RichardKorry

I lost my partner last minute to do Mt Logan, Fremont Gl route, for Sunday and Monday. Anyone interested in summiting on one of Washington's over 9K peaks? The route is not technical (easy glacier travel, 3rd class rock). I'll drive and provide the food and scotch. Richard

I had a 10 year old camelback bladder leak when crack developed at the screwtop opening. They have since redesigned that part of the bladder. Otherwise I haven't had those problems. I do keep them in a waterproof stuff sack to minimize problems just in case it does leak. And I always bring an extra nagelene bottle as a backup and to make it easier to fill the bladder from trickles.

I've got a free weekend day and the weather appears to be cooperating. I'd be up for the Birthday Tour (WA Pass), Mt Ruth (near Baker), Eldorado (Cascade River Road), or ???? I live in Seattle. PM me or drop me an email to richk at cray dot com. Richard

I've had periodic lower back pain for over 35 years (I'm 52). I also got periodic knee pains whenever I began to train for a longer run (e.g. marathon) and never was able to run one. I did lots of hiking and cycling without too many problems. I've had orthodics for ~20 years. The first set were done by a podiatrist on Roosevelt and 90th and were hard plastic from the heel to the ball of the foot. I wore a flat spenco pad over it for padding. That helped my lower back and knees. Those died when I stepped on a nail on the trail heading up to the Grand Teton. The nail went up through my boot and cracked the hard plastic. Saved my foot though! I then went to BioSports NW which is not Prorobics on Eastlake. I had a cast orthotic that was full length. I am very bowlegged and need the anterior posted 5 degrees to get my leg into a neutral position. This really helped my skiing by allowing me to get onto my inside edge more than I have be able to before. It also helped running and lower back problems. I used these for ~ten years and had lots of success (i.e. no pain) running ultra-marathons, alpine climbing, backcounry skiing, etc. However I still had a tendency to get tendinitis in my knees and I would run with neoprene sleeves over them to keep them warm. Three years ago I got a really bad back spasms while heaving some heavy suitcases and not paying attention to body mechanics. That was a wake-up call that more needed to be done sooner rather than later. I then went to see Donna Bajelis who does a combination of Rolfing/Hellerwork and her own ideas that she calls "Structural Medicine". I'm a total info-mmercial for her as she's reworked my body. I no longer have a "sway back", back pain, tendinitis in my knees, or lots of other problems we tend to get as we age. She's hard to get an appt with and is really pretty expensive. But her type of therapy has really helped me. I still use orthotics for most everyday activies.

New Yorkers have been dealing with radio car thefts for a long time. Starting back in the 80s folks would not replace their stolen radio and leave a note on the car "No Radio". Sometimes they still got broken into with the thieves leaving a "Just checking" in response. This has been a problem as long as there have been trailheads and will continue to be a problem. I don't know of any solution other than getting dropped off at the trailhead. I never leave my wallet in the car; it comes with me. I no longer buy an after-market radio for my car; the stock radio doesn't seem to be the thief magnet that an after-market radio is. When you are on a road trip you are SOL since you have to leave your camping gear, toys that you aren't using (e.g. skis while you are cragging). You have to hope for the best. There are some threads on turns-all-year about parking problems up in Squamish area where the perps are torching the vehicles. Ouch! That hurts!

I looked at the BD Icon and was amazed that it didn't appear to have a lock-out design that prevented it from turning on. That sort of design was one of the nice features of my BD Moonlight. It certainly seemed bright. Does anyone that has used the Icon want to comment on the chances of it turning on in your pack. The Petzl MYO XP does have a lockout feature.

Steve Kobrin (www.stevenkobrin.com) was able to find me a policy that was about 45% cheaper than the best I could get through other insurance brokers. He's in NJ but everything was done by email, phone and FexEx so it was actually pretty painless.

I am still using a SunDog that won in contest 19 years ago. It is a top loader with a zipper that goes down one side that allows you to open it from the bottom to extract your shoes. I think this design offers the best of the top loader/clamshell designs. I personally would not buy a clamshell only design. My two cents... Things I like in crag pack: - enough room for a helmet, shoes, rope, rack - ability to cinch down so its small when all the above stuff is in use - top pocket for things I want easy access to - a "safe place" for keys, wallet, etc. things I don't want to ever "accidentally" to drop off from the 3rd belay. My sundog has pocket where a removable pad is and I use that as my safe place. - I like the removable pad for bivies. The pocket can also be used for hydration bladder.

