clintcummins

Also, judging from Croft's approach via Stuart Lake and description of cutting steps in the snow/ice, it suggests he did the Upper North Ridge of Stuart (vs. the Complete North Ridge).

Nice report and cool photos. (There's more than two Clints from California? non-Eastwood? Good thing; I coulda never made it up there with those big packs!)

Great report. Thanks for taking the time to write it, and for sharing.

Kong-Bonatti made hangers in this shape with several different metal types (non-stainless steel, stainless steel, aluminum). So you need to be able to ID the metal type. Usually you just look for rust, or the bubbles/expansion/distortion described in these posts. Another way is to use a magnet. Stainless steel = nonmagnetic (usually). Nonstainless steel = magnetic. Aluminum = nonmagnetic (but not often used for hangers). ASCA (American Safe Climbing Association - http://www.safeclimbing.org) and also Climbing magazine ARI (Anchor Replacement Initiative) will provide free stainless hangers, bolts, tuning forks and drills to people doing bolt replacement. It does take time and effort to do the replacement; that's volunteer work. Darryl, nice work in the thread on rcnw, contacting Greg and listing routes to check for non-stainless hangers. As noted on that thread, the bolts observed by Tom on Calling Wolfgang are not stainless. So it is not a stainless/nonstainless metal mismatch, unless I'm wrong about the metal type of the failed hangers.

Acid rain? Who expected rain at Index? What a devious route terrorist! More likely: climbers were being cheap and used non-stainless hangers. Yikes, the same guy sabotaged both? A master of both the grease gun and acid, decades apart? Clearly we have a cluster of sabotages at work. :-) Similar to the faked hangers story - at Crow Hill in the 70s, Henry Barber was doing some really hard climbs. One of the locals had a fun idea. On rappel, he chalked a bunch of holds on a steep wall, then told Henry somebody else had climbed it. Henry made a few moves up it, then tried some of the unusable chalked holds. He climbed back down; was not fooled.

Yes, Kong-Bonatti (non-stainless in this case) - see Tom's post and the shape in Tom's photo. Kong-Bonatti also made aluminum hangers at one time with the same shape. I have one that I took off a climb, on my backyard wall.

Different! Thanks for sharing. One of my longtime climbing partners has had too many headlamp epics from his partners, so he brings two headlamps with him now.

Tom, Thanks for the hanger ID and photos. The FA of Calling Wolfgang was by Greg Child and Andy deKlerk in around 1990, so their other contemporary routes (including several adjacent on the Sport Wall) should be checked for more of these non-stainless Kong-Bonatti hangers. Replace with stainless hangers, clearly. I'm glad that first bolt/hanger held! Like Tom said, emphasis on the "near" death! Regarding SMC hangers, there are 2 main types: - older, thin chrome-moly steel, chrome plated, subject to rust and cracking - newer, thick stainless steel, very strong and reliable

I heard in the 70s it was a very tough bushwhack. Slide alder, less than one mile progress in a full day. Probably this has not changed.

Dru's overlay photo is in the 2009 edition of Fred Beckey's red cover guidebook. Also easy to find online via google.

Those heads are really not so bad. A couple of frayed cable strands, no big deal. It's when say 2/3 of the strands are broken that things get interesting! With the fixed pins below and bolt in the middle for pro, you are not even risking much of a fall. The pitch is A3 if the fixed gear is not in place; to have bolts there instead would defeat the purpose of aid climbing. (The purpose in my view is to place or inspect the gear and move up carefully; not just to cheat past the free climbing in the easiest way possible).

Yeah, the face holds on that direct start looked tempting. But with the lack of obvious pro, I knew it would be easier/faster for me to do the 5.4 around the left side. Other topos show the right side as 4th class, diagonalling from lower right to upper left. So maybe that starts further right? I dunno, it didn't look easy or well protected so I've done the left side both times. If the little corner is a lot harder than 5.6, then the concept of "scrambling" up 20' to reach ropes fixed from the top of p4 is probably not going to work out very well. So I changed it on the topo to "5.7?" ....

Wow, Mark. Surviving a rappel anchor failure and 40/70' fall is really beating the odds. Thanks for sharing your experience. In terms of anchor failure (cord slipping off the boulder), I wonder if webbing would perform better than perlon. I'm seeing more perlon anchors these days, as some people carry cordelettes and use them to make rap anchors. But perlon tends to "roll" off things, while webbing may stick better by providing more surface area contact. This also helps webbing resist cutting better. I think it's still an alpinist trick to have some webbing in the bottom of the pack, in case they have to bail in a spot with unknown anchors.

