OlympicMtnBoy

Thanks WD, if only I could convince VW that E-burg is on the way from Portland to Bozeman. Anyone else with ideas farther east near Ritzville?

Anybody on cc.com live near there? I'm heading out to find some ice with vw4ever in MT, but I'm in SEA and he's in PDX. The plan is to start driving seperately and meet up over there where our paths converge, then ditch my car somewhere. I need a relatively safe place to leave it from Thursday night through Monday. It's an 87 Subaru that was stolen earlier and thus has no stereo, so I'm not too worried about it, but I don't want it towed, or the windows smashed in. Any ideas? :-)

Hey, hey, I found a neutrino on the N. Ridge of Stuart last summer! Can I join the party?!? Am I cool yet? C'mon everyone, look at ME!

Yeah, I want a 30 meter section of one of those super skinny single ropes too.

To my knowledge, the stairs and walkways WERE carved by monks to reach the top. There are numerous alcoves with religous displays, including several full sized rooms carved out entirely by hand. I'm not sure about a monastary on top, there are a bunch of things up there now. I'm sure amongst the hotels and restaurants there is one. Yeah, it's kinda wierd since its a holy site, but hey, lots of China is a little wierd to American eyes.

Definately Huashan in China. I was there in 2001. It's a pretty awesome spot. Me and a friend did the 3000 ft. hike up from the base instead of the tourist gondola ride. It was a lot of fun hiking up since the only other folks there were the chinese guys hauling up loads of propane tanks, cases of beer, watermelons, etc. It must be cheaper to have people hike the loads up 3000 or so ft of hand carved steps than it is to send a gondola car. The top was crowded and touristy with hotels and stuff, but the space in between had awesome routes carved into the sheer walls. We took a side trail and ended up in this high hanging valley with a small subsistence farm there and a woman who sold us tea. Unfortunately I believe rock climbing there is illegal because it is a "holy mountain". Otherwise it would be a lot of fun. Also it can get a bit overcrowded, in 2000 40 or so people died on one of those chain stairway things because it was so crowed that some folks got pushed off the edge. And the hardware isn't exatly expansion bolts in the rock, much of it is hand drilled holes with steel or wooden spikes pounded in. The main route up has been "improved" but some of it is still pretty sketchy. Oh and those steps do a number on your knees if you have to hike down. :-) One of the coolest spots on my China trip though.

BTW, this isn't a new innovation, this is basically a fancy Russian Ice Fifi. They've been using em for years. I climbed with em a couple of times, awesome for hooking, not so good when you have to swing. Some of the ruskis can climb super fast in the speed comps with em though. I imagine these swing a bit better though with a real pick. The Russian ones I used were basically cut out of sheet metal with tape wrapped handles and a sharpened point. I also hear that some super scary verglas has been climbed with this sort of thing.

So does the condom act as a vapor barrier and keep things warmer, thus minimizing shrinkage and enabling the reach to Seattle??? Damn, i better start wearing a condom when i climb too!

I have some of those old coat hanger screws that I inherited from a friend who used them "back in the day". I took them out once and placed some near the ground. Basically it was that same effect on the hard pure ice, but they actually did ok on wetter more plastic stuff. I bounced the crap out of one and it held (although watching it flex was entertaining). Not that I'd ever want to climb on one or place it on lead. Ice blocks are fun though, made some in my freezer when I got my first real screws just for the heck of it. I just wanted to screw something. ;-)

I got the smallest REI UL pack which is a bit smaller but the same concept, also not waterproof, but something like $18 on sale. It works great as a summit pack, climbed Triple Couloirs with it this year. I wouldn't pay that much for the OR though, it's too big and heavy for a summit pack/stuff sack, and too small and uncomfortable (at least in the store) for much longer than a day.

Pulling the skinny cord first is a pain, but if you pull the fat cord first you are more likely to end up with a stuck skinny cord anyways. The skinny cord is much lighter and much more likely to get blown off route. Also I find they twist and kink much more easily making little squirril knots that get jammed in cracks and flakes. I've always pulled the skinny cord first the few times I've gone this route (with a 5.5 mm spectra cord that was super kinky). But there's obviously no consensus on it. :-)

Awesome! Who wants to go tent testing in the mountains?

