TrogdortheBurninator

I think we did an A/B combination. After starting up the well buffed rap route, I made a face move left and realized what I thought were thin cracks were actually just folds. The climbing didnt look hard, but it did look scary. Instead, we moved right for a few moves, then back across fun flakes into this awesome dihedral and finally the offwidth. Kind of funny how both options go from dihedral to offwidth, makes relying on written descriptions kind of a bitch. It is pretty cool how many different moderate lines are possible on this route.

If you go one or the other, I'd agree with Sobo that crampons are the better option. However you better be damn comfortable on steepish semi-exposed glacial ice if you make that choice. Maybe it would have been better with boots, but in sneakers I felt axe and crampons were absolutely necessary to maintain any degree of comfort. I would have probably turned around if I saved weight leaving either in the car as we had discussed the previous night.

I would not have been caught dead on the glacier 1.5 weeks ago without an axe and crampons. I suppose you could make do with instep crampons, but I would want some 10 points. Read the recent TRs for more.

Amatuers... Excel can do almost any fit you can imagine (linear and non linear) if you just make use of the linear regression add on and define you own variables for the regression.

nice Kurt!

On the last pitch, did you climb the left side corner with sustained looking hard to protect wide crack, or the right chimney/corner with chockstones and other marginal pro goodness (both ending at the summit rap anchor I think). I climbed the right chimney off width and thought it was probably one of the hardest 5.8s i'd ever been on (felt way harder and more sustained and different than P1 lizard). Left side looked easier but very difficult if not impossible to protect without big gear. Also I managed to climb a very 5.8 feeling move on the first pitch of the NF proper when I started up and left (sort of per Kearney I think), but was then forced back right via a single tricky move. I would agree that the 2nd pitch face proper was super fun lie backs and hand jams. Very good route aside from the sandy 2nd-3rd class bits.

Step it up to Factors and watch that Troggle make you his bitch.

Obviously the apple IIe was too advanced for you. Next you are going to try and tell me that Java is more powerful than Logowriter.

This game kicks ass. You should all stop working now and play this game. Watch out for Troggles. download http://www.pcgaming.ws/download.php?game=number_munchers

Seattle still has some Rambo Monopoints for $62.

Nice climbing. "F" the naysayers, that is a crazy amount of adventure climbing. How about a one day grace period before people start critcizing a nice climb that Mike and Mark have a right to be proud of.

Did you pick some up? My fiance ran down to Seattle at lunch to pick up .5-4 for me. I tried to post earlier, but the site here was all f'ed up. I actually noticed they were .83ed a few days ago, and was wondering if this sale would come with a super clearance. Not sure if I'll like em or not, but I'm such a gear whore bargain hunter I had to buy em anyway.

REI is having there .83 sale again where all clearance items are an extra 50% off. The trangos retail for $49.99. They were on sale for $37.83, making the final price ~$19. Sold out online, but Seattle still had some. Call around if you want em and you might get lucky.

I don't know what I could have done with it. I took my DL out so I had ID on the climb, then I must have just set it somewhere. No funny charges or anything, but itd be nice to get back. Nevertheless, I think that climb was more than worth whatever monetary losses were incurred by losing the wallet.

If anybody found a blue cloth wallet at Ingall's Lk (1394) TH, please give me a call two zero six seven nine zero six five six six The abundance of things with my name on them should prove ownership. Thanks, Jason

Oops, should be in alpine lakes. Got so used to posting in N. Cascades, I didn't pay attention. Soon I will have to try some of the other approaches to the Cascadian.

