OlympicMtnBoy

I'm not sure there really are any good plain cell phones, they just aren't designed to be particularly powerful transmitters. Seeing bars means your phone can receive the signal from a powerful tower somewhere in the distance and doesn't have anything to do with if the tower can see your puny phone when you try to call. Probably a few situations where your low power call might be low priority, but I don't think a new phone will make much difference. Try reading reviews on reception but they vary a ton for most models (i.e. one review says it's great and the next says it's crappy). If you see someone calling out there then ask what phone they have, I haven't found a huge difference. Texting does seem to work better than voice calls but still not reliable. It used to be that simple flip phones had better reception than smart phones due to less internal interference but I don't think that's universally true anymore. I managed to get my voicemail and send texts from the summit of Mt. Stuart last weekend on my LG enV? (Verizon).

Cool, that looks like fun! Gonna have to get up there.

Matt, didn't we climb that together? It wasn't by headlamp, it was by roasting sun lamp. ;-p I think you just don't like chimneys. Hehehe . . .

Sweet, gotta love that 10a sting in the tail to a nice 5.9 route. ;-) I like your approach as well avoiding both trails.

Yeah, I think we found the correct spot to cross the gulley and avoided your scary mantle so at least I had good gear and rock on my off route pitch. I'm not ready to burn the description but I probably won't be heading back there any time soon either. And did you really use the #5 camalot "often"???

Hehe, I'd call it a "select adventure". There was a lot of loose rock and mediocre climbing for a few ok pitches. It's a cool looking chunck of rock from a ways away and a nice long technical bit, but the fractured rock and dirt kinda take away a bit. Maybe if it had some regular traffic but it doesn't seem like that's gonna happen.

Trip: Mt. Hardy - The Disappearing Floor (5.10c) Date: 8/12/2012 Trip Report: Matt S. and I had met up via a mutual friend on a canyoneering trip to Zion earlier this year and we figured our climbing styles might match up pretty well. After several months of near misses to plan a trip to climb something, I just started throwing out of random ideas when we finally had a few days to work with. “How about Mt. Hardy?” I asked over voicemail, browsing the Selected Climbs book in my lap. Matt called back a day later, “I couldn’t find much info, sounds like it doesn’t get climbed much for a supposed classic?”. Sounded like the perfect adventure so off we went. We thought it wise to bivy at the pass as suggested in the Nelson description, and because bivies are fun. Not wanting to hike up the hillside in the heat of the day we met up in Monroe and then made a stop in Newhalem for a few fine pitches of granite sport climbing as a warm up. After playing on bolts we headed farther up the road and parked on the side of the highway, hiking uphill into the forest a little after 5 PM. Matt kindly let me lead to clear the copies spider webs out of his way and we trudged up, and up some more. Pretty much the only relevant route description if you’ve parked at the right place is “walk up hill”. We made the pass after a couple of sweaty hours to the pass but then decided to camp on a bench a couple of hundred feet down (south side) where it looked a bit more pleasant and there was still a good snow patch for water. The mosquitoes were still out but tolerable and died off after sun set. We woke reasonably early and started out over the pass again and down the other side. After the annoying narrow gulley of the stream and dropping down nearly to the river we cut over and had minimal brush to bash before we got to scree and finally views of the route. We crossed a short snow field and scrambled up the gulley where we roped up and I led off on a simul block until we found the appropriate place to cross the gulley again to the buttress. Along the way we passed one tree with a bail sling and one bail anchor with two nuts. There wasn’t an obvious chock stone where we crossed but it was roughly three pitches up the rib and there were several small trees and an easy ledge leading right into the rubble filled gully and the easiest looking route up the other side. From here Matt led up a short bit of 5.8 which seemed to match the guidebook description and then right and up into a V groove. Here we made our first route finding error missing the exit left from the groove and deciding it looked easy enough to find our own way. I led farther up the groove to the top and around the corner and set off up some dirty mossy cracks and flakes but with reasonable rock. What I thought was easier ground above turned into steep licheny slab with a totally filled in crack. I struggled for a bit to dig out things on lead until I finally took a fall and resorted to a couple moves of aid where the crack pinched down (a 2 lobe blue alien and a purple tcu) and then I managed to reach the easy big ledges above. We had bypassed pitch 5 and part of pitch 6 but found the route again with the traverse left on pitch 7 and the ugly loose chimney/gulley. The climbing up here was easy but the rock was so shattered that pro was mostly mental, nearly every hold was a block clearly only held in by gravity. Matt got the “improbable” pitch that goes off the left side of the top of the gulley (not really a notch as described). The right hand side had a piece fixed part way up but the option we took was easy and led across the shallow dihedral to a finger crack and up to a sandy ledge. Fighting rope drag Matt combined this with the traverse on pitch 9 to put me directly under the steep flakey corner. The hanging flakes in the corner looked scary but were all pretty solid except for a few obvious loose bits that weren’t hard to avoid. I enjoyed the interesting moves and good pro and then combined this with the offwidth pitch that I felt was more like classic 5.9 although Matt disagreed. These two pitches were probably the best part of the route IMHO, and probably the most solid rock. Matt trundled an annoying block on the unprotected traverse on his way up and then tackled the crux 5.10c finger crack. Maybe it was 5.10c with some cleaning several years ago but the whole thing was filled with moss and mud again so he groveled and finally resorted to aid as I shouted encouragement (and aid tips) from below. I followed mostly free but still grabbed a couple of nuts after pulling off a loose horn before finally getting up onto the ridge. Feeling crunched for time now I set off on a simul block up the easier ridge finding lots of loose rock and sparse pro but easy climbing including one stellar sidewalk bit with huge exposure on both sides and ran out of useful gear a pitch below the top. Matt took the final bit with one move of 5.8 and had us up. We had wasted quite a bit of time on the aid pitches and with routefinding so we enjoyed sunset from the summit, made a quick note in the summit register (placed in 2009 with all the recorded ascents via the 4th class backside), and blasted for camp. I made it back to camp just in time to avoid turning on my headlamp (crucial since my headlamp was still with my bivy gear), and Matt came along a few minutes later with his headlamp lit. We shared the homebrew I had stashed in the snow, had some dinner snacks, and set off for what we knew would be an unpleasant bushwhack down in the dark. It was astounding how easy it was to get off course on the way down in the dark. What had seemed like an easy straight up approach actually had some slight contours to stay on the subtle ridge crest and now in the dark the fall line would suck us constantly into the younger trees on either side of the clearer crest. My GPS kept us roughly on track to the two points I took on the way up and we ended up back at the truck two and a half hours later (yes, longer than the hike up). There was much celebrating with the donning of flip flops, and we began the drive back home. More pics here: https://picasaweb.google.com/104708573545176184583/MtHardyWithMattS Gear Notes: Double rack from blue alien size to #2 camalot plus a #3, #4 and a #5 (%$^#*'ing #5 that we didn't really need but were suckered into taking by the previous TR). Approach Notes: Park off the highway and start hiking up hill.

