TrogdortheBurninator

I liked white spider a lot. "The Climb up To Hell" (I think thats the title) was also pretty exciting. The Mordwand always makes for good reading IMO.

FYI, Sonic Youth is playing at the Moore this Friday at 8PM.

Beckey gives it grade IV. Usually Nelson softens the grade instead of stiffening, so that is surprising. The west arete isn't in either of the Nelson Volumes I have. Reading through an old thread, it sounded like it had been dropped. What edition do you have scottgg? We got back to the car by traversing the eldo glacier and reversing the approach.

Sounds great Matt. BTW, the 75 bus goes very close to Matt's house for all of you carless folks that are too lazy to ride a bike (like me).

I'm not too sure how the Eldo-Eldo needle pass would work out. The only other published approach still invovles Triad col, but approaches via eldo creek. The Sibley approach is gorgeous, but maybe all that side hilling gets old at some point. From mikes route pic it looks like a steep rock downclimb might be necessary with this eldo needle approach. I haven't looked from the otherside to see how it compares. I think after doing the sibley approach once, it seems a lot less complex, but as mike said, it'd be a hard approach to onsight.

Climb: Eldorado-West Arete Date of Climb: 6/25/2006 Trip Report: Colt45 and I climbed the West Arete on Eldorado this past weekend. I first noticed this line flipping through the becky guide while in the John. It looked really cool in the picture, and the description didnt sound too bad. We approached via Sibley crk. The approach is in good shape with snow starting at the point the trail exits the forest. The lower portion of snow is heavily debris covered, but not much of a problem. While traversing the ridge toward triad col, we took one wrong turn into an easy gully. We also passed one of the high points too high and had to down scramble a 15ft class 4 step. On the ridge we had a clear view of our route. The line looks very imposing, and it is hard at first glance to imagine it going at such a modest grade. The SW buttress is directly in front of Mike and the West Arete is just left of that. After correcting our wrong turn, more traversing led us to the base of triad col. The class 3-4 ramp system described in becky for gainging the col was not readily apparent to us. After srambling a few 4th class moves, the difficulty increased to low 5th class so we decided to rope up and belay two pitches to the col. The triad glacier was in easily passable shape, although it looks like some monster crevasses will be opening up pretty soon. Mike descending the Triad glacier We found a nice bivy site with running water and good access to the route. The bivy site also had a front row view of a seasonal hanging snow field that would release small to large slides at random (including a very large middle of the night wake up call). The next morning we ate breakfast and headed to the base of the route. This involved a high speed dash across the slide path of the snowfield (which luckily remained stable for the few minutes we were there). We had read route descriptions from Becky as well as on summitpost.com and cc.com. Unfortuneately summitpost was down on friday so we made due with just the Becky description. Gaining the ridge via the near toe involved a diffuclt looking schrund corssing as well as some time spent in a rockfall debris field. We instead decided to check out the far toe. Gaining the rock proved challenging. At first I started up a clean, but sparsely protceted section of steep rock. Almost immediately I took a short fall back to the snow when the moves became much harder than expected. I cleaned my gear, then mike started up another section with mid 5th climbing gaining a low 5th gully. When trying to clean a slightly overcammed linkcam from the first pitch, all of the trigger wires sequentially failed, making extraction impossible. Both mike and I tried to remove it, but with no luck. Rather than spend the day there, we moved on. A side note on gear choice: When packing for the climb, we couldnt decide whether it would be better to climb in rock shoes or boots (mine fully rigid, mikes 3/4 shank). We decided that since Mike was the stronger rock climber, we would just bring his shoes, then he would lead any harder rock sections and set up a fixed belay. This was huge mistake IMO. We should have both brought rock shoes so that we could have felt confident simulclimbing most of the route. As it was, we had far too many fixed belays, greatly slowing or progress. back to the TR: Many hundred feet of class 3/4/5 brush/choss/rock lead us up the lower section of the route. The line here is very unobvious and much of the rock is far looser than I am used to. There were some nicer sections, but overall the climbing was a little sketchy. Mike on a lower section of the route (one of the few quality pitches) We decided that things would go faster if mike lead most of the 5th class rock pitches. What we didn't realize was that nearly the entire middle section of the route was interspersed with 5th class climbing. On the towers section of the route, the climbing improved markedly, with solid rock and interesting climbing. The very airy 5.7 crux was particularly exciting. Mike on the higher quality tower section of the route After the tower section we were faced with a route finding decision, which we apparently chose wrong. Becky shows the line moving left of the crest. We found a ledge moving back left. I lead across some steep snow and loose rock up to a marginal belay. The climing above appeared to ease, but we were clearly off route. A few more pitches lead us to a snow patch. I was feeling really tired and suffering a bit from dehydration/exhaustion. I tried to eat something, but it immediately induced a gag reflex. A was able to find some wet snow and melt some water, but it was too little too late. I had also not eaten much since breakfast, which wasn't helping. Mike lead the first pitch of moderate snow with bomber rock anchors. When I arrived at the next belay, I Prepared to switch leads, but mike said he would keep leading if I wanted. Here mike leads a very attractive simul pitch on snow with good pro. After the snow a couple more slow simul pitches with one fixed belay at a steep step lead us to the summit in waning light. Due to some confusion at the car, I had left my headlamp behind, so we reliqueished to the fact that we would be spending an extra night out (not a huge deal because we carried over, but potentially bad if SAR had to get involved). We descended the E. ridge back to the highest regular route bivy sites where we melted snow and ate some of the (abundant) extra food we had left. We slept for a few hours and hiked back to the car in a little over 4 hours. The return hike seemed significantly easier than the approach. We quickly drove back to the ranger station to sign out (overdue), Luckily they were just in the early stages of identifying a potential rescue situation. Thanks to mike for stepping up when I was feeling like shit and pressuring me to keep moving. The lowdown: This is a beuatiful, long and intimidating line, but the loose climbing detracts somewhat. Would I climb it again - No. Would I recommend it to someone else - Yes, but know what you are getting into. This must be one of the more demanding routes for its grade in the state. Gear Notes: 7 nuts to large BD 6 cams from yellow TCU to Blue DMM (Gold Camalot size) (although we fixed a red LinkCam on the first pitch, so it wasnt realy used on the route) Ice axes 50m 1/2 rope Brought crampons, but never used Should have brought a second pair of rock shoes Approach Notes: Road open, trail in good shape, but prepared to use your ice axe for a significant portion of the approach. Glacier travel mandatory to reach bivy site.

