OlympicMtnBoy

Not sure if this made it in another forum or not, but it's pretty cool, especially over only 4 years. http://www.ptleader.com/main.asp?SectionID=36&SubSectionID=55&ArticleID=19166&TM=18059.3 From the PT Leader, 10/31 PT couple summits 44 Olympic peaks By Celeste Flint, Leader Staff Writer Although names such as Desperation Peak, Gasp Pinnacle and Devil's Fang would cause most to imagine frightening images of people dangling helplessly off the side of a cliff, one Port Townsend couple thinks they're rather neat. Perhaps this is because the couple has summited each of these peaks, along with the 41 other 7,000-foot-plus peaks in the Olympic Mountain range. It began about four years ago, when friends of Henry and Karen Nichols took them on a climb up Mount Olympus for Henry's 50th birthday. Henry is a Port Townsend dentist, and Karen works in his office. "We've been in the mountains all of our lives. We just never climbed," Henry said. "It made us realize there was a whole vertical dimension that we hadn't explored." After scaling Mount Olympus, the Nichols started learning more about climbing by taking classes and practicing in a gym. Then they found "the book," titled the Climber's Guide to the Olympic Mountains. At the guide's end there is a list of the peaks organized by height. The Nichols' copy has check marks next to the tallest ones. "We saw the list and said maybe we should do that, so we did," Henry said. Although the couple is uncertain about Henry being the first man to accomplish the feat, they're fairly confident Karen is the first woman to summit all of the Olympic Mountain peaks. "We're pretty sure we're the only couple who have done it," Henry said. They said that climbing is a great sport for people of all ages. "It gives you incredible access to beauty and incredible things people never get to see," Karen said. After the Nichols accomplished their goal of climbing all the Olympic peaks in summer 2006, one of the peaks was removed from the 7,000-feet-and-higher list. The Nichols are guessing it has to do with global positioning systems being able to provide more accurate heights. "It's sort of like Pluto," Karen said. Pluto was recently demoted from its "planet" classification to "dwarf planet." Challenges Before getting to a summit, climbers have to do a fair amount of hiking, and the peaks aren't always easy to find. "One of the problems with the Olympics is that the approaches are really long," Henry said. They'd often have to hike 18 to 25 miles before they could set up camp and begin climbing. "Most of the approaches are on trails, but there is significant elevation gain," Henry said. Because the hike-ins are so long, the Nichols often climbed multiple peaks in one trip. Their longest trip was more than 10 days, in which they summited 10 peaks. Once the climbing began, they left the trails, so it was important that they were good at finding routes, reading maps and using a hand-held GPS. "It's kind of fun, because it challenges you to find some of [the peaks]," Karen said. Long approaches mean climbers need to bring all the appropriate hiking gear as well. Consequently, packs can weigh as much as 70 pounds. "The main issue is that you want to be frugal with your weight," Henry said. "Karen dehydrated our food." On one hike they even had some friends hike in with a supply of food. "We had support from some of our buddies," Karen noted. In addition to long approaches, the Olympic Mountains aren't popular because the rock is "bad," or "rotten." "The rock is not solid. It's loose, and quite often the rock will come off in your hand," Karen said. This loose rock also causes a significant amount of rock fall, which makes wearing a helmet critical. "We have both been hit by rocks, but neither of us has ever been scared," Henry said. "I don't think it's that dangerous; it's hard, though." One of the more difficult climbs was up Sniffer Spire. "The rock is really bad and there isn't a lot of protection, and it's pretty technical," Henry said. When the couple reached the top, they found the climber registry under an empty tuna fish can. Judging by the registry, they think they were the third group to summit the peak. The first group reached it in 1962, and the second summit was in the 1970s. Preparation Before climbing, the Nichols prepare physically by working out five or six days a week for as long as an hour. "We 'Nordic Ski' quite a bit, and we row in rowing shells. We hike a lot," said Karen. "We do fast walking with hand weights." They said that weight training is also important. However, they don't run, because it's hard on their knees. They also suggested that before climbers start hiking, they make a gear list and check each other's bags before leaving for the mountain. Technical climbing Since summiting all of the Olympic peaks, the Nichols haven't done much hiking in the peninsula range. "Our interest now lies in more technical climbing," Henry said. "With better rock," Karen added. Technical climbing requires more strategy, and many consider it a key factor in the difficulty of a climb. "It's sort of like a puzzle," Karen said. "It all has to be planned and strategized." They said they plan on climbing in the Cascades more often, and they just returned from a three-week trip to Europe, where they climbed for two weeks. "That was all technical climbing," Karen said. During the trip, they started by climbing in the Dolomites of northeast Italy and finished in the Julian Alps of Slovenia. "It's pretty much a limitless challenge," Henry said of climbing. "I think the whole conquering thing is a misconception." "It's the journey, not the summit," Karen added.

