-Chablis, Pernod, Burgandy Date of Climb: 9/5/2005 Trip Report: eric8 and I were hoping to get up all four wine spires yesterday: the plan was to climb the standard route on Chablis, traverse to the Chablis-Pernod notch, climb the 5.9 south face pitch to Pernod's summit, go to the ground and climb Rebel Yell, descend to the Chianti-Burgandy notch, then climb the end of the corkscrew route up Burgandy. Well this was the plan anyway, but we had to settle for 3 out of 4. In retrospect we should have brought two ropes! details: From Burgandy col, we descended really loose dirt/scree. An ice axe was nice for this part. However this is the only part where an axe is handy, and our crampons remained strapped to our packs all day. There was a tiny bit of ice on the east side of the spires that we were able to walk around: We then hiked over to the base of Chablis which involved a lot of scree-covered, occasionally icy 3rd/4th class. I found this to be pretty sketchy but it didn't slow Eric down at all. Eventually we reached the start of the climb. The standard route up Chablis is a blast, with outstanding rock quality and super fun climbing. There is one section of unprotected 5.5 face climbing so it wouldn't be fun if 5.5 is your limit, but the climb was quite enjoyable and went by quickly. The face pitch (up and right on knobs): From the summit of Chablis we traversed a ropelength to the Chablis-Pernod notch (easy scrambling): We then climbed up the south face of Pernod. I was intimidated by all the lichen on this pitch, so I turned the lead over to Eric who cruised up to the summit. The climbing is somewhat intimidating but extremely good, and if all the lichen were scrubbed off the pitch would be a classic anywhere. We were making reasonably good time, but we had a lot of trouble getting down with one rope. After a couple of short rappels toward the Pernod-Chianti notch we didn't see any fixed anchors, so we traversed back across to Chablis and down-climbed the climbing route. This was pretty easy but time-consuming. Since neither of us really wanted to down-solo the 5.5 face section, we left a nut so that the second person could down climb it on toprope. Once we were back on the ground we had to down-climb the icy approach scramble to get back to our packs. This took me a really long time, as falling here would be really bad, but Eric again had no trouble! Apparently this sort of terrain gets easier when you're spending a lot of time in the mountains. It was getting sort of late and we didn't want to start up Rebel Yell, as this would probably commit us to doing Burgandy too since Rebel Yell is supposed to require two ropes. Accordingly we scrapped this plan, and decided to do the North Face of Burgandy since that was supposed to be easy to descend with one rope. Since all the icy scrambling had drained much of my energy, I let Eric lead all the pitches. NF Burgandy was a blast, with super fun easy climbing on solid rock up to a big ledge. From here we climbed straight up past fixed rap anchors to another big ledge. At this point there seemed to be several ways to go; we went up and left to the skyline which involved spectacular climbing past a bolt. Eric nearing the bolt: We then rapped to the ground, which was easy with one rope. In fact, there is really no advantage to having a second rope on this route since that would just increase the chances of having the ropes get jammed when pulling them across the heavily featured rock. We then hiked back to the car, which was without incident until it started to get dark and I got lost in the trees. Fortunately I was able to shout over to Eric who was still on the trail; I thrashed through the brush to find him retrieving the ice-cold beers that he had strategically stashed in the stream that morning. From here, a little more hiking and a long drive back finished off a fun day of climbing. Gear Notes: A second rope would be handy for Chablis.

After we reached the top of the corner, I initially kept traversing up and right from the belay; after almost a ropelength I came across an old piton at the end of this ramp. It looked possible to climb up here (and maybe then we would have been on route?). But since I thought that I had done the "correct" first pitch it seemed way too far to traverse, plus the rock in this area was steeper which would give us fewer options if it was not the correct way. So I back-traversed a ways and went up a decent-looking crack that started to get dirty after 50 feet. From here we just kept going up since it looked about as good as any other option, and the rock became really dirty in places.

OK, Alpinedave set me straight on the routefinding. We were off-route for basically the entire lower ridge, so maybe it DOES have good climbing! I should have looked at Beckey's description. Don't follow the yellow line (the way we went), instead follow the RED line (photo by alpinedave): From the initial ledge, don't go up this corner: instead, go up THIS corner! (photo by alpinedave):

From the trip reports I have seen, crossing the glacier without an axe & crampons might be super sketchy. You can avoid the glacier by doing the complete ridge but then the climb is twice as long. Personally, for a 1-day ascent I would approach from Ingalls, bring an axe+aluminum crampons, and just do the upper ridge. For the full ridge you don't need axe/pons regardless of which approach is used. If you have time to set up a car shuttle and then go back after the climb to pick up the other car, you might as well just use the time to hike in the day before and bivy at goat pass.

I have heard similar things regarding the quality and difficulty of Bear DNB being less than expected, eg check out this trip report

I think that this is a cool pursuit, but given that your average speed was 1.5 mph it is likely that the trail has been done much faster. Example: since the PCT is ~2,650 miles, someone who does it in 66 days is averaging 1.7 mph, 24 hours per day...

