clintcummins

Cool, thanks for the sequence. Yeah, the clouds were not too inspiring for jumping onto long routes. Yes, I think we might have set a new record for slowness on the B-C without actually bivvying. :-) (Bivvying was not an option due to cold conditions and lack of warm gear with us). We were basically lucky that the weather did not get any worse on the 2 days we were out on Howser and Snowpatch.

Nice - thanks for sharing. Hey, Steph and I were there at Applebee the same week. I'm trying to understand the chronology - did you do: 8/6 Pigeon 8/7 McTech 8/8-10 in tent 8/10 hike out in am ? We found the weather pattern on 8/8 was night/morning OK, but rain starting by 3pm or so. So on 8/9 we got up early and climbed Snowpatch, on top at 1pm and back in camp well before the rains started.

Thanks, Gene. I never really thought of whether he felt proud, but I bet he did. (I could ask him!). I think most of what we were feeling was just being glad to have been able to do it. It was our second try. The previous day, we were caught in a lightning and hailstorm right below the gendarme. The lightning was striking on the descent ridge, so we couldn't go down unless we thought we could rap the east face. Probably a generic Bugaboos electric storm, with the ground buzzing and rattling loudly as the electrons rush up along the surface, then the huge BAM when they arc to the cloud. We felt pretty small and humbled. Eventually the strikes becaume less frequent and we ran down the ridge, not pausing too long at where the rock had been melted. Still stubborn enough to come back the next day and managed to climb it.... Thanks for sharing the heat, all. Fair enough, I "asked" for equal time. Dang, I was always tryin' to be *cool* back in those days!

Perhaps of more entertainment value, the Bugaboos in 1974: me and my dad descending Kain route in snowier times gendarme rappel - crowded even in 1974....

Yeah, no doubt true about 95% of the time. It's definitely better than being called ugly. But it might not be appreciated, depending on the context. Here's my context: I'm old, married with kids, and have almost as many wrinkles as Fred Beckey. Plus I'm from the women's lib and PC ("politically correct") generation. That probably explains a lot about my comment, I guess. So I can't say "hot", but it's probably friendly for most of you, most of the time.

Gary, Cool - good luck with the defense. July could be good for the Bugaboos, if the col conditions are similar to 2006. I'm glad you liked the various topos. Index Town Wall is special to me, since I did some of my first hard climbs there back in the mid-70s in high school. So it was really fun to assemble the topos/guide, with all the good info really supplied by Darryl Cramer and a few others. Liberty Crack was fun, too - my high school math teacher had tried it back in the day. And I thought I could improve a bit on the existing topos. :-)

Dechristo, You certainly raise a valid point - I'd have to judge my post "unsavory" as well. My point (probably lost in my rambling rant) was supposed to be: Women are routinely judged by their appearance, instead of by what they do. So my examples and language of judging guys by their appearance were meant to show a different perspective on it. This thread was a pretty mild example of this, and probably it wasn't fair for me to be so negative about it. I figure a lot of the comments were just joking and not meant seriously; that's normal for a web forum. So probably I mistargeted my rant a bit, but it was something that I wanted to express, and maybe it is of some interest.

Nice job, guys. Pretty. And Scary. = Pretty Scary? Like the other person said, if Wayne was scared on P4, that is pretty full adventure (I seem to recall he has done some very impressive routes). Even belaying that P4 could be scary, since if the leader goes for a big ride, the belayer is also in the target zone.... I guess that says something about Gary's [justified] confidence in Wayne. I got hurt badly on an ice climb once, so be careful out there. I know "the lure of the first is strong", so hopefully the next tempting new line will not be so thin and runout. Thanks for sharing.

Cool, Gary. Thanks for the additional details. I was wondering about that team of three passing the other folks; pretty bogus.... I like that concept of "onsighting" in the dark! Sounds pretty scary, but obviously you have to goods to cruise it anyway. Sorry about the somewhat negative tone of my comment; it was not your report but the other comments that I was thinking about. And their comments were not really *that* bad. Keep up the good work, man! Think you might head back there this summer? We are thinking of hitting it August 4-12 or so. Hopefully the B-S col (haha, I like the sound of that) will not be so bad this summer, but it seems I can't go any earlier, so we'll roll the dice, I guess.

