bremerton_john

You guys had an awesome trip. Wish I was able to join. John

All the pitons we took out with the exception of one which was left to hold the rappel sling in place. Oh, and we left the 1980 piton there too. Judge for yourself whether to trust it anymore. I gave it a couple of wacks with the hammer and it sunk another inch into the rock. It's located only a few feet above the platform anyway, so its usefulness is limited. Yes, a single 60m was used. After dropping down the summit pitch of Destroyer and scrambling over to do Enigma we rapped off the SW side of Enigma. The traverse between Destroyer and Enigma by the way has some suprisingly slick lichen/moss covered rock on otherwise easy terrain, with serious consequences for slipping. Have fun! John

Climb: Destroyer & Enigma Date of Climb: 8/11-12/2006 Trip Report: Last weekend JonnySnakeSlayer and I went up tunnel creek in search of Destroyer. Frankly neither of us knew exactly what it was, despite having looked over towards it several times from the next ridge over. The visual trouble is that from that perspective (April, bump above Harrison Lakes), Destroyer kind of blends in with the other rock in the foreground of Mt. Constance. But the approach description sounded simple enough so we exited the tunnel creek trail as prescribed and found our way up through the forest and boulders to the level area at 4900 feet. To our right the boulder field and cliff band was obvious (photo below). The approach went up a choss-filled gully on the right side just out of view. Yeah, the visibility was at its best this Friday afternoon when I took the picture above. It mostly socked in for no views at all, which meant finding the spire we hadn't really seen before was shaping up to be a challenge. We sidehilled through the scree below the cliff bands looking for something when eventually through the mist the pointed rock of Destroyer appeared ahead of us. We made our way over, geared up and went up what at first seemed to be the 50 foot sloping ledge. Upon reaching the top (which was like 90 feet up), we realized quickly this was not the intended ledge, and we were greeted by a sudden maelstrom of hail peening off our helmets and knuckles. We bailed. The rest of Friday was shot drying out. After bivying that night we awoke to clear blue and a dry ridge. Enigma on the left side and Destroyer the right. After walking up we quickly found the correct ledge. SnakeSlayer led up the easy start but then got snarled by rope drag as the pitch neared the notch on the SW side. I came up and led up a short, nearly vertical section containing a crack to the notch which was certainly a bit harder than 5.4. But standing at the notch the broad, downsloping ledge on the backside was found, summit getting closer. The book describes a knife-blade being used on the final lead. It's still there, with a thick coating of rust. Thankfully the hammer I brought and knife-blades protected our ascent. No summit register on top, nor anything manmade. I guess you hardmen that first climbed it just slung the summit horn with the rope. We gave it some thought, but decided to leave a runner. SnakeSlayer on top: (by the way, N. Fork Tunnel Creek approach of Route 5 Constance down there on the left side of pic) A short traverse across the ridge leads to the block that is Enigma. Here there was an old film canister which contained the following. In addition to those signatures, on the back of the first ascentionists page (left one) was written "returned 01". That little page looked like a photocopy of the original. It wasn't clear who had returned the page in 01. But whoever it was, you didn't leave a pencil! Oh, the view of Constance from here is just damn amazing. Here's a stitched shot taken from Destroyer. You can see nearly the entire standard route. PM me if you want a higher res copy. Also, the scree chute of route 5 on Constance was directly across from us. It does look like a choice alternative, but the decision must be whether to go basic Route 5 via North Fork Tunnel Creek (I haven't done this approach yet) versus Route 5B via South Fork Tunnel Creek. After getting down from Destroyer, JonnySnakeSlayer and I backtracked our way down to the 4900 ft level area, then continued up the valley until we reached Cunningham Pass (sorry, no pics!). Right now it is scree-hell. There's a moderate amount of bush-wacking to go this way, but it is shorter in distance than the other approaches. Oh, and one final piece of info, we attempted to continue SW down the ridge from Destroyer to gain Cunningham Pass directly. It looked promising at first, but when you get within 1/4 mile it cliffs out and there are several gendarmdes guarding the way. Thus the backtrack. Gear Notes: Hammer and 3 blades served us well, plus a couple cams/nuts.