Climb: Degenhardt & McMillian, South Pickets-S Ridge Degenhardt, W Ridge McMillian Date of Climb: 7/15/2006 Trip Report: I've lived in Washington for over twenty years but I've never been to the Pickets. I finally visited the Southern Pickets with my friend Chris Bretherton this past weekend. We hoped to climb Degenhardt, Inspiration S Face and W McMillian W Ridge over four days. Weather spoiled our plans for Inspiration but we had an excellent time over all. We drove to the Goodell Creek trailhead on Sat picking up our bc permit in Marblemount on the way. We parked at the far north end of the group campground and had some initial confusion finding the start of the trail. The unmarked trailhead leaves from the middle of the campground just north of the large boulder. We consulted the Kearney description and moved the car to just south of the campground to the start of the abandoned logging road. Three guys were gearing up for Terror N Buttress in super-light fashion. We followed the road pushing through the overgrowth for about 1/4 mile till we hit the well maintained trail from the campground (!). The road approach is great with nice views of a major sluff on the opposite side of the river that wiped clean most of a hill side. We had a brief lunch at the second stream and got water for the climb. The location to head up the ridge is well marked with a fire ring and large cairn. The trail climbs the next 2400' in consistent fashion except for some traversing of wooded ridges or laternal moraines at ~3200'. The trail runs next to a large talus slope at ~4000' and after that the next 1000' is straight up with lots of root/tree/bush handholds. We suddenly popped out into the heather with nice views of the southern pickets at ~5000'. The trail from there to the col at 6200' is pretty good. We lost the trail at the second creek crossing. There you should cross the creek then head upstream right along the stream for about 300-400'. The trail comes and goes and there are a few cairns as well until you leave the creek in an upward traverse. We dropped into Terror Basin, stopped to say hi to two guys planning on Inspiration W Ridge for Sunday, and continued our descent another 100' to set up our tent on a lovely rock slab with stellar vistas. We took about 7 1/4 hours which included about 1/2 hr exploring trying to find the trail by the second creek. Sunday we headed up for Degenhardt via the Terror Gl. which was well covered (on 16 July) so we didn't bother to rope. There are some open slots that we were able to do end runs around. We scoped the approach to the S Face of Inspiration and then headed towards the Barrier which turns into Degenhardt's south ridge. We went to the top of the glacier and got onto broken rock, heather benches, and (after taking out the rope) unstable boulders on steep dirt to reach the crest of the S ridge. A short steep section on the ridge was surmounted by a leftward traverse along a ledge system (also roped) which took us to easy scrambling on the west side of the ridge. We did a few more short exposed pitches where the ridge steepened near the summit and crossed some small gendarmes. The roped climbing was mostly 4th class with a few spots of low 5th, but the rock was sufficiently loose in places that we both felt a rope was worthwhile. We didn't find a summit register but we did find a tiny plaque under a rock left by relatives of Degenhardt (his sons perhaps) when they climbed it in 1991. We enjoyed the views and then descended using rap stations we found. We cleaned up old slings at the first station and removed one superfluous biner at another. Our 55m rope sufficed for the rappels. Monday we awoke to clouds shrouding Degenhardt and Inspiration with wisps heading up from the valley below. We decided to bail climbing Inspiration as the wind and the darkening cloud layer sapped our desire. Plan B was to head off to bag W Ridge on W McMillian instead. This is a delightful climb that has great sudden exposure as you come on to the final ridge of the summit. The clouds boiled over the notch and the ridge with the sun periodically showing through. We experienced a Brocken Spectre which was the second time this year. The previous was backcountry skiing at Crystal in January. We returned to camp and headed out to the car this time following the trail mostly without incident. We got to the car after about 5 hours. We ran into a couple of guys packing up for 4 days of "exploring". They had just spent 4 days bush-whacking up McMillian Creek drainage in search of adventure and fueled by a desire of getting away from folks. McMillian Creek is a damn good place to go and not to see anyone! We bid them good luck as blueberry/raspberry shortcake was calling for us at Cascadian Farms down the road. At the col at 6200' above Terror Basin Terror Basin Terror Glacier Chris climbing on the South Ridge of Degenhardt with Mt Baker in the distance Brocken Spectre on McMillian W Ridge Gear Notes: 55m single, light rack, ice axe, crampons Approach Notes: Trail is in great shape. Snow patches near the 6200' col. I wish I wore gaiters on the approach in to keep the dirt/snow out of my boots

