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Trip: Montana - Date: 1/20/2011 Trip Report: I know I know. Another Montana ice trip report. I'll spare the story and just give a few picures. After the usual Hyalite circuit, we went for California Ice in the East Rosebud. We boned the approach in the dark and had to traverse roughly half of the mountain through waist deep snow to get to the route, so we only had time for the first pitch, but we will return...what a route! The Fat One Cleopatras Needle East Rosebud Valley - Beautiful and wild place East Rosebud Lake View of California Ice day before from the valley California Ice...it's big. A unique view as we traversed in. The final few feet of the approach from hell The belay cave halfway up Also did the Sceptor, Palisades, Mummy II, Thrill is gone, etc. All were fat even with warm temps. Enjoy! Approach Notes: East Rosebud - Strongly suggest a recon trip up the valley to scope approach as if you want to top out on the plateau it's a full day with a start in the dark. And wait for solid snow or no snow!

Sorry for the repeat...

Sorry, maybe somebody smarter than me can post this directly?

http://vimeo.com/search/videos/search:picnic%20lunch%20wall/c5cd5695

Don't know what the AirDyne is, or who Donn is, but I'll take credit for the lead!!

Trip: Dec 1- 6 Bozeman - Cody - Many Date: 12/1/2010 Trip Report: Team Geezer decided an early ice trip was in order to burn the turkey off and get ourselves scared before the end of the year. We soaked ourselves in balm to loosen the joints and gorged on drink and food the week before for conditioning. Geezer1 drove up from PDX and we loaded the Mobile Climbing Assault Vehicle in Seattle for the long drive East. A late start meant we arrived in Bozeman at midnight and set up camp in the Wal-Mart parking lot and drank a few beers. A restful night sleep interupted by the '67 Jeep truck with a snowplow on the front that the Wal-Mart manager paid $25 to clear ice from the lot ALL night. Since we only planned on one day in Hyalite, we wanted to do something we hadn't climbed before, so we headed to the Unnamed Wall. We loosened the joints on The Fat One, then moved over to The Thrill is Gone. Locals said it was as fat as they had seen. Great fun on mostly ice and a bit of mixed in the corner. After that we moved further left and jumped on The Good Looking One. Fantastic climb on tenuous icicles! A fine day and it was back on the road to head to Cody. We rolled into town around 9pm and met up with Geezer1's friend Jon and wife Heather that lived there. They graciously offered their parking lot and a plug for the camper and a hot bowl of chili and cold beer for us. Wonderful hosts! We talked about conditions and how dry it was in this area and avi hazards were usually very low. We went to bed, only to wake in the middle of the night to rain?!?!? It rained all night. We left town for the South Fork wondering what kind of luck we were in for. Since neither Geezer1 nor I had ever been to Cody, we were at Jon's mercy to guide us to the best the South Fork had to offer, and did he deliver. With the warm temps, we weren't sure we wanted to brave the river crossing, so Jon suggested Smoked Turkey as a good starter. Lucky for us he was there as the Irishman and I would have wandered around in the sage for hours looking for the right drainage. An hour's hike in the heavy snow got us to the base. A few steps of WI3 and what seemed like miles of wallowing in waist deep snow up the drainage brought us to Drumstick. The hardest pitch of the week for me followed. A soaking wet cone led to a 18" pillar to overhanging ice. All done with water pouring off of the top. Full value! The next day we decided to go for Mean Green. After tip-toeing across the river, we followed one set of tracks that had thankfully been set the day before in the heavy snow, so minimal wallowing was needed. Pitch 1 Pitch 3 Pitch 4 2 Geezers and one young buck high on Mean Green What a great climb in a fantastic location. A definate must do. The next day, our last, we had visions of coming back across the river and getting on High on Boulder for our finale. Jon had to return to reality and go to work, so it was up to us 2 to find the motivation. However, a night of drinking beers and watching the local scene at Cassies left our motivation the next morning very low. We decided a easier approach climb was in order as Geezer1's head was pounding and I wasn't feeling overly peppy. Broken Hearts Sweating out beer in the sun I love the ice! A nice day to end the trip with multiple pitches of ice and walking to sweat out the beer and enjoy the sun. The descent wasn't very fun though as sliding down steep scree slopes with 6" of slushy snow on top is tough on these old bones. The long drive home came easier after having such a great trip in the best of company. Go do it! Approach Notes: Crux of the trip...dodging deer on the South Fork rd every morning and evening. More deer than I have ever seen.

Thank you John! Saved me the trouble of having to say it..

Applying todays values to somebody from 500+ years ago

Thinking of being at Smith next week by myself. Anybody need a climbing partner there? I'm a 5.10 trad climber. Let me know.

FYI - Drove into Colchuck trailhead 2 nights ago and the trailhead was taped off and closed. Last night all tape and trail closure signs were cleared, so I'd assume it's opened back up.

Excellent photo's Steph! Great to see Steve getting after it again!