Nice work, that is awesome!!

Awesome TR. Sounds crazy.

Just bought 3 cans 5 min ago

open the picture, right click, show properties, copy location (or in mozilla just right click and choose copy image location) Then edit your TR with lines like this

DMM Cams are good, but still not in the same league as BD IMO. I have a couple med size ones (green, blue, silver) that I use as doubles or triples in those sizes. Still, when in a tight spot I always reach for the BDs first. I used to have a tiny purple one and I wasn't as fond of it. Regarding link cams, I have both and am amazed at the places they will go. The action is great on em. Only major drawbacks are weight and spring stiffness at the upper end of their useable range (I feel like they walk a little more than others when using their outer lobes. Both sets of inner lobes are much less prone to walking). No cam I've used gives me the warm fuzzies like 0.5 to 3 BDs .

What if the reason that the climbing community hasnt responded (in the manner you desire) is actually because as a whole, MOST people who climb this route think it is pretty dang fun. And believe it or not, most people that I know climb because it is fun.

I almost posted to let mtnfreak know it was a hoax, but I detected a hint of spray/troll in his original thread and didn't want to be on the receiving end. :lol: cc.com - All threads are assumed spray until proven otherwise

Anybody want to do some rock climbing tomorrow. The forecasts basically all suck, but maybe something will be ok. Prefer leavenworth, but will settle for vantage if weather demands it. I have car, rack, etc. Check web cams in morning and decide then. Like to leave seattle around 8:00ish. Jason

That thing changes fast. We were up there that warm weekend between when gary and aaron climbed it and when dbconlin et al climbed it. The bottle neck was actually totally melted out that weekend, so it must have reformed the following week. Unfortuneately the weather was ass when we were there and rocks were coming down so we bailed.

They are shot

BS (5.6) in Leaveworth, the bulgy move past the spinner bolt felt like 5.8 or harder to me. IMo the biggest sandbag I've been on.

Close, Lake City. We are going to be around for a while so we bought a house.

We are having a moving/yard sale tomorrow (Saturday the 27th). Most of the stuff in this thread http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/551240/an/0/page/3#551240 will be available, plus some other things like furniture and electronics. We are very flexible on most of the prices, so if there was something from the thread that you liked, make an offer. 10:00AM to 4:00PM 5710 8th Ave NW, Seattle, 98107

I'd also be interested to hear what the radius of the mandrel they were tested over is. Load rate is also always a big issue with polymers, so that could also be somewhat of an issue. At a faster load rate one would typically expect a higher peak load with less elongation. As the load rate is reduced, the peak load will reduce as well. It is probably important to know the standards by which mammut tests their slings before trying to make a quantitative analysis of strength loss (or just test a few new slings using your same apparatus as was previously suggested).

Is it too late to sign up for said list?

Wow, that is awesome.

CA is a blast, but again not representative of the type of climbing that makes washington great.

How did you have them tested? Are you certain they were tested to the same procedure which they were certified at? Did they show obvious signs of wear, and did they fail at the wear points? I have a few of these that are a few years old as well, just curious if I need to get some new ones. I suppose I could test some myself if I wanted to.

The one above the trestle at deception (write off rock - I think) is one of the better ones for kids. Gritscone (at Farside) could also be good as it is uber-unintimidating.