TrogdortheBurninator

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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?

We use an MSR missing link for lightweight backpacking. It is pretty plush inside, with tons of room for two, and maybe even three in a pinch. Not quite as light as those you mentioned, but maybe still worth a look.

Oh yeah, forgot about those little things. Can definitely leave the medium and large stoppers (bigger than ~BD #6) at home

Climb: Exfoliation Dome-Jacob's Ladder Date of Climb: 7/31/2005 Trip Report: MattP and I climbed Matts route, Jacob's Ladder, on Exfoliation Dome on Sunday. This route is awesome. The pictures I have dont do it justice as I only had my camera phone with me and no real camera. The route takes a very direct line up the prominent and steep west face of Exfoliation Dome, while following a natural line. The route is safely protected with solid bolts and natural gear, while still preserving much of the adventure darrington is known for. Pitches 1&2 offer easy but enjoyable runout slab climbing. These pitches are a nice warm up, but do not at all reflect the character of the rest of the route. Matt leading P3 Pitches 3-7 offer exceptional sustained steep climbing with a considerable amount of variation. Pitch 3 is a fun pitch which moves into an LF corner where some tricky (bolt protected) moves are required. Pitch 4 is the crux pitch and is considerably harder than the rest of the route. I tried to free it, but after repeatedly blowing my footholds I gave up and resolved to pull on quick draws and stand on bolts until the major difficulties were passed. Matt following the difficult crux pitch Matt made a fine lead on pitch 5 which avoids a heinous looking chimney hand crack in exhange for unique sustained 5.10 blocky but downsloping climbing. Matt leading on P5 Pitch 6 is really exceptional as it combines big sportoesque moves, moderate crack and flake climing, and 5.10 steep dike and slab climbing. This pitch comes at a really good height on the wall and for us marked the point when the sun hit the wall (not necessarily a good thing, but beautiful nonetheless). Matt follows the dike (Jacob's Ladder) on P6 Pitch 7 is another good pitch that would be even better with more traffic. The climbing is varied again, and includes some longish sequences of difficult climbing before easing off. Pitch 8 is relatively easy (5.8), but still interesting and fun. Near the end you can either climb directly up an unproteted slab, or skirt the slab on the right via dirtier but somewhat protected climbing. On this pitch do not be enticed by the gorgeous handcracks half way through the pitch. They are formed by enormous detached blocks that according to Matt have visibly moved 6" in the last year. We rapped a line suggested by CBS which makes a fairly direct descent from the terrace beginning at a large tree. At the base, we scrambled (actually I asked for a belay on the final low 5th section) back climbers left to meet up with the final 2 raps of Jacob's ladder. A view back up the route as Matt completes the final rap back to our packs and some surprisingly cool gatorade. The line goes pretty directly up the face with minor zig zaggin reaching and passing the prominent white scar at 3/4 height. Thanks again to Mattp for developing and showing me this awesome route. I really think this route deserves to get climbed far more often, and more traffic will only make it better. By aiding through the crux pitch, this route is within the cababilities of any solid 5.10 climber. Gear Notes: Used: ~12 draws (sporto and extendable) Cams from black alien to gold camalot with doubles helpful from yellow alien to red camalot. Start early this time of year and you can beat the sun for most of the route. Approach Notes: Steep granite, don't slip.

Nice work guys, I ran into you guys as back at lake serene while I was playing around on the bouldery shoreline of the lake.

Jumping off underside of bridge while holding rope = no skin on hands = not cool. Not me, a friend did this.

BTW, feel free to call earlier if you want to leave earlier. Might take two tries to wake me up.

Just saw this, but its too late to call. Call me back in AM if you still want to go. two zero six seven nine zero six five six six. I will check this around 7:00 if I don't get a call before.

Shit, that was fast, tried to get you guys on the ball asap. I only ordered 4 (2 21s and 2 17s) I probably should have ordered more at that price.