I'm looking to get out next week for some alpine rock or even cragging. Maybe Washington Pass area or Enchantments? Give me a call if you can get out a few days next week, or even 1 day. Cheers, Chris 425-350-1986

The right side was mellow with steep snow and just a couple of small ice steps. The traverse around the corner looked a bit exciting, but fun. Thanks for the inspiration with the photos. My shoulders are still recovering from the tunneling abuse. Getting old sucks. And snargs rule mainly because they look cool

Trip: Mt Hood - Devils Kitchen headwall - Direct finish Date: 3/23/2010 Trip Report: Joe and I decided to climb Mt Hood last week. Weather was great. I'd never been to the summit, so I thought it was about time. Joe has a couple hundred ascents, so something fresh for him was in order. We decided on the Devils Kitchens headwall after seeing Mitochondria's excellent pictures of a trip report in Feb. http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/938011/TR_Mt_Hood_Devils_Kitchen_Head#Post938011 We got a casual start of 3:30am from the parking lot and skinned up to the Devils Kitchen. Only one other group was in the area going for the Hogsback. Nice to have the place to ourselves. Mitochondria's beautiful picture of the route. I drew in our top out in blue. The lower part of the route was very enjoyable ice steps. Easy soloing through the slots on alpine ice led to the base of the tower in the picture. Looking down the lower slopes. I forgot my camera, so we had only a iPhone so the pictures are not high def. This is where most break left or right. I looked up at the tower and eyed the slot that went up the middle. I mentioned something about we should do the proud line as the going was pretty easy up to here. Not the first time I have mentioned the proud line, and not the first time it has gotten me into trouble. Joe was game, so I geared up with a couple of pins, snargs, screws and a picket. Gear looked doable down low at least. I started up and it was difficult mixed climbing on rotten rock and a bit of ice, but not too bad. I managed to get 2 pins in low, and looking up I could see daylight through the rime ice to the tower summit. Me in the slot About half way up it started getting tougher. A snarg driven in was fair, picket in just to get it off my back as it had no value as pro. More rime ice and no water ice. The slot to the top that I saw from below was way smaller that I thought it would be. Slow progress got me to a choke point on vertical rime. Too high to bail as there was no gear. So I started tunneling. I had about 15 feet to daylight. I rained ice/snow on Joe as I swung the tools over my head and tried to clear a tunnel. Going up consisted of both arms buried in rime up to my pits, flail the feet until I could get some kind of purchase and go up a couple of inches. Repeat. Finally I broke through the top and struggle to the top of the slot completely knackered. One of the longest leads of my life, appx 2 hours! Then I dropped down 30 ft on the other side to a gulley while Joe simuled up. We climbed to the summit ridge.You can see the top of the slot over my left shoulder off of the peak behind me. We had the summit to ourselves and enjoyed the views. A quick downclimb to the Kitchen got us to our skis for the slide down to the car. Thanks be to Allah for skis!! Beer at the car tasted oh so sweet. Gear Notes: Skis, funky Scottish ice gear to make it authentic. Approach Notes: Dodge the snowcat on skis

Got it. Thanks H2O!

I'm pretty useless on the computer. Trying to post trip report photos. We used an iPhone(Iknow lame, but better than the camera we forgot). Is there a way to re-format these from bmp to jpeg or other acceptable format to upload? Cheers

Not sure if this has been on here before, but what a cool video. Notice how he sews it up with his extensive rack . [video:youtube]

Ahhh, the memories. You know how after a while a heinous climb didn't seem so bad and maybe it wasn't so desperate and maybe you were just being a pussy and if you just would have stayed on route you wouldn't have had to bivy and now with more experience you wouldn't have been so gripped and that rock wasn't that bad and the approach was fun and the descent was really just a few easy rappells and a long walk out and I could have gone a lot longer without water and....?? Nah, you'll never catch me on the East face of Babel again. Now I just wonder which was worse, the going up or going down. I remember belaying from a mud cave(you heard me, a mud cave that's even on the topo, yes a cave of loose rock held together with mud that when I left it looked like I had been mud wrestling with Bambi down at the strip club)thinking why would anybody climb a route with a mud cave on the topo?? Let me know if you want the beta on the route. I remember it vividly After all of that though, I wouldn't trade the adventure for anything. I'll see if I can dig up the pictures of that trip and post.

Great tribute Scott. Best of luck to you and your family in getting through this tough time. I never knew Luke, but I know you and can imagine that Luke was as fine a person as you turned out to be. Cheers, Chris

I know the weather is iffy, but looking to hit something later this week. I have a couple of ideas, or maybe you do. PM me if you are interested in picking the best day and going somewhere if it's safe. I'm north of Seattle. Cheers

Check your pm's

Well done Ade. I'd second the Sherpa descent. Just a bit of steep downclimbing at the top and then smooth sailing. Much better than the Cascadian.

Check yer PM's.

Very good a few weeks ago. http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/870008/TR_Hyalite_Some_ice_2_19_2_24_#Post870008 Try calling Barrell Mountaineering for up to date, but I'm sure there is plenty to play on.