Rad
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Posts posted by Rad
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Consulting the first ascentionists and getting their blessing sounds like a thoughtful and respectful way to handle this.
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There are some good suggestions here, so I'll keep my comments brief. Besides, I'm no expert.
As a rock climbing transplant from warmer locales I have been working to make this transition too.
1 - Alpine climbs often involve a strenous approach. This may include unprotected 3rd and 4th class, bushwhacking through nasty vegetation, crossing swift rivers, navigating in poor visibility and without trails. You can gain experience in these areas by hiking off trail and scrambling non-technical peaks. Check out the 100 Washington Scrambles book or try 3rd class scrambles from the Beckey guides.
2 - In alpine environments you frequently have to deal with snow, ice, and glaciers. Snow travel can be safe and easy or hard and scary depending on conditions, which vary widely. I'd suggest you don't venture onto a glacier unless you're tied in with a competent partner (or two or three) and all of you know self-arrest and crevasse rescue skills.
4 - Dealing with all sorts of weather can be the most important element of an outing. Gear is also critical. Don't wear cotton!
4 - Find someone as eager as you are and you'll have some great adventures. There should be no shortage of prime fodder among the masochists who read this list.
Will's idea of setting a goal is a good one.
Adventure, in my book, involves uncertainty. We have some truly amazing alpine wilderness up here. I hope you have many wonderful adventures learning to explore and climb in it.
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"I thought the crack below the traverse was quite a bit harder than the traverse itself."
Yes, I totally agree, and wondered if I wasn't supposed to have climbed the dihedral left of the lower crack.
Good TR, nice pics.
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Avoid camp slime
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Try following before leading there.
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Is there a consensus that 1 rope is better than 2 for a party of 3?
I've often taken friends out and climbed as 3. Have developed a system that works but probably could use improvment.
I've usually used 2 ropes and belayed both followers at the same time on easier pitches or separately on harder ones where a follower has a high chance of falling/hanging.
Sometimes rope drag while belaying can be a real b#$%# and more of a workout than leading. Also, there's a lot of spaghetti to flake and manage at the belays (keep out of cracks, bushes). 1 rope would solve both of those issues. However, 2 ropes means longer raps, faster descents, and a greater margin of perceived safety.
Should I convert to 1 rope next time?
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Should be fun.
Tuolumne has lots of great, moderate trad routes (Regular route on Fairview, Cathedral Peak, and many others), but it will be rather cold up there. The plus side is that it will not be crowded.
In the valley, Both Braile Book and the Nutcracker are great climbs with jam cracks at their cruxes. I agree that the cracks of Outer Space are a good barometer for whether you're ready for these two. If you're feeling more conservative, get comfortable on After 6(5.6) and After Seven (5.7) Manure Pile as warm-ups.
If you do well on the Nutcracker and Braile book think trying the Northeast Buttress of Upper Cathedral (IV 5.9).
Guide book translations: '5.9+' means f#$%#@ hard. 'Slot' means awkward offwidth. 'Pro to 3 inches' means bring at least 2 pieces that are 3 inches (like #3 camalots) because you might encounter 50 feet of continuous fist jamming.
Snake Dike is gorgeous. A few 5.7 moves and then easy friction forever. Long approach. Just take a few nuts as you only need to place one or two pieces. The rest is bolts.
Crest Jewel is super fun but a bit tad runout. Only bolts.
If you do Royal Arches, which is fun, don't be discouraged by the first ten feet of '5.6' chimney. It is incredibly greasy from being polished by thousands of shoes. The rest of the climb is much easier.
Have a great trip.
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Best bet is to contact Doug Robinson (check out www.movingoverstone.com) for beta and details. Doug has a semi-secret way into the Palisade basin that may save you a lot of time on the approach. Alternatively, hit the CA climbing lists and find a Bishop guide to hit for beta.
Doug, my wife and I did Sun Ribbon Arete last year, not Darkstar so no beta for you on the climb itself. SRA is amazing, solid granite, cool tyrolean. Hike off descent (same as for Darkstar) has just one rap and is easy.
You'd have to be really fit to do any big climb on Temple car to car in a day. The trailhead you mention is around 7000ft, lakes close to Temple where most people camp are around 10,000ft and >6 miles from trailhead, climbs on Temple top out about to 13000.
Leaves will be changing and it will be absolutely gorgeous, but probably bitter cold. October is usually prime ice climbing.
Have a great trip.
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Any snow in Boston basin or up on the surrounding peaks after recent storms? The forecast said snow down to 6500.
Thanks.
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All good climbs listed.
Note: Gunks ratings are pretty stiff and protection is almost all trad and not always straightforward. Think pink and red tricams in horizontal pockets.
You might want to warm up on something below your limit. I tried to lead MF onsight my second trip down there and got spanked, making my way to the top only after several whippers. Usually 5.9 is easy money, but that one had my number!
A few more classics to add to the list:
Roseland 5.9
Birdland 5.8?
Ants line 5.9
Broken sling 5.8+
Have a great trip. Fall is the perfect time to be there.
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Good on you for coming to the aid of a fellow climber.
