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ken4ord

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Everything posted by ken4ord

  1. Just returned from Dorado Needle and Eldorado beautiful double feature at more relaxed pace. Also nice to spend some time with my friend tanstaafl Notes: Colder temps this last weekend with a thin layer of snow on top made for some easy travel on the glacier. There was no smoke, maybe the slightest haze the first day . No moat issues. Mr. Sharp-shinned brought up some friends there was three of them flying around Dorado Needle while we made our ascent. Final note is to self, need to get out more.
  2. We were able to retrieve the gear of Jesse Cherian and David Anderson from Sherpa. If you know them have them PM me, if they want it back.
  3. I didn’t get a partner for this weekend and was going to head up to WA pass and go skiing. If you want to meet up out there for a climbing day that would be great. Send me a message if you are interested.
  4. Anyone free for Memorial Day weekend? I managed to get the whole weekend off and want a grand adventure. I don’t get out often due to the of work and family, but still maintain reasonable shape. I try to do an adventure once a month, but need to schedule it. My kids are 12 and 10 and they occasionally like to get out as well. I am 49 and lead comfortably at 9’s and 10’s depending depending on gym time I get, used to lead 5-5+ water ice though it seems it has been forever, getting into running and would like to do some running and climbing. Anyways, things I am thinking about for this weekend are skiing in WA pass, Goat wall climbing, Squamish, Smith if the weather crapped out everywhere, or easy-moderate alpine rock & ice classics.
  5. Awesome good see people are still getting at it like this. I am the same place, a couple kids and wife at home, limited time, so starting to up my mileage with goal of completing a marathon distance this year, next year turning 50 and wanting the legs to turn out 50, and would like to start incorporating some climbing and scrambles. We'll see how it all goes and maybe try to crank out the wonderland the following year. Anyways thanks for the inspiration to keep driving forward with these goals. It would be cool to meet some you like folk for day out in the hills. Thanks. Btw great video.
  6. Nicely done, that is a route I would love to get on sometime. Some day.....
  7. We’ll just got back a few days ago and realize the Nez de Zmutt and Zmutt are two different routes. Either way it didn’t matter since after month of beautiful stable weather when arrived at the base clouds had moved in and snow and rain was forecasted for our climbing day, so Hörnli was the route du jour. I’ll put up a TR later. Oh well what I found out was Zmutt was rated anywhere between 5.7-5.9, I guess it depends on the time of year and what line you take. The Nez was rated 5.11.
  8. Trip: Mt. Slesse - NEB Trip Date: 07/19/2018 Trip Report: Anyways went up and climbed North East Butress on Mt. Slesse with friends Chuck and Yale on July 19th-21st. Great trip full of adventure. Went up on the 19th, on the way up got the truck stuck and had visions of spending the weekend digging the sucker out. Luckily after a half hour of piling rocks and digging out the undercarriage we were able to drive away and continue as planned. The plan was to hike to the view point today and check out pocket glacier, there was word that it was still in place. Which it was, we hung out for a while listening and watching and all seemed good and stable, but not completely reassuring after hearing tales of it sliding from the likes of Otto. Anyways we decided to give it a go and check it out. The next day we were up at 2:00 and hitting the trail at 2:30, from the parking lot. The plan was to get to the glacier before the sun hit it. It appeared our plan worked out since we arrived before the sun and things seemed quite stable. After a quick crossing we were finally on the climb proper and we could put all the apprehension about the glacier behind us, though I kept thinking what if we need to retreat. Luckily that didn’t happen. Not much to say except it was a stellar climb with lots of pitches. Chuck led the crux 10a in good style with an big overnight pack on. We were running short on daylight towards the end so motor out the class 4 scramble at the end, but we’re still benighted and spent the night on the summit. Since it was a planned bivy I was quite comfortable I had a sleeping bag, even had coffee and muesli in the morning though cold. It was by far one best bivy I have had on a climb. The crossover descent was sort of uneventful, though there was still a lot of snow slopes in place, which probably slowed things down, but we eventually back down to the car around 4:00pm on the 21st. Can’t stop thinking of the climbing and can’t wait for my Upcoming Matterhorn trip. Gear Notes: Alpine rack Approach Notes: Missed the parking lot on the drive in. Basically where there is a sign pointing to Mt. Rexford is where the parking is for Slesse.
  9. Hi all, looking for some info on the Nez de Zmutt route. Unfortunately my French sucks and most of the write ups are in French. Anyone got any information in English you are willing to share? Current route descriptions, current route conditions or tr's all would be helpful thanks. Note: Interested in Zmutt not any of the other ridges.
  10. So we went up last weekend and the glacier was still hanging in there. When we crossed it, it seemed to be quite stable, but like other have said it could change quite rapidly. Luckily when we went up the day before to check it out it was sort of overcast. The next day when we crossed it we got on it and across before the sun hit it, that meant a 2:00am wake up, 2:30am start from the parking.
  11. Partner bagged on me this week and having a hard time finding a replacement. Anyone up for skiing in WA pass or getting out on some rock? Email me at ken4ord@yahoo.com
  12. I was getting killed in Squamish, not killing it. Though it is nice to get back on the rock.
  13. Otto and tanstaafl it was a most excellent weekend. I had been wanting to go up into Squire Creek and somewhat intimidated by stories I had heard about the area. I was pleasantly surprised in what I saw and what we climbed. Good times for sure, it was great to be back on the PNW rock again.