Gary, Nice trip report, but I found the overall thread a bit tricky to comment on. I immediately recognized the two Canadian gals on the NE Ridge of Bugaboo. One of them is one of my climbing partners, and I found your TR while planning a return trip to the Bugaboos for this summer. As others have said, nice photos - you know what you are doing. But the followup comments seeking photos of the "hot Canadian women" made me a little unsure if I should respond. Although I suppose you didn't help the cause by using that phrase in the first place? Knowing the predominantly male audience, what did you expect? :-) It looked a bit like you wanted to talk more with them, but got torpedoed by your stuck rope. But with the somewhat unsavory followups, porn references, etc., it looks like your chances of getting a reponse from either of the gals is about nil. I can only think "With friends like that... who needs enemies?" :-) I know the commenters were mostly joking, but they weren't exactly helping, either. Perhaps they were bored with the TR, since it covers the classic routes which many of us have seen a few times before (notwithstanding the unexpected cool roadtrip photos). One could even think of their comments as casting suspicion on your ability to judge the hotness of the gals (attractiveness, climbing ability or speed, I'm not sure?), or possibly whether they were Canadian, or even whether they were women? :-) OK, I doubt photos would settle whether they were Canadian.... So, my dilemma - do I come to Gary's defense, maybe post some photos showing he told the truth, and maybe give him a lead on talking more with these mystery women? If I post photos, with this crowd, isn't it sure to lead to a hotornot.com type discussion? (I don't think my partner would enjoy that). Gary may even have such photos himself, but have enough restraint to not post them for this crowd.... So I tried to come up with a compromise. First I found a photo on the web showing that Gary wasn't making it all up. Here we see two gals in marshmallow mode, staying warm while waiting 3 hours for their turn, plus one of the Canadian gals talking to a guy in an orange shell. As I was saying the other day, isn't it amazing what you can find on the web? (Searching on "August 25" "Bugaboo Spire" in this case). http://www.sightly.net/peter/trips/bugaboos2006/20060825-074058.html And for those intent on hotornot.com mode, in the interest of "equal time", how about a photo of Justin on lead, taken by one of the gals: Let the voting begin! Hunkadelic, or Nerdalicious? How about: Just a guy out having fun on a classic? It doesn't always have to be guys ogling the girls, even in these days of the "Women of Climbing" and "Stone Nudes" calendars. I happily remember one of the coolest exchanges from the heyday of rec.climbing - when Sue was swooning over the cover photo of Jeff Schoen on Ankles Away. Then the topic drifted slightly to "boxers or briefs" and Jeff responded with one of the coolest responses of all time, listing his undergarment assortment! http://groups.google.com/group/rec.climbing/browse_thread/thread/759d08d945bd0d7b/b2c3ffdc493759b4?lnk=gst&q=%22Jeff+Schoen%22&rnum=1&hl=en#b2c3ffdc493759b4 It doesn't have to be the girls ogling the guys, either. No doubt if the climb was not crowded, the climbing harder, or the weather closing in, there wouldn't be much thought about whether the gals were hot; the climbing would be back in focus like it should be (and like it was in all but about two words of Gary's TR).

For additional topos (from the Elephant's Perch climbing shop in Ketchum) and beta for Elephant's Perch and the Sawtooths, see my web page: http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/eperch/saw.htm (If you just do a Google search on Elephant's Perch, the Elephant's Perch specific page will come up as #4, and Brad's page is right next to it). Have fun, Clint Cummins

Tuolumne Meadows and Lover's Leap are best for multipitch under 5.10 and in the shade. Tahquitz could be good as well. It has an uphill approach hike and gets sun, though. Courtright will be too hot - almost all climbs there are in the sun. Calaveras is at the same elevation as Yosemite Valley, so it won't help beat the heat. Most Tahoe areas are single pitch. Donner Summit (Snowshed Wall) is shady, quality, but single pitch. Have fun, Clint Cummins

My partner and I found the Jumars, radio, and 2 biners on Monday July 7. Mailed 'em back to Doug, who reimbursed us for shipping costs! Thanks to this web site for making it possible. Clint Cummins

I drew a topo which hopefully incorporates Buckaroo's corrections on the ratings of pitches, and the alternative belay for pitch 7: http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/wa/libcrack.gif Clint Cummins