I've done it in Mid-August in a slightly higher than normal snow year in 1997. I would guess that this year would have similar conditions. We encountered no crevasse problems. We only roped up once on the Le Conte to get around one crevasse. Otherwise everything was filled in. We did witness two large ice fall/avalanches. The first was traversing over to get onto the Le Conte. A house size chunk of snow slid off slabs high above our traverse and came down about 100 yds in front of use. Yikes! The second was on our approach to Dome from Itswoot Ridge. This was the size of subdivision and we were about 1/4 mi away. The ice chunks in this one were quite impressive. We went in on Sunday night and came out Fri afternoon and only saw people Mon AM and Friday PM. We hit lots of bugs at most of the campsites. In 1997 someone had done some major pruning in the Bachelor Creek drainage so the trail was OK. You don't want to get lost as the whacking is very slow through the 2 miles of slide alder. It's an awesome trip that I'd be happy to do many more times.

Pre-kids I climbed alot. I ran into this insurance climbing nonsense while trying to get a short term policy to cover a 6 month vacation that included lots of climbing. Post kids I got a policy since I was able to truthfully say I hadn't been climbing for two years. I've restarted climbing and wanted to get another policy but found having climbing (and reaching 50) really jacked up the prices. I found Steve Kobrin on the web (he's located in NJ) and he was able to get me a policy that was 1/2 the price I was being quoted through local agents. It's still not as cheap as not climbing but it was much more reasonable. I've seen his add in the climbing rags as well. Although he is an insurance agent (i.e. he will try to convince you to buy as much insurance as possible) I found him easy to work with and he got me the goods so no complaints. Regarding lying - if you had a big policy the insurance company will certainly spend a little money to see if they can legally not pay you by voiding your policy. Insurance investigators will do this for fires (could this have been arson?), etc. It's in their financial interest to do a minimum of reseach. You might have luck trying to get them to explicitly paying out for climbing accidents. I tried that but didn't find any interest. You might try bringing skiis along on anything you do so you can call it "ski mountaineering" not "climbing".

I think before the recent detours were installed around Glacier Pk this segment was ~68mi. Seems like it is now around 74mi. I'm certain this has been done sub-24 hours. In the ultrarunning world doing 74 miles in sub-24 without support would not be that unusual. I read about a guy that did the Wonderland Trail (~90mi) in just over 24 hrs unsupported other than he left himself 2 caches. Here's a segment from a website http://www.montrail.com/assets/Misc%20Copy/horton_log.htm that describes David Horton's hike day-by-day. Here he does ~97 miles in 2 days. This is after 2500 miles he's already done. Day 64 – August 6 To Trinity Trailhead on Temporary PCT Detour Route: Three Days to Go A satellite phone call came in last night (at 2239) after we had already gone to bed. Then, we left for a hike up White Mountain in the Inyo National Forest at 5AM. Thus, my apology for not getting this out until our return tonight. Krissy Sybrowsky left a message indicating that David Horton completed 51.0 miles in 18:19 with a 0400-start yesterday, 8/6/05. This was his hardest effort yet on the PCT. He should now be at 2540.2 miles total on the PCT (with 56.3 + 30.5 + 39.1 miles to go the next three days to the finish). Scott Jurek paced him the whole day. If I understand the message correctly, Scott McCoubry met him/them with aid part way during the day. Stephanie Patterson and Krissy met him/them at Boulder Pass and then went back 11 miles with them to the finish. John Wallace and Patti Haskins set up camp. Day 62 – August 4 A tough day shared with Scott Jurek. The two completed 46.4 miles in 15 hours and 23 seconds. They endured 13,600 feet of climb and 11,200 feet of descent. Tonight they will camp on the trail with the mosquitoes. Leah Jurek, Jon Wallace and Patti Haskins hiked in all of the camp gear and were making dinner when the duo arrived.

