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Everything posted by Blake
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[TR] S. Early Winters Spire- Southwest Buttress 7/20/2005
Blake replied to AlpinistAndrew's topic in North Cascades
Andrew, did you girth hitch that rad tunnel formation through the granite above the old bolt circa pitch 5? that's one of the coolest rock formations i've seen. -
[TR] Storm King and Mt. Logan(s) - Chossy Gulley, Fremont Glacier 7/19/2005
Blake replied to Blake's topic in North Cascades
Paul, I have a bigger copy of the picture looking at Logan from Storm King if you want to see it I can email you. Also, does the Logan South summit have a name, I think it must have at least a couple hundred feet of prominence. P.S. I was reading through the register this morning, came across a few things. Many familiar names (Skoog, Pullen, McMurtrey) but also a Wayne who soloed the FA of a 5.8 grade V rock route, is that the CC.Com Wayne? The names of at least two of the victims of the Sharkfin accident were also on there from an '03 climb.... stay safe out there everyone. -
Climb: Storm King and Mt. Logan(s) -Chossy Gulley, Fremont Glacier Date of Climb: 7/19/2005 Trip Report: I headed up the Park Creek drainage on Sunday evening, planning on climbing Storm King and Logan, two peaks that I had seen the week before. Instead of following the suggested route in Beckey, which has one leaving the trail at the 5 mile point (Or From near Park Creek Pass which seems insane to me after viewing the area), I took the excellent climbers' trail up to the base of Goode. For reference, this path leaves the Park Creek Trail at next to a 10' snag, 5 minutes past the huge washout. From the basin between Goode and Storm King, a couple thousand feet of boulders and talus brings one to the base of a snowy gulley surrounded by the many spires of the Storm King formation. Climb the gulley on snow, eventually becoming 4th class rock. 30' before you can look down on Bridge Creek (chockstone and old snaffled-up slings) angle right up an unprotectable corner/face for a pitch to the summit. The register is from 1980 and has about 20 entries. The views centered on where I had been and where I was headed After getting down from Storm King, I had the bright idea to follow the directions in my '77 edition of Beckey, and attempt to traverse over to Park Creek Pass. The description in the guide gives about 2 sentences to this possibility, but I'd love to hear from any who have done it. This route resulted in 5+ hours of sidehilling with major exposure and too many juniper belays. I eventually rappeled a couple times to make it to the pass, but if I had stayed higher longer, I might have found a 3rd/4th class way down further north. I can hardly believe that this is/was the suggested approach to Goode and Storm King. I would not suggest this route, even with a partner. The next day I left Park Creek Pass at 5AM and began the approach to Logan. I knew the general idea was to traverse up and across the ridge to the Fremont Glacier, traveling on the glacier, until the snow slopes up to the rock, south of the summit. Looked right to me. Ended up being the wrong damn mountain! After some low 5th soloing above Bridge Creek, I made the summit of Logan Middle Peak , a ~9000' sub-summit probably 1/3mile to the south. I left a register and a cairn, finding none. Beckey says that the Logan FA Party climbed this peak as well, thinking it might be the high point. Bad rappels and worse downclimbing left me back on the glacier, and I decided to go climb the real thing. I met up with another solo climber on the Fremont Glacier, and we completed the third class up to the summit together. Amazing views from Rainier to Canada, the the Boston Glacier looming largely. We left the summit at 2:00PM, he would camp up high, while I still had to hike 12 miles and bike 10 more to make it back home at the end of a 16 hour day. P.S. I judiciously chose to remove the full summit register for prompt mailing to the proper archival depository, if anyone is heading up to Logan soon, bring a new one to replace the paper scraps. Gear Notes: 8.1mm 60m 3x double runners 2 nuts, 2 tricams Axe, crampons Approach Notes: Trails recently brushed. Too much exposed choss below both mountains (low snow). Fremont Glacier was no problem.
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if you know how to pull some strings, or you bring bikes up with you, i'd recomend them for the descent. it's a fast 11 mile ALL downhill ride to lake chelan, where there are better campign spots, nicer swimminging, and fewer rules, than in the village. Cheap icecream is the place's saving grace.
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first ascent [TR] Northern Picket Range- Surviving the Fence (N
Blake replied to JoshK's topic in North Cascades
Awesome climb guys. I have a question though... why not just bring the other 8.1mm half rope (PMI verglas or something) instead of the rap-only rope that weighed about the same?- 43 replies
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right click on the image itself, and go to "properties" then the pic's URL, which ends with ".jpg" is what you stick between two image tags.
