clintcummins

That is Jody (and Jim) Langford, not Langdon. (pretty darn close, but not the same)

Nice photos! The first climb is on Nightwatch (aka Ski Tracks), in The Balls area. "The Dome" = Chiquito Dome. Here's a rebolting trip report on Chiquito from June: http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/rep/08607.htm Most of the summer, it's a bit too hot to climb on Chiquito.

Thanks, guys. When I read the guidebook description, I guess I was relying too heavily on the final part which said "The route ends close to the Pillar of Pi" (although I guess that's self-referential?). Going deeper up that gully did not look like fun.

Bump for John's partner search. John was my climbing partner back in college days, and he has climbed in the Canadian Rockies, Alps, Alaska, etc. We have done El Cap a few times together (Salathe', Mescalito, Nose), and last summer we did the Chouinard-Herbert on Sentinel (OK, with some aid...). He leads 5.9-5.10 on rock and is quite strong on alpine as well; I'd recommend him to anyone.

Drew, I thought the Pillar of Pi was the next buttress to the right, directly under the pi shaped blocks? Am I mistaken?

- ice axe, when there is a lot of dirt in the cracks or hummocks - wire brush. For lichen, turn the brush over and scrape with the wood side; then the wire bristles will not fall off so fast - keyhole saw (blade like a thick hacksaw) - good for cleaning out thin cracks (the handle makes it easier on your wrist/knuckles) Choose carefully - some climbs won't stay clean, especially if there is a source of dirt from above. For example, some routes at Index have been "reclaimed" by the jungle.

Thanks for the beta on the new rappel route. As shown in your photos, it is on the NW buttress, not the NE. Too bad it is not a 60m single rope rappel route (like the rappel route down Kraus-McCarthy on Snowpatch). But probably most parties will have 2 ropes with them, in case they have to bail down the Beckey-Chouinard.

The starred routes from the "routes by rating" page, with Demon Dome routes removed: 199. White Punks on Dope 5.8/5.9 * 34. Spooky 5.9 * 51. Yellow Brick Road 5.9 * 56. Danse Macabre 5.9 * face 58. Love Potion #9 5.9 * face 120. Igor Unchained 5.9 * 185. Warlock South Face 5.9 or 5.11 * 192. Imaginary Voyage 5.9- * 126. Innersanctum 5.9+ * 46. Lethargy p1 5.10a * 118. Airy Interlude 5.10a * 132. Phosphorescent Flow 5.10a R * face 165. The Howling 5.10a * face crux 47. Lethargy (full) 5.10b R * 96. Thin Ice 5.10b * 103. Fancy Free 5.10b * 134. The Pit and the Pendulum 5.10b A0 or 5.10+ * 170. The Spell 5.10b * fist+squeeze 123. The Entity 5.10c * or 5.10+ R 148. No More Mister Nice Guy 5.10c R * face 86. Davy Jones' Locker 5.12b or 5.10d A1 * 123. The Entity 5.10c * or 5.10+ R 124. Spook Book 5.10d * 134. The Pit and the Pendulum 5.10b A0 or 5.10+ * 135. The Pit and the Pendulum - direct chimney 5.10+ * 193. Shadows in the Rain 5.10d * face 98. Lost at Sea 5.11a 90. Wailing Banshees 5.11a/b 40. The Raven 5.11b * stemming 93. Don Juan Wall 5.11b * 97. Atlantis 5.11b * 139. Terrorvision 5.11b/c * face 185. Warlock South Face 5.9 or 5.11 * 116. Pegleg 5.11d R * stemming 117. Ankles Away 5.11d * Normally the must-dos are: - Airy Interlude and/or Igor Unchained - Don Juan Wall - Thin Ice - Atlantis - Spooky - Fancy Free - The Howling Have fun!

Very nice photos and report - thanks for sharing. Your photos seem clear enough to locate the route on porter's overlay photo (not sure of line on final pitch): This should confirm it: and here is a link to a slightly cleaned up version of Wayne's topo:

Lisa, Great job on one of the best climbs around! Awesome that Chris got on that after only one year climbing. Really nice report and photos, too. Much smarter descent than the way I chose with Steph! I will have to go that way next time. :-)

Congrats - Steph, Donn and Jason. Cool report, for me seeing the photos without doing the work seems like some kind of a theft! Epic remote summit bivvy in the floorless tent!! I bet you were so glad to see clear sky after those nights, so you didn't have to battle out Access Creek or something in a storm. How much weight for floorless vs. floored tent? How did the pack weight feel when doing the North Buttress of Fury? Did you have sleeping pads (since you mentioned sleeping grooves)?

Leor, Nice job and great report! Just wondering: are the split times from the EXIF data on your photos, or recorded on your watch (tiny GPS?)? Now that the apparent record time has been revealed, do you think it might be within your range? Would it go without an ice axe, or does that start getting pretty sketchy? [edited slightly to add "sketchy" and the question about split times]

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/international/canada/british_columbia/105960981 "We accessed it via the East Basin Camp. Hike up the ridge towards the middle tower, traversing a snowfield to the higher ridge that looks down to the base of the North Tower. We built rappels here and did 4 full length raps to reach the glacier. Once there you have to traverse across the cirque to the base of the wall. There is a lot of rockfall on the rappels and then a lot of rock coming down into the cirque from the portion of the North face that is above... go fast." For a forecast, you could pick a random point in Montana near the border, with an elevation as high as possible: http://nimbo.wrh.noaa.gov/forecast/MapClick.php?site=MSO&llon=-116.158747&rlon=-114.146247&tlat=48.999584&blat=46.987084&smap=1&mp=0&map.x=23&map.y=3 It's a start, at least....