My well used 14+ year old NF Tadpole (I bought it used in 1991) is still working well except for the zippers. The sliders were wearing out and it was starting to get difficult to prevent the zipper from separating. I brought it back to the Seattle NF store for a warranty repair and got it back with new zipper and pulls in 2 weeks. So even if NF just makes poser gear these days they still stand behind their good stuff from long ago... I bought their new version, Tadpole 23, last year but took it back to Return Every Item. The quality just isn't there anymore. They used to cut the tent materials so the tent would get taut when you set it up. Now they cut it with lots of slack so you need to pull all the webbing tighteners to tighten it up and it still isn't really taut. And it was almost a pound heavier than the old one = about 5lbs rather than just over 4lb.

Toast, read your PMs

As a fellow old guy I can really appreciate this TR! Great suff! Ibuprofen - The staff of life. == We call it Vitamin I... the drug of choice

I was surprised that noone else had been there but since there isn't any class 2 way up I guess it shouldn't be that surprising. Did you climb any other of the Top 100 on that trip?

I've had two low end Polar models and they've worked well. I've done my own battery replacement on the watch with varying results. If I were to get another one I'd definitely look for one that are designed for you to replace your own battery. The battery for the chest monitor can not be replaced so you have to replace the entire unit.

Note that there's a new trail put in this year going up from the lake to the Ledges. It's apparently about twice as long as the old one (I never did the old one). It may or may not coincide with the marked trail on Bryan's guide. The trail up to the Ledges is very popular on weekends (think Mt Si) so one should be careful if pulling off loose stuff that is going tumbling into the woods. Rattlesnake Lake is administered by Seattle Public Utilities. The Ledges might be part of the Cedar River Watershed that is open to the public. If you continue on the trail to Rattlesnake Mt East Peak you pass into WA DNR lands. So, there might be a patchwork of ownership.

Nice job,guys. I think MattP and I took around 22 hours tent-to-tent. We left around 5am, started climbing around 7 or 8am, summitted around 6pm, got off rock onto snow around 9pm, switched on the headlamps, got onto the glacier around midnight, and stumbled back to the tent around 3am. It was certainly the longest day I've done. Descending the snow listening to stuff come tumbling down in the dark was one of my more scary experiences. I was glad I couldn't see the shrund below us as we downclimbed. It's a great climb.