It sounds like you literally saved his life. Even though you weren't physically hurt, this event has left its mark on you, done damage in some unseen way. 
If talking about it here is part of the healing so be it. Just understand that this is an audience with a wide range of viewpoints 
(thankfully).I think it's important to learn from each even what we can from events like this. We all take risks as climbers, but we need to keep the consequences in mind in order to make good decisions for ourselvers and for others.
So here's my 2 cents:
I always wear my skullbucket on lead and on multipitch climbs or when there are people above me. Period. It looks pretty dorky sometimes, and the rest of my wardrobe does little to offset that, but there you have it. I've taken leader falls over the years but never hit my head. Still, my helmet has saved my noggin more than once...so here's Letterman's top ten reasons to wear your helmet (notice that most of them are completely beyond our control):
10 - Your mother might be watching and she still loves you.
9 - Someone important to you needs you back safely at the end of the climbing adventure.
8 - Your boss might have to fire you if your brain went missing.
7 - In focusing on your footwork, you failed to notice the roof until it ran into your head.
6 - Hey, it's non-greasy sunblock for those thinning up top.
5 - You might flip over and hit your head in a leader fall.
4 - Newbies might be watching you and taking notes.
3 - Your partner or some other idiot above you just dropped your favorite cam and it's heading your way...
2 - The party two pitches above you decided to 'clean' the belay ledge of that annoying tippy block.
1 - The karmic powers of nature have decided you're the target for the rock or ice fragment that's finally ready to cut loose.
Food for thought: Open Climbing mag and you'll see that no one wears their helmet on rock. In those sexy photos only alpine and ice climbers wear them. Where are the role models?
.................
A close friend of mine was first on the scene of an accident in the Traprock of CT. A fledgling leader sans helment had lead up over a bulge and run it out in the process. He got freaked, couldn't get the right gear in, tried to downclimb, and peeled. On the way down he flipped over and hit his head on a ledge and continued on to the ground. My friend said his head was cracked open like a broken egg. He was transported to the hospital but died on route. There was nothing his poor partner could do. A helmet might have saved his life. He might have been paralyzed anyway, but without a helmet he had no chance at all.
..........
When you take newbies out do you put them in helmets? If not why not?
Thanks for posting the report. A lively discussion is what this site is all about IMHO.
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You'd get a killer workout from dragging that slender anaconda through a few pieces of pro,
but that's easily solved, just don't place pro...then you could fall 280m before shockloading the belay.
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WW1 wall at Little Si can be dry even when it's raining. Maybe prolonged soakings change the picture.
Vantage often is only cloudy when the West slopes are getting wet.
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this thread is hilarious. I just hope i never hear about a climber accident involving a botched fifi hook rappel with duct tape. that would give us all, justifiably, a bad name in the press and with the park staff, though it might merit a Darwin award.
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5.9 pitch (right before the summit) on E face of Inspiration in the Pickets.
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By still smarter than the average bear. Will search first next time and wear the dunce cap in the corner for an hour now.
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Bears are smart enough to avoid Bush!
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Bear downs 36 beers, passes out at campground
Rainier, not Busch, the beverage of choice for thirsty black bear.
BAKER LAKE, Wash. - When state Fish and Wildlife agents recently found a black bear passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort, there were some clues scattered nearby — dozens of empty cans of Rainier Beer.
The bear apparently got into campers’ coolers and used his claws and teeth to puncture the cans. And not just any cans.
“He drank the Rainier and wouldn’t drink the Busch beer,” said Lisa Broxson, bookkeeper at the campground and cabins resort east of Mount Baker.
Fish and Wildlife enforcement Sgt. Bill Heinck said the bear did try one can of Busch, but ignored the rest. The beast then consumed about 36 cans of Rainier.
A wildlife agent tried to chase the bear from the campground but the animal just climbed a tree to sleep it off for another four hours. Agents finally herded the bear away, but it returned the next morning.
Agents then used a large, humane trap to capture it for relocation, baiting the trap with the usual: doughnuts, honey and, in this case, two open cans of Rainier.
That did the trick.
“This is a new one on me,” Heinck said. “I’ve known them to get into cans, but nothing like this. And it definitely had a preference.”
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Last summer Ed Williams and I rapped off the chopping block at 5pm, walked South down the slabs below the Chopping Block and out onto the ridge below. We did not drop down to the Terror Creek until we reached the end of the ridge. We never encountered a trail of any sort, despite a line in a Beckey photo suggesting we would. In the midst of our evening thrash down to Terror Creek we found an old rap anchor at a cliff hidden in the trees on the bush thrash. We added another sling and launched into the unknown. The thrash down to Terror Creek, which we forded (see photo by searching 'rad' in photos) around 1700 ft, was the most sphyncerfying part of our 4-day trip. We got to the trailhead at 1am. Maybe there once was a trail, but it is not on that narrow ridge. Going up that way would require spiderman's skills.
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W/the washout Forbidden West ridge should have the approach you seek. If you can handle one pitch of 5.8 w/great gear then do the E ridge - it's one of my absolute favorites.
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Dierdre in Squamish.
N face of Vesper (glacier xing reqd).