Cool, looks like another fun one Matt! That the only pic you got?

If you are "in your car", you are clearly not "in line", unless you are at a drive thru. If I waited in line for an hour thinking I was first, and someone wakes up and crawls out of their van, they are in line behind me somewhere. If I pull up and walk to the door and they come out immediately and claim their space I'd probably give it to them. If you want to sleep in line, put your pad and bag by the door, not in your car. Try the camp 4 line in Yosemite some time. ;-)

Not mine and it's in Wenatchee but it's $10: http://wenatchee.craigslist.org/spo/3249474016.html

Nice couple of climbs, kind of a cool link up there. Any sign of the film can summit register we put on Sweat a couple years ago?

Looks like fun even if you were "off route" for some of it. There's something nice about having your bivy gear with you, while it may slow you down it also frees you up for scenic bivies! How was Prusik?

Cool, despite the haters, I think that route is fun. I especially liked the 5.8 lieback bit before the offwidth, fun easy moves with great exposure. And the offwidth is pretty fun too since it's not all that steep and you'll just slide back down for much of it. :-)

Cool, that's a fun one, looks like a great trip! You should try the west arete next!

Yeah, as Matt said, this was more fun that I thought it would be and except for the first pitch had decent rock. A worthy alternative to the busy south face if you want a slightly bigger challenge. Crampons were handy to get up the gully this late in the season but some stiffer boots and confidence with your ice axe could work, or try the rock bypass on the left. :-) Thanks for the TR Matt!

Yeah, the crux of the roof for me was getting from the finger crack above the belay into the horizontal hand jam. My left hand was not cooperating and I kept missing the jam with my feet skittering around over Jon's head. Eventually it worked out. There was surprisingly little tat on the route which was nice. At the stance under the roof there were two fixed nuts and two fixed pins but not much tat. There was one fixed nut at the top of the crack right under the roof too. Nothing fixed through the crux roof anymore (and no need for it).

Cool, sounds like a well planned and executed trip! Hopefully they passed you for it. ;-) I still need to get up there and get that one since I got weathered out a few years ago.

I reduced the approach beta at Sol's request due to perceived access issues lest the rangers try to obfuscate the new approach somehow. Please just use your route finding instincts and don't blaze trees, prune bushes, or build giant cairns. I think the new approach is safer and causes less erosion and rock fall than the old one so just PM me if you want help.