Ned, here is a picture looking up the cirque towards the east. This was taken standing a bit past the gully of the main route, the mass of Warrior rises up to the left and there were no other real options until the main gully splitting the peaks. We took the gully heading up and right as the left hand option looked more difficult than the 3rd class we were expecting (maybe not true, it look easier from closer). Out of the frame on the right is the glacier and the pass. I'm thinking maybe we should have taken the left gully as the right hand one sure adds a bit of ridge work.

I put a few more pictures up here: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthiesen/WarriorPeakClimb Nothing terribly new, but some more nice terrain shots. Diretissimo, Animal pointed it out to you, that picture was taken from Constance Pass, there are some similar pics in my picasaweb folder. I would be up for going up C-141 as well, it looks like a nice climb with some interesting and sad history. Do you, or anyone else, know exactly which glacier your father's plane crashed into? As I recall, the wreckage was left in place. With all the glacial retreat we're seeing, I wonder if we'll start to see some bits of the plane emerging from the ice over the next years.

Awesome, cows from god! 1. Why did they continue driving a mile after this happened? 2. Where is the picture, the tv news just had a map to show. I know someone had a cell phone camera!

Yay! Yay! Yay! Can you tell I'm excited!

We spent the night at Home Lake and then headed down to the boulder field and up from there. It was a bit south of the minor waterfall. It was actually much easier than I thought it would be with no snow. We were able to stay out of the slide alder entirely, basically headed straight up towards Inner Constance and the traversing back north below the cliffs to get back near the creek that comes out from the Warrior-Inner Constance cirque. We went back down the same way. It was a bit annoying in the scree in spots, but not a schwack by any Olympics standards. I'll try to get my pics up, I had some better ones showing the gullies we saw and the one we went up.

Thanks for the TR Animal, I still need to pull my pics off my camera. I had a fun time up there with ya. I definately want to get back and do something on Inner Constance from that side! For anyone else, that was a fairly scary "3rd class" bit for about 20 feet. Maybe with more snow it might not be as bad, but an unprotected tumble there would not be pretty given the crappy rock holds, I was glad for the rope (getting down too) although a 40m half rope would be plenty. There might also be an easier but more exposed ramp option. Of course now that I've done it I'd go sans rope the second time. ;-) Has anyone here done route 2? We weren't entirely sure we took the right "eastern most" gully. It was pretty steep where we popped out but I thought maybe one gully closer to the mountain could be better. That route looks like it has a lot more actual climbing than taking the standard gully, but our rack of 5 nuts and a few slings seemed skimpy up there in the wind with the coulds starting to blow around.

It's true, got me a new avy probe and a rope bag and some well used softshell pants from the free pile! It's even almost sunny here.

www.tarptent.com

Nice, whatever happened to the good 'ol days when sitting in a train getting a massage was still a part of the race!

Tylman, yeah, there is a register up there in a Nalgene water bottle (I wonder how long that will hold up). The register went back ~10 yrs I think, maybe back to 94. Not a ton of ascents, but several per year. About half of them are all the same guy (and sometimes his family, or soon to be family). I forget the name now, but it looks like he's been up there at least once a year as far back as the register goes. Can't blame him, it's a pretty nice place. Chad, c'mon man, you know you like it. Just think of it as training for the Rockies. ;-)

Does anyone else miss the way the "Past 24 hours" forum search used to work. I blew my cookies and everything, but now when I log on to check the latest I hit "Past 24 hours" and it returns "no search terms", if I hit it again it comes up, but instead of the nice old list recently active threads, I get a huge long list of recent single posts (ie, a popular thread shows up 47 times, listing each individual post). I have to scroll through 10-20 pages to see what's going on instead of 1-3. :-(

Nice, I would have been there if my shoulder was feeling better. Yer makin me jealous. :-) - OMB

Welcome to cc.com! That basin is awesome, check out my TR from a nice scramble along the east ridge above Royal Basin a couple weeks ago. Makes you wanna bring back the climbing gear and hit some more of those peaks doesn't it?

PM's not working, so I'll post this here: Animal, You posted a bit ago about partners for Warrior this weekend. Are you still planning to go? Need anyone else? The weather looks alright. Let me know if you want another person cause I'm looking for something to and it would be fun to head in there again. I did Cloudy Peak a while ago, and got good views of Warrior from my time on the ridge near Petunia Peak a couple weeks ago. :-) - Stewart

I'll be up for it in a week or two when my shoulder feels better. It'll be getting dark earlier and I can make more sparks!

Hehe, we had some amaretto for our hot chocolate too. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get a cigar or two in along with some beer in December. ;-) I'm certainly up for going up to the Olympics again too. I've been meaning to drag you out there for a while. Wanna do some FAs on crappy rock?

So how come nobody has bothered to make a wide mouth aluminum bottle? It seems like the obvious competitor to nalgene. If they made a short squat 1/2 liter one I could cook on it too when solo and not have to carry a separate pot.