Buckaroo's beta is very accurate. I did the route on July 7 2003, and I can offer a few minor additions: >1st pitch a1-a2 or 2- 5.11a moves We did a "0th pitch" by soloing across the 3rd class from the left side, and setting up a belay on some gear below the long thin crack. >2nd pitch straightforward a1 unless you've never aided >a roof (or 5.13) I was surprised to see the start of this pitch was entirely fixed with pins and a big bolt to reach the roof crack one move from the lip. With "old school" ratings, roofs always get A2 even if the gear is solid like on this pitch. >3rd pitch fixed a1 or 5.11d-R long runout on sparse pro. >the "manky" bashies on the 3rd pitch have been there >for over 10 years. There were 2 moderately old fixed copperheads in a row, which looked pretty good. Also a fixed bashed small stopper that looked pretty new (i.e. 2003). As mentioned in other posts in this thread, there is one pretty solid hook move (standard Chouinard/Black Diamond skyhook) in an enhanced piton hole. "Old school" ratings give A3 for any hook move, but probably it is fairer to call it A2. Many fixed pins. >4th a1 or 5.10b This is mostly a friendly 5.9 hand crack, then the crack gets thin and the rock somewhat crumbly at the end of the pitch where I aided a few moves. A 70' pitch. >5th 5.8 (FULL 50m pitch, conserve gear) Perfect description, although the topo we had said 5.9 and my partner didn't disagree. >6th 5.10a (one move) or a1 (rotten block) Another full 50m pitch for us, with my partner belaying on top of the big block. There was a scary semidetached flake below the block, too. >the 3 button bolt "belay" above the rotten block is a >decoy. If you keep going straight up the dihedral >there's a nice fat gear belay with a good stance. The >button bolt "belay" is an old rap station used to get >down to a bivy ledge when the thing was being seiged. We belayed at the 3-bolt belay (all 1/4" buttonheads, but in fairly decent shape; it was the first belay anchor without at least one big bolt). There is good gear to back up the bolts as well. We couldn't go any higher because it was a full 50m to there. It was a nice place to sit on top of the block, so I thought it was a good place to stop. It appears that some people stop about 40' below, where there is a small stance and a single 1/4" bolt (a second 1/4" bolt is out of reach on the wall to the right) but good gear in the corner. This lower belay looked inferior, because the next pitch would get a lot of rope drag going around the block. >7th 5.10c (one move) or a1 We did this as an 80' pitch, up the slick but low angle dihedral, and stopped at the 2-bolt belay 10' below the small overhang with the 5.10 move. Here you stand on a thin semi-detached flake. This was the "2 bad 1/4" bolts" belay mentioned in some trip reports, so my partner backed it up by clipping the haul line to 2 fixed pins at the overhang. Before I jumared the next pitch, I removed one of the bolts (a 1/4" x 1") and replaced it with a 3/8" x 2.25" stainless and a stainless "ASCA stamped" hanger. To remove the old bolt, I used a "tuning fork", which is a #4 Lost Arrow with a 5/16" slot hacksawed down the middle - a very effective tool. I would have replaced the second bolt as well, but the carbide tip on my drill bit got chipped and I had trouble even finishing the first bolt.... >8th , 9th, 10th 5.6 (can be simuled) > >11th 5.9 (60m required if you belay from the tree >ledge.) We did these pitches as follows: 8th 5.10 move at the roof, then 5.6 ramp to belay at trees below an obvious chimney. 9th 5.6 chimney, with a couple of hard steep moves at the end to reach the belay ledge with tree (I pulled on the slings on the tree). Awkward to follow this pitch on jumars, because of the pack we had and spare rope loops hanging up in the crack. 10th 5.9 fun pitch up a steepening corner. Near the end of the pitch, I moved into a 5.7 hand crack on the left, ignoring fixed pins in the corner on the right. I belayed on a sloping ledge in a small chimney in the left crack system, but made a belay anchor in the corner to the right. 11th 5.8 steep corner, with a few lieback moves to reach a long easy ramp. Full 50m pitch to reach belay tree at top of ramp. From here, a 180' 4th class traverse left on ledges reaches a big left-facing corner, where gear can be dumped to bag the summit (one 20' 5.4 slab can be soloed safely). Then downclimb 40' from the gear cache to reach the first of 2 rappel anchors into the notch/gully. Clint Cummins