bremerton_john

Cool pics. I'm looking forward to spicing that description up for the guidebook, and your assistance on that is most appreciated. Wayne, you and David tackled this one a while back, didn't you? Perhaps you guys could review a new write-up for the route sometime in the near future. There are a couple others I know who have done it, including some in the committee, though it's been a few years since they've done it and the details are fuzzy. -John

Yep, you definitely experienced Pershing! The bee stings make it the full package, eh? I was shocked last week that we didn't find any. Fun climb though, eh? By the way, we saw your name on the summit register of Stone.

Yeah, Milk Lake is another treasure. There is a great view of it from the summit of Mt. Bretherton. We passed on seeing it this time around, as speed was of the essence. Everything was snow free except for St. Peters gate and the gulley we took. I was somewhat concerned it would be down to ice, and while it was pretty hard packed snow, the low angle gave us no problem.

The route that I've described here and in earlier posts is actually closest related to route 7 in the book. The description therein is mostly good, though somewhat vague towards the top. The route is moderate class 3, with only very short sections of rock, except for the hilly vegetated slab of rock immediately in front of you when you finally come out of the brush at 4300 feet elevation (the book calls it the 4000 foot basin, however I've checked the elevation twice - but whatever). You can avoid this hilly slab by a rightward detour, but it isn't real obvious unless seen from the top. The rock difficulty is on par with Stone and maybe slightly more challenging than the South Brother. As far as brush, I don't know of any way to climb Pershing without dealing with some brush. However, if you can find the on again, off again trail that stays in the open woods, you will avoid the worst of it.

The bike ride is only a couple miles, maybe 4 at the most, all down hill. I don't think I really even pedalled, just coasted. That ridge between Upper Lena and Stone has some real nice meadows, and right now the huckleberries and blueberries are in abundance up there.

Yeah, you really got to stay in the open woods to the right of the clearing as much as possible. Those weeds (vine maple thickets) will getcha real bad.

Climb: Upper Lena to Mt. Stone Traverse- Date of Climb: 9/4/2004 Trip Report: BlakeJ and I did the loop trip described in earlier posts by Fairweather and Olyclimber. We dumped bikes at Putvin Way trailhead, drove to the Lena Lake trailhead and hiked up to Upper Lena, arriving by 10:00am. We then ran the ridge past Scout Lake over to Stone Ponds beneath Mt. Stone. As Olyclimber posted the other day, we found there is a trail nearly the entire way to Stone Ponds from Upper Lena. It's overgrown in a few spots, but easily followed. The only difficulty for us was that when we reached Stone Ponds we were in the clouds, and couldn't figure out exactly where St. Peter's gate was. So we just found a snow gully and blindly walked up, topping out through a notch that wasn't St. Peter's Gate (we ended up being south on the ridge), but it worked nonetheless. We then traversed over to the west ridge through the scree and scrambled up Mt. Stone, through breaking clouds. On the descent we went via Lake of Angels and on down the Putvin Way Trail, passing the memorial marker for Carl Putvin, whose birthday it just happened to be yesterday (Sept. 4 1892). Incidentally, does anyone know anything about this guy? He died at 20 years of age, and is noted in the guidebooks as being a hunter, trapper & explorer. We reached the bikes after being on the move for 12 hours. Fried chicken, cold brew and Jo-Jos in Hoodsport afterwards. Yum! Here's a couple shots from the day. Hiking up Upper Lena trail - South Brother through the clouds. The upper Stone Pond. Traversing the scree below Mt. Stone. Mt. Stone's main summit (right) and double-peaked north summit. Lake of the Angels Gear Notes: Just an ice axe for getting over the ridge of what we thought was St. Peter's gate, but wasn't. The snow this time of year is mostly real hard, fairly icy.

Saw no flags, eh? Wow, you guys must be drawn to the worst routes! You hiked in on the south side of the creek? Where do you eventually cross over and head up the hill?

I'll take your word for it. It's Friday, I wasn't up for the countin'.

You forgot the 12 people to post

BlakeJ and I will be in the area tomorrow. We plan on doing the roundtrip marathon Fairweather posted about a few months ago: leaving bikes at Putvin Way trail, running up to Upper Lena, then traversing over to Stone, Lake of the Angels and on down. I've done Bretherton before, and agree it is a fun scramble to the top with rewarding views. That Milk Lake is a real gem.

Gabiot and I ran up Pershing in 3.5 hours this past Sunday, and made it that fast primarily because I know the way through the brush fairly well now. If you start out on the north side of the creek, someone has flagged (faded orange stuff) the entire way to the open basin at 4300 feet. The only trouble is that someone else has been in there earlier this year and added even more flagging (the bright red stuff), particularly around the boulder field down low. This new flagging is all over the place and is particularly screwy on the descent. On the way in, just work your way through the open woods until you reach the obvious avalanche clearing within the vine maple thicket. Just before this thicket is where the trail turns right and heads steeply up the hillside within the open woods, not the heavy brush. Once you've gone up a ways, it will take you through a section of slide alder, finally breaking out into the basin at 4300 feet. Scramble up the slabby rock directly in front to the snow patch below the summit ridge. You can head directly for the summit and find some fairly easy scrambling to gain the ridge, or the more fun route is to head to the far left side of the ridge and go up one of the gullys (the one with the dead tree at the top is a good one). Gain the ridge here and it makes for a real fun ridge walk like the photos above to the summit. As for the flagging, it would be just as well if it was torn out at some point in the near future. The route is starting to see enough traffic that there is a beaten trail for most of the way. Incidentally, it took us almost 6 hours to get up a couple years ago, partially because of a large group, but primarily because we were slogging through brush most of the way.