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No, you leave some Rasta bivi gear? the only ledge on route is a couple thousand from the bottom of the rock. Thanks for all the comments all... if anyone wants to climb logan, buckner, or anything else from Stehekin this summer, don't hesitate to PM me or email.
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[TR] Reynolds Peak- NW Ridge of South and North Su
Blake replied to Snafflehunter's topic in North Cascades
Is that the "Horse Fly" route? Nice Job guys. When you look straight down Boulder Creek from the summit, you can see a bit of the Stehekin River and the Orchard. -
There is currently enough snow next to the summit to melt for your water needs. there are a couple bivi spots on the very top that could accomodate 4-5 people. The summit was in continuous clouds from mon night through today, except for two hours on tuesday afternoo. If you head down park creek, i'd highly recomend following the directions I wrote to make it to the valley floor. IMO the glacier will be very hard to get by within a couple weeks.
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P.S. Frosty_the_tradman... from what Steddy wrote in the summit register, it looks like he and your girlfriend were up to no good while you and JShamster climbed this last summer.
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Climb: Goode-Northeast Buttress Date of Climb: 7/12/2005 Trip Report: On monday late morning, myself and a friend drove up the Stehekin road to its current drivable end, the 13.5 mile point. From there, our hike up Bridge creek was fueled by Huckleberries and HC We lost the trail in the big washout at Grizzly creek, but our eventual route up to the bivi spot seemed faster than the 2+ hours I had seen suggested elsewhere, not to mention it cuts about a mile off the trail distance. The floods of 10/03 definitely reshaped the hills, but theier brush-clearing properties helped us to get on and off of Goode. These two pictures should explain the route we took, which was fast and pretty easy. If water was really high, this approach might not be feasible, but on a hot afternoon in July, water was low enough to easily ford N. Fork Bridge Creek and all other streams. Maybe someone who has done the other approach could compare the two or mention how long the other one takes (including extra trail time)??? Our snaffle and mosquito-plagued bivi was made worse with concern over how the glacier would go in the morning using strap on aluminum crampons and light axes. We left our site at about 5:00AM planning on carrying over to Park Creek. This was the first serious glacier navigation that I've done, and we were glad to have a couple ice screws along for the first few hundred feet. After zigging and zagging a bit, we found a sketchy little snow bridge, and were able to make it cleanly onto the rock of the NEB, about 7:00. We pitched out a couple hundred feet, then did a running belay for the next 700 vertical feet or so, keeping 1-2 pieces between us until our rack ran out. After this, climbing was fun on low-mid fifth class that was made more exciting due to the packs and exposure. Somewhere in this section I clipped an old Becky piton, and although I'm sure its not the first or the last time I've done so, I couldn't help but think how cool it was to have this connection to the first ascentionist and FA party of such a (now) classic route. I kept thinking that we would be climbing in clouds by the end of the next pitch, but they moved up with us, and by 2:00pm we were on the summit with clear views. We had left our gear a few hundred feet below at the rap to blacktooth notch, and after downclimbing to anchor, we made a traversey rappel and a semi-belayed scramble over to the notch. From there, it really was an obvious descent gulley, with a couple rappels, and short downclimbing. A fun glissade landed us withing a few feet of that night's bivi. From high on the Park Creek side of Goode, we found it best to angle right and cross several small streams up high. The goal being to get to the ridgeline which is skier's right of the large creek valley and obvious washout below. (this washout has dammed a small lake in Park Creek, visible from above.) Once on the ridgeline, a good climbers' path leads to the valley bottom. The hike out consisted of a quick run down the ridge to the Park Creek Trail, and a race to our cinnamon rolls stashed at Bridge creek. These fast 10 miles were followed by a never-ending 2.5 miles back to the car. A fantastic route, once you hit the rock most of the challenges are behind you, but you've still got a long way to go. A note to others who go up: We took TONS of webbing from the route, mostly around rappel blocks. Please cut out the old manky stuff. If there are aready 7 runners on something, you don't need to contribute an 8th and leave it all there. We also bootied some stoppers and a biner, so to whomever is marking their gear with a dot of red and a dot of green, it was a fatefull find, as that's how I mark my stuff as well. Gear Notes: Crampons, axe, 2 screws. Two medium cams, two small tricams, a half-dozen nuts. Stoppers 7-10 were used most. Probably could have left the cams at home and brought a medium tricam/hex. Approach Notes: No snow until the glacier. No snow on the rock. Snowfield in upper Park Creek Drainage covers talus. The messy washout in Grizzly Creek might confuse others (we lost the trail here). From above it looks like after crossing the creek, one should hike back upstream on the far side of Grizzly Creek, as the trail is on/near the hillside. The creek has many branches in here, be sure you've crossed them all before trying to locate the well-worn trail that heads up-valley.