Wow, you guys dodged a potentially serious situation there. I'm always worried about the potential of cutting the rope with rockfall, particulary when rapping down nasty loose gulleys. Yeah, the approach to that route can be a bit tricky, and figuring out just where to go through the woods makes a big difference. There's a couple of erroneous paths near the rocky gendarmes that can lead you astray.

Here are some of the photos, no particular order. Were you able to get up there this weekend? We got up Destroyer and Enigma on Saturday - I'll post a TR in a couple days when I get some pics. John

Looks like a long, rewarding day in and out of the Basin. Mt. Clark has got several good routes on it. Oly, yeah that's the Arrowhead in your pic. Thanks for that link also to the geology website. I hadn't seen that before. Nice picture there with someone on top of the Arrowhead.

Congratulations to the both of you. For the ascent also.

Tank up on water lower down and camp on the false summit, weather permitting. The views in the Olympics get no better than this spot on clear nights. Otherwise yes, there are a few flat areas around the IGY hut, and probably a flow of melt water just a short walk onto the snow dome during the heat of the day. Another viable spot a little lower is Caltech rocks at the base of the snow dome. Not sure if it is melted out yet. Others here might know.

Great pictures, weather and climb.

That's a foggy pic there. When I was last on April it was a crystal clear day and I still wasn't sure which one was Destoyer. Guess I ought to just go in there and have a look.

"JonnySnakeSlayer" - HaHa, it didn't take me long to figure out who this was. Good job on April, I know that's a springtime fav. Did you get a look at Destroyer while you were up there?

Good job Kevin, where's the picture of the mating ladybugs?

That's mostly true David. Kitsap Sports in Silverdale does sell a limited selection of gear, but are about the only place around.

Great trip, informative with photos showing peaks from some angles not often seen.

It's just a hike in the woods. Sometimes in the winter/spring the snow can be packed and somewhat icy, but by now...? There's been groups up there recently I know, so there will likely be steps in the snow if it is hard-packed.

OK. It's been suggested before that Trap Pass is a potential way in to do St. Peter's Dome. That piece of rock is a tough little bugger to get to.

Nice pic ForrestCL. Were you up there just hiking the forest road, or on your way to someplace in particular?

As previously suggested I have been involved with the new edition of the guidebook. The book will be out soon so I won't go into a lot of detail here. However, the format is larger than in the past to bring it into a standard size comparable to other recent Mountaineers publications. Some of us liked the smaller size of the previous 3 editions cause it fit into our packs easier, but this decision was not ours to make this time around. Another reason for the larger format is because there is a significant amount of new content. The basic peak/route info will be a familiar format to previous editions (though thoroughly reviewed and revised), the alpine traverse section is enhanced (particularly the Baileys), plus there is the addition of Crags and Alpine Climbs, with the latter consisting of expanded route descriptions/topos of a selection of climbs in the guide. There are also many new photos. I'm certain anyone whose as interested in the Olympic Mountains as I am will enjoy the new edition and appreciate the effort put into its creation by the committee of people involved from OMR. They're a knowledgeable and dedicated group. I commend all of them for their hard work. John

Hey fellas, his original post was made on August 3rd.

Some of the best rock climbing in the Olympics is right there in Royal Basin, or more specifically the Needles. Mind you, this is not the Cascades, so if you are new to climbing Olympic rock don't go in with really high expectations of quality. BUT, there are some very enjoyable routes to be found here. The ratings in the book are actually fairly good for the Needles. (I know that the new edition coming out early next year will feature enhanced write-ups of some of these, including new routes). Oly's pictures above show Mt. Clark, Sweat Spire, Gasp Pinnacle, Mt. Johnson, the Incisor and the Arrowhead just below Martin Peak. Unless you pioneer some new routes on the steeper, longer sides of some of these, they are all essentially single pitch climbs once you reach their base. However, to get to Sweat, Gasp & Johnson you have to ascend some 4th/low 5th class terrain. I'd recommend going for these 3 on your first trip, as they'll give you a good taste of what's possible. Protection on these routes is decent, consisting of some shallow cracks that accept small gear and the odd horn to sling. The Arrowhead is the exception, as it's got a real nice jammin crack nearly the whole way up. Come to think of it, that pitch on the Arrowhead may be the best one up there. This is my favorite time of the year to be up there. John

This looked like a good opportunity to share a couple more pictures of the river from our recent trip up there, but alas I cannot get the photos to upload for some reason this evening. Anyway, there are numerous spots to camp along the river, particularly before reaching the area where it gets to be narrow and canyon-like. There is a high, flat and often open-wooded bank on either side that runs for a good portion of the river. I also think though having a pair of water shoes would make live easier. I brought a pair of shoes I use kayaking with me and the other two guys agreed that if they had them also we could have simply walked up the river much of the way. As it was the single pair worked out for crossings, as we just threw them back and forth for each of us to wear. The South Fork is indeed a neat place to visit.

