bremerton_john

McCleary Cliffs just off the road at Lake Cushman are your best bet. When driving towards Staircase and after you're back on gravel, look for a small turn-out on left side above lake. Head into woods on right side and explore. There are a number of rocks up in there with various established routes. Others here might give better directions. You can also explore Hamma Hamma Rocks (immediately off Hamma Hamma road on right side a couple miles before Putvin Way trail) & Elinor Towers (near upper trailhead for Ellinor). MNTNEER knows these best and an offer assistance. Search for earlier threads on this from him. These will all be in the new guidebook by the way.

Copper is often overlooked. In the winter there is almost always a nasty cornice hanging from the summit. And in the summer, well, there's other stuff worth doing and Copper gets ignored. Its not surprising you didn't see much evidence of people. The bump above Wagonwheel Lake is also another popular destination, giving some unique views of Sawtooth Ridge and the Elinor/Washington ridge. Now jump across the valley and charge up Lightning Peak. That's a lovely brushfest with some brief, interesting rock towards the top. Bring your bee sting kit.

Nice to see you're finally posting some TR material here, Animal. Got your message BTW. That's how I found this.

Nice pics Fairweather. I know some of the others in the group favor seeing a distinctive peak or peaks, in the sense that the image clearly shows one of the more well-known ones (Olympus, Constance, Cruiser, etc.) I'm guessing your shot was taken on Olympus. The goat shot is nice though.

Good question. Actually, we don't know yet. We've narrowed it down to a few finalists, but honestly there hasn't been a unanimous favorite yet. So if you've got a stunning color shot of the Olympics you think might be a good candidate, post em quick, like in the next week. The catch, though, is it has to be a color slide, not a negative. A digital shot might work also apparently. I don't know why they won't accept a regular negative, probably something to do with the publishing/printing process. I'm no expert on that. The photos inside the book can be any medium, but we've got those pretty much chosen already.

The manuscript for the next edition is being submitted for publishing next month. I'm not certain, but I would guess it will hit the shelves towards the end of the year. John

Great show. You needed a larger venue there were so many people. Michael, I was going to talk to you afterwards, but Wayne and I had to make the mad scramble to catch boats. Wayne, did you make yours?

Well done fellas. BlakeJ and I cruised past it last summer on the same Lena to Stone roundtrip. We opted for Stone instead on that day. It was also nice to know about that descent out of Ullin's Bathtubs. We were wondering what that would entail. One map actually shows an old trail that heads up through there, but I don't think there's any traces of it anymore.

Way to go bro! Looks like some good times. But be honest, you'd rather climb that than Olympic choss? (sarcasm obviously implied)

Good job finding that photo Fairweather. That traverse is going to be fun. Unfortunately that's probably what it looks like over there now with this weird weather. Makes me wonder about how things will be in the summer.

I've been told by a few guys who know the area that the S Fork Ho is the lesser of 2 evils as far as approaching the Valhallas. Queets is easy initially, but apparently real tough gaining the ridge. We aren't looking to do a down and back kind of trip. With doing as little backtracking as possible I wanted to hit these 3 areas primarily: Valhallas, Olympus, and Ridge of the Gods. I do plan to take hordes of photos!

Alright, since everyone is getting juiced up about summer Olympics plans, I'll throw ours into the fray: Up the S. Fork of the Ho and up the ridge to the Valhallas (2 days). Day 3. Climb & explore Valhallas. Day 4. Run the ridge to Olympus. Day 5. Climb Olympus summit(s), camp at Sacred Lakes. Day 6. Climb & explore Ridge of the Gods (NW of Olympus). Day 7. Schwack down the old Falls Creek trail, which reportedly does not exist anymore. Cross the Ho and trot on out. We will add another day on each end to allow for weather & travel to and from. Our plan is probably more optimistic than yours Fairweather (at least you'll be on trail a good part of the way), but I like your plan too. This is similar to the trip that Gabiot (from France) did a couple years back, except he did the Baileys after reaching Olympus. John

We did the Durrance 2 summers ago. We got stuck behind 2 bone-heads that took the better part of the day to get up the thing, and along the way dropped 2 cams that nearly hit us. I was seriously torqued about this when at the final belay Frank Sanders pops his head over the ledge at my feet with rope in tow. He bellows a hearty greeting and proceeds to pull up the loose rope behind him. As it became clear to me that he was free-soloing the route he asks if I'd mind if he climbed through (kinda like a golfer would). When we got to the top he gave us a "tour" of the summit plateau, showing us a hidden pile of old rusty tin cans and other paraphenalia from the time back in 40s when the guys got stuck on top. He also pointed out his house down below just a short distance away, and invited us over for supper that night. If we hadn't been slowed down by the guys in front of us we would never have met Frank. That was one of my most memorable climbing days.

Yeah! We're heading up Skokomish tomorrow. Camping at the Putvin Trail tonight. Yahoo!!