Climb: Mt Stuart-Descent of Cascadian Couloir via NR Date of Climb: 8/20/2005 Trip Report: After reading so many posts about the great lengths people go to to try and descend the Cascadian Couloir on Mt Stuart, Wazzumountaineer and I decided to see what it was all about. We decided to approach the couloir via the North Ridge. We timed our departure from the car so that we reached Ingall's lake just as natural light became abundant. Mt Stuart from Ingall's Lake We continued up and down over stuart pass and goat pass until our approach route to the summit of stuart was in sight. View of North Ridge from Goat Pass We crossed the stuart glacier which was icy with steep and exposed portions. Anyone who doesn't bring an ice axe AND crampons on this is far braver than I ever hope to be. Kurt crossing the stuart glacier. I took a slightly higher line. The steep snow/ice matched with low top shoes was not particulary comfortable. Apparently this ridge is a popular approach to the Cascadian, and all I can say is that the climbing, views, position, etc are all spectacular. We reached the gendarme in 2.5 simul pitches and took a break to wait for the party ahead of us to move on. These next pitches are awesome. The first would be a four star single pitch anywhere in the country IMO. The position only makes it that much better. We hauled the relatively light leader's packs while the second carried their pack. Kurt following the first gendarme pitch Kurt leading on the 2nd Gendarme Pitch After that, 2 more simul pitches and one belayed pitch lead us to the summit. Here I enjoyed my hard earned pre-made burrito that I carried up. Unfortuneately, the summit shot did not come out. We began to build up anticipation for our objective, the descent of the cascadian. The first thousand feet of the descent were not too bad as we still felt pretty good at this point. The next thousand feet of first rate scree surfing were also quite a treat. The next thousand feet were surpisingly equally exciting. Amazingly, this sustained descent stayed awesome for the entirety of its 4200 vertical feet. The 1500 foot climb back to Long's pass only served to sweeten this superbly radical descent. At least the views were nice... We made it back to the car just after dark and I decided to drive home while Kurt opted to save his 4+ hour drive till the morning. What an awesome day in the mountains! Gear Notes: 60m 8.6mm half rope single cams green alien to 3.5 camalot, extra hand size DMM (could have easily left 3.5 in the car) 8 medium nuts (BD 4-11) Ice Axe - necessary in morning Crampons - necessary in morning Lowtop hiking shoes - nice in the pack, rough on the glacier/descent Approach Notes: Liquid water at ingall's lake and stuart glacier. Snow patches in approach gully and on cascadian. Trail to stuart pass might be hard to see.

Rachel Lake by snoqualmie pass is really a nice place to spend a few nights. The hike in is a little steep, but only for the last section of the trail. I have walked past merritt lake on the way to lost lake, and that seems like it might also meet your needs. For non-outdoorsies and two nights, I think a lake is mostly likely to keep the crew occupied and happy compared to a vista.

With the moonstone lucid bags, the zippers are on opposite sides on the Reg and Long s that they can be zipped together. They are light weight, 20F bags. Much cheaper than FF, but not so custom.

I have a Deuter 35+ and while good, it is not the greatest pack ever. The side access zipper is a stupid waste of weight on a pack this size. I think it acutally has some excessive straps and features. The waste belt is pretty awesome after i finally figured out how you remove it.

national geographic also has map exchange - here is link for 44 routes on rainier. http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/topo/file.cfm?fileid=337