Actually Alkaline batteries are oddly enough Alkaline as opposed to lead-acid batteries like a car battery. The white stuff is potassium hydroxide which is a strong base. That said, I have no idea what the effect on nylon is. If it were my gear I might wash it but given the very small amount of material leaked and the very small chance of contact I probably wouldn't worry that much. It's not as if anything was soaked with it and it's a solid and can be brushed/washed (diluted) off. But I don't know anything and will probably die. You might actually get BD to do an unscientific test if you ask nice.

Cool, glad you were inspired, it's a great area!

Trip: Colchuck Balanced Rock - West Face (5.11 C1) Date: 8/7/2012 Trip Report: Plenty of beta out there on this climb so I’ll try to keep it short and give some pics. It was over ten years ago on my first trip up to Colchuck Lake to climb the North Buttress Couloir that I looked up at Colchuck Balanced Rock and thought: “Wow that’s cool but it looks like a long way to haul an aid rack”. After two trips up there to clean and climb The Scoop a couple years ago I figured it was about time to finally take care of the West Face and see if I didn’t need the aid rack after all. Jon and I had talked about getting on this after we had such a great time on Acid Baby a few weeks ago so when he told me he could get a day off work and kids I was all over it. I knew the approach was a butt kicker so I wanted to bivy at the base. Jon was kind enough to stand in line on Monday morning to get us a permit so we could approach after work but I was a little less excited after a raucous wedding party Sunday night. Between his drinking beer and my hangover we left the Stuart/Colchuck TH at 6:40 PM, not a lot of daylight to get up there. Fortunately we had some beta on the better approach (to me anyways) which is faster than the old way around the lake. -redacted material- (hint, go left around the lake and follow your nose) We made it to the bivy with only a tiny bit of headlamp cairn spotting about 2 hrs and 50 mins from the parking lot. This is probably a good hour or 90 mins shorter than the old approach all the way around the lake and up past Jabberwocky. Nasty mosquitoes got us up early but we still didn’t leave till 7:30. Jon led and approach pitch, I took the short 5.10 crack and combined it with the 5.7 to the top of the pillar. Jon led the really fun 5.9 step across and corner to some uglier dirt. I headed up the “easy” pitch to the base of the 5.11 corner but may have been too far right and had some thin mossy stuff. Jon drew the stellar corner pitch and styled it while I took a hang at the wet spot when I blew a grass jam (I blame the pack with a gallon of water still in it). Somehow I cut my finger on a crystal when I fell which dripped blood over our gear as I dug my tape out underneath the roof but I gathered myself and fired the awkward roof traverse clean next and avoided falling on Jon’s head at the start. After this we were both feeling a little fried so we gave up any dreams of freeing the 5.12 bit and pulled on gear for the short crux. Jon did pretty well for his first aid climbing and didn’t regret leaving his fancy aiders at home in lieu of improvising with slings. I hauled us up the 5.9+ series of offwidths and chimneys which would have been more fun if I weren’t tired and we celebrated the summit by toproping the balanced rock (something I didn’t do the first time up there). We scrambled down the surprisingly fast and easy descent (Jon wore his climbing shoes down but I carried my approach shoes up). We had some food and drink at the packs and then wandered back down the trail to be home in time for dinner. Great day out! Gear Notes: Double rack from blue alien to #2 camalot, plus one #3 (I think). A couple extra runners to stand in if you don't climb 5.12 (or aren't in good enough shape to do those several burly pitches in a row). Approach Notes: Go left at the lake instead of right.

Hehe, nice to see someone exploring over there. I found one of those routes on a day trip from Whitman many years ago. Kind of fun to poke around anyways.

Going along with what Rad said, and assuming this was an unplanned bivy, it's nice to be able to follow the rules as a respectable user group and then get a little leniency when something happens and you get benighted rather than flaunt the rules and get stuck with more ticketing when you are already having a bad day/night.

Just look at the boundary maps and figure out a way to stay out of the permit zone. Try going in Hook/Rat Creek or Crystal Creek. Or camp up Mountaineers Creek and do something. All of those are outside the permit area but will let you access the Enchantments for a day trip. Just stay off the main trail from Colchuck/Stuart to Snow Creek and you probably won't see any rangers but they do check areas like Colchuck Balanced Rock and some of the high lakes off the trail sometimes. I'd go and try the lottery but have a plan B in mind. Also FWIW a friend got caught with a bit too much gear on a "day" trip. He got a warning and a note that he had to leave at the ranger station by 7AM the next morning to prove he had actually left that day/night. Better than a ticket though but he wasn't caught in the act of camping.

What a great looking route! Nice job!