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I thought penny lane was as hard or harder than Godzilla and princely ambitions. I think i remember seeing the start rated as 10a and .9 after that. In other words.. i wouldn't hop on there looking for a 5.7. Maybe I'm just a weak gaper though.
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No, local buddies are.
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Here's a few to share with everyone.. the best ones will stay secret. P.S. how does getting onto the NEB of Goode look to those that have done it? Klenke's Dark Peak
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if those are HB offsets (the "HP Nuts") I'll take them
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Climb: Reynolds Peak-South Ridge Date of Climb: 7/5/2005 Trip Report: Yesterday morning I left Lake Chelan, hiking up the ridge that separates Fourmile and Flick Creeks. After an Alpine camp last night, I made my way via the Summit Trail and Boulder Creek Trail to Reynolds Camp, with the summit of Reynolds Peak (8,512') towering 3,000+ feet above. By following the beautiful stream that drains the valley to the south of Reynolds, I was able to climb 2,000 feet up to a small pass separating the Stehekin and Twisp River drainages. From there, the idea was to contour north, gaining elevation and avoiding cliff bands and steep snow. The pass where I crossed over is between the words "Chelan" and "CO" Right Here. The south ridge is fairly loose on the side I climbed, but does make a very direct route to the top. (foreground) . After about a mile of scrambling, the summit pyramid was reached. The rock varied from extremely loose to quite good Washington Pass style "Oatmeal GRanite." The peak itself is topographically quite complex, and a variety of routes of varying dfficulty have been done, but to summit from this direction just requires a bit of snow travel and 4th class scrambling near the top. Views seemed endless, although it wasn't quite clear enough to see Rainier, but Stuart (or something in the vicinity) was visible. Many familiar register names, such as Paul Klenke, Mike Torok, Fay Pullen, Peggy Goldman, and a few locals. Summit views: Cascade Pass Region - To the West: I left the summit a bit after 3pm, and it took an hour to make it to the pass and cross back into the Stehekin drainage. From there it was a fun descent, interpsersed with a bit of rubbernecking and alpine lounging in the meadows. The descent and trail back to the road went quickly, which was good because things were looking stormy as I finished out the last few miles. This was a nice trip for a time when I couldn't find a partner, I didn't see another human the whole time. Gear Notes: Crampons and and axe will stay in the pack at this point, as the snow can be avoided. A helmet might be wise.
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Ruth and Sahale are both super mellow, but not east side. ( I suppose since most of the Sahale Glacier drains to Stehekin that it is east side technically, but not as far as weather).
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I've heard that you can knot thin (mammut 8mm) spectra using a 2x fishermans, but im not about to start cutting up mine to try it. anyone done this?
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noodle roni fettucini angel hair pasta, and a foil pack of tuna. you will need a bit of milk powder.
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Sounds like MArie's so desperate she's been having to "toy" with herself recently! Gary, maybe it was Colin that thought physics was gross, you are just confusing the two due to braids?
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you could tie them yourself, but many people don't like a bulky knot on there.
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Wazzu, sounds like the hexes are metal only, in need of cord. Mark, still got the tricams?
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Back to the originial question. Sahale is a fun solo if you are ok with big time exposure on 4th class (some say 5.0). The glacier is a cakewalk, with not but a couple of easily avoidable crevasses. There's a bomber rap anchor at the top should you choose to rap. If you wanted to rope up for the (1??) pith of rock, just bring a few runners, a couple nuts, and a couple tricams. The truly exposed rock section is short, just before the summit, but i think if you fell from any of it, you probably wouldn't stop falling until you hit the snow.
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I'd love to see an anchor that is equalized from a variety of angles, and without the possiblity of extension should one piece blow.