OlympicMtnBoy

Trip: Squamish - University Wall (5.6 C2) Date: 10/10/2009 Trip Report: Having both been somewhat unsuccessful on our recent wall attempts, Matt and I made plans a few weeks ago to “get up to Squamish” if we could before it got too wet. Weather, family obligations, stupid excuses, etc but finally a nice weather window and we assembled a support posse. When the support posse promptly bailed with the colder forecast I had to taunt Matt over chat at work and remind him that they made these things called belay jackets to keep you warm when climbing in chilly weather. We loaded up the car Friday night with lots of gear and some good canned beers and headed north. - University Wall follows the prominent cornet system, our bivy was at the tree halfway up. - Saturday morning we woke to chilly but mostly clear skies and loaded up my giant haul bag and backpack and hit the base of the Chief. The approach up to University Wall was a little exciting but featured a nice new fixed rope in the worst part. After some gear sorting I took the first lead doing the 5.6 traverse to the real start of the route and heading up the awesome C1 first pitch (or 5.12a for those so inclined). Approaching the wall we thought we saw a portaledge hanging in the middle of pitch 2. As I got closer it shrunk to a midget ledge made of plywood and nicely sized for standing or sitting on. It seemed like a good place to stop on the otherwise steep wall and I started the haul while Matt seconded. With the over hanging nature of the route and the fairly light bag I was done in time to mock Matt as he cleaned the somewhat awkward corner. He took over the lead and made his way up some more awkward corner bits and past some anchors not on any of our topos, finally stopping at a nice bolt and tree belay at the top of pitch 4 just as the sun was setting. I had a bit of trouble cleaning a few pieces of gear in the fading light, since of course I had left my headlamp in the haulbag. I arrived at the top of the pitch and we threw up the ledges (given the nature of the route and our plan to rap it, we each brought our own ledge). I cracked open a Guinness as Matt struggled with his double ledge. After a minute or two Matt let out a somewhat horrified “oh shit” and I looked over expecting to see a ledge or some other vital piece of equipment hurtling down the wall and was instead greeted with a golf putter. Apparently Matt was a little confused as to what type of trip we were planning on (or maybe he just got his gear a little mixed up while moving). I’m pretty sure we’ve set the record for highest ever golf club on the route. We passed an otherwise pleasant evening with canned ravioli, more beer, and cigars while watching the lights of Squamish pass by. The night was windy and tossed us around a bit, but I slept pretty well anyways. Waking sometimes well after first light we reorganized and I was off again close to the crack of noon. Our plan was to fix the last two traversing pitches thus allowing us to leave our bivy gear and haul bag here and rap back down after we hit the top (the usual descent is to rap Uncles Bens next door). I hard to start with some thrutchy squeeze chimney moves off the belay but soon hit a fixed pin and then was in great high stepping C1 again. I linked the next pitch with some tiny offsets and more awkward overhanging corner stuff up to pitch 6. Matt made good time getting to the belay and I was happy to get my belay jacket from him as the clouds had moved in and the wind was ever present. Matt made some angry vagina like sounds but I told him he was leading the next pitch anyways. He did well on probably the hardest aid of the route through some ratty fixed pins, hooks, and loose bits. I followed the traverse, thankful for my gri-gri and then set off for the last pitch featuring a cool easy hook traverse to some more hand cleanable fixed pins and then a bit of 4th and two more aid moves to the top. Actually the route ends on a ledge about 2/3 of the way up the Chief, but close enough. With some bushwhacking I managed to set a belay from a tree more in line with my last gear and Matt jugged. With brief celebration we managed a double rope rap right back to the top of pitch 6 with our fixed line allowing us to jug over to the anchor before the traverse. Another double rope rap got us back to our bivy. With the day continuing to continue we wasted little time in cleaning up and splitting the weight for the next rap, which got us back to the wooden platform of the day before. One more 60m rap got us down to where we started, but not wanting to carry stuff back down the ledge approach, we did two more full raps all the way back to the chief trail. Now we were in the dark and our only hope of living through the night was to ditch the gear and make our way to the brew pub for beer and burgers (yes, bacon, a fried egg, pineapple, and a pickled beet really can all fit on one tasty burger). It was 30 degrees when we woke up in the morning so we retrieved our gear and had a leisurely drive back, finally with at least one short wall done this year. Good times, good beer, good partner, just the way it ought to be! We had topos from McLane and Maddaloni, both of which had some glaring errors like the three extra bolted anchors not shown on either. Matt used his mad topo skills to make this: More pics are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthiesen/UniversityWallSquamish# And Matt's pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthew.clifton/UniversityWall# Gear Notes: Standard aid rack with extras in the blue-orange TCU size or blue-yellow aliens. Two med-large hooks should suffice. Don't forget your putter as well. Approach Notes: Head left when you hit the base of the Chief, past the flake trail and up to the next ledge system, grovel up and use the hand line, then squeeze past the trees to the first bolted anchor.

