OlympicMtnBoy

You can see it on the drive in to the park, but not from in the park itself since it's on the opposite side of the formation from the parking lot. Depending how bad the knee is, the flat trail along the river will give you a good view as well once you round the corner of the Smith Rock Group. Other than the drop to the river from the parking lots it's flat, wide, and well graded and could probably be traveled by wheel chair. I think you could probably find the back road that leads to the Monkey Face side and accesses those big houses over there too and get good views.

I have always been happy with my CAMPs in many different types of snow and they have decent front points. I have also been impressed with the Grivels that friends have used, and I kind of like their anti-bot plates better. I had to make my own for my CAMPs but they may come with some now??? My CAMPs fit on my low top approach shoes and my giant double boots no problem.

Yeah that was us, we waited a bit and watched, lots of wet slides in the expected areas but I think Asgaard was reasonably safe. I knew it would be more solid than the Colchuck glacier route. We had great step kicking snow all the way up till near the top. We had a great camp up on the ridge with an awesome sunset and didn't bother putting on the snowshoes until the next day. I'll post some pics tomorrow. We just did the loop and hiked up Little Annapurna, foregoing Dragontail because of the avy/rockfall danger.

Trip: The Mole - North Face Date: 6/5/2010 Trip Report: James put out a call for partners for the weekend and I saw my opportunity to convince someone to undertake the 'schwack up to the Mole. We met up in town and were off a bit after 10:00 on the nice trail up to Yellow Jacket Tower. Following the description in Beckey and the new Kramer guides we left the trail just below Yellow Jacket and made a rising traverse into Hook Creek. We probably stayed a bit too high and had some funky slabs, but the route wasn't too bad for the most part. Once we crossed the creek we made good use of the elevated highways nature has installed (trees) and it got a little easier. Eventually we hit the snow which was mostly crappy but quicker in the old consolidated avalanche debris. It took us probably 4.5 hours to get to the upper basin below the Hook Creek/Rat Creek group but we spent another good hour or more looking for a tent site. We had both brought lighter sleeping bags and didn't feel like stomping forever in the slushy snow to get a wet platform, so we searched high and far for a melted out spot before finally settling on "tick ledge" about 30 feet off the snow. It was only a tad wider than our tent, but at least it was dry (and full of ticks as we would later discover). - The Mole is just above Jame's head with the flatter top, the North Face is facing us. It was now quite a bit later than we had planned, but given the longer days and the questionable weather forecast for Sunday we decided to make it a sunset climb and racked up on our ledge. The snow was steep but good for step kicking now and we made better time to the base of the North Face. - The Shrew from the base of the Mole. The diagonal moss filled cracks splitting the face were obvious. I took the first lead, starting from the snow and up to where the cracks split left and right. Kramer makes it sound like you should keep right while the original route splits left. I tried the right option and was soon faces with fist cracks filled to the brim with moss, standing on crumbly wet moss, and no clear evidence that anyone else had been that way for some time. I didn't feel like excavating that much stuff so I downclimbed 20 feet and took the left route which soon revealed some cleaner cracks amidst the moss and some fun 5.7 climbing. A long pitch led to a nice ledge with some bushes and slings where I stopped and brought James up. From there he took over the lead for a second longer but easier pitch (60+ meters) that led to the summit. I followed quickly as we watched the sun sinking. The views from the top were well worth the effort, especially with the evening light! After photos and snacks there was only one obvious rap route so we took it making three single rope rappels into the gully on the south east side. From there it was some quick plunge stepping and then an awesome glissade all the way back to camp. We made it just before we needed headlamps. Enjoying the single beer I brought and our dinner we crawled into bed dreaming of the Shrew for the next day. These dreams were dashed by the sound of rain sometime in the morning. We stuck our heads out and decided to go back to bed hoping it would stop. We watched the ticks crawl on the outside of our tent and contemplated new ways to kill them. Four hours later or so the cloud finally sank low enough that it stopped raining on us so we packed up and left our tiny ledge. The hike out was drier than we had psyched ourselves up for, but not any shorter. We ran into Jim Donini and Kevin Rose at the Hook Creek Boulder right before the car. Even the old schoolers were bouldering that day! Overall a really fun climb, although it would have been much nicer to had had a second day up there since we had the gear. The approach wasn't bad, but also not great. I'd like to check out the other option via Toketie next time. Go get at er, alpine season is here (if it ever dries out again)! Gear Notes: Brought a bigger rack than needed, but the climb took lots of 0.5-3 camalots with a few options for larger nuts. Not much need for small gear. If you take the right hand option you may need to build a gear belay, but going left gets you nice trees. Approach Notes: Cross the bridge, hike up to Yellow Jacket Tower, head right on a level or slightly rising traverse, cross Hook Creek and head up hill. Keep heading uphill. Head up hill some more. You'll still be able to see the road.