Cool that you headed up there, bummer on the summit. It sounds like maybe you took one of the western gullies that the guidebook says blank out. I was on the ridge until that big huge blank gendarme right before the summit (the blank rock in the pic above). I traversed under that to a gully that comes right up to the east of the summit, between the big gendarme and the summit. It would have been sketchy with more frost (there was some already), but it wasn't 5th class except for a move or two that could have been avoided. Anyways, it's not going anywhere for when you want to try again. Im still aiming to post pics but the film still lives in my camera. :-)

I got mine from AlpIndustria in Moscow, Russia. If you're headed that way I'll dig out the metro stop for ya. ;-)

Constance is easier and faster because there is no cross country travel involved (except above treeline on the route). You can bike (or hike) to the TH in an hour and do the approach in a couple hours (depends on how fast you do 3000+ ft in 2 miles). Then a while for the approach and the route. It's a pretty reasonable weekend trip, but you might be coming out in the dark. The route on Piro's Spire is much shorter in terms of length and easier in terms of routefinding, but the approach is a bit more of a itch. Does that answer your question? Go out an do Constance, it's a good peak. The west arete is a great Olympics rock climb too.

That first pic is awesome! Just photoshop that toprope out and you should be in a mag. ;-) Maybe Petzl will send you a sticker or something for it.

Pic fixed. I'll try to post some of mine when I get them developed.

Climb: Piro's Spire-Route 1, East Ridge Date of Climb: 10/22/2006 Trip Report: So other plans weren’t coming together like I hoped, and I didn’t want to waste what might be the last nice weekend for a while, so I headed solo off into my favorite range again. For some reason Piro’s Spire had caught my eye in the new guidebook and my info request only yielded one picture from Graywolf Pass (thanks OlympicMountain_Climber). I managed to get off work a little early, but lost all that time in a series of misadventures that caused me to miss two ferries (who the f*ck decided that “camping season” is over and they don’t need to stock water purification pills anymore, “camping season” never ends!). I finally made it to the Dosewallips TH/road washout a little after seven. Not daunted by a little dark I hopped on my mountain bike and started the 4 mile uphill ride to the closed campground. Even though my pack was less than 25 lbs, it still sucked. Just try riding uphill with a heavy pack on and you’ll really understand why they invented bike panniers. I got to the campground, made some tea, and settled in under my tarp. The night did not go so well. For one, it’s damp and cold by the river there, and I should have brought a warmer sleeping bag. I was chilly. Eating dinner at 4 probably didn’t help keep the internal heater fired much either. And second, a cute little mouse kept trying to join me in my sleeping bag. It kept running up, standing on my lower lip, and then running away. I should have brought the bivy sack and stayed warm and sealed in, but nooooo, I had to take the tarp and save a pound. I got up late cause the sun didn’t get to my site till late and I was frozen. I locked the bike to the ranger station and then started up the trail. Not quite 4 miles in I left the trail at the very top of the grade before it starts heading down to Big Timber camp. I basically just headed straight up the side of the ridge for 2000 ft. The going wasn’t bad for Olympics cross country, although once I got to the ridge line it got worse. Then I realized my minor mistake. I didn’t bring enough water to stay the night, and I sure hadn’t seen any since I left the Dose. I kept finding hollow spots with very wet moss, but no real water. I kept on up the ridge towards the peak getting more and more nervous. I knew they was probably a snow field beneath the peak and hoped it was warm enough to have some running water under it. I finally got there late in the afternoon to find the snow a solid ice block. I only had my tiny alcohol stove and not much fuel, so melting by that means was out of the question. I also really didn’t want to go all the way back down to water until I climbed the thing, so I decided to melt snow by another means. I didn’t want to camp near the snowfield though as it was a refrigerator and I was thinking of my earlier chilly night nearly 4500 ft lower. I ended up pulling as many plastic bags and stuff sacks as I could from my pack, and then filling them with snow blocks which I chopped from the field with a stone axe. Then I headed back up over the ridge to the drier and warmed south side and making a crappy/lumpy camp near the base of a scree slope. It took me more than 3 hours with my tiny pot to melt enough water to fill my bottles with hot water to sleep with. And of course my water was well smoked and full of ash, dirt, and pine needles. The next morning was nice, the sun came out again and warmed me up (night wasn’t that bad), and I took an almost empty pack to scramble up the peak. I pretty much stuck to the ridge instead of dropping down to the bowl. It was loose but still scrambling terrain. I traversed onto the north side and into a gully below the prominent gendarme, and then followed the gully to very near the top. The last move to the summit block was pretty easy. It only took me a little over an hour from my camp. I was pleased to find a small metal cylinder up top with a summit register. Actually it was THE summit register, having been placed there in 1965 by the Mountaineers. That party was kind enough to copy the text from the first three summits into the register so I got to read the note from the FA party in 1947 dedicating the peak to Bob Piro who died in the Italian Alps in 1946 with the 10th Mtn. Div.. There were no recorded ascents since 1997, and only 3 since 1985. According to the list I was #25. There were also a few routes noted that aren’t in the guidebook including the N. Ridge, and a 13 pitch 5.7 on the SW side (which may be the one referred to in the new guidebook, but I think it was 1977). I had been wondering about some other routes given the vague way the guide refers to it as a rock destination, but it looks like the obvious lines have been climbed (although the SW side might be fun to repeat if I wanted to drag my ass up there again). I should have taken pics of the log but I only have a film camera and little film. I basked in the sun, ate some food, and then headed back down. I got back to camp, packed everything up, and then headed basically straight down the hill as I didn’t see any reason to traverse back on the ridge. I trended east when possible and ended up in a scree gully where I lost 800 feet and cliffed out at the top of a dry waterfall. I headed east some more until I could get down. I finally found a tiny creek to refill my water and then hit the trail again just W of Big Timber camp. The hike out was uneventful, but the bike out to the car was glorious. I no longer regretted the painful uphill ride with a pack as the ride down (especially after the Constance trail) is ALL DOWN HILL. I think had to peddle for maybe 2 mins at the most. It was a great weekend to be out and a good time out on my own. I wouldn’t recommend it as a climbing destination, but it is a pretty peak with nice views from the top. Gear Notes: Mountain Bike, light pack, good boots. Approach Notes: Road has a super big hole in it 4 miles from the end, in case you hadn't heard.