A - Brothers B - Pershing w/Thorson in foreground C - Lincoln D - Cruiser / Alpha etc. E - Stone F - Not sure which peak is being referenced, but Bretherton can be seen below and to the left of C, with Lena to the right of it.

Here's a picture I took of Mt. Angeles last Sunday. Yes, I know it's far from the Brothers. But the earlier snow the Olympics had just isn't around much right now. Go for it.

Nice shots Tweezer!

Ha Ha. So are you saying I probably won't be seeing your friend Chris on any of my death marches? Where did you get the idea there was a trail over on the Hamma Hamma side?

Sounds like I missed a good time. Did you stop for Jo-Jos and a few cold ones on the way back through Hoodsport? -John

I think the rock spires in the Needles are fairly enjoyable - Sweat and Arrowhead being the 2 I've liked the most. But I'll acknowledge the quality of the routes up there do not appeal to a lot of the rock jocks out there. This is not Cascade granite. Olympic basalt does have its own charms though, in a crumbly sort of way. The draw of this area is as much its scenic beauty and the lack of traffic as much as anything else.

Too bad about not being able to open the container on top. I'm curious to know how many have been up there, just for comparison with the others around it. In fact, because the book has advertised it as the best one in the Needles, I could be way off base in my guess of traffic - it might see more than I think. I just presumed most folks (other than myself) who go up there head up Deception. Once you're on the main ledge above Surprise Basin, I noticed a couple chimneys that looked fairly interesting, probably 4th class or low 5th.

We attempted Clark a couple years ago, but were unable to summit due to a nasty cornice near the top. However, if I had to guess I'd say it probably get's climbed maybe only a little more than some of the other Needles, which is to say maybe once every 2 years or so. The more obscure ones might see only a couple ascents over a 10 year period. I base this on the summit registers and apparent age of webbing (though this is admittedly hard to judge).

Thanks for the cudos, folks. Overall grade is tough to call. Individually either the Arrowhead or Incisor is probably grade II. For all 3 summits it took us 9 hours, starting at Shelter Rock until we came back down the scree into the Upper Basin. But we were moving at a fairly casual pace, also. You've got a mess of scree and 3rd/4th class terrain to weave around to get to these things. Once up on the ridge, though, it is real fun picking your way in and around some of the unnamed, smaller spires and blocks. The section that runs between Incisor and Johnson looks fairly sporting, though. Johnson's south face appears from Incisor to be 300-400 feet of straight vertical rock. Having done Johnson and Sweat a couple years ago via Suprise Basin, I'd like to try and run the whole ridge sometime in the future.

Climb: Threadin' the Needles-Arrowhead, Incisor, Martin Peak Date of Climb: 9/25/2004 Trip Report: George, Stan and I had a great trip into Royal Basin over the weekend. After hiking up the trail Friday night with headlamps under a georgeous moon, we camped at Shelter Rock. We got up the next morning and were greeted by ranger Mike D. I had totally forgotten to get a permit for the weekend, so I looked a bit foolish when I explained what we were up to. But he was cool about it and made us legit for camping in the upper basin Saturday night. We trundled up through the scree and 3rd class loose stuff to get to the Arrowhead and climbed route 2, what is described in the book as a 5.5. The route follows the crack/chimney up through the notch at the top. It seemed a bit more challenging than 5.5, maybe 5.7. But then I'm no crack-master either. The summit register contained 3 ascents, dated 1992, 1995 and 2001. Someone named Brian Unger was on top in 2001. (Brian, if you're listening, what do you think about the rating?) A couple of old rusty pitons made for a nostalgic anchor. We then worked our way up to the ridge and reached the Incisor. The current route description says it goes 5.4, which I'd agree with. The ridge is super thin, and setting up anchors to belay from is an exercise in futility. There was no summit register. The rappel station at the end of the ridge contained a huge pile of really old webbing, that literally fell apart when we pulled it off. There was also a rusted up, skanky old 1/4" bolt. We gutted the webbing and replaced it with new stuff and rapped off. Going back over the ridge to find our way down, we made a slight detour to walk up Martin Peak. Again, no summit register to be found. We skied down the scree as it got dark, made camp, ate chow and slept heavily. The next day I couldn't talk George or Stan into another climb. Their 50 year old bodies had taken a beating the day before. I let them off easy and we had a leisurely hike out Sunday afternoon. Here's the Arrowhead The Incisor Looking towards the end of Incisor Ridge with Needles Beyond (Sweat Spire, Gasp, Johnson, Clark at right) Gear Notes: Arrowhead takes cams up to 3.5, Incisor quite the opposite, small nuts is all that it will take. Single rope rappel will get you off both, though just barely off the Incisor. Approach Notes: Any of these ought to be done earlier in the summer when there is snow covering the scree, but the fall weather was nice!

Speaking of scree, we had plenty of it this past weekend up in Royal Basin. I'm going to post a TR when I get my pictures - Fred Meyer's scanner was busted yesterday.