Definitely scary. Glad it was "just" some close calls and not the "last call". Like Dru and others have said, the pocket glacier slides off 6 out of 8 years, so why not wait for that? We were ready to do it early last August, but the glacier had not slid so we waited. Then in early September we were monitoring this forum as usual and saw the report that it had slid. So we jumped on it on 9/14: http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/723744#Post723744 and got it in these nice conditions: On the way up the slabs we saw the cut rope from the guy who got crushed by the serac there in July. It's a major bummer that you survived the approach in deadly conditions only to bail in the clouds. On our descent, we could see the clouds were coming in: tomtom started one day after us and those clouds brought the snow... Be patient - the right conditions will come around.

Sol, Great trip report and photos - thanks for sharing! Blake, I think Sol's photos make the line very clear. Here are overlay versions with the line drawn in. I left out the line of the first pitch (original topo pitch 4), since that one wasn't clear.

http://climbing.com/news/hotflashes/completetorretraverse/ "Rolando Garibotti and Colin Haley have completed the much-discussed—and occasionally attempted—Torre Traverse: the link-up of Aguja Standhardt, Punta Herron, Torre Egger, and Cerro Torre in a single alpine-style outing." January 21-24, 2008. See the excellent report with photos (mostly written by Garibotti and Haley) linked above.

FYI, the body from the July 7 pocket glacier slide fatality was recovered a few days ago. We saw the cut rope when we were up there on 9/14; so did the guys on 9/12. Recovery story: http://www.canada.com/abbotsfordtimes/news/story.html?id=cf4e98e6-45fd-4c83-a09f-e5eabb7a9a19&k=4126 Accident story: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/pstory.html?id=7ea1da08-2378-4e36-9aff-f66086b27632&k=54004

Nice onsight, Leor + Scott. One of my favorite mountains - gotta love granite. I was going to say it was pretty fine for a day trip, but at 8 hours it's too far under 1/2 day to say that! I think Steph and I contributed one of those many bivy sites last summer when we had to halt our descent down the West Ridge just above that jog onto the north side. We didn't think of looking on that side until the morning light. And I like the part about missing the exit while talking about climbing - I do that too!

Chris + Kurt, Nice report and photos! Many of them look so familiar, as Steph and I did the climb 2 days later. But a couple of times we belayed out of sight of the cruxes and didn't get all the same photos. Now I'm jealous! Maybe I can use photoshop and paste myself into some of yours, with a few beams of light to go with? :-) Keep up the good work.

jwrockport, Thanks for posting the conditions update on the bypass glacier. That was just the news we had been hoping to hear, so after your report we made plans and climbed it on September 14th (trip report by Steph on this forum).

Like Kurt said, there are good maps/descriptions in the 9/12 and 9/12 NE Buttress TRs (because most people drive up the Slesse Creek Road first to stash a car or maybe bikes): And as Dru said, cross Slesse Creek on the Chilliwack Lake Road, and go to the top of the first hill, for the turnoff onto the Slesse Creek Road on the right (there is also a gated chain link fence at this turnoff with the sign "55400 Chilliwack Lake Road"). To recast his other point, on the map above, for the NW Face you want the "Slesse Mountain Trail" (which leaves the Slesse Creek Road), not the "Slesse Memorial Trail" (from Nesakwatch Creek Road).

Not bad for going up there without much aid experience - I bet you'll get it next time. > I seconded it with the extra gear, shoes, water, clothes and rope coiled and packed away. Climbing 5.10 with an extra 20-30 lbs SUCKS ... One way to handle this is to lead the pitch free (since it's usually faster than aiding), but have the follower jumar with the pack. If you lead in blocks of 3-4 pitches each, the follower can jumar in comfy boots, and not have to change shoes very often. You still want to minimize weight in the pack, though.

Milosh, Probably it would be best to give the general location on the Subject line, and if the person can describe the contents of the rack that should be enough to verify that it was theirs.

Leor, Wow, way to choose your own ultras this summer! What most of us can only dream about, you can pull off. What a killer summer you had, in spite of the WA weather (with your day trip abilities, the weather is not fast enough to catch you out...). I wish I had some perspective on mountain running, but you are so far out beyond what I've ever done. Back in 1977 I [rope-]soloed the direct N Ridge of Stuart (w/o gendarme), but managed to crush my foot in a loose talus field when descending the NW Buttress. That was the start and end of my "mountain running". So I guess all I can say is don't go down that NW Buttress! Thanks for sharing.

Rappelling the Kraus-McCarthy on Snowpatch goes easily with a single 60m rope - just did it on August 9. There is at least 3-4' of tails at each station, and each station has a good ledge. Also very clean with very few potential hangups. No advantage to having a second rope when rapping that route, unless somehow one of your ropes hangs up irretrievably, which seems unlikely since you should only have to climb 5.8 to work on any hangup.