Beautiful!!! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks to all for sharing your beta. Here's a revised topo, hopefully an improvement over the '06 version.

In a day with one 60m is certainly a good way to do it, if you can drive up the night before, and are fast enough on the aid. That's the way I did it my first time. If you had to bail with one 60m, it looked like the only tricky anchor might be on p5, which is longer than 30m, but there are some slung blocks/flakes to the climbers left of the big corner. Fixing is probably a good strategy if you unsure of your speed on aid. Another option is to do some aid pitches elsewhere to get faster on aid.

Doug / cbcbd, To be fair, I can't judge klenke's intent accurately, either. He could easily be lampooning himself, with his choice to speedclimb a somewhat lesser mountain. He did take care to note his form of flattery. So I'm not taking it as a negative against Leor; maybe a way to say many of us wish we could go that fast and light on something big, but won't be able to anytime soon! My comments were more to say Leor's reports have a natural style and enthusiasm, which I enjoy.

Somehow I deleted the overlay photos I posted earlier. Here they are again. Looking forward to the full FFA trip report! (line of first pitch left out, because I wasn't sure where it went)

It might work with the scrambling you describe, but I think that scrambling is a little harder than 3rd/4th class. I'm going to change the topo of the approach pitch to 5.4 on the L side. The R side looks harder; maybe 5.6? The scrambling might be easy enough in rock shoes, but in approach shoes with a pack (for easier jugging) it would be trickier. We did reach with one 60m lead rope from the top of (3), anchor at (2), over the Lithuanian Lip, anchor at (1), and then dangle the lead line another 10' below that, so that when we tied in our 8.1mm second rope, it did not have to run over the edge of the stance ledge. p4 is 70' and p1 is 100', so that leaves 30' of rope to reach towards the ground in the R side of scrambling. It's probably about 50' to the ground there, so about 20' of scrambling.

Hehe, not bad. I think Leor gets his times straight out of his watch - it probably dumps the whole table to a text file. I've gotten times ex post from the EXIF data in my camera photos. But I'm more a candidate for Slowest Known Time. I know people use split times when going for a Nose record. It lets you know if you are not within range and can stop running it out so far.... Of course, one man's chestbeating is another's data sharing for fellow mountain runners. It's near impossible to judge intent. I was just reading through the other day in the Southern Pickets ridge traverse thread, where Wayne was so psyched to have pulled off this dream climb. Others interpreted his excitement as an ego/competitive thing. It took a fair amount of communication before people understood it. Keep on havin' fun out there!

Nice work, Wayne and Jim. It has always looked like an interesting line in the photos. Cal Folsom helped out a great deal with the Index Town Wall guidebook in 1993, not to mention doing some very nice trail work and several new routes. At the time I recall he was living part of the time in Salt Lake City. I bet Daryl Cramer would know how to find him. I recognize the handwriting in the summit register as Cal's.

