SmilingWhiteKnuckles

Way to go, shortyj! Thanks for posting your report.

Great report! A memorable outing and achievement before setting out on new adventures. Cool stuff.

Thanks for the link, Alex. Looks gorgeous in fall. The larches up there are something to behold for sure! It definitely makes more sense to go from Leroy Creek to Carne, losing elevation rather than gaining it...but I was meeting my buddy Jeremy on Sunday for the Maude climb. Beautiful area. I liked reading about your owl encounter. We had a pretty funny interaction with a deer returning on the Phelps Creek trail, who even as we got to within 20 feet, just kept eating like we were all at the zoo...

"We're going to get cosy tonight" "I'm actually looking forward to it, cause these are all very warm people." Brilliant touch with the wigs. A real throwback ascent...when was the CNR first climbed?? Nice climbs all!

Great report. How cool to do all that with your dad! Regarding the hair extensions, is that what you call getting spruced up?

Wow. Great climb and a gripping read!

Trip: Mt. Maude - North Face (w/Carne - Leroy High Route) Date: 7/30/2011 Trip Report: Forgot how long the Chiwawa River Road drive is! 3.5 hours after leaving the house I was at the Phelps Creek trailhead. So Saturday at 10am, I hiked up the Carne Mtn. trail and climbed the peak with the old fire lookout on it before realizing Carne Mtn. was the one just to the north. Climbed Carne then headed north on the Carne - Leroy High Route. Neglecting to bring a USGS map or in fact any map that showed the route, I was left to guess and second guess the route northward. After hours of doubt and questioning and arduous cross-country travel sprinkled with occasional trail sightings, I was deep in the willage wondering if I had bitten off too large of a chunk from my cushioned swivel chair at work. I sat down, ate some food, treated some water and gave a long look at the maps I had (a Green Trails, and two printed screenshots from Google maps). Can't recall where I was at this point--one of the several upper basins on the high route: Box Creek or Chipmunk Creek...but I reasoned that traversing at the 6300 - 6400' level would take forever as the mileage racked up considerably traversing forested and steep ground around each ridge. The more arduous but more direct route would basically stay on snow, ascending each basin up its north branch. And these were similar in that there was a little shelf or saddle at the top of each of these basins from which one could descend a bit before traversing or going up again. So finally from around 6300' below (and north of) Carne Mtn, I reached a high point of 7200' and could see that I was now just below the south shoulder of Maude. Boot-skiing down from here and crossing another basin, I reached a 6700' shelf from which I could see the 6100' flat meadow/camping area at the top of the Leroy Creek trail. Phew. It was 6pm and I felt pretty battered. It was an easy decision to retrace my steps a few hundred yards to a little copse of larch trees around which the snow had melted within 40 feet of a snowmelt water source. If the mosquitoes down at 6100' feet were as voracious and agile as they were near Carne, staying high might be a pretty good call. In summation, the Carne-Leroy High Route kicked my ass. It was one of those good and necessary ass-kickings with my desk chair hubris clanking and skidding down the street like a dented aluminum can. I couldn't even stay awake for the new moon star display, falling into a VERY deep and pleasant sleep from 9pm to 6pm. IMG_9819 by j4cooper. Carne Mountain in the center of the frame. IMG_9830 by j4cooper. Bivy site w/Buck Mountain in the background. After a bar and some tea, I packed up and head for the 6100' meadow and meeting spot with Jeremy. I figured he wouldn't be there for awhile since I'd underestimated the travel time by an hour, but I wanted to be there around 8am to wait for him. After a brief good-morning schwack, I entered the clearing and saw this guy right in the middle taking off his pack. "Jeremy!" I hollered. "Yes, Yes, Yes!" I couldn't believe it. He had preceded me to the clearing by an incredibly serendipitous 3 minutes! So so good to see him and have our crazy meeting plan work out so well. We hiked out of the basin at 9am and got to the 7-Fingered Jack/Maude col at 9am. We roped up and traversed steep snow above big cliffs until arriving at a big rocky cleft. We unroped and scrambled across class 3 ledges until reaching the north face route proper at 7600'. We followed bucket steps from the day prior--Jorad M. (thanks!), simul-soloing up predominantly soft, 40 to 50 degree snow to the summit at 9,082' and 2:30pm. The weather had gone from cloudy in the morning to beautiful and clearing skies and we kicked it on the summit just as Jeremy had hoped for about an hour and a half. Glorious! Descended an amazing display of low growing alpine flowers on the barren south shoulder, around a spine of rock on some snow and hooked a hard skiers right to traverse on snow all the way back to the basin and the Leroy Creek trail. After a couple cool deer encounters on the trail, we got back to the car around 9pm as darkness fell, very glad for jogging shoes. An amazing trip! Thank you Jeremy! IMG_9855 by j4cooper. Incredible "Y" moraine in the upper Entiat Valley. IMG_9861 by j4cooper. Jeremy climbing the steepest section as we near the summit. The route is nearly visible to the 7-Fingered Jack/Maude col here. IMG_9867 by j4cooper. On top! More photos here: Mt. Maude (Flickr) Gear Notes: Ice axe, crampons. Approach Notes: Snow level roughly 6300'.