Climb: Cathedral Pk; MMG traverse; (7/9/05-7/15/05)-SE Buttress Date of Climb: 7/14/2005 Trip Report: As responsible parents, Chris and I don't get as much as we used to. In general we try to have one multi-day mountaineering trip per year. Sometimes the weather cooperates, sometimes it doesn't. This year we decided to head to the Cathedral Peak area in the Pasayten Wilderness. Neither of us had done much climbing this year so we were really just getting off the couch while attempting some challenging climbs. Cathedral Pk is a long way off (16 to 20 miles) from every trailhead on the US side. It is a bit closer from the Canadian side though. I had done a recon day hike of the area with Susan Bolton in the early 1990s one rainy July 4th weekend. Susan and I, after being rained out of Squamish and Skaha, drove to the Centennial Trail trailhead on the Ashnola River in Cathedral Prov Park in BC and camped in a primitive campground. The next morning we crossed the river on a small foot bridge and headed up Wall Creek, up over the Deacon, over the border, circumnavigated Cathedral Pk and headed out Cathedral Fork back to the Centennial Trail - 12 hours and 20 miles of trails, bushwacking, and hurdling hundreds of blow downs. We had lousy weather but we got peek-a-boo views of many peaks: Grimface, Macacbre, Matriarch, The Deacon and Cathedral. So Chris and I agreed to go in and do some climbing in the area and checked Beckey and cascadeclimbers for beta. In particular, we received some excellent information plus pictures and a map from Darin Berdinka of Bellingham. Darin and his partner did a similar trip last year and wrote an excellent trip report on cascadeclimbers that provided us with lots of inspiration. Their beta on the return hike and their route, Pilgrimage To Mecca, proved excellent. Thanks Darin! The weather wasn't looking so appetizing for our first day out, Sunday 7/9, so we decided to drive SR2 and try to go cragging somewhere to get some of the rust out. We ended up at Castle Rock where Chris discovered that his harness was not in his duffle. Duoh! We drove over to Der Sportsman in nearby Leavenworth where Chris purchased 20 feet of 1" webbing for his retro harness and we were back in business. We started in the lower cliffs and climbed a 5.6 chimney and Catapult, a really nice 5.8 crack. We then climbed Century, a 5.8 face climb protected by old pins. This is a nice climb which used to get 3 stars but the pins are all but useless at this point and should be removed or replaced. We then packed up and drove up US 97 to the Canadian border. After being asked a few questions we continued, bought some fresh food at a grocery store and headed for the trailhead. We drove through the beautiful Similkameen Valley to Keremeos. The valley appeared to consist primarily of organic farm/orchard/vineyards, quite a contrast to the US side. We crossed the Similkameen River and drove the 42km to the trail head - most of which was gravel road. We missed the foot bridge in the dark and kept driving. The road used to end 1km past the footbridge but BC logging has pushed it to within shouting distance of the border. We realized our mistake and headed back. Turns out the old bridge was lost in a flood a few years back and a new super-industrial version replaced it. The campground no longer exists either, replaced by clear cuts. We headed out on Monday and followed the Centennial Trail and then Wall Creek trail for 4 hours to a beautiful meadow filled with flowers. The trail appeared to be pretty well maintained for not being an official trail. Someone had done a lot of work cutting down all the blowdowns. In some of the very wet and boggy areas someone had lined trees up into a makeshift boardwalk. Nonetheless, we found it a very wet trail; a real surprise for the Okanagan. There were many flowers along the trail which was a nice bonus. The campsite was one of the most scenic I've been in: a flat area with trees for shade, nearby stream, flowers everywhere, a giant boulder to play on, great views all around. Only the thousands of mosquitos made it less than ideal. We set up camp, ate lunch and then headed up towards Grimface, just above us. We climbed the 1200' to just below the col and began to read the descriptions of the multi-pitch routes on Grimface's SW Face trying to match that with the reality we saw. We never did fully match up description to reality and decided to play around on some other cliff that would better fit our available time. Unfortunately, the rock to the west in the notch was less than stellar (i.e. it actually fell apart as you pulled on it) so we declared victory and headed back down. The next morning we headed up to do the traverse of Matriarch-Macacbre-Grimface. This route isn't very technical (~5.5-5.6?) on nice solid rock. It consists primarily of ridge walking and doing short raps into knotches and climbing back out. Overall it was an excellent day with lots of fun, great views and no mosquitos! We finished it in 5 hours and headed back down to camp. While in camp, an older man hiked by and stopped to ask us what we had climbed. He turned out to be Bob Cuthbert, one of the pioneers of climbing in the area. We invited Bob for tea and cookies after dinner and spent a few hours listening to his tales of climbing in the area and learning a lot about the history of the Park and valley. It was a very enjoyable time. Bob comes to Wall Ck every year to get the kinks out before heading out to the Canadian Rockies. On Wednesday morning we followed a fine trail to the head of Wall Creek and onto col between The Deacon and Matriarch. We followed the ridge all the