Blake

Pitch 5 (5.10b): move down and left on a small ledge that takes you into a slab dihedral. Small cams and nuts are useful here to move up and into a nice dihedral crack (wet in early season). Move out and left of the roof to another nice belay ledge. (~100 ft.) (dotted line in the topo) Maybe the sarcasm was over my head but it seems a little odd to climb half of one of the peak's shortest routes, and then complain that the routes are too short.

Hike to the top of Castle Rock and follow that trail over. It still is far from a great approach. As far as the Leavenworth locals having some other means of access - not only does that not really exist, but there is rarely anyone climbing up at Midnight. (local or otherwise). I would like to do some re-bolting and trail work this fall to bring that crag back from obscurity.

I am guessing you meant 'EAST' of Rainy Pass proper. The trail is not near Hwy20 anywhere WEST of Rainy. If so, that is basically what everyone already does. And not only is the parking area several miles east of Rainy pass, but even from this parking area, the PCT parallels Hwy just to the south of the road for an additional 1/2mile or so. You can park on the shoulder of Hwy20 to the east of the parking area/southbound PCT trailhead and save some walking, plus avoid needing a NW Forest pass.

Trip: Supercave Wall - The Tiger Date: 8/13/2014 Trip Report: Over the course of 4 days this summer, I teamed up with local guides/crushers Colin Moorhead and Max Tepfer in order to engage in a little "vertical construction project" on the M&M aka Supercave Wall near Liberty Bell. Those guys sent the hard and scary pitches, while I dropped our wrench and whimpered up the offwidth. Thanks also to Arden Pete, Erik Lawson, Mike Pond, and Shaun Johnson who put in some anchors and sent some of the pitches. The end result is an entirely new 11 pitch route that features some of the best rock in the Cascades. There really isn't any choss from top to bottom and it has everything from slabby finger cracks to overhanging offwidths. It can easily be climbed at 5.11 A0, and the descent is via an easy walkoff to the left, or via rappels down the route with 2 ropes. The approach gully (unless snow covered) definitely presents some objective hazards. Be very careful about knocking rocks down, and be cautious about approaching the wall if there are already cars parked in the pullout. I hope this route sees some traffic and repeats, rather than a regression to the vegetated state from whence it was uncovered! There are a couple fixed wires on P9 with single 'biners which are nice directionals for the rappel down this section. Please leave them. Gear Notes: Doubles from grey TCU to #4 camalot. Single #5, #6. Approach Notes: Park MP 166 on Hwy. Walk 40 minutes up the gully. Year round water. Expect a little scrambling and potentially a fixed line around the narrowest part of the gully.

There was major rockfall coming down Aasgard Pass (off D-tail)? which swept past Jens and I in the dark when we were on the trail, a few hundred feet above colchuck lake. Very scary to end your day with dangerous on-trail hiking.

Hi Lutzman, I was one of the two climbers you met by the lake on the 20th, and offered you that headlight. We had done a "recon " day and were horrified by the rockfall on the trail, sorry if we seemed a little out of it. Glad you were not caught in the debris either!

There is a green/yellow original CCH alien left sitting at a belay ledge near the final pitch of The Valkyrie, just before it joins Acid Baby on Aasgard Sentinel (Stuart Range). I know that forgotten gear it booty and all, but I would love to trade a 6 pack to have it returned. I am in Leavenworth.

Leave your long rope and your 3 and 4 camalots at home, you can totally do it in a day car-2-car as planned. It is going to be 100degrees, so you don't need much clothing. 4-6hrs for the approach from the south 4-7hrs for the climb (likely less if you are simul-climbing as much as it sounds) 4-6hrs for the descent and hike to the car Everything except for the first 300' and the gendarme is easier than 5.7. Bring a 30m rope or a skinny 60 and fold it in half. Climb 3 x 30m pitches at the start. (5.8/5.8/5.9) Simul to gendarme (3rd to 5.6ish) climb 2x 30m pitches (5.8/5.9withStuckGearInTheWideSection) simul to the top