The rock quality was fine, it was the quarter-inch layer of lichen that covered everything that made it unpleasant. The lichen would appear suddenly in places on the rock and then remain for a couple hundred feet before disappearing again, so we couldn't just follow clean rock to stay on route. I had to scrape it out of cracks to place pro and clean it off the footholds to climb in some places.

Yeah, we were definitely hoping to travel faster. Getting off-route on the approach hike, and again on the climb itself, definitely did not help! I think that one of the big differences between 'alpine rock' climbs and regular multi-pitch rock climbing is the route-finding, and this is a skill that we definitely need to develop. We got a photo of you guys crossing the glacier while we were still wandering around on our way to the ridge toe:

Good point--although the upper ridge is probably more classic by virtue of being such a narrow, striking line that it's impossible to get off route!

Climb: Mt Stuart-Full N Ridge Date of Climb: 8/22/2005 Trip Report: Yuko had a few days off at the start of this week, and we had been looking forward to another trip to Squamish. Unfortunately, a few days before the vacation I experienced a sudden tearing noise in my shoulder while sport climbing...which required us to revise our plans somewhat. Since steep crack climbing would NOT help my shoulder recover, something longer and moderate sounded appealing. Stuart has the reputation for really good rock, and we have never really been alpine climbing, so we decided to give it a shot. A quick glance at a trail map convinced us that a bivy would make the climb more fun—4 to 7 hours each way for the approach & descent seemed like too much for one day. However, carrying a bunch of weight would NOT be fun. So we bought some lighter sleeping bags, and a couple of other items we had been planning to upgrade for some time. Our full bivy gear came to less than 3 pounds per person, which seemed pretty reasonable. With Yuko's 20L pack and my 30L, we had just enough room for everything. We hiked in on Sunday: with a late start (1:30pm), a 45 minute nap at Ingall's Lake (the area is so beautiful that we had to stop for a bit), and a routefinding error (stay high after passing Ingalls lake to avoid going down and then up an extra 1,000 feet!!), we made it most of the way to the ridge toe by dark. We found an awesome bivy spot with views of Stuart's northwest face, and set the alarm for 4:30 am. Unfortunately our sleeping bags were so comfortable that we didn't hear the alarm, waking at sunrise (5:30am). After brewing coffee, packing our gear and finishing the approach we started climbing at 7:45am. Oh well, so much for the 'alpine start'... We were off route for probably half of the lower ridge, and encountered a fair amount of lichen-covered 5.9 (we used Kearney's description, which was sort of vague). Eventually we got back on route, and after simul-climbing an easy ramp for a few hundred feet that was on the right side of the ridge crest, we decided to climb up a 70' step to gain the ridge crest proper...what a mistake! This led to more lichen-covered 5.9, which was obviously off-route. Since getting back on route seemed like more trouble than it was worth, we kept going to the notch. The lower ridge had taken close to 7 hours, and it was now 3pm! We had been hoping to move a lot faster, and retreat was of course impossible (well, we could cross the Stuart glacier without ice axe or crampons...but that really didn't sound like a good idea). Fortunately, from the notch onwards the climbing is easier and the route-finding is extremely straightforward. We simul-climbed a bunch of easier terrain to the gendarme. At the base of the gendarme, we were suddenly exposed to 40+mph winds. We were already fatigued from climbing all day, and the abruptly severe weather drained us further. Yuko took an unexpected 10' fall while leading the 5.9 lieback pitch...since she normally has no problem onsighting 5.10 with a pack on, this was not a good sign. The wind was even worse at the start of the offwidth pitch, and our fingers had gone completely numb. I pulled on gear in order to climb this pitch as fast as possible to get us out of the wind, as were both approaching dangerous levels of hypothermia. Unfortunately the next belay ledge was even more exposed, and the situation was becoming serious. Fortunately, the third gendarme pitch (up and left on a crack) led to a well-sheltered ledge. We were running low on daylight, and briefly considered bivying here. But, the terrain looked easy up ahead and we really wanted to get off the mountain and down into the warmer, less-windy valley. We continued to the top, simul-climbing most of the way. We reached the summit 5 hours after leaving the notch, and utilized the hour of remaining daylight to find the descent (we used the beta from Nelson’s guide, and it was pretty straightforward). After the long but easy hike down the Cascadian couloir trail, we hit the Ingall’s Creek trail around midnight. Since we had bivy gear and extra food, fuel & coffee, we slept here and hiked out the next day at a leisurely pace. Overall, the lower ridge is not particularly good. We were probably off route for much of it, but even when we were definitely on route, it pales in comparison to the spectacular nature of the upper ridge. The coolest parts of the climb were the views of the heavily crevassed glaciers and the two comfortable bivys. The upper ridge alone would be a fun climb, whereas adding the lower ridge made for a long day with an overall lower quality of climbing.

Thanks for posting the photos; it looks like a fun route. Where did you get the topo?