Very cool. Nice compilation, Lowell! Amazing shot of the summit pyramid from the south. Wow.

Anyone know if this is open and driveable? Wondering about access to The Swauth and what snow levels might be in the region for potential ascent...

My questions were a bit unclear. I was asking 1)is Baker Lake Road open to Shannon Creek Road--FR 1152 and 2)is Shannon Creek Road open and how far can you drive up it? Thanks though, your answer is definitely helpful. If anyone has been up there and can add further info though, please do!

Does anyone know if and how far one can drive up FR 1152 (1152-014??)? And indeed if the Baker Lake Road will get one there...

yep, rapped the south face/rib and even down into the snowy gully below the base of that climb. But the ropes got stuck when we pulled them....The beginning of the shenanigans...

Scott, It was a gorgeous day! My brother-in-law, Zoltan, is the one who turned me onto climbing in the first place, so yes, he is still hooked, just doesn't get out much. Roger (who loved it) said something along these lines: "I'm good for about one of these every two years." Hope you are well.

Der Zahn am Snoqualmie Pass.

Damn! Snow cones! Who needs hot tea anyway. Nice meeting you both in the parking lot. What a day up there! And a beautiful night. Your headlamps coming down to Source Lake were sort of comforting...comraderie I guess. We did wonder why you were going so slowly and it was good to find out why. Old geezer my ass, that's one burly approach and descent with just boots! And Friedrich, I liked your report. You can probably tell, I have trouble keeping things concise...oh well.

