OlympicMtnBoy

Trip: Mt. Thompson - West Ridge, 5.6 Date: 8/24/2008 Trip Report: The original plan was to climb the west ridge of Mt. Stuart and NB and I packed accordingly with light packs for a bivy, a tiny rack, and a 30m half rope. It all seemed well planned to show up Saturday late morning and climb till we felt like stopping and enjoy a pleasant alpine bivy before finishing and hiking back down for sunday dinner back home. What we forgot to check was the status of the forest fire burning away nearby, so when we show up at the Teanaway trailhead we were met by a very friendly ranger who kindly informed us that all the trails were closed due to danger of the fire spreading. He showed us the fire map and went back to feeding peanuts to the squirrels (leave no trace) while we discussed our other options. *note There is a $150 fine for being on the trail when it's closed. For some reason Mt. Thompson popped into my head as an easy alpine route that might be fine with our minimal gear and would be a good overnight given our now afternoon start. I had admired Thompson from a solo backpacking trip up Gold Creek to Joe and Alaska lakes a couple years ago. When I got back from that trip I looked up the route description. Now that was two years ago and I hadn't looked out the route since. All I remembered was that it was off the Pacific Crest Trail, and was like 5.4 or something. Thus equipped with my vague memories and no map or description we headed down the PCT. It was quite pleasant but very crowded until we passed Ridge Lake. If you've been up to Thompson you'll remember to inobvious trail up to Bumblebee "Pass". I didn't remember that part of the description so we kept going to the obvious pass near Joe Lake. You can look up to Thompson from there, but it is not the easy way to go. Thickheaded we crashed down a faint trail which eventually led to a cliffy route down to Ed's Lake. There was a beautiful campsite, but we went about 1500 feet lower than we needed to on the normal approach. We admired Toppling Tower (5.5) and then worked our way around the lake and up a long scree gully towards the base of Thompson. With the bushwhacking and extra travel we abandoned plans of finding a scenic bivy on the ridge and camped at a pleasant spot in the bowl on the approach. The last stragglers climbing that day came down by headlamp. At least we know where the 4th class descent route was. We figure the ridge route was obvious (and indeed it was). We had some yummy bean soup with grilled skirt steak (thanks Nick!) for dinner and then a pleasant snooze. We woke at sunrise aware of the forecast for afternoon rain and headed up to the West Ridge notch. From the notch the actual climb only took us an hour and a half with on 30m pitch to start and then some simulclimbing. We were worried about the weather, watching a triple lenticular descend onto Rainier, but it stayed pleasant for us. The rock was shitty, but it reminded me of climbing in the Olympics so I was fine leading everything. The descent was fairly easy to find, marked by many rap anchors which might have been useful, but not with a 30m rope, so we scrambled and did ok. We make it back to camp around 11AM, snacked, packed, and hiked out. We only had a tiny bit of rain on the trail a bit before the car so it all worked out well. And thus ended another adventure. Fun time, cool location, crappy rock, but I still liked the climb. Pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthiesen/MtThompsonClimb Gear Notes: 5 nuts, 5 cams, some slings, and a 30m half rope, helmets useful Approach Notes: Head left up the water gully above Alaska Lake to Bumblebee "pass". Not that hard to find if you are looking for it. Check for fire closures before heading out too!

Check to make sure you can get there, the trails from the Teanaway were all closed due to the fire last weekend. There was a ranger up there turning folks around and they ran down some super early starters on the trail and gave em all $150 fines. It might be open again with the recent rain, but they said it could be closed for 7-14 days. I'm too lazy to check right now.

Next time they have gear night at Feathered Friends go and check out the ice blocks they use for the v-thread contest. With a big clear ice block you can see how the fractures propagate from an ice screw in 3-d (although it's not a perfect example because ice is rarely that uniform outside). Not only can you see how radically different fracture patterns emerge from different brands of screw, you will also see that fractures tend to propagate radially from the screw and hardly at all in front of the screw. I haven't looked at fractures from an ice tool in a clear block, but my guess is that they don't penetrate very deep beyond the pick either. Thus I don't think in normal ice conditions you need to worry about this sort of thing much, and like Summerprophet said, old pick holes make good screw starters in hard ice.

And if your pick penetrates the ice as far as your screw you have a problem. The fractures from your pick hopefully don't go anywhere near that deep.