I made some umbilicals about like this last year and they worked pretty good. I neglected to put in a swivel which I'll do this year as they can get twisted up if you're not paying attention and you match and switch tools a lot. I attached them to my tools with keychain biners. It worked alright and didn't bang around, until I fell while drytooling and left a tool jammed in a crack. Actually the biner held, although in a quite mangled state. I'm not sure exactly what the desired outcome is at that point (leave your tool on the route or have it zinging back towards you).

Not that you probably aren't climbing ice better than me since last season anyways, but I learned a lot TRing an easy/moderate pitch with only one tool (one walking axe is fun too). It really forces you to rely/focus on your feet if you want to make any upward progress.

Yeah, yet another example of REI giving rather poor advice. Take that #1 back and trade it for a 0.75. I would second most everyone else with the 0.5 and 0.75 FIRST, then worry about a #3, and then maybe a 0.4. When you've got a full set of cams from around 0.3 to #4, then I'd worry about doubles. My first rack was 4 cams (equivalent to 0.5 to #2) and 9 nuts, it got me up quite a bit of alpine anyways. Oh and don't listen to vw4ever's advice on bigger gear first, he still needs to learn to climb real cracks, and then he'll be happy for those hand and finger sized cams. ;-)

email sent

I promised my GF we'd do something together on Sunday, and she's busy in town Saturday. I'm thinking maybe I can hit the rope-up Friday and Saturday. Anyone want to car pool from Seattle and return Saturday night? Since I'm not bringing a partner I'd need one of those too. :-) PM me or call 360-301-2585. I can leave (and climb) anytime friday. - OMB

I'd go, except I need to come back Saturday. Any chance that'd work?

So does that $100 minimum order listed on the conditions page apply? I could use a couple biners. Unless they have a swager on sale so i can make some scary heads.