More accident details in this Seattle Times article by Susan Gilmore: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2009634430_webclimber10m.html ----------- Monday, August 10, 2009 - Page updated at 03:00 p.m. Colorado mountain climber Craig Luebben killed in North Cascades By Susan Gilmore Seattle Times staff reporter A well-known Colorado mountain climber was killed and his partner was injured Sunday after they were hit by falling ice in North Cascades National Park. The climber who was killed, Craig Luebben, and Willie Benegas were training for an American Mountain Guide exam at the time of the accident, said Mark Gunlogson, with Seattle's Mountain Madness. Benegas worked for Mountain Madness. The accident happened early Sunday morning on Mount Torment in the North Cascades, near Marblemount. Benegas was briefly hospitalized. According to Gunlogson, the accident occurred when the glacier pulled away from a rock, possibly because of the recent warm weather, and chunks of ice fell on them. Luebben fell into an ice moat, like a crevasse. Benegas said there was no warning, according to Gunlogson. "It's one of those things, a hazard climbers confront in the North Cascades," said Gunlogson. "These were two incredibly experienced climbers. Their timing didn't work out for them." Kelly Bush, the district ranger with North Cascades National Park search and rescue, said the two climbers had crossed the upper part of the Taboo Glacier, with Luebben leading. A chunk of ice fell beneath him and he fell about 40 feet into the moat, hanging from his rope and suffering massive trauma. Luebben was still alive when Benegas was able to climb down to him, move him to a ledge and call 911 for rescue. But Luebben died before he could be rescued, said Bush, adding that neither climber did anything wrong in their ascent. "This kind of thing is inherent in mountaineering," she said. "These men were highly skilled, on top of their game. Some of the elite of mountain climbing." Luebben lived in Colorado and was a well-known climber, writer, photographer and teacher, said Simon Fryer, with Colorado Mountain School. According to his Web site, Luebben climbed all over the world and made first ascents on rocks in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, West Virginia, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and other climbing locations. He also wrote seven books on climbing. "Craig was an incredible, generous individual with a huge heart," said Fryer. "He was a teacher at heart. He always went way out of his way to help people. Craig did it all. Anything in the mountains he loved." Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com Copyright © The Seattle Times Company -------------- and from the amga website http://amga.com/about/news.php ---------------- On the 9th the pair were attempting to climb the Torment and Forbidden Traverse, starting the traverse on the SE Face of Torrent via the Taboo Glacier. At the bergshrund, with Craig leading and Willie belaying, Craig attempted to bypass the remnant ice hanging above the bergshrund by ascending rock on the right, and then traversing left on to the ice for the exit moves. According to Wille, at approximately 0630 as Craig transitioned from the rock to the ice, a block of ice described as being the size of a car calved off taking Craig with it, resulting in a 30 foot fall. While not struck by the initial block, Craig was pelted by debris as he hung from his rope. Willie managed to get Craig to his belay stance in the bergshrund, stabilize and treat his injuries, and contact rescue personnel. Despite Willie’s heroic efforts and a swift response from NCNP SAR personnel, Craig succumbed to his injuries. Willie suffered minor injuries to his leg and is expected to make a full recovery. ----------------

Great reports and photos, Leor! You and Colin have been unstoppable this summer. Most of us can only dream about travelling that light! With your photos, the dreams are definitely in color....

Mikey, Thanks for sharing this really cool trip report. Many of us have been up there on aid and wondered how rad it would be to try it free. It just looks so hard. You gave us an inside look on what it might be like, if we had the skills.... I was just up there aiding it with Steph, and got to look at it from this perspective. Here are a couple of shots. View from the lip towards the intermittent fingerlocks above. Here's the runout on the face above the crack. Pretty smooth and that 10' traverse left to the anchors would be beyond psycho without a toprope or static line loops to clip. yellow circles are the free pro bolt(s); purple are aid bolts Actually just leading to the only pro bolt without clipping anything between would be a bad runout. Even if you could stick the blank moves to the stance, you would still have to do some more moves before you could reach the bolt. That final 10' traverse to the anchors looks like it could be a swing-fest... better than a huge ripper over the lip, though. I agree with Jens that it was pretty cool that Brooke took the low impact way and only placed the one bolt. It's a different style, though, and the topo should mention this! Here is the updated topo (I guessed the ratings based on Mikey's descriptions...): I exchanged some emails with Mark Hudon, because John Harlin's "The Climber's Guide to North America" (1984) stated: "Pushed to 5.11 by Mark Hudon and Eric Sanford, late 1970's." and "With a long runout on 5.11 face". And Harlin's topo shows a 5.11 face with no bolts right of the p2 bolt ladder. Mark said he actually did the free climbing with Nick Taylor (from Australia). Mark and Eric had climbed the route on aid a few weeks prior. As Mark recalls, he and Nick freed p1, aided p2, and freed p3 into p4. This was probably in around 1978. Mark said he did not try that face right of the bolt ladder. So maybe Harlin did the climb and tried it himself on toprope? Or maybe he had some other source who tried it.

Nice way to kick off the season! Back to the Pickets and score a new route. Thanks for sharing the stories and photos. Fun video, too. I am finding this "King and Queen" thing a bit overblown, though? We know that nobody rules the Pickets, except maybe the weather, the slide alder, and the megacalories sacrificed to the approaches/descents! Those with the right stuff and some weather luck are just able to visit the throne room of the summits for brief visits (and the rare extended ridgeline traverse...). So I'm not seeing king/queen or master/apprentice, but really a couple of Pickets fans/devotees, out there enjoying it. It seems clear that a good Pickets partner is hard to find, so the devotees gotta stick together, to give their efforts the best chance of achieving success! The Two Picketeers? :-)