Climb: petit cheval / burgundy spire-f'ed up roue / NF Date of Climb: 8/14/2005 Trip Report: On saturday sjwages and I tried to climb the spontaniety arete on le petit cheval. Obviously I should have looked at some pictures of the route or reread some TR's, but instead in a rush I just printed out the NCMG topo and assumed we'd figure things out. The topo gives very limited approach info. The only spot that could be tricky is where the trail ascends a 10ft 3rd class cliff, but is not marked by cairns. Our major problem came with trying to find the large snag that marked the beginning of the route. Eventually we found a large cairn in the gully and figured we must be close, but still no "large snag". I scrambled up the ridge from the cairn until the terrain eased off to 2nd class. sjwages was in the gully still looking for the start. I'm sure if we would have looked at a photo of the route, we would have realized that I had scrambled the first 2 pitches of the route. Instead, I downclimbed 15 ft to the gully and we continued up trying to find a large snag. Eventually we found a very large snag with two large roofs above, not exactly as described in the topo, but pretty close. We climbed up 1.5 pitches of low fifth terrain, then set out simuling on 2nd/3rd class to move the belay (this seemed to follow the topo with some resemblance). When I came up to Sjwages, I just started laughing. He was on the summit. On the way down, I notice a not so large snag by the large cairn, as well as a not so large roof. That's when we realized the route started there. Neither of us had the motivation to climb again, so we headed down. Oh well, quite a waste of a day. Sunday went much better, climbing the NF of Burgundy. This climb was super fun. There are a lot of different crack systems on the face, making route finding somewhat of a challenge. We were making pretty good time to the top of the 2nd 5.8 pitch, but that is when things got tricky. I would imagine the direct finish makes for a speedy (although supposedly runout) ascent, however we opted to try the west trending legde approach. Kearney describes a clean left facing corner crack, but the closest thing we found on initial investigation was a nice looking face finger crack. I decided to continue exploring further to the west to see if we were missing something. Around the corner, the west face dropped away abruptly and I decided we must have been in the right place. On closer inspection, the bottom 4 feet of this crack is an LFC. Above the finger crack I used my keen routefinding skills to follow one of the lichen scraped lines. Unfortunately, my first choice, after making a thin move out across the face, turned out be the rap route (long run out slab). I moved back right to the dirty 5.7 variation, where one poorly protected move eventually brought me to the end a belay. Next, I moved left on a flake system and entered the fun shallow corner crack left of a fixed rap anchor. I followed this until I had the choice of two wide cracks. The left crack did not appear to protect with the rack we brought, so I took the right hand chimney/offwidth. Pro in the crack was difficult, but a combination of chockstones and marginal placements sort of did the job. This crack was one of the most challenging 5.8s I have been on. I used a combination of jamming, chimeying, lie backing, and face climbing to eventually reach the top. Exhausted I brought up sjwages, we took obligatory summit photos on the very awesome summit block, then we began our descent down the face. We had one stuck rope, but it was pretty easy to climb back up and free it. Back to the packs, then down 4000ft of steep scree and trail and we were back at the car. I ate, then drank powerade and then redbull. Eventually we stopped for a short nap in marblemount, then switched drivers until arlington. I made the final push home from arlington. A long day on a really fun route. Gear Notes: Cams .4-3 camalaot +4.5 aircam(useless) Small nuts from BD 4 to BD 9 Approach Notes: Trail is easy to follow up to bench. Ascent of scree gully is well marked initially, but making the crossover to the main gully can be somewhat ambiguous. We ended up descending the entire main gully after missing the turn off.

If one were looking to do le petit and burgundy, would there be a way to save time on the burgundy approach, or must one return to the car.

Looking for a partner for the weekend. Once again, my procrastination has got the best of me. Was hoping to head to WA Pass or NR Stuart. I have the whole weekend availble, have a car, and have all gear. Looking for a partner to swing leads to 5.9/well protected 10.

Hoping to maybe climb NR stuart this weekend and thought i'd ask the typical logistical Beta questions. Not sure if I should try upper or complete, so I'll ask about both. Did some searching, but a lot of these questions seem pretty conditions dependent so I was hoping to get as current as possible. I am not a crazy alpine hardman, so please keep that in mind with your responses (ie not wanting to use a nut tool to descend scary exposed ice in tennies). Are crampons and axe nice to have for upper/complete/neither? Is water still available on route? If so, is water typically running, or should we bring a stove to melt snow? What is the best approach/decent option if climbing either complete or upper and having two weekend days (trundle factor??) and friday night availiable? Most people suggest a doubled over 60m half rope to climb the upper ridge. Will this system work on the pitched out sections of the lower ridge, or are logical pitches longer than 30m. On the gendarme, would a #4 C4 be overkill, or is it worth it if you don't want to scare yourself too bad?