Trip: Dragontail - Boving-Christensen Date: 7/14/2014 Trip Report: Faced with 100-degree temps yesterday, a trio of heat-stroked locals went up to Dragontail to try the Boving-Christensen. We had heard all kinds of horror stories, and I asked Matt if he felt that a bolt or two was worth placing at the belays. He said the belays were fine, so the hammer, pins, and 1/4"ers stayed home. The route is really fun and feels like something out of Darrington. We were all impressed that Paul and Matt (ages 20? and 17) put up the route in 1977 with only a set of hexes and stoppers, freeclimbing most of the line! We forgot the iPhone with the topo down at the lake, so it was mostly just following whatever looked good. This actually may have worked out to our advantage. Jens was leading P1 and couldn't figure out what to do after about 30m of fun, well-protected low angle crack climbing. There were a couple foot holds out left leading toward a spot where we had noted a piton and some tat. But the holds seemed bad. He mentioned repeatedly that the feet were slippery and there were no hands. Eventually he went back and forth, up and down, and just decided to go up the same crack. He had to garden a bit of moss on the fly, but made it happen and found a good red alien where there had only been sod. He belayed up and left, and was talking all day about the slippery feet and no hand holds. We assumed we were on route, and that the piton out left was not the correct way. The following 4 pitches flowed well, with generally good protection and a few delicate but slabbby face traverses. All three of us felt that 5.10c was (and is) the correct grade for the roof on P3. The funniest part of the day came as we were having dinner back in town and pulled up Matt Christensen's notes on the climb where he writes: The move we avoided was described using nearly identical language by Jens (who didn't try it after all) and by the FA team. I don't know about the idea of dynamic moves being categorically ungradeable, but our hats are off to Paul Boving who did the dynamic handless slab dyno launch in 1977! If this route were done a couple times a season, the moss/grass on P1 would clean up nicely and there would be more pro and holds, but it's totally fine as-is, and there's now a direct slab-jump-avoidance option. Atop the clean wall, there is a broken chossy sidewalk which you can walk/scramble rightwards on, leading WAY right, around onto 4th class ledges, which lead back up and past 1-2 pitches of 5.4-5.7 moves to the summit crest. This topout was fast and easy. There is a hummingbird nest tucked into a wide spot in the crack high on P1 - take care. Following P1 Gear Notes: Bring a good nut tool for the leader Doubles of cams from tiny to #1, single #2, #3, and bring a #4 if 5.10 is at your limit. We used some offset aliens and offset wires at a few belays. Approach Notes: Soft snow

The Totem "basics" (think CCH Alien Version 2.0) are the bee's knees.

Other than PMing him here, does anyone have contact info for Matt Christensen? Thanks

You can also just use the thumb loop /sling/wire of your lowest piece as the PowerPoint to clip yourself and hang your device from. Don't listen to JosephH. People ( even when not multitasking) lose attention, get distracted, and stop functioning right. The laws of Gravity and physics don't go on break.

A friend of mine was in an accident up there and is missing the front half of one BD steel crampon, and a pair of charlet/petzl tools.

Trip: Dragontail & Prusik - Triple Couloirs to Solid Gold Date: 5/15/2014 Trip Report: There are probably only a few weeks each year where you can easily take full advantage of all the various amazing mountain sports in the Cascades, and combine them into single days. I spent last week hounding various friends and partners. Want to go skiing? Want to go ice climbing? Want to get on some alpine granite? When asked those 3 questions, my friend Matt said "yes" and that was that. We started off by climbing Triple Couloirs on Dragontail. The snow and ice on Colchuck was good enough to ski across, especially if one stayed on the west side of the lake. We found the route to be thin but well-protected with bomber rock gear. I placed (and left) 1 short LA, but our three ice screws were a total waste of energy to carry. We didn't find anything close to ice which would take a screw, but there was an occasional veneer of slush atop wet slabs and muddy flakes. The crux pitch: It had been so warm last week that the snow was isothermic and we were post-holing pretty badly, especially with heavy packs laden down with rock and ski gear. I had completely forgotten gloves, and I lead the first pitch on Triple Couloirs with bare hands and in a single light shirt. Did I mention it was warm? The step right into the final couloir: After a few more short pitches and much soft snow wallowing, we lunched atop Dragtonail and assessed our options. Aasgard Sentinel and CBR rock routes are both looking primo, but we decided there was still plenty of time to head over to Prusik. The ski to Prusik, we made it to within 100 yards of the route before switching out of skis: A triple-couloir/Der-Sportsman linkup ("The Triple Der!") crossed our minds, but it was late in the day by the time we racked up beneath Prusik's south face. We settled on Solid Gold, which is about as good as it gets for 5.10 alpine granite. Amid darkening clouds and Mordor-style wind and rain vortexes, we skinned back to Aasgard and made a nearly continuous ski descent back down and across the lake, where we re-donned our tennis shoes for the final few miles to the car. Gear Notes: Gear to #2 camalot, used 1 pin on TC. Approach Notes: No snow on the trail until you turn off toward Colchuck, then it's 1/2 packed snow and 1/2 mud to the lake. I would expect Colchuck Lake is no longer crossable. The ski down from the Aasgard Sentinel (Acid Baby, Valkyrie) is so rad right now, it makes the knee-destroying summer slog look pretty bad.