way up to be just NW of the summit of The Deacon. From there we scoped out the rest of the route around the NW part of Cathedral Peak. We hiked through bogs, open forests and larch to Uppper Cathedral Lake in about 4 hours swatting at mosquitos the entire time. We continued to see many different types of wild flowers. We made camp just east of the lake away from a large party of boisterous boy scouts. We then headed up a route we found on cascadeclimbers, Ka'aba Buttress of Amphitheatre Peak. The start of the route was literally a few hundred yards from our tent. The route, called "Pilgrimage to Mecca", was described as 4 pitches (5.7,5.9,5.8+,5.8) with solid rock and at least one 4 star pitch. The rock is pretty solid but there are loose blocks that one has to be very careful of. The weather was cool (50s) and overcast and we were in the shadows the whole climb while a very cold wind blew constantly. Chris led every pitch and consequently I got so cold my hands and feet went completely numb and I began to have some involuntary shivers even tho I was wearing all the clothes I had. Unfortunately I didn't get to enjoy some of the finer pitches as I tried to climb as quickly as possible to ward off hyperthermia. It was probably the coldest rock climb I can remember doing. It's a very nice route and should improve as it sees more traffic. Thursday we got headed up SE Buttress of Cathedral, III 5.9. We used some beta from cascadeclimbers to climb a nice 5.9 crack off the ground (A1 Canadian variation in Beckey). The steep, rentless cracks were broken up periodically with grass benches and steps. In general the climbing was excellent but it was definitely at the edge of what Chris could lead and I could follow. We skipped the 5.9 offwidth on the headwall and took a very nice 5.7 variation to the right (marked with a cairn). The Beckey topo implies this is a chimney but it's mostly a dihedral with maybe two chimney moves. The summit register was replaced in 2004 so we couldn't peruse history. However, the SE Buttress was done 3 times last year with perhaps 10 total parties summitting last year. This year only one person had seen the summit. Definitely not The Tooth. Getting off Cathedral is definitely not a gimme. There is a 3 foot chasm w/ 1000' drop below that you have to take the leap of faith onto a table sized block. Chris did it without a problem but I asked and received a belay. The rest of the descent was still very interesting. I think the West Ridge would be a fun ascent route. The next morning we headed back to our car using Darin's map and beta. We retraced our steps onto the flank of the Deacon and then stayed high through scottish moor-like terrain. Wonderful wildflowers were in bloom everywhere. We saw two deer running along a ridge which was magical. Eventually we headed down the ridge, crossed Wall Creek, found "Cowboy camp" and the Wall Ck trail. We crossed the mighty footbridge 5 hours after we left camp just as it started to rain. What a fine trip! The country was beautiful and we didn't run into anyone except Bob Cuthbert. The flowers were fabulous and we had good weather when we needed it. I'd recommend approaching Cathedral via Wall Creek. Although that approach takes a lot longer to drive to the trailhead, its beautiful country with very little signs of human impact. The eastside bushwacking was doable with careful route finding. The rock is generally very solid although lesser done routes appear to have more loose blocks. If you are in the area and are looking for an excellent day hike, going in Wall Ck, up to the Deacon and then returning via our exit route would be a fabulous trip. Gear Notes: - Double 9s (a single rope would work fine) - Full rack with extra big cams or hexs - Extra full length slings - Bug dope! We used an eucalyptus based version (Off! brand) that worked well but was very water soluble which meant you needed to reapply when you sweated or washed your dishes. Approach Notes: Wall Creek: good shape but very soggy w/ LOTS of mosquitos. Non-trail hiking: generally pretty open terrain but many boggy areas. Getting from Cathedral Lake to Wall Ck: Skirt western edge of Cathedral Pk and head up open southern slopes of the Deacon. Traverse west along high ridge Stay high above little hanging valley. As you terrain drops down, startl looking for old cattle trail generally north of small creek. Eventually drop down along nose of ridge (very obvious trail) to Wall Ck. Cross creek and you should be at "Cowboy camp".

After reading a TR of an unexpected bivy on W Ridge of Stuart, I began to wonder what people thought was the route most likely in resulting in an unexpected bivy. The W Ridge on Stuart seems a candidate as it's long, offers many route finding challenges, is often done early in one's alpine career and the descent is very long. Other candidates?

I did RPM/Iconocast/HS ~15 years and I remember that as the second I found wearing a pack made the 10c chimney impossible.So if you bring a pack, have the second clip it to their harness. The route was fun and challenging climbing. I also remember having ticks drop off on my while belaying at a few spots. Yuck!

How did OUR oil end up under THEIR sand? Support your Right to Arm Bears

Camp 6 Point Aluminum Crampons Weight: 8 ounces Price: $60 ProMountain Sports carries them. I do have strap-ons and would like to see a photo of this.

These look like they'd work well for glacier approaches to alpine climbs. Does anyone have these or similar ones that can speak about their experiences? Any problems descending snow since normally you would weight your heels which doesn't have any spikes. Thanks.