Trip: Dragontail - Backbone with Fin Direct Date: 8/9/2008 Trip Report: I didn't want to mess with reports on the Backbone discussing the recent tragic loss of Andy Basque, so this is a little late. I'm sure you've all read enough TRs on Dragontail to not need anymore beta, but here are a few pics for the armchair mountaineers and others stuck at work: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthiesen/DragontailBackboneClimbAndEnchantmentsHike Natalie, Cat, and I hiked in on Friday afternoon and warmed up with the second ascent of a nice short 5.8 near the lake that MountainMatt put up. Maybe he'll post a topo later as it was a fun close to the lake little climb that was great to do before dinner. Matt showed up later that evening with more gear so we could climb Dtail the next day. The ranger had told me there was a fatality there when I picked up my permit, but didn't know which route or anything, so we just went with the plan. It rained several times that night so we woke early with strong thoughts of checking the weather and going beck to bed. It looked questionable, but not terrible, so we headed out anyways and it improved with daybreak as we reached the base of the route. We took aluminum crampons for the approach and ice axes for the descent but probably could have done it without either. The route was super fun. I got the offwidth and used the #5 (old numbering) camalot and a #3 big bro that we hauled up there. It wasn't bad but the big gear was appreciated. I think for several pitches above that I stayed on or near the crest in fun 5.8-9 cracks but they sure were licheny and mossy so maybe most folks drop left into the gully? There are lots of options up there anyways. Mat took a surprise toprope whipper in the offwidth following me. I had led a full 67 meter pitch (my rope after an ice tool hit) and a big guy can stretch a 9.1 quite a ways even on TR. This put him in a grumpy mood, but we still did fine. The Fin is everything people say it is. We headed up a little too soon and Matt got to do some runout lichen face climbing on the first pitch, but the rest were super cool, fun, exposed, well protected, etc. We made it to the top and enjoyed some fine Cuben cigars (thanks Matt) before heading down. It took us about 12:45 from camp at the lake to the top and back to camp. We had some yummy phad thai and sunchips, a couple glasses of wine, and then hit the sack. Sunday Matt was kind enough to haul out the hardware and rope and Nat, Cat, and I finished via a pleasant hike through the Enchantments on Sunday and Monday. Overall it was a pretty cool trip. My condolances to Andy's friends and family. Be safe in the mountains.

Nice job on the CNR Lisa!

Nice, that rock looks like fun. I need to do another Olympics trip soon!

Nice, thanks for the TR!

Love the hitchhiker pic!

Someone has to ask, so how did you lose your pants??

We just rapped down to the thin ledge with the natural anchor and then downclimbed the last 15 feet to the big ledge, didn't seem like a big deal or a reason to haul a second rope up there. The natural anchor didn't look that bad except for the ratty webbing that i didn't feel like replacing.

Alpindustria in Moscow, Russia stocks them. Just a short walk from the Izmailovskaya metro station. Alvo Titanium who used to make them for Ushba is still around. Scroll to the bottom of http://www.alpindustria.ru/catalog/alp/spare_p/1395/ to see a few, but there were more varieties when I was in the store a couple years ago. Good luck trying to order them online though. ;-)

Nice Chad, we missed you guys in the Alpine Lakes, but it looks like you were having good fun. :-)

Many or most of the trad routes at Smith also have bolted belays, although it's kinda hot there right now.

More pics of our climb are online here: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthiesen/SEButtressOfCutthroat

Cool, looks like a fun day of scrambling!

BTW Geoff, all my pics are online here: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthiesen/EastFaceOfLexington There are a few more of you guys on Liberty Crack.

Hi Dan! Get better soon! :-)

Wow, there is nothing left to add as Mal just covered my list. I'd also second his recommendation of picking an area or a route with little info and going for it. What the Olympics lack in solid rock is more than made up for in adventure, scenery, and solitude. You're unlikely to find another party any of these routes except maybe Cruiser on a weekend. Check out the Constance Massif for some rock FA potential too (there is more detailed info on the 5.7 route in the book too, as well as some likely unrepeated 5.10 spires).

Rough story. Condolences and best wishes for sure.

Sweet! I'm glad you'll get your shoe back Lisa. I was bummed when we knocked it into the moat.

I did it many years ago when i think my entire rack was 4 cams, 9 nuts, and some draws (which is more than you need for that route anyways). I think I just had one 50m rope too. I don't recall it being too difficult to get down. I think it was just about 80 ft to rap the 5.0 pitch to the little ledge.

All of your questions are miraculously answered in this thread here from the frontpage. :-)

Nice job guys, I love Olympic rock climbing!

The boy was legs with lungs in college, and he hadn't been guiding yet. We got him to carry a whole full size watermelon in his pack into the Olympics once back then, so I'd like to take credit for helping him train. ;-)