Drive to CA and climb the Snake Dike on Half Dome.
btw, Mt Constance is now one heck of a day trip because the road was washed out, adding an extra 3 miles and another 1000 vert ft. Still a great peak, though non-technical. Leave ropes at home, bring helmet for scree landing on your partner's head.
Note, many alpine routes in this range involve long run-outs and/or soloing lots of 4th to easy 5th class.
My 2 cents: Mt Thompson West ridge is a worthless pile of rubble waiting to crumble in your hand. Spend your time elsewhere.
Have fun.
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Special thanks to Jon for all his work and for scoring the beer. Speaking of scoring, Jon did you get the number of that cute girl serving beers? Someone said she looked like Christina Ricci only way hotter...
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Think of it like a Halloween party where all your friends (and non-friends) are in costume. It is a little harder to tell who's who, but just get 'em talkin and dancin and the truth comes out.
Peraonally, I mean what I say and say what I mean, and I will stand up and take credit for it for better or worse.
My name is my moniker - Rad Roberts.
That said, I think there's nothing wrong with a little fun and a little controversy. If this website were just about info and finding climbers to shag we wouldn't check it nearly so often.
Cheerios.
And I'll say that Crazy Polish Bob, who I met in the flesh this evening, is a vibrant individual who I'm glad I met. I even managed to offend the @#$%@ with a joke I'll not repeat here. I'd never want to scare his ilk away from mother's milk.
So, Mr moderator, keep it coming, right down to our beloved Dwayner - who, for all the flack he gets, does not cower in anonymity.
How's that for rooting for the underdog?
R
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D,
Glad you were spared. Pretty spooky Hween note. As an actuary, not to mention a climber, you should have a sense of quantifying risks better than any of the rest of us.
In Belize I had a tarantula run across my bare foot while I was walking in tall grass. Course it didn't bite me, but we both were rather startled.
One day our numbers will be called - who knows when?
R
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Luck favors the prepared.
No helmet on 3rd class loose mountainside? That, in my opinion, presents far more danger to the noggin than climbing Outer Space.
Two tales of risk - accidental vs calculated
MY pregnant wife and I went to climb N face of Vesper in August. At the trailhead I realized I forgot the iceaxes at home. Oops.
I brought crampons for myself but figured she'd be ok without them. In the parking lot another party of 3 friendly yahoos said they didn't have any axes or crampons and thought we'd all be fine. Well, we got to the glacier xing to get to the base of the route and it was much more frozen than we'd anticipated. Hmmm. I tied into the end of our rope and was 'belayed' as I I cramponed across. I had a walking stick to self arrest (not much use there as the glacier was rock hard in the shady spots). Turned out the glacier tongue was wider than we thought and my friendly yahoo belayers had to ties two 60M ropes together - by the time I was tiptoeing across the final 100ft of bullet hard 35 degree suncups the rope was utterly useless. Stayed in balance and made it just fine. I anchored the end of the rope and we set up a handline that my wife and two yahoos clipped into for the traverse. Yahoo #3 had to come across with a pseudo-belay. We all were fine, but lack of foresight had needlessly endangered me and Yahoo #3. The yahoos then got off route and we left them in the dust as we cruised the lovely steep buttress. Notably, two other climbers passed us as we were crossing the glacier - they had crampons and axes and decided not to rope up for the crossing despite crevasses down below. We each have our different levels of acceptable risk. Think hard about accepting more risk at the spur of the moment than you would accept if you had prepared for it.A few weeks later I went into the Pickets with my buddy Ed for an amazing adventure. We went super light and exposed ourselves to risks of exposure to cold and glacier issues...but we had very carefully planned every item we would bring, how we would use them, and how we would deal with the potential adversities that might come our way. Our judgment was not, in hind sight, perfect, but we survived and had a truly inspirational adventure. We brought heavy boots and crampons for glacier travel but I decided to use cleaning tools instead of an iceax for self-arresting. We had no pickets or screws. However, I chose a route up the Terror Glacier to a notch by West MAc spire that was crevasse-free, and we climbed it in the evening when it was soft enough to kick steps fairly easily. We brought only 1 60m rope, no bivy sacks, no sleeping bags despite the weather forecast for showers. It did mist and got damn cold. (seach photo gallery for spaceman Rad for an idea) Lesson: next time I'll wear stiff tennis shoes, get superlight strap-on crampons, a stubby iceaxe, and bring a light down bag and bivy sack. Do I have regrets? Definitely not.
Take home message - there is a big difference between taking a calculated risk and being foolish. You have to know when to back off or go for it and that often comes from a curious blend of experience and gut intuition.
It's all part of the glorious mystery that is life.
Lastly, go read John Dill's opening to the Yosemite Free Climbing guide - it is an excellent treatment of accidents, risks, and preparedness.
Condition of Ice face on North Ridge of Forbidden?
in North Cascades
Posted
All these photos of Forbidden...and my eye is drawn to the striking NW rib.
It looks like a long rock route on a peak known for high quality rock.
Has anyone climbed this? Rock quality comments? Difficulty? It is sure in a spectacular and isolated (except at the summit) setting.
Any info appreciated...
Thanks,