Blake

It's still winter up there. Road is still gated pending final snowmelt as well as the USFS needing to saw down dangerous forest-fire snags along the trail to 8-mile lake. You will not suffer crowds on serpentine arete.

I never got a message. Send me an email if you are interested: BlakeHerringtonATSYMBOLgmail.com

Barely used womens medium (or fits mens small) Mountain Hardwear Phantom down jacket - $110 (I can send pics via email, it looks new) Brand new Outdoor Research mens Large Alibi softshell jacket - $125 Used Scarpa Laser ski boots - they work with dynafit bindings. $45 Mens 8.5 or Mondo size 27

1. It's impossible to cheat (ie commit a proscribed action) in an activity that lacks rules. So of course these climbers aren't "cheating". 2. Twight says these people need to be "exposed and opposed" but never hints at how such opposition should be manifested.This is something your average 7th-grade English would have never let slide. Can Honnold "oppose" all the "cheaters" who have climbed Moonlight Buttress with gear and harnesses? If you take 2 summers to through-hike the PCT instead of just 1, did you not actually hike it? Does it make you a cheater because others have done it in a more athletically impressive style? Just don't lie about what you accomplished and don't get your boxers in a bunch about the rules others impose upon themselves.

Thanks for the hard work, we couldn't do this without you! (random lowertownwall photo stolen from google images)

John I'd be into PM bouldering or cragging, but if you have all day there's a good spot just off MP 39 you should check out.

I believe the phrase "goretex for your goretex" was used at one point to describe the ideal outfit for the last half of the route, and that was on a day where the air temp never rose above 20 degrees but the wall still became a waterfall. With a 70m rope we found very sheltered belays alcoves (although pouring with water) but some unavoidably exposed climbing.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/monroe/default.aspx?cam=9051 If we get a sunny-ish day, I think your chances are good. The main LTW gets good sun exposure in winter, with all the leaves gone. The climbs at The Country dry fast as well. If you can get access to a bouldering pad, I know that folks have been seeing good conditions at the nearby boulders in Goldbar.

A buddy and i went up to the Pencil/Drury zone today. It was hot and sunny. Drury looks fat, the pencil looks dicey. Both were cooking in the sun. We found a mellow canoe-across spot, about 100meters downstream from the big pullout on the river-side of the hwy, just upstream from an island. Neither of us have our canoe merit badges and it was casual. Snowshoes were pretty nice for the first ~800 vertical feet until able to walk on avi debris. The Pencil is not looking too good, it was baking in the sun with large "pencil shavings" coming down regularly and what appeared to be a horizontal fracture @ ~70' up, but you can easily check it out before getting on the climb because the drainage continues steeply up to the left. This fracture runs above a hollow area where big chunks fell out as the sun hit. The cirque atop this drainage was amazing, with big chandeliers and steep pillars hanging and crashing all around, but mostly off to our right. In a better year with less sun, there'd be a pretty-looking ~4 pitch routes of pillars and mixed steps up the center of the cirque. Here's the cirque above "the pencil" We followed the drainage to the upper left edge of the cirque/amphitheater, and climbed in the shade and stuff exploded off to the right. After one short step of grade 2 or 3, we did two long single-pitch routes, both ending at trees. The one on the left was about 65m, the one to the right about 45m and was a bit more mixed, with some pins coming in handy. (we climbed the thing in the right-center, but chickened out about continuing up and right. Then we did the thing on the left.) Those two pitches aren't really worth the shenanigans involved in getting up there, but if you are looking for a backup plan or something after the pencil, they were both good.

I think this Dragontail descent has you beat for style points.

Summary: Things not in are now even less in, but threatened by avalanche.

any more rappel excitement details worth sharing?

If you think you ever might want to climb longer routes or non-sport climbs, get wiregate draws so you can just buy some skinny slings and repurpose the same lightweight carabiners.

Hey Bryan, Your best bet to meet a bunch of climbery types in Leavenworth is to come to the Leavenworth Mountain Association Event on Wednesday the 14th at Ski Hill Lodge. Bring some good food to share and you'll have all the friends and climbing partners you can imagine.

What routes are you training for?

Darn volcanoes! Good for nothing as usual. Fernow is what I was thinking of, evidently it is named after some German-born guru of early forestry sciences who visited WA en route to Alaska. I guess it doesn't come close to meeting my first criteria.

Yeah, shoot. That't not nearly as historically interesting as the one I was betting on. Ok, what about the 2nd tallest?

What is the tallest peak in the Cascades named for someone who actually saw the Cascades? (though not necessarily the peak in question) I don't know for sure, but have a hunch. [Edited: Wikipedia ruined my initial hunch, maybe my guess is #2.]

My wife and i left a couple well-seamgripped thermarests near the LTW parking area a few days ago. I'd happily provide a 6-pack to anyone who may have snagged them. I also found a grigri and green petzl biner. Someone scratched SAM CLUB into the grigri. There can't be many with that moniker attached. Thanks.

I was just thinking out loud (or on screen) about why the very talented crushers from WWI, Index, local boulders, etc aren't active in the mtns. So many of these folks could climb circles around basically anyone I know who is into local alpine rock climbing, and the routes are so good, how could they not catch the eye of these climbers? I see Dru's example of the Squamish crew that takes their cragging skills into the mountains, as Sol pointed out, to be further evidence that the NW scene is unusual or disconnected. Squamish seems more like Colorado, less like WA. I guess it's a combination of reasons. Ross' list of our very few alpine features that hold hard freeclimbs seems like a pretty likely one.

Maybe I'm off base in this impression, but it seems like the folks pushing the standards at the NW crags /bouldering areas (heck, really just anyone climbing the harder 25% of routes) seldom go into the mountains, and most folks who like alpine climbing seem to scoff at "projecting" a route at a crag, let alone going bouldering. My non-scientific impression is that in other places, the folks putting up hard routes in Eldo or repeating the testpiece climbs along the area's crags are the same ones doing new routes in the Black Canyon, pulling down hard on the Hulk or the Diamond, etc. Is our alpine climbing just not inspiring enough to attract the really strong local climbers ro leave Little Si, the LTW, Equinox, China Bend, Smith, etc? Is the jump from 5.12s at Newhalem to 5.12s just up at the road @ WA Pass a bigger change in required skills than (say) going from hard routes Boulder's cragging scene to hard routes in RMNP? It's just a thought that struck me after seeing multiple folks working on 5.12-5.13 routes at Index yesterday, but not seeing many of those folks in the mountains.

I've got a couple brand new copies of the Red (northern) CAG, i'd love to trade for a newer Green or brown volume, or else for one of the nelson guides. I'd also pay if anyone wanted to sell. Thanks

I thought this was a memorable route in a stunning location - definitely not the type of climbing typically found in the mountains. It wasn't one of those climbs where you keep doubting your ability to make it happen or wondering "is this a go?" Probably all the moves harder then 5.10 or 11- could be easily aided, and it seems like rapping from almost anywhere on the route would be pretty easy. Those factors definitely make it possible to focus on the climbing, position, and exposure more than the fact that you're on a big steep north face. That being said, I didn't free the route and felt that probably just 3 of the ~13 pitches were really classic on their own.