Blake

Will Forest be there to give us that seductive gaze?

Over $350 for Index! Thanks for coming out everyone.

This is Tuesday! Come out for some free schwag, or at least to raise a few dollars for Index!

But I follow him on twitter. Rolf is WAY into that. Sorry about the poorly-drawn sheep on your car.

That is incredible. Did you do the NE Buttress? How did you approach? Colin did it in a day also... page 3. Not to diminish the quick climb of Colin and Bart, but they did it via Stehekin, when the road was still connected. Dan would have done 6 additional miles on the approach, and 14 extra on the way out, which is pretty intense.

A few years ago, someone did a day climb solo: 1. parked at snow creek 2. ran up the road to colchuck trailhead 3. ran to dragontail peak 4. soloed Serpentine Ridge 5. ran to prusik 6. soloed W. Ridge on prusik peak 7. Ran to snow creek wall 8. soloed outer space 9. ran down to the car at snow creek

Road AND shuttle bus historically ran to Cottonwood Campground, where the trailhead was, 23 miles from the boat landing. Road now exists to carwash falls (@ 12.5 miles), but NPS shuttle stops at High Bridge, 11 miles from the boat landing. 23-11=12!

That rock is something else. Overhanging 5.8 face climbing on clean knobs and fins! It would be an awesome place to put up mixed routes, bolting on lead. Here's John Scurlock's photo. Route goes up dark face on left:

That is an awesome story! Way to go Josh, you are the man.

It was repeated on Friday actually. Two (hairy gorilla) thumbs up.

We did Darin's suggested p3 variation on Pilgrimage to Mecca a couple years ago as well. Agree that it's good! I don't think that flake is going anywhere unless you really worked at it. We also encountered some slighty more serious climbing on that last pitch, and didn't know if we were on route. How about that headwall on Cathedral as a couple of the state's best pitches at the grade? I think it puts the Gendarme on the NR of Stuart to shame.

A few D-town gurus have put up at least 2 new routes on Squire Creek Wall. Not knowing the details or wanting to steal their thunder, I'll stop at that. I know they were planning on reporting them in the NWMJ, with info and/or and topos. I bet they are excellent! Anyhow, given that the weather looks rainy for the next week or so, and the NWMJ is due out any day, there should be available beta to climb them when it is dry again.

Not sure where The Joust goes... maybe they are partly the same? I just know that Prayer For a Friend finishes up the finger cracks I circled in red, and has a couple protection bolts on it. If on the west ridge, when you are at the end of the last level-traverse part, look right to see it. These finger cracks are significantly overhung and there is one bolt, visible, to protect a section which wont take gear. It was put up by Fitz Cahall and his wife. They thought maybe harder 5.12 or even 5.13 for the last pitch if freed... yikes! there's a neat story about it here: http://www.thecleanestline.com/2007/09/a-prayer-for-a-.html on Porter's photo above: my understanding is Der Sportsman and Prayer both climb the slender, west-facing aspect on the right side of the picture, leading straight to the top. Der Sportsman follows a line on the right, almost the arete. Prayer is more left, closer to the corner. Prusik is so climbable though, it almost could use a topo like the Lower Town Wall or "The Monk". IT would be cool to see an artistic Mark Allen pen-and-ink drawing off the face with all the climbs labeled, like he did for Washington Pass.

Good picture, Goatboy. Thanks for the pass clarification. I don't know the area even when i'm not in a cloud. The route and wall are between Stuart Pass and Goat Pass. If coming from Ingalls lake, go just past the start of the W. Ridge, and turn Right. I think I have it generally drawn in correctly. The first 3-4 pitches are for-sure, the rest gets a little weird and foreshortened, but once on route, you wont get lost. There is red webbing and tat on bolts, visible from the ground. It's the Wall shown on page 303 of the newest Brown Beckey, and the climb is right of the "Northwest Face of Lower W. Ridge" Key routefinding on P3. Work up and left to a big slung flake with 4" crack, toward the edge of expansive orange overhangs, then cut back right. On the skywalk ledge, walk right until the angle relents, it may give the impression that the W. Ridge or top of the wall are very near. ->climb up and right, mostly easy, with one 5.8ish spot 25' off the ledge. You want to get into a clean, grey, v-slot, chimney/gulley/groove. From here, follow the Right-Facing corner/pillar for 60m of good cracks of all sizes. Then it's a very short pitch of splitter thin hands to the topout

If anyone wants to copy the list to any permanent website that is not my little web blog, please go for it. I put it where I did because I don't know about making websites and didn't have anywhere better to post the list. I added the route on Big 4 Tower, the Hitchhiker, and a couple others I had forgotten.

