tanstaafl

Fryingpan Glacier was in fabulous shape on 5/30; should still be in good shape if you wanna get after it asap. Meany Crest was a nice camp:

Ha! I'm reminded of a line from Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams where he's chatting with a young Frenchman in a bar in Chamonix, and mentions he climbed the Grand Capucin the day before. The conversations ends: "You did not solo and you did not fly?" asks the Frenchman, incredulous. "Did you not find the experience a little -- how you say in English -- banal?"

at least you inspired me to go watch the Monty Python spam sketch.

another stellar E$ outing. aren't you getting a little old for this kind of thing? 😉

Thank you Porter for reminding me of that ancient email address I had totally forgotten about; here I am again. Lucky you.

Claimed

Is the brush less atrocious late in the fall? Or is that something you like?

Anyone making rope rugs or something and want a free retired neon orange 60 m Beal Joker? If so it's yours, you just have to come get it. thanks

If only skill and style were the same!

Those are inspiring photos Jason, especially the second. I now feel somewhat pretentious for referring to myself as old.

Congrats Jason on finishing the Smoot list AND successfully navigating the bureaucracy of peak naming. Huzzah for you and Dallas.

Running dog! Your name came up as we were wandering around out there actually; Gordy said you were recently on what sounded like a pretty amazing bike trip. You going to put up a TR for that? I for one would love to see it.

Thanks; it was great fun. One thing I've noticed about climbing over 20+ years is that it's not the endless upward trajectory that I once (totally unrealistically) hoped for, but instead the same grade is hard, then easy, then hard again, then easy again, as age/injury/training time/life responsibilities vary. Hopefully 5.10 in the alpine will feel easy(ish) again before it's permanently out of reach, but if not, there still area a boatload of fun routes to do.

Trip: The Pasayten for the Old and Slow - Amphitheatre, Cathedral, Remmel Trip Date: 10/01/2022 Trip Report: In September 2002 I hiked into Cathedral Lakes with my buddy Russ to do the classic SE Buttress on Cathedral. We got rain, hail, fog, snow, and finally gorgeous sunshine; unfortunately in the wrong order. Our first day at Cathedral Lake we chose not to climb as it was really cold, the fog was thick enough we couldn’t see a thing, and as Russ said, “It would suck to have to retreat and leave gear all over the place—even if it is only your gear.” That night it snowed enough that the next morning we bailed and hiked all the way out to Thirtymile campground. Twenty years later, with a far greater appreciation for and expertise in checking and understanding the weather forecast, I wheedled Gordy-from-the-Pickets into heading back in there last week for another try. I had friends who were doing the Cathedral loop trip with a group and planned to scramble Cathedral, so I figured if Gordy and I got an early start, we could do the Ka’aba Buttress on Amphitheatre on Day 2 before they arrived, Cathedral on Day 3 while they did the scramble, then spend the next two days leisurely hiking out and tagging Remmel with them. We saw no one the first day expect for three yutes (by which I mean people who appeared to be in their early 30s) and their dog. I speculated they were running the loop as they had teeny tiny packs and shorts and seemed to be moving awfully fast, and we’d seen no sign of a tent along the way. We made it as far as the Tungsten Mine (but not to the buildings) before I said “Here’s camp; I can’t go a step further.” We made it to Cathedral Lakes the next morning in plenty of time to do Pilgrimage to Mecca, tag the summit of Amphitheatre, and return to camp, but apparently I’m now too old to hike 20 miles with a full climbing pack in a 24-hour period without being too wasted to do much of anything once I get there. Very disappointing. Also, Pilgrimage to Mecca was clearly not going to come into the sun until 4 or 5 pm, if ever, and it was cold in the shade and I’m an enormous pansy. So after a nap (on my part) we just scrambled the West Ridge of Amphitheatre. Not a very exciting route, but nice views from up there. Amphitheatre and Cathedral from Boundary Trail: We started up the SE Buttress fairly late (8:30 am) on Saturday, so that most of the first pitch was already in the sun, but it was still darn cold belaying. Instead of swinging leads we divided them, with Gordy getting the pitches that were wide or would benefit from brute force and me getting anything that had a thin crack on it. This worked out quite well. Sadly we were both too busy climbing to take many pics, but there are already a gajillion pics of the route so it’s hard to think that’s much of a loss. I think this is the belay before the fifth pitch, but really I have no idea. Who cares; look, it’s sunny! We avoided the headwall pitches as neither of us are leading 5.10 at the moment, heading around the corner to the right to scamper up the ramp and chimney that the Doorish topo in Beckey shows as 5.6. Old age and treachery triumphs again. We posed for summit shots; I did my 1930s Red Army recruiting poster pose. Gordy behaved a little more normally. We were back to camp in plenty of time to move down the trail a couple of miles, but we were behind our friends and didn't catch them. They ended up going a different way than they had planned, so we ended up ahead of them the next day by doing the 800-calorie cross-country shortcut to Four Point Lake. We met them on the trail as we were descending from Remmel and on the way back to where they had ditched packs we had a fun scavenger hunt for the notes they left to inform us of their track. Analog communication: We had a lovely evening camping and eating and telling stories, saw a moose (!!!) in the morning, and stopped by a gorgeous stand of quaking aspen for our last break before returning to the TH. So overall a great final hurrah to a shockingly successful summer season for a middle aged lady with a “real” job. Unless this Indian summer lasts another few weeks.... Gear Notes: I thought I took too big of a rack but we sure did use it Approach Notes: walk and walk and walk and then walk some more