Cool trip. I'll add that one to my "to-do" list in the Olympics.

Javman, Valkyrie Creek is the one at about 2100', just past the very obvious and large mossy boulder field on the north bank (like guidebook description). The next major creek is the drainage of the Geri-Freki glacier. It was recommended that we go up this second creek as an easier approach. Unfortunately we ignored this advice and went up Valkyrie Creek, which is no picnic. If I go in again I'll be giving the second creek a go. Not sure how the river is between the two, but judging by the countours I'd say you've got another narrow river section to pass through, but it's probably no worse than what preceeds it. Wayne and Michael, it struck me when we were in the Valhallas, someone such as yourselves might get a bit excited about the idea of doing a Valhalla traverse, circling the glacier while doing the high points. This might be a natural encore to your Sawtooth Ridge visit last year Wayne. Working your way around the horseshoe shaped ridge there are at least 10 named summits and a few unnamed bumps to hit on the way. (But then, maybe I should have kept this idea to myself... ) I'm not sure why my photos got reduced in size on the initial post. Here's one shot larger showing the Valhallas above the clouds taken from the shoulder of Athena II. The ridge we ran can also be partially seen.

Fairweather, Thanks, the trip was very rewarding, and your TR earlier with pics of the summit gave us some up to date info on conditions. Not sure what to say about the OMR reports, usually those guys are pretty spot on. I think there must have been some miscommunication somewhere that got blown out of proportion. Shows the power of a single website posting though, doesn't it? A couple of your comments are ironic. Yeah, while going up Athena II we did recall the copper box story, and my eyes were open to that. But alas, all we found was a brass box instead. It contained some shards of paper with crazy ramblings of being the first people on top of the Olympus Range. Animal had run out of TP by this point in the trip, so it was a timely find. I think he pitched the box in a crevasse. So the search for the copper one will have to continue. The other thing that is funny you mention is whether or not Olympus has been climbed direct from the SW, Hubert glacier headwall. That was also a topic of discussion during the trip, because the potential for that route had been suggested to us by a certain long-standing park ranger who knows a thing or two about the climbing history of the Olympics. It does look rotten, and appears to switch rock type mid-route from that dark shale to the lighter brown blocky stuff (sandstone? damn I'm no geologist) closer to the top. But who knows, maybe it would be worth a go...?