This looks a bit suspicious to me: http://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/spo/1421919358.html http://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/spo/1421919358.html Climbing and Reppelling Gear $80.00 - $80 (Puyallup) Date: 2009-10-14, 5:53PM PDT Reply to: sale-rqkrt-1421919358@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?] I am selling all my reppelling and climbing gear, new ropes, d-rings , locks, 3 harnesses, gri gri, safteys, cams, gloves, alot of stuff. too much to photo. CALL FOR DETAILS. $80.00 253-840-1576 * Location: Puyallup * it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Sounds like a great day out there!

PM sent on pants.

The guidebook says Mt. Olympus is awaiting a first winter ascent. I'm pretty sure both the north and south faces of the Nun don't have any routes on them either. 8D There are also many unnamed spires in the interior . . .

Nice, looks like fun!

Nice gear mod! I just use a cheapo CAMP tool with a hammer, weighs about 16 oz, but is longer and still has an alaska type pick (fixed).

Nice, looks like fun. So what's in the CAVE???

Don't tell me these things!

I'm pretty sure something went horribly awry on der interwebs today.

Piggyback! Maybe there are some great climber landlords out there. I'm looking for a place for my girlfriend and I too. We'd like a house or duplex in the Fremont/Wallingford/Phinney/Ballard area (like S. of 85th or so), ideally with a small yard and parking for my camper. ~$1300/mo max. Profession/grad student couple, very reliable and fairly quiet.

Yeah, not one of the three crashes listed in the first length, all military metal skinned planes and only the one on Constance and the opposite side. The other link shows 9 accidents near Quilcene, most of them smaller craft, could be one of them.

Thanks for the link, that is a nice write-up that I hadn't seen before. That crash however was over near Warrior Peak and Inner Constance. I believe that was also a metal skinned aircraft. What we saw looked like shredded fiberglass and was down from the notch on Constance Route 1. Maybe Brendan has a better picture.

My Rossignol Free Trek Ventures are 2800g/pair, it looks like a Swiss company took over the ski: http://www.stc-swiss.ch/ Obviously quite a bit more than the Hagans though, although it seems like a very similar ski. I also have a pair of 130 cm skis with some old Salewa tour bindings on them (releasable) but those are a bit over 3000g/pair.

Thanks Porter, it's kind of cool to see that view. I'm sure I've looked across that way from Constance as well, but I don't think I ever realized I was looking at Destroyer until this trip.

Sounds like a great rainy day outing to me!

Thanks Porter, It was a lot easier to get in there than I thought. Either peak is doable in a day pretty easily. Brendan gets credit for all the good pictures BTW, I took the less cool ones. I think we'll have some more up soon.