Nice, kinda makes me wanna go back, cept I liked the rock farther south better. Congrads on a nice summit. Did you go there just to climb or some other connection?

Hmm, my last TR is pretty well gender balanced: Female Score: 745 Male Score: 719 Does that mean I'm a hermaphrodite?

Trip: Petunia Peak + Ridge - NE Gullies via Goat Lake and out Royal Basin Date: 10/12/2007 Trip Report: I met up with my good friend and long time partner Brendan last thursday night to pack up for what we figured would be the usual wet and cold late season Olympics trip. As Brendan made some silly choice to live in Pittsburgh now, I don't get to drag him out there much so i was hoping it might not be too dreary. We opted for a later start to deal with his rental car, etc and ended up at the Dungeness TH at 1:00PM on Friday and began the nice pleasant hike in to Camp Handy. In no time at all we were chilling and snacking at the shelter. We then made the river crossing, where I got my foot damp, and then had no trouble finding the Goat Lake way trail. It was steep for a while, but pretty easy to follow, we finally got up to the lake a little after 5. I hadn't been up to Goat Lake since I was a wee little boy scout so it was pretty cool to see it again. Truly beautiful. Some minor stove shenanigans delayed but didn't cancel dinner, then we crawled into the tent under a night full of stars. I wanted to try out my new Aarn pack which is only 30L so I took the summer bag. I was chilly, but morning was so beautiful I nearly forgot. The sun hit us early and we were soon in shorts anywaysl with a clear blue sky all around. We headed up a scree slope to the top of the ridge N of Goat Lake, hit the high point on the end, then traversed all the way around to the base of Petunia Peak (which also seems to be known as Goat Lake Citadel). We pretty much missed the easy standard route and ended up dropping off the east side of the ridge and following a loose gully up with some 4th class scrambling at the top. A fun route but not really recommended due to the usual loose rock. Views of the Needles and everywhere else from the summit were outstanding. It was fun to look across to the Baldy-Graywolf-Walkinshaw ridge route I had done a few years ago. We found a route down from Petunia on the east side and traversed under the lower gendarmes. The Climbers Guide lists a technical traverse, but we were determined to go light and leave the ropes behind this time. We regained the ridge and spent the rest of the day scrambling along. We had hoped to get to the summit of Fricaba but ran out of time since we wanted to have a nice leisurely time setting up camp and enjoying the area instead of descending by headlamp. We hit the high point right before the intersections of the Petunia-Fricaba Ridge and the Deception-Fricaba Ridge and then headed down towards Upper Royal Basin and camped on a pleasant bench. The night was a bit warmer, but still almost entirely clear. We work up, broke camp, and then spent the rest of the morning exploring the upper basin, picking out fun looking lines on Deception and the rest of the Needles, and then picked our way down to Royal lake and had a leisurely stroll back out. In all a really awesome ridge hike with the most spectacular weather day up high I've ever had in October in the Olympics. It was a great trip with a great partner. I'm definitely psyched to head back in there and hit some spring hardpack on Deception and do some fun Olympics Rock. Brendan put some pictures from both our cameras here. The rest of my pictures are here.

In Peru white gas was readily available at many hardware stores. It wasn't high quality, but burned pretty well in the standard whisperlite internationals we used most of the time. I used plain ol unleaded gasoline in Kyrgyzstan cause that was all we could get for our whisperlite international. Had to clean the f*cker every single time you used it, till we lost the jet cleaner wire. Fortunately a needle threader like you might have with your sewing kit works really well. XGKs are nice for snow too, I've got less experience with them although that will change since I found one over labor day.

I broke my fibia and chipped my talus a couple years ago. I have a plate and seven screws still down there. I was able to weight it to 25 lbs after 4 weeks or so with an air cast. I was on crutches till about 7 weeks. I actually climbed at the gym once at about 6 weeks, just didn't use that leg. I was in Yosemite about 3 months after the accident and managed to get back to climbing speed pretty quickly. It only bugged me much on the day we did Snake Dike, too much damn hiking. Interesting discussion about having the hardware removed. Mine has never bothered me in the slightest, you can feel the screws through my skin but I can't even tell they are there. The doc said I'd have to be on crutches for another 7-8 weeks if I got them removed while the bone filled in the holes or I was at high risk to rebreak with the weakened bone. Is there any clinical evidence about rebreaks with hardware in place? Is it that much of a bigger chance of screwing things up worse?

With my experience with the BD Firstlight, DON"T plan to sit through any downpours in it. It's a good weather only tent, not a "do-it-all" tent, at least in the NW where rain is rarely entirely out of the forecast.

Not mine, just saw this on craigs list and it's been reposted a couple times, thought I'd help out with a cross post. It's hard to see your stuff go to the Goodwill if someone out there could use it. Not your most technical boot, but a good leather boot. http://seattle.craigslist.org/kit/clo/431780803.html P.S. I have no idea who this is and take no responsibility for any outcome.