Let me know if you lost grigri Fri 5/2.

Pretty slick summer crampon setup - 8oz for the pair.

If you are just using it to rappel (either through an ATC or as a pull cord) then not stretching is a good thing. These ropes/cords are very strong, certainly more than strong enough to handle any forces from making a rappel. Some of them (like the Esprit 6mm and the Edelrid 7mm) are also much stiffer than a climbing rope, meaning fewer tangles. Sure there is the downside that you'd can't lead on it, and it is potentially less durable or edge resistant, but those are really the only drawbacks.

I've rapped V-threads/A-Threads with this setup (including straight through the V-thread with no tat), and done the same for rock rapps on many occasions (pulling the thicker climber rope rather than the tag). I never have had the knot "migrate" or slip more than a few inches if I am being an attentive rappeller. I do it exactly for the reason you guessed at, you will immediately begin by pulling your climbing rope, not the static pull cord. If something gets snagged, you will have some/all of your dynamic rope, not just a chunk of static tag line. Between my partner and I, the first person almost always raps on single-strand, fixed line, so there is only one rappeller who could move the knot. P.S. I remember reading in Freedom of the Hills about how bolt cutters wedged into a crevasse make an excellent rap anchor as well. :-)

Mikey do you feel as ok about taking your hands off the mega-jul belaying a leader as you would with a grigri? The Edelrid guy (they've got one employee in the states) was pretty nervous when i asked him about this prospect. He also stated emphatically that it WONT lock up if the rope is piled anywhere even with, or above the device (on a small ledge, flake across a hanging backpack, etc).

One GriGri II, one belay plate (CAMP Ovo, KONG Gigi, etc) - end of story.

I left my car in Bellingham on a residential street with a stashed key. Anyone driving from B'ham to Leavenworth or Stevens pass? I'd owe u a six pack of your choice to drive it over and leave it in either spot. Tank is full of gas. Thanks a million.

The solo climber is fundamentally ok but very lucky. The couloir slid after he triggered an avy which propagated just a few feet below the cornice/ridge atop the couloir. He didn't stop until the debris petered out in the moraine well below the base of the route.

Right on Eric! You guys should go to Adventure Punks, Drifting, or Velvet Tongue if you are still in Red Rock!

Mtn Home would not be a good call - check out Carnival boulders if you want roadside, otherwise you will generally find the least snow on anything south facing and higher up the hillside above the road. As far as cragging, the same general guidelines will get you to the dryer zones, but check out Rattlesnake, Castle, Carneno, and Duty Dome areas. Be prepared for slushy post-hole approaches wherever you go.

If a legit tough guy like Mark says bragging is ok, I wont resist. 2013 was a good year for local (Cascades) climbing and a few short trips to new spots I'd wanted to visit. Early in the year an old buddy I've known since I started climbing ropegunned for us up Goat's Beard on a very sunny day. It was nice to finally have climbed something worthwhile on the Goat Wall, and now I wont have to be annoyed when it doesn't form for another 30 years. Thanks Vern and Craig for the PSA about it being formed! I went to Spain with some friends and climbed the world's best limestone - and realized how weak most American climbers are, and how little we understand about moving our bodies over stone. (Photo by my friend Forest Woodward) Did not fall during a 23.5 hour linkup of West Face on CBR, Acid Baby, Solid Gold on Prusik, and Hyperspace on Snow Creek Wall with Max Tepfer. Then made Max drive to back to Bend, OR on no sleep since he fell once, in the dark. Madeleine "Crusher" Sorkin and I took a trip to the Coast Mountains in BC and freed the Serl-Foweraker '86 route on the West Face of Mt. Bute then had a couple days in Squamish and did Northern Lights and The Shadow. I finally bouldered V8, and realized that the trick to bouldering harder grades in Leavenworth is just to find higher problems! A trip to the Bugaboos happened and even though it snowed every day we still climbed every day and I found next summer's project, Sendero Norte: Chris Weidner joined me for a desert southwest goal, sending "Velvet Tongue" in Black Velvet Canyon: And I did a bunch of Washington Pass climbing (more than I realized until now): Supercave a couple times The Passenger The Hitchhiker Thin Red Line Lib Bell NW Face on a 4-spire day with a friend learning to climb Mojo Rising (the original way) and West Face NEWS on a ski day Freedom Rider followed by a direct start / freeclimbing version of Mojo Rising with my mustachioed amigo Graham Zimmerman No major injuries was a nice change from 2012, so was doing a little alpine climbing with my wife and cheering her on for her first 5.11. Happy 2014!