Trip: S. Fork of Tunnel Creek - Nun, Destroyer, Enigma Date: 9/12/2009 Trip Report: A month or so ago I was cruising the local Goodwill on a lunch break and I ran across a copy of the 1981 Mountaineer. Flipping through the journal I found an interesting article on Tunnel Creek climbs including the Nun, Destroyer, and Enigma. Being a big fan of the Olympics and not having visited for a while I decided to go check them out. After a Friday lunch meeting I managed to recruit long time climbing partner and veteran of several Olympics trips with me, Brendan, to come along. The forecast was great and it just wasn’t a weekend to stay home and crag. We hit the trail about 9:30 AM, the bushwhack wasn’t too bad for the Olympics, and we made it to camp in a flattish meadow at the head of the S. Fork of Tunnel Creek around 1:00. Along the way we snacked on plentiful huckleberries and found tasty forest treats for dinner. We worried along the way that we wouldn’t have any water after Tunnel Creek disappeared into it’s final tunnel a long ways down the hill, but were lucky to find one small clearish pond still in the meadow. We stashed the bivy gear, hung our food like 30 feet off the ground (Brendan was worried about tall bears), and set off up the hill to the base of the E. Ridge of the Nun. Only a few minutes from camp in the valley and we hit the base and began the mossy 4th class scramble up the ridge. Staying on the ridge proper gave lots of secure“green” belay options, although Brendan opted for the mossy slabs at points. A few old slings were passed in the trees and we soon made it to the base of the summit block. The original route had a long downward traverse around the difficulties, but the summit block direct route looked pretty good and was supposedly only 5.0. I racked up with my meager rack and headed up. The pillow lava on this pitch was actually pretty good and allowed for a couple of small cam placements and a big hex, then the difficulties were over and we were scrambling the ridge over a small false summit to the top. The views were great and we even found an old film canister summit register containing the entries of six other parties including the FA in 1978. After basking in the afternoon sun we headed back down the ridge making one rap on my 67 meter rope (60 would be fine if you go from the right spot) to the base of the summit block, then three more raps down the mossy slabs off of trees. We were soon back at camp cooking dinner with our tasty forest treats. - The East Ridge is the left skyline, although the final pitch is not as steep as it looks from this angle. - After a good sleep and leisurely morning we started up the other side of the valley for Destroyer and Enigma. The hidden rock chute above the boulder field was pretty easy to follow to the upper bench, then a long scree traverse to the base of Destroyer. We had some debate about the proper “ramp” described in the guidebook, but I think our chimney scramble from directly below the summit up and left was correct. Another short steep pitch with some actual cracks and almost decent rock got us to the notch, then another scramble up to the “platform” at the base of the summit pitch. The 1980 piton is still there (as mentioned by Bremerton John), but is of marginal utility. I tied it off and climbed up making a few mid-fifth moves on crappy rock. I had pins and a hammer but I opted for a crappy cam, a decent nut, and a fished through slung hole before reaching the top. Pins would be safer, but the moves were easy. We found the top still slung with a rotting and chewed on red cord and backed it up with another cord. Forgot to bring a summit register, doh! - Destroyer is the obvious pointy thing, Enigma is the unobvious blob just to the left. - - The steep second pitch. - - Brendan enjoys not having led the final pitch. - After enjoying the views and taking pics of Constance (is there an old plane wreck in the canyon there, looked like shredded fiberglass?), we did a single rope rap (60m would be fine) back to the base of the summit tower. We belayed the 4th class move to get around a gendarme to the easy scramble up to the top of Enigma. I guess I didn’t look hard enough, but I didn’t find the summit register there, probably under a rock I didn’t move. We scrambled back down to the Enigma-Destroyer notch and did one more rap to easy ground to the base. The scree was much faster on the way down, and we snacked and packed and booked for the car (not missing bringing a few tasty treats home along the way). Overall another great Olympics rock climbing trip! Maybe not quite as classic (for the Olympics) as Mt. Cruiser or the W. Arete of Mt. Constance, but still a fun trip to a remote spot only a mile or so off the trail (I did hear voices at one point, but never saw anyone else). Thanks to the 1981 Mountaineer and the earlier TR for inspiration. Gear Notes: 4 cams, 5 nuts, 2 hexes, 5 pins, 67 meter rope, lots of slings, string bikini harness. More than enough! Approach Notes: Follow S. Fork of Tunnel creek to just past the Shelter, then follow the creek bed up to campsites at ~4900'. Turn left for the Nun, right for Destroyer.

I just use a drybag like Ivan, I would image a Wag bag or Restop bag would be all the better to toss in the drybag.

I probably won't make it this year since my girlfriend is just getting back to town that weekend and probably won't be excited about going, but I've had lots of fun before so I just wanted to say THANKS PORTER! Thanks for dealing with all this crap on our behalf and organizing us n shit. :-)

Chris! What the hell are you doing in Olympia? We should have a beer and reminisce about Kyrgyzstan. What were you climbing in Chile? - Stewart

Semper Farcisimus!

Yep, it's that time of year again! As summer wanes and fall approaches, come get some extra climbing stoke at what is usually a pretty good show! Thursday, September 17th at the Neptune Theatre 7:00 PM Tickets available at Feathered Friends, 2nd Ascent, and Vertical World (or at the door)

We based that on a wall map back at the chopper base as there was some confusion with the maps Fred was supposed to bring, I thought the Pretender was a tad west of Monarch's summit from the map, but I could well be wrong. BTW, there was the lower half (shaft and spike) of an old wooden ice axe stuck in the summit block of the pretender/serf. I forgot to take a picture and we left it there for posterity. Anyone know if there's a story behind it?

Yeah the rock in the area was highly variable. That pillar high on the N. Face of Monarch looked solid and sweet, getting to the base of it looked much less fun (through long traversing chossy ledges or under the hanging glacier). We could also see a tiny bit of the other side of the Throne that did look better, but no one else seemed motivated to trek around to the other side. Maybe next time.