bremerton_john

Sure, I'd like to know what you found. Thanks. John

Technical climbing in the Olys is not for the faint of heart (not suggesting you are - just being philosophical). From your TR and photos I'd say you were pretty much on route. The approach can get tricky as you near the gendarmes. It took me two tries to find the way. As for the rock, well, it certainly is loose in some places, but believe it or not, compared with other peaks in the range it is better than average on this route. We didn't have the torrent of choss falling on us you describe, but we found loose holds and we had to be creative with protection in places. If you're accustomed to climbing in the Cascades the stuff over here can be an eye-opener. Thanks for sharing your trip and the pictures.

You guys should probably stay well clear of Jupiter Cliffs.

We're thinking it was probably 1967.

This TR by Harold Pinsch was forwarded to me. He passed away a few years ago. I'll see if I can find out the year of this climb. It really captures the essence of sketchy Olympic climbing. Good stuff. John

I've climbed with John on several occassions and consider him one of the old goats of the Olympics. Malcolm is right, John is a very strong climber, and not many know the range better than him. Hard luck there John! Rest up and I'm sure we'll be seeing you back up there soon. Thanks for the video link guys, and the rescue info Malcolm. John

Check it out in video! BJJ9MzAOb3A

Excellent! Way to go fellas. Seems every couple years some folks give that traverse a try in "winter" conditions. Great job.

Hey, that trip looks familiar! Seems like I went there once. Nice TR there Kev. I see you figured out the photo uploading. John

Trip: St. Peter's Dome - West Chute Date: 4/21/2007 Trip Report: Animal and I headed down the Duckabush trail on Saturday morning with the intent on climbing St. Peter's Dome. I've had my eye on it for years and wondered how to get at it. We've never met anyone whose climbed it before, but considering its proximity to a main trail its hard to believe it hasn't been. I did find a short route description on bivouac.com that read: "Access is from a logging road that runs up the Duckabush River. From a bend in the road, hike west along a trail that runs along the Duckabush River to Cliff Creek. Bushwack southwest along Cliff Creek and scramble up the south slope to reach the summit" What the? Go up Cliff Creek? Those tightly spaced contour lines at low elevation on the topo map generally spell chossy moss-ridden hell in the Olympics. Who wrote this? Maybe it is possible, but it sure looked to us that the only reasonable approach to the Dome was from the west/southwest by fording the Duckabush River well past Big Hump. So that is what we did. This is abouut 2 miles past Big Hump. It's damn cold but not the raging torrent we thought we were going to find for a spring run-off. Immediately after entering the woods on the opposite (south) side we found old orange flagging on a tree. Aha, anyone? So we proceeded up through the woods paralleling a creek, likely a seasonal one as it doesn't show on the map other than a crease in the contours. Oh, it was raining too and the visibility sucked. Then when we got a little higher the rain turned into that white stuff. We found one more orange flag at about 3000 feet, but still a ways from the Dome. We were in the woods, couldn't see anywhere, didn't have altimeters (various reasons), nor crampons (yep, those would've been nice). So we ended up going the wrong direction up a chute to the SW. Fortunately I did have a compass and we traversed back east to a point where we could just make out the Dome through the mist. This photo was taken the next morning (Sunday) on the way out when the visibility was much better. That's the Dome on the left. Looks kinda different from this direction than it does from the Duck trail. We went up between the main summit and the next little knob to the right. There is a steep chute in there with a couple of spicey boulder moves, but enough greenery to grovel. Here's a pic of the ridge once at the saddle. And here's Animal on the top. The only thing we could see were the sheer walls down into Cliff Creek to the east of us. We dropped back into the little basin to the west of the Dome, found a big overhanging boulder and crawled under for the night. We retraced our steps the next morning (about 6" snow fell that night), and made our way out. It was 9 hours from car to summit on Saturday, but that included our route-finding goof-ups. Gear Notes: We shoulda had crampons, it was quite icy in places. We did rap down the steep chute partially for this reason. Bring an altimeter too so you know when to start your traverse east after bushwacking up through the hillside. We coulda used one of those too. Approach Notes: This approach seems the most viable to me. But give Cliff Creek a try, I'd like to know how it goes.

Arnie and Dina Bloomer did climb that route on their honeymoon in 1965. She apparently spotted the route and they went for it. Arnie confirmed this himself today. John

This is what you mostly see on that flat section later in the summer.

Here's a shot of Animal checking out a slot in the Lower Blue. This was the largest hole we saw on the Lower glacier, but there was plenty of running water flowing down those moulins (cool word). This was the second week of August.

Great meeting some of y'all last night. Awesome slides Wayne and the rest of you.

I'm sorry to read about your situation Oly. Hope your recovery is a quick one bro.

The Heather to Shaw traverse, deep in the wilds of the Wynoochee.

Great recommendation. I like that area too, and haven't done the ridge yet, so I've got that to look forward to on a future trip in there.

I know Animal was having no luck posting photos when he wrote the TR. I'll nag him again and help him out, he's got some great pictures. John

Inspiring solo climb Wayne. Awesome job. Where's a photo of the pole? (The rock one)

Animal, you guys took some good shots of Queets when you were up there in August, right?

I know Animal and two others gave this a go in August of this year. They got up Mt Queets but were a bit stymied by the traverse over to Meany, as it appeared more serious than the book alluded to, particularly with full packs on. Maybe he can add some more info here.

George, JohnnySnakeSlayer and I went up Constance this weekend via route 5, North Fork Tunnel Creek. It's about 5-6 hours from the car to the tarn at 4100 feet, then 6 hours from here to the summit (right on the book's estimate). JohnnySnake and I went up the approach of 5B a few weeks ago and even though it involves going up and over Cunningham Pass and losing that elevation, the South Fork route involves a bit less bush-wacking generally. The North Fork route does have a remnant trail that someone flagged in 2003 from the road-end to the drainage cutoff, but there is still work to be done getting up from here. The nice thing about this approach is that there really is no elevation loss. I think either 5 or 5B would be decent when there is significant snow to assist on the scree chute(s). Which is the easier approach? Perhaps the South Fork but only slightly. For the most part we were able to dodge the precipitation this weekend, but there was several inches of fresh snow in places on the summit ridge this Saturday. John

I'm glad the new description worked out for you guys. The route difficulty can vary somewhat depending on your exact line of ascent. As you said, it is a ridge route and staying on the ridge generally affords the easiest way up. Moving onto the face in places can add some spice. You guys were moving at a decent pace, making it up in only 6 hours. We put a conservative time range in the new book, partially because it took that long for a couple parties to do it, partially because of the route-finding on the approach. The poor flagging and abundance of climbers' paths near the gendarmes can throw you off. Great job, and I agree it is a fun route and pretty good by Olympic standards. John

Hey, cool pic Oly!

Randy, thanks for the FA information. You probably got a kick out of seeing that summit register photo. Protection is definitely sparse on that final pitch on Destroyer. We would have bailed too without the hardware. During the process of revising the guidebook with OMR I've met a number of climbers from the "early years". Perhaps you were even contacted by Keith Spencer or one of the others? It still amazes me that these spires (and a few others) were not climbed earlier. One of the appeals to climbing in the Olympics for me is that there are quite a few folks around still you can talk (and climb) with that have intimate knowledge of the range and its history. I'll get an e-mail out to you with the higher res pic of Constance. John