I've been waiting for this one. As usual the pics do not disappoint. Looks like a fabulous trip; what gorgeous colors in that Heart Lake photo.

Praise from the OG alpineezer is praise indeed!

hey just saw this. The glacier was definitely crevassed; I was happy to be roped up, but as it's late season and there was only the merest skiff of fresh snow, the crevasses was all easily seen and avoided.

Thanks Jon for the beta. Respect for soloing that glacier; that would have made me nervous. We went in loaded up for the SW Buttress but it was so dang cold on Saturday night that we opted for Maximum Enjoyment and did the NW Ridge instead. Never have I had such a lackadaisical alpine day; we left camp at 10 AM! This turned out to be perfect as we were in the sun all day except for a few minutes in the notch. Even so I was wearing two jackets on the whole climb. Summer's over. Note: while we were out, some tweaker broke into all the vehicles at the Eldorado trailhead and apparently was siphoning gas from them—all had gas caps off. The climbing rangers came up while we were at Eldo camp and let us know that Ken's was the only vehicle without a window broken; possibly because his gas cap didn't lock. Evidently this has been happening quite a bit at Eldorado, Boston Basin, and Thornton Lakes trailheads. Be warned.

no kidding. wow. beautiful. you sure do some nice-looking trips.

thanks!

True, Wayne Wallace would know; I remember he once did a Pickets traverse with no stove. Didn't sound fun. I've even had some *actually tasty* meals that are meant to be made with cold water (e.g., Mango Curry Chicken Salad by Pack-It Gourmet, yum) — but I knew I wouldn't be able to stomach that first thing in the morning even if it did rehydrate. Thank God I took Pop Tarts for breakfast instead of something hot! It was a good trip; I'm glad I went. Sooo much better than sitting in front of a computer. You appear to have been having a good summer as well! Are you still funemployed?

Alpendog! Love the nose shot. He's a happy pup. And to be fair, all excuses pale in comparison to "I'm going to have a heart procedure." Jason thanks for the lumpsucker pic, that thing is amazing; it looks like it's made of amethysts. Way prettier than its name.

Just came across this in my daily trawl through the NYT headlines: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate-philanthropy-chouinard.html

Jon, how was the gully going down to the Eldorado glacier? Still got any snow in it?

Impressive ascent! Congrats on a super successful trip. Love that "psyched" photo. I'm always amazed at how people can take such great photos while climbing hard at the same time.