Trip: The Tooth - Northeast Slab Date: 2/20/2011 Trip Report: Climbing focuses all one's thoughts and energies sharply on one single point: the present. And there's nothing quite like a winter alpine climb to magnify this focus so much as to light the present on fire! The day was cleared on the schedule, hall pass granted, partner secured, forecast looked prime. But Friday rolled around and Mark emailed awful news that he had a fever/flu and was out. I scrambled around asking people if they wanted to go climbing. My buddies all seemed to have prior commitments or were going skiing. Well into the evening Saturday, after deciding to go out solo and trying to figure out what sort of compromise to the ambitions must be made, both Roger and Zoltan came through with a yes! This was a first winter alpine climb for Roger and it meant some gear-borrowing and a general gear-gathering/prepping hell-fest on Saturday night which had Roger and I up till about 1am. Turns out Zoltan fared no better on the sleep, but we managed to leave town about 5:30am and were on the trail at 7:30am. There were 3 other cars in the parking lot with a group of 4 skiers circumnavigating Chair and one party of 3 aiming for the South Face of the Tooth. At that point, we were heading for Chair. As we hiked (Rog and I on skis, Z on snowshoes), I suggested that we consider the NE Slab of the Tooth as an option. As we quickly neared the decision point, Z reasoned that proximity of the climb and the fact that I'd not done before, made it a good option for our party. Soon we were skinning up through the trees left of the gully coming down from Piss Pass Basin. After seeing inspiring photos of Wayne and Tom S's climb of Pineapple Express the day prior and with the steady cold temps, I imagined that the route would be in good shape, and indeed it was. After getting nice and sweaty wallowing up from the gear depot to the base of the route in deep snow and hot sun, we entered into the shade and Z belayed as I lead up the first pitch. Our route seemed to vary from the Selected Climbs description a bit. Our first pitch went steeply up the corner on snice (good sticks). I got in a picket and a weak screw and after wandering around a bit at the end of our fifty meter ropes, downclimbed a bit and found a really cool existing belay behind a huge wind-fin of powder snow. Could've bivied in this thing! Z and Roger followed with Roger getting the spindrift baptism on his first pitch of steep Cascade snice. He made it to the belay with frozen hands, eyes wide, mumbling profanities. A good start! The next pitch went traversing left across a couple flutings finishing with a near-vertical step of great thin ice over rock. The belay was a comforting huge tree. Zoltan followed arriving at the belay completely stoked. Roger came after going up a full 20 feet right of where Z and we dubbed his interesting and more challenging line the "spice route". The newbie wants a bit more! The third pitch went directly up the fall line toward another belt of trees and the ridge just above them on thin and variable snice. I deadmanned a picket just above the belay and below where the angle steepened. Tried to place a screw another 30 feet up, couldn't get it to go, and just kept climbing upward. About 80 feet above the questionable picket on the last bit of visible "ice" before moves into the tree belt, I finally got a VERY comforting 13cm screw to go in. Zoltan said he was nervous belaying, but this placement was "reason to hope". And so we dub this pitch, which ended at another great tree belay just 30 feet below the ridgecrest. Zoltan and Roger cruised up following steadily to the belay, arriving happy. Looking down the pitch, the exposure was ridiculous and awesome. The last pitch was short but insecure in that aerated, thin ice covered slabby rock. I placed a picket 10 feet above the belay and continued up, there was a little band of rock to get around or over. I couldn't get any pro into it, but it had some cool handholds and turf sticks just above it, and these afforded a way right and to the crest and sunshine! Twenty feet up the spine to another huge tree and the slab pitches were done! Zoltan flew straight up to me seeming to float like helium--straight over the small rock band with nary a pause. Roger again following slower but steadily after, figuring it all out on the fly, cursing, kicking around for a semi-solid stick with his crampons, fighting off the incessant pull of insecurity and the void below him as he moves toward the ridgecrest and sunshine. At that point, we ate and laughed and sat a bit in a spot on the west side of the ridge in the sun. There was still "the surprise" but we surmounted this final difficulty and continued to the top along the west side of the ridge to the summit as the sun lowered toward the horizon and clouds moved in from the west. It was cold and beautiful. We made it off the climb rappelling hastily in the fading light, got the rope stuck on the last pitch, freed it after shenanigans, had a couple more near disasters on the way down, and made it back to the car around 8:30pm to warmth, beers, provisions, and falling-out laughter as we joked and celebrated the day. What a great climb! Here's the full set of photos. Gear Notes: 2 50m ropes 2 pickets 3 ice screws 3 cams (1" to 2.5") 3 tri cams 5 small nuts 1 knife blade 10 slings We used the slings, the pickets, one ice screw on any single pitch, all the cams simul-climbing the ridge, and several nuts.

Great shots and report. Wondered what this peak was in my own climb of Mt. Daniel just three weeks ago ( ). Cool to see how much snow has melted out since then (Peggy Pond was half frozen). Your shot "the drain" provides a great vantage of Cathedral Peak and you can even make out the Peggy's Pond trail traversing just below Cathedral's cliffs. Awesome.

Although I didn't find a TR here on CC.com, I found your exciting story of "Plan 9" The Blob on the NWMJ: http://www.mountaineers.org/nwmj/07/071_Pickets.html Committing stuff!

Dang! Way to blaze it! Love that route and those wild spires on the buttress near the top--fantastic exposure. A lot of snow in the Marble Creek basin still...for August.

Question for those who've climbed Inspiration's East Ridge: how would 2x40m 1/2 ropes do for this climb? Would they work, or are the leads longer?

Animals! Great pics. What a trip!

I recently climbed it and if you're not doing the SE ridge, but sticking to snow, it shouldn't be a problem if your dog can handle 35degree snow slopes. The Peggy's Pond trail is pretty steep too, but I imagine an alpine dog could handle. Beautiful area! See photos:

Cool stuff! Way to get it again, Casey!

It has been done in winter, probably by more parties than Colin and Mark, but I am not sure about this... http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=643839 Great climb and TR and pics! Nice work.

Nice going Gullbergs! Thanks for posting all the cool pics. Hoping to get in there soon!