Climb: Valhallas to Olympus- Date of Climb: 8/6/2005 - 8/13/2005 Trip Report: On Saturday Aug 6th Tony, Kevin (Animal) and I entered the South Fork of the Hoh. We spent the next eight days bushwacking, route-finding, climbing (rock, ice, snow, trees), and trudging our way up and down endless scree slopes en route to the Valhallas, cross country to Athena, over the Hoh and Blue glaciers to summit Olympus and finally a 18 mile day out the Hoh trail on Saturday the 13th. The idea for this trip originated from Gabiot, my French climbing friend who did the traverse a few years ago. He was unequivocally vague about the details, especially the ridge traverse, preferring not to spoil any sense of adventure or discovery should we attempt a repeat. I thank him for that, because the week lived up to our expectations. I thought the Valhallas would be an interesting group of peaks to visit due to their remoteness and difficulty of getting to, plus we just couldn’t resist seeing for ourselves if the bushwack up the South Fork of the Hoh was as joyful as advertised. This would be Tony’s second trip into the Vals, and enough time had passed since the first trip (15 years) that he was willing to go for it again. Kevin and I left Bremerton early on Saturday the 6th, stopping in Sequim to caravan with Tony. After leaving one car at the Hoh Visitor Center we drove around to the end of the South Fork Hoh road and began hiking in around noon. On the national park permit under the section titled “List Camp Locations” Kevin scrawled “All over the place”. We deemed that sufficient, as did the ranger we encountered at the end of the trip whom took delight in hearing that we had made it. The bushwack up the South Fork Hoh actually turned out to be fairly manageable, aided by the fact that the river level was pretty low, allowing us to hike up the dry river bars along the banks in places. We also found abundant elk trails, and elk for that matter, stumbling on one herd of about 35 that were bedded down in the forest adjacent to the river. After a warning bugle they moved out to the river. Upon seeing our ugly mugs they crashed through the trees and were out of sight in an instant. After spending one night on the river and continuing upstream the next day, we reached Valkyrie Creek around 3:00pm. The grueling scramble up through the steep forested hillside below the Valhallas took its toll on us, and we were quite satisfied to make camp in the meadows with the west side of Olympus as our backdrop, and views of the Pacific ocean at sunset. Olympus looks quite different from the west, appearing more as a rocky peak than a glaciated one from this side. On the morning of the third day we made a failed attempt at a direct ridge approach to the north side of Freya and Frigga that eventually cliffed out. So we dropped into the valley directly below the snout of the Geri-Freki glacier where we would later set up camp. We then went up to, and crossed the glacier, ascending to the high point at the base of Munin, intent upon running its ridge to the summit. We traversed a ways along the ridge over what was reportedly 4th class terrain, climbing over the rock as a team of 3 for the first time on the trip. Kevin and I had never climbed with Tony before, so it proved to be a good group experience as we would need to cooperate well in the days ahead. The next morning Tony and I hiked up to the base of Frigga with the purpose of either finding the established 5.0 route number 2 from the guidebook, or another way up. We ended up climbing a new route. Tony led up from the talus at the base, just off the glacier on the spire’s south side, and rained torrents of rocks down adjacent to my belay spot as he cleaned his way up the rock. The line he choose eventually turned out to be a decent 4 pitch route around 5.5, pretty consistent to the top. The rock, typical of the Val’s is a light brown sandstone with small pockets of deep red that is blocky and more solid. Considering it’s the Olympics, the rock climbing was actually pretty good, a nice change from the typically friable eastern Oly basalt. Pitons came in quite handy though. At this point we felt the need to get moving towards Olympus, due to only a vague notion of how we were going to traverse the ridge and a sense that we ought to be getting at it while the weather forecast looked good. We’ll have to return to the Vals another day for a shot at Loki Spire or some of the others. Without giving anything away, over the next day and a half we worked our way along the ridge, finding easy terrain in some spots, and heinous gully crossings and brushcrashing in others. The ridge leads nearly directly to Athena, however poses a series of significant obstacles the closer one gets. Gabiot and his partner worked their way down the northside of the ridge and across the west side of Olympus, swinging around on the snow dome. We went the opposite direction, eventually working our way onto the south ridge of Athena II, adjacent to the Jeffers glacier, where we spent a night on the peak’s shoulder high above the clouds. We were lucky that evening to look down upon the upper Hoh glacier for a way through the crevasses. The next morning was completely fogged in, the only time during the week it was not sunny and clear. So in the AM we dropped down onto the glacier and picked our way around the significant openings in the ice until rising above the clouds. We went up and over Middle Peak, then crossed over the upper Blue glacier to Five Fingers, setting up camp for the night, waiting for the winds to subside before we went up the 5th class pitch of the summit block on West Peak in the morning. Incidentally, in answer to a question from an earlier post, the ashes that are on the summit (and they are still there, in small piles) are those of Robert Woods, author of the definitive guide to trails in the Olympics. He died a year and a half ago, and several of his friends placed his ashes up there last summer. The route up West peak was still in fine shape folks, and this was only last Thursday. We had the mountain to ourselves for 3 days, not seeing anyone until we had descended to Cal-Tech rocks. Have the erroneous reports of conditions kept people away, or was it the Hood Canal Bridge closure? On Saturday we hit trail for the first time since the beginning of the trip and hiked the 18 miles out to our car, quite soar to say the least. Highlights of the trip: not seeing anyone for 7 days straight, seeing bear, herds of elk, goats that actually run from you, experiencing a remote part of the park, climbing in the Vals, and summiting Olympus (my first time). This is a special corner of the park, maybe “wilder” than the Baileys. Certainly less traveled.