We went up Aasgard on Friday evening. There were frequent sluffs caused by rockfall off Dragontail and surrounding peaks, but it was ok except for crossing a few chutes. Some aspects were slushy up to mid calf level. In the upper Enchantments it got cold enough to form a crust you could almost walk on, but that went away shortly after the sun hit and we were glad to have snowshoes. In the lower Enchantment it was a bit better with snowshoes optional and the snow mostly disappeared below the Snow Lakes. I should have had my firn gliders up there!

Way to get after it despite the obstacles Josh! As long as you keep learning from your trips you'll be a hell of a mountaineer someday!

I assume marking that you've solo'ed but not marking that you solo'ed "with a solo permit" or "without a solo permit" means that you solo'ed but had a group permit (simul-solo). This may apply to some group ski outings as well. Hopefully that was your intent or I've f'ed things up for you.

I assume marking that you've solo'ed but not marking that you solo'ed "with a solo permit" or "without a solo permit" means that you solo'ed but had a group permit (simul-solo). This may apply to some group ski outings as well. Hopefully that was your intent or I've f'ed things up for you.

Fortunately when you solo it you get to jug back up cleaning your gear so never hang that far out. My haul bag sure looked tiny out there by itself though.

Nice trip Josh, I like all the pics interspersed with your report.

Nice trip, sounds like fun!

Hehe, I got turned around once up there too in the summer when I missed an omitted turn of the scramble trail in the Olympics guidebook which was camouflaged by tree branches. I did some exciting ~5.2 variant up a series of gullies left of the main route. Nice job getting to the top anyways!

Thanks Dave, nice TR! I still need to get out there!

I'm not sure if it was exactly THAT ice chimney since this was a few years ago now and it's probably changed, but it sounds similar. I think I went up near the rock on the ridge in your second picture where the ice cap is a little thinner. There was a steeper move or two under an overhang onto a step and then up a chimney type feature for 30-40 feet, then we were through. I think I only placed like 3 screws. Conditions vary quite a bit between a hot July 4th and a cloudy mid-may. :-) Looks like fun either way though!

I recall going up the ridge to the ice cap and finding a weakness to the climbers right in a sort of chimney type feature in the ice. From the single pitch of steeper ice it was walking up and then left towards the summit. Of course that was early July and things were pretty soft and wet all around.

I think I opened my eyes that day, deeming it a suitable announcement of my arrival on this planet. ;-)

What SWH said, but make sure you have the newest version of the Olympics guidebook, the old one doesn't have any info on those areas.

It's the military version of the wild things half bag, I really don't think there is any difference except this one is green instead of orange, and $60 instead of $200. I got one of these a bit ago and it does make a nice good weather sleep system and you aren't as worried about dew or dirt as you would be with an ultralight down bag.

Sorry I missed this year, had circus class that night. :-) Hope a good time was had by all! I expect to see drunken photos soon!

We did DHLA two weeks ago and it wasn't too bad. Pitch 1 was slimy but it usually is, and pitch 4 (pitch 1 of LA) was also a little wet and crappy for the start. I can't imagine it'll be any worse this weekend than it was then, this week has been drier and it's sunny today.

Wonder if it also could have been one of those "well, the weather sucks, we'll have to bail on the climb, let's just hike up to Muir for some exercise while we're here". I'm guilty of that thinking myself on occasion of bad weather, choosing to go out anyways on a "low risk" training hike when weather cancels the main plan. speculating in a vacuum>

ding ding ding ding ding, WE HAVE A WINNER BOYZ! Awesome, do I win a prize? I love seeing old gear too. I actually climbed on some scary looking nail like things pounded into the ice in Russia once.

Ice piton would be my guess. Pre-ice screw/snarg/warthog pro.

Managed to lose my favorite knife, a tiny red Spyderco Ladybug that has been riding on a biner on my harness for the last ten years or so. It was attached with a bit of purple cord. I think it probably came off the biner or the old cord broke on the scramble down from the Tree Route on Lower Eight Mile (came down climbers left side), or on the route (upper wide crack?), but it could have disappeared the day before near Retardant Rock or Special Spot. It's got some sentimental value and I'd like to get it back if anyone comes across it. There's beer in it for the finder. - Stewart 360-301-2585

Nice job, it was a great day out there! I was one of the party of four that walked under you guys. We warmed up on the 5.7 and 5.8 on Retardant Rock and then his up the Special Spot. The Javelin, Opening Ceremonies, and Semi-final were all classic and super fun!