Looked like a good time. I'm thinking of heading up there over Labor Day weekend. The upper basin appears to be drying out.

Sounds like you could have used some of this, Josh

Excellent! Bring on the details...

Good work Dale. You guys are sure keeping busy!

Ok Scourge, that makes sense. West face of cruiser, eh? Have you done route 4 or 5 (Wandering Minstrel)? Route 4 looks like it would be a fun alternative to the standard. Route 5 looks like it has the makings of an epic, but at 10 hours up from Gladys I suppose it is on par with this SE Ridge of Washington. Interesting though it's given a grade IV, only one of 2 in the book.

Where do you define the SE ridge route? The 4 people I know who have done it describe it as we did it, and most feel the current description in the book is misleading at best, giving it a class 4 rating. Admitedly there is some class 4 terrain involved, but only mixed between sections of low to mid class 5, particularly the first pitch. Perhaps what has been known as the standard route actually has you gain the ridge much further up the buttress, as the more difficult terrain is lower. I don't know. It's only my first time on that route, so I'll take your word for it.

Climb: Mt. Washington-Route 3 - SE Ridge Date of Climb: 7/24/2004 Trip Report: I don't have much time for details, but here is the summary and some pics: We went up route 3 on Washington last Saturday under the heat. I'd heard from a friend that it took him 10 hours up to the top and I couldn't believe it. After taking 9.5 hours ourself I'm a bit more humble about it now. The shield wall includes 6-7 pitches of mostly middle class 5 climbing. The route goes up the ridge on the left, frequently moving onto the face along benches and ledges. The first pitch someone's even bolted. Anyone know who? It's fun climbing, and considering it's in the Olympics the rock and protection is not all that bad. OK, so this one has a wee bit of camera tilt. This one is looking back down from the top of the shield wall. After the top of the shield wall, there is the first of 2 rappels. Afer this, some easy to moderate terrain leads to another high point requiring another rappel, then some final obstacles to overcome before the summit ridge. Yes, 9.5 hours up from the road. But then again, we're not real fast either. Descended by the trail of route 1. I'd recommend this one folks. Gear Notes: Singles in cams up to 3.5. Doubled up on 1's and 2's. Set of nuts and a couple hexes, 8 slings and a couple quick draws. All gear used at one point or another, though there were some pitches that I maybe placed only 2 or 3 pieces. Single 60m rope OK unless you need to bail off to the basin of route 1 on the west side (which can be done at certain points), in which case a second rope would be nice. But a single should do. Approach Notes: Make sure you work your way to the right of the gendarmes once they are reached. Then hug the right side of these to gain the basin below the shield wall. At the wall, go up the gulley on the left to the head, where the first pitch starts.

The guidebook committee is still accepting photographs for possible inclusion in the new revision. Aerial photos are always good to see. I'll send you a PM on a couple of specific locales I'd like to have aerials of. While I agree that the Beckey style of aerial shots with route overlays is indeed a great visual descriptive device, the decision was made (for this edition at least) to stick with the existing format. I'm quite certain it took a considerable amount of time and effort to compile the photos for the Beckey guides. A project of that sort could certainly be initiated for the Olympics, but I believe it would have been an impossible task to undertake given the amount of time available for publishing for this edition. Of course, there's still the philosophy amongst some that the charcoal sketch / limited detail style of writing present in the guidebook is the better approach, as it provides many climbers more of an opportunity to still experience a sense of discovery in that great Olympic wilderness.

I was on Boulder Ridge in the Olympics, coming down a dead-end gully trying to get back on route. I thought the pack was going to end up in Tunnel Creek 2000 feet below.

You know, I thought there might have been a chance it was like that before the pack took the plunge. I've tried bending it back straight, but it likes to kink to the one side. Oh well, I won't sweat it.

Allright, so I'm trying to downclimb this nasty steep, scree filled narrow gully when I reach an 8 foot over-vertical drop-off that I've gotta get past. Already worn out from a full day of bushwackin I don't feel excited about downclimbing with the pack on. So I decide maybe I can drop it the 8 feet and it will come to a nice easy stop in the scree. Yeah right! It plummits about 200 feet, tumbling down and smackin everything in its way hard. After I retrieve the thrashed threads, I take a look inside and inspect for damage. I then notice this cam with a permanent offset in the shaft. So the question to you rock monkeys out there - is this something to worry about, will BD fix or what? I know they're designed to bend, but stay bent? Of course I'm also thinking if it hit this hard to put a permanent curve in the shaft, maybe there's other less obvious damage in the metal...

Seems these timber tigers are pretty stout little mothers! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5424649/