OlympicMtnBoy

Climb: Index cragging-Iron Horse and Arachnid Arch solo aid Date of Climb: 4/19/2006 Trip Report: Just a mini TR, but I'm bored and working from home. Index was relatively hopping yesterday with the nice sunny weather. I decided it would be a lot more fun to take the day off and play than stay inside and work. I've been meaning to do some aid, but I was too lazy to find a partner and didn't want to spend half the day belaying anyways. I wanted to climb instead! Thus I figured it was about time to start my solo aid career and figure out how to use that clunky gri-gri for something other than it's silly intended use. I decided Iron Horse looked like a nice line since my bag was heavy with way more gear than anyone but a solo gumby would want to carry. I lassoed a big boulder at the base for my anchor since the flake at the base looked ok, but not ideal and I wanted a good anchor figuring I'd be worried about other stuff. The pitch was really pretty straight forward once I got off the ground and got into a pattern feeding the gri-gri and working with my backup knots. The only slightly tricky move was the transition between crack systems below and left of the first anchors on Sagitarius. I found a decent ballnut placement to get me up. I went up the anchors just above the "ringing flake", rapped, and then ascended to clean. The whole pitch went well with my only minor snafu being shoving my ascender up again the anchor on accident with a little fiddling to get it loose. After I got down I had a nice hot lunch to field test my pepsi can alcohol stove. My tasty bites and cup of tea made it all seem quite luxurius, even if it was sunny and 60. After lunch I figured I ought to do something else since I had all that gear, but I was too lazy to move far so I did the Arachnid Arch variation of Sagitarius to practice a little traversing under a roof. The start was a little grunty in the flaring bit (there's a 0.5 camalot fixed there by someone if anyone wants to try and rescue it, I couldn't), and the crack inder the roof ate my small cams like candy. I found a super bomber hook a couple moves below the first anchor that you could hang yo mama from too. I stopped at the first anchor due to time and a lack of motivation to grunt in the chimney on solo lead. Cleaning the traverse was "good practice" too, at least I was smart enough not to back clean. All in all a fun day in the sun, and two good easy (C2?) routes to practice solo without too much commitment. I felt pretty good on my first solo leads, maybe I'll do Green Dragon or something next. Gear Notes: Aid rack, used offset aliens and ballnutz, but didn't really need them, plenty of room for standard gear. One hook move (cliffhanger) on the arch. Approach Notes: Hike five mins from the parking lot and you've probably already passed it.

It better not be mine! I'm still lookin for it!

Pirate Sam the Hatless??? What? What's a pirate to do without a hat? ARRGHHHHH, UV LOST ME HAT YE SCURVY RATS, NOW WHAT WHILL AYE DRINK ME GROG FROM???

I was there yesterday for this thing and Andy (iluka) seemed like a good guy. I guess I shouldn't discuss the specifics here, but give him a call if you're interested. It's pretty straight forward. :-)

Umm, anyone seen my car? I'm sure it was parked in my parking lot last night and uh, it ain't there now. There is a nice gash in the wall where someone deparked improperly, but I can't drive a busted wall. I never really thought anybody'd want the thing with the mileage and dents and the much nicer cars in our lot. It's tan, license 337-NZV and was most recently parked near 39th and Greenwood in Freemont (Seattle). Yesterday I even pulled the front left fender off an pounded the dent out, so look for a very slight mismatch and evidence of former dents. Fortunately no gear inside, but no insurance on repairing/replaceing it either (it's an 87 with 207k miles for godsakes!). if you see it, extra if you rough up the guy/gal who took it too! F*cker. P.S. Car responds to the name "Rumbly" and is generally friendly and aparently not hard to get into, even when locked.

Doh, found it. Had to look for Olympic Mountains: A Climbing Guide.

What? Why can't I find it on Amazon? They only list the old one when I look. Post a URL for me. :-)

Awesome, I'm jealous. I almost went down there when I was living in Russia, but it was too much of a PITA to get a Ukranian visa for an American living in Russia (but not in Moscow).

Hot damn! Just makes me wanna get out there and start the season. Maybe with some nice C1 in granite though when it warms up and dries out up here. Great TR.

Looks like crazy Russian action hero training to me.

It didn't look particularly "in" to me when we were up there on 2/17. Check the colchuck/stuart range conditions thread for more of the pics VW took. The exit from the second couloir looked barren of ice from what we could tell. I think it will actually take some warm days instead of more cold to melt that snow and snice a bit and turn it into good ice. :-)

Yeah Chad, thanks for driving up this way so we could at least get out and camp! It was freakin cold up there but still a great time. Goatboy: We were in boots all the way up and down. It wasn't bad as long as you stayed on the 12 inch wide packed part. We only postholed a few times, not enough to justify the floatation for most of it. When we go back though I'm taking my kiddie sled and skis just for the road section, be a lot more fun (and I'm too poor of a skier for going all the way from the lake). :-)

Anybody wanna head from Seattle to Vantage or Index this sunday? I might be open for monday as an alternate as well. I NEED to hit some real rock. Right now I probably lead 5.9, follow 10+, have gear and car. PM me with contact info.

Hmm, now I'm noticing it's the 8th, not the 7th, nevermind then, unless someone wants to meet me for Thursday.

I might be headed up to Alpental tomorrow to check out Stellar Falls, was thinking of heading up there in the morning to get the most of my day pass. I'm guessing you were thinking backcountry, but if you wanna ride the lift with me? Oh and I'm a shitty skier and you'll laugh at my skis. Let me know. :-)

Check your PMs.

Anyone got a weekday off and want to hit Vantage for some trad or sport since the sun might be out? I'm up for other ideas too, my schedule is pretty flexible this week or this weekend. Anyone??

You guys going out this monday (tomorrow)? I'd be up for it if you need another person. - OMB

Anyone wanna head over the pass for a day at Vantage before it starts raining? I need to get outside.

I'm up for tomorrow, or are you already out there?

Here{s an idea, instead of trying to go from the top up, go bottom down. Cut a hole in the bottom of your pack and sew the bottom half of a bivy sack to that, then just put a buckle or zipper so you can roll up the bivy half and store it and pack the rest of your stuff back in your pack. A bonus if your pack has padding is that it automatically becomes your sleeping pad for your upper body. For the opponents of using your pack for more than one thing, I use mine all the time as my sleeping pad with a sit pad for a little extra length,then I just bring all my gear in the bivy sack with me. I{m going altralight so it isn{t thatmuch stuff anyways. Hey, it doesn{t hurt to try new things. Good luck, post pics if you make something cool.

Also check out: http://www.davidmikelsons.com/fine_art/gallery.html Click on the "mountains" tab. He's a friend of mine who was living here till a few months ago and did some nice paintings of the Olympics, Cascades, Smith Rock, etc. I was dragging him along on some easy climbs. You can't have "Last Pitch", it's already spoken for though. And he doesn't know I'm posting him here.

Yeah, I think I'd have a hard time convincing a lot of normal climbers that drytooling next the highway in the dark in the rain is anything but stupid too. Hehehe, fun though, thanks for having the ropes up when I got there too! Nice lead, maybe I'll try that next time (or in a year ot two), that and trying not to kill myself pulling back onto the road. :-)

Ahh well, I'm heading out anyways now. :-)

Are you still going early?