Hi Lowell, I basically created the list with help from a couple folks who had smaller-scale versions of similar lists, my own memory, and the NWMJ. Here are a few that I don't think made the NWMJ: Cascade Mall on SEWS (Whindham Cotman Bolted Route) East Face of Gunsight (the new version) - The lazy fellow who posted below you in this thread established that route, which intersects with Gordy's (now defunct) climb on the last pitch or two. It's stellar. North Face of Repulse (But Gordy was probably going to submit it this year) Prayer for a Friend on the South Face of Prusik Follows this line. and finishes up finger cracks/seams with one bolt, which is visible from the W. Ridge. It hasn't been free climbed, and might not have seen a continuous ascent. A few others might have been before the NWMJ got started, but I think the NWMJ people have done an amazing job since it got going.

no... more like if they are all really grade IVs or not Hey John, I'm not sure what you mean about "verification" of grades. I always assume that a team's first impression of the route is just that... a first (and singular) impression, meant to give a general difficulty grade. I just wanted to create a handy list of new, unpublished routes for people to have available, supplementing their guidebooks when planning a trip It's easy to miss a hold, stuff-up a crux sequence, etc on any climb, let alone a new route in the mountains, so a team's reported grade might change with numerous repeats. Unless climbing them myself (example, The Passenger) I wont list routes any differently than how they were reported in the AAJ, NWMJ, etc by the folks such as yourself who were ambitious enough to climb them for the first time. In this thread and previous others, you've alluded to people reporting their new grade III routes as grade IV. Are there certain climbs that you are referencing?

Thanks guys! keep the additions and whatnot coming! If anyone can suggest a better way to organize the spring/winter routes, that would be awesome.

After getting to climb and repeat some of the new routes in the area which have been established over the last few years, I have been inspired to list them out with links to topos/descriptions. My hope is to keep adding to this list with new routes or ones I missed along the way, so if you see omissions, please let me know. Perhaps next time you are sitting around planning your weekend but not feeling inspired by the routes you haven't done in your guidebook, you can get some inspiration here. It would also be great to see some of the newer routes get deserved traffic and become the area classics! Here's the link -> New Routes List

Now you can Jens! The new status... Someone go red-point that thing! Or better yet, climb any of the myriad of new routes up there instead.

I had a great time leading The Tempest Wall with Sol the other day, before we headed over and he lead The Scoop in the afternoon. The upper pitches on The Scoop are some of the best in the range, combining strenuous sections with thought-provoking climbing of a more delicate nature. The Tempest seems so much smaller and easier now that it is clean, and no longer wet and cold! We did both routes in 5 pitches each up to the ridge, then simulclimbed to the summit boulder. The easy climbing was even very enjoyable, following a ~5.6 chimney and big left-facing corner. Apart from p2, the Tempest goes at 5.11-. Larger Tempest Topo Sol on p5 of The Scoop. Climbs like "Popeye and the Raven" but with no bolts. Awesome work guys! Sol lead's The Scoop pitch. Much longer and more strenuous that it looks. Tom R. and partner trying the pinkpoint on p2 of The Tempest. This pich hasn't yet been lead cleanly, even as a redpoint. These guys were trying it with pre-placed gear. The conjecture is ~.12d Ben on the .10d fingers before the roof. Ben goes horizontal The 5.9 corner on p3

Just wanted to echo Sol's comments. All 4 of us found the Scoop to be excellent, put it on the list! Very different styles of climbing on 2 consecutive pitches up there. The 'Scoop' pitch is strenuous and steep. Perhaps the hardest pitch yet freed on any CBR route? It's probably no harder than 5.11a at any point, but has no rests, few good jams, and as a tougher tick than ROTC, it's 5.11c and *** all day long. The pitch shouldn't keep anyone off the route though. It has perfect gear the whole way.

Ditto what Pete said. Whether these have been climbed before or not, they missed inclusion into the guidebooks for the range and consequently were dirty and virtually unknown. Having the internet to spray about their quality is a good thing! Few of us would have had the pleasure of climbing Acid Baby without the positiveinternet spray Mike Layton had regarding his day out with Rolf and Dan. It was the same thing with Wayne and Sol posting about Solid Gold here on cascadeclimbers, it was never in any guidebook before! If that's not a good use of this website, what it? And as we all sit around on rainy nights, looking over our maps, photos and books to plan the next trip, we aren't going to plan on heading out to prusik, or Enchantment peak, for a climb that nobody knows about! As Jens mentioned regarding Gorillas in the Mist, I got a very friendly email from the folks who climbed part of the West Stuart Wall back in 1993. They made a big-wall style attempt, completing about 2/3 of the wall itself, did not climb our last 3 or 4 pitches, and never made it to the W. Ridge or the summit. Other parties had since made it up a couple pitches (free climbing alpine style) as well.

KT's butt shots are still better photos than my planned ones. Sol and Jens, awesome and inspiring send. For future climbers who aren't up to the 5.12a tips corner, there is another option for this pitch, which is a 5.10d chimney/finger crack, about 30' to the right. I'm guessing the yellow tips corner is higher quality, but the soft-guy alternative is still pretty darn good.

You have a few things wrong there Faster_Than_You The Washout adds an extra 12 miles of road walking in each direction. If you read the article, it mentions that the NPS has estimated repair costs at 1.3million, and that was before a large drop in fuel/labor/commodities prices. An amount equal to (or greater than) this repair cost has likely already been spent using helicopters to bring forest fire equipment to the upper stehekin valley, whereas if the money had just been used to fix the washout, the supplies could have been driven. This would almost certainly be the case again on future fires that will occur.