  14. Pete, you do a pretty good job yourself, keeping life interesting. We should catch up this summer, I will be back in town end of July and a good portion of August.
  15. Well I finally made it back to the African continent and I am totally stoked to be here in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It has been three months and we are starting to get settled in, finally found a house and car and sometime in the near future I will try to find some work so we can stay for a while. I must say Ethiopia is much different than I expected, I guess I was still thinking of the days Sally Struthers. It is amazing up north is like southern Utah, huge washes, massive sandstone walls and free standing towers. Up along the border of Etriea there is some cool columnar basalt walls maybe 200m tall, granite and quartzite walls as well. In Addis we are working setting up a sporto wall (Amora Gedel), we got 9 routes established so far from 5.9-5.12(?) and many more to put in. Then there are other places throughout the country with some of the bigger and badder routes going at 8a and up to 850m. http://www.dpmclimbing.com/climbing-videos/watch/edu-marin-and-marco-jubes-samayata-ethiopia http://www.mountainproject.com/scripts/Search?query=Ethiopia&Submit=Search Again the mountain biking is off the hook, crazy. Tons of 1000m+ technical descents and I have barely scratched the surface. The weekend before last we did an 80km ride with 2500m of climbing and descending. I had a continuous 1000m drop off a volcano that was just a blast, (can't wait for the body armor to arrive and I think I might have to invest in a full face helmet again). Tomorrow the girls are off from school so we are going hiking and clearing trail for a mountain bike race this next weekend. Then there is all the history this country has castles, Rastafarian birth place, many different tribal ethic groups, rock hewn churches, Queen Sheeba, the Three Kings resting place, Lucy, and on and on. Then their love of alcoholic beverages (I am definitely digging the Tej, a local mead), coffee and khat. What a fun place. So expect some TR's in the future and if Ethiopia is on your radar drop me a line. Cheers PS- I'll work on getting some pics up when I get a chance.
  16. In my opinion it is too bad you did Kili instead of Mt. Meru. It is a much more scenic mountain than Kili. $70 for a taxi is rip off. You can hire a land cruiser or land rover for $100 a day, that mean do drive in the park and check out some of the critter and get dropped off at the base. Sorry I haven't been on CC for ages and didn't see ur post till now.
  17. Couldn't you have left well enough alone and been happy pulling on other parts of your body.
  18. Hell yeah!!!!!!!! That looks awesome. A friend went there last year, but never shared any photos. It is definitely on the list now!
  19. Awesome looks like a nice trip. I got to get there one of these days. I remember wanting to go there and seeing there was a lot of climbing areas there. Now I would like to just get somewhere, where there is some climbing. Hopefully see you this summer.
  20. Well I am off in a few more days, can't wait, been doing way too much planning for this trip and training for this trip, it is finally coming together. We'll try to make it over 5-5000+m passes in 11 days. No pack carrying this time hopefully, we got some horse that will carrying all of our gear. Should be one crazy adventure. Now it is time to do my 600 rep HIT workout.
  21. Way to throw down, geezs fly in, one day of scoping potential lines, three days later fly out with new FA, impressive!
  22. Hey Jason, Yeah I carried everything myself, had enough to do roughy 2-3 day overnights in the open and the weight down to 15-20 lbs. That includes food, water, tools, bag, first aid, emergency beacon (request on my wife's behalf), etc. Realistically you could go a lot lighter, but I had a permit to go up into Naar and Phu Khola, which was going to be 2 nights in the open, but when I got to the canyon the weather was bad, with clouds down to about 3500m and snow to 3000m and that route required a 5500m remote pass, so I opted out on that section to do some other stuff. Throng La was a carry all the way up, except for three tiny bits. Just lift the bike and carry, it's not that hard. Put some padding on the forehead and hook the seat and have the top tube rest across my shoulders. Probably the toughest riding for sure was either Poon Hill, tonnes of root drops and stair cases, I was able to find a rideable route all the way up. Also my first day was one of the toughest, since I carried from 7am until 2:30pm out of Besishar to gain the ridge you are facing as you cross the river. I thought I spied a good trail cutting across the slope , but it turned out to be a cattle track that was hell. That was a 14 hour day. Yeah they almost got a road almost all the way through, but I stayed off it for the most part, as do most of the hikers. It is still tough by bike from what I was told that people normally only cycle about 60-70%, on the normal track. I ended up cycling about 80% even with the extra climbs I did and Poon Hill. The next trip I got horses hired for the whole trip since there will be 4-5000m+ passes and it is camping the whole way, no tea houses.
  23. After 1:03 I got off the bike to walk some BIG rock steps, if I went into them straight on I probably would have given it a go. On the bridge I was there for several minutes discussing with a guide, he was saying the bridge was broken. I bounce tested a few times then decided to go the route everyone else was going. At the bottom of the gorge, I just put the bike on the shoulders and huffed it out. Top of Throng La to Mukinath was a 45 min run. Basically I waited for the sun to come up at Throng Phedi 8am while all the Trekkers left at 3am, I still managed to beat most of them down to Mukinath and was well into my 4th or 5th beer by the time some of the later trekker were arriving. It was a great trip. I managed the whole circuit in 10 casual days including going up to Poon Hill and climbing up an extra three passes for some extra descending.
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