Ponzini

Thanks for the info, Drew... I'll be up there again in March so I might take you up on the guidebook offer. Any ice routes there? Given that it faces mostly south, I assume that good ice is probably rare.....

While golfing at Harrison after a conference, we noticed a decent sized chunk of granite right next to the course (facing south). Looks like about 200m bottom to top - any routes up there? It's about 2km south of the Old Settler pub. Looks pretty slabby from a distence, dirty in parts, but so did the upper malamute in the olden days....

"The problem is these climbers have no respect for the north cascades"....... Anyone who does a climb of that magnitude in such superb style has a huge amount of respect for the North Cascades! Whoever wrote this is a dick who should devote more energy to climbing mountains and less to nazi-enviro rants. Excellent climb, boys. A new milestone.

The gate at the turnoff from the Mamquam Road is still closed, so bikes would be very handy. It'll be a long day from the gate, it took us 12 hours return back in June.

We couldn't see the bypass glacier due to fog, but the "North Slesse Glacier" was fully intact......

For the benefit of everyone headed to Slesse (as soon as summer arrives in force), I report the following: The Slesse Creek road is 2WD HC right to the end, and the trail is in good shape. The SW and W aspects are almost entirely free of snow, one more week and it'll be gone. The regular route features a 61-1 ratio of vertical feet hiked to vertical feet climbed - good thing we went light! The Heart of Darkness still has lots of ice in it, just in case anyone's interested..... The NE Butt is snow free and looks good, although there is some snow remaining on the lower angled class 3/4 section. The N Rib still has some snow patches. I counted a total of 11 different rap stations on the SW and W aspects of the mountain, so if you're in need of a station look 10 feet in any direction and you'll find one!

No dice - forgot the camera!! Mabye we should set up a sting....

On Sunday June 20, my girlfriend and I went up to Mt. Cheam for a pleasent afternoon hike. We drove to the usual parking lot, and started walking up the last stretch of road to the meadows. Just as we were leaving the truck, about 5 dirtbikes and 5 ATVs drove through the blockade and headed up the road. OK, I thought, they'd drive up to the final landing for a better view. As we reached the end of the road, they were nowhere to be seen........ When we reached the road end, we found that they'd driven into the meadows and were in the process of tearing up the place. Some were trying to ride up the trail itself, some were doing donuts in the meadow, and some were doing laps of Spoon Lake. The worst was a group of ATV'ers riding up and down the creekbed, creating huge mudholes and delighting in spinning the wheels and flinging mud, plants and heather ten feet in the air. It was a horrible scene of destruction, and the scene was more like Mad Max than a peaceful alpine meadow. I'm pretty open minded, but this was over the top and made me quite mad. The only thing that stopped me from personally telling each one of them to fuck off was that they saw which truck was mine and would likely destroy it on their return. After about 20 minutes, they surveyed the scene and seemed satisfied with the destruction caused, so they headed for home. Anyone else every see anything like this? As we were hiking down, we noticed a young couple decked our in dirt bike gear hiking to the summit. They gave a cheery greeting, and I gave them a curt hello. I wondered how high they had ridden their bikes and how much of the countryside they had torn up. But when we reached the truck, their bikes were leaning up against the barrier in the parking lot, just where they should be. I guess not all dirt bikers are thoughtless assholes........

Zoran, you are too kind!

Climb: Joffre East Ridge and Conditions Report-East Ridge Date of Climb: 6/12/2005 Trip Report: I'm posting this more as a conditions report than a tale of mountaineering triumph..... Paul H and I climbed the East Ridge of Joffre on Sunday. The route featured terrible snow, greasy snowed-up rock and plenty of running water - but it also had some nice climbing and even a few views. We gained the ridge by a slippery step and placed some pro due to the wetness. We then waded our way up the snow arete, which would have been quite nice except for the waist deep mush. At one point I placed a picket to protect a traverse, and even after digging down four feet it sunk into the mush almost under it's own weight! The rock pitches were initially quite wet and greasy, but the upper pitches were nicer where the rock was steeper. The last pitch had some 45 degree mush that was chest deep (and I'm 6'0). Any movement on steep (>45 degree) snow usually set off destructive point releases. Needless to say the east side couliors aren't in climbing shape at the moment, and all of them have cornices, mushrooms etc looming over them. However, the schrunds are still closed, so if we get a bit of hot weather the snow should tighten up and the deathliness should fall down. Til then, stick to the ridges! Gear Notes: Some hexes and a rope. Coulda used a canoe paddle for the snow pitches.

Go to www.baitcar.com. The mounties have a program where they place commonly stolen cars in high theft areas and wait for them to get stolen. They have a camera inside, and a tracking beacon. After the thief steals the car, the cops pull up and hit a switch to disable the car and move in for the arrest. The in-car videos are good watchin'.

The summit of Cheam - it was a weekday.

I'll bet it's a loose heat shield somewhere on your exhaust system - you have the classic symptoms. It could also be a loose bash guard around the transfer case or transmission, or a loose gas tank guard plate. Get under there when it's idleing low (or turn down the idle) and feel around.

I've sucessfully hammered in small hexes in order to retreat from a few alpine routes. Hammering in cams wouldn't have worked - we might still be up there!

In Mick Fowler's article in the 2003 AAJ, he mentions that his climbing partner went 16 days without taking a shit....

Oh, and almost every face and gully is overhung by drooping, dripping cornices

Sorry, no pics. The slopes referred to are a mess of avalanche debris and stonefall - the area is very active right now as there is a large amount of snow still stuck onto the upper mountain. Combined with the warm weather, it's a mess. Give it at least a week..... Snow conditions from the end of the clearcut to the prop cairn were knee to thigh deep slush - a canoe paddle would have been very useful!!

Hiked to the prop cairn Saturday, the lower 2/3 of the bypass glacier has already avalanched out leaving (mostly) dry slabs behind. The upper 1/3 looks very precarious, is about 20-30 feet deep and could go at any moment. Lunch at the prop cairn featured almost constant avalanches, including a real boomer that dropped the entire height of the East Face, probably part of the summit cornice falling down. The washout is drivable by a good 4x4, but the creek crossing is gone. We hiked about 5min upstream and did a balls-deep ford, and found a nice log a few minutes further upriver on the way back. Some light bushwacking required.

To do this weekend: 1 Go climbing 2 Get Helix tickets 3 Tell Cory and Trevor to fuck off

G'nR's "Bad Obsession" with Slash on slide, recorded live in Tokyo on 1992's ultra-rare double live "Banzai" CD. Note: this is different then the double Live Era CD put out in 1999, for all the gunners out there....

The Indian River road is still gated, so Sky Pilot would be a really long day. I did it once from the gate, took 14 hours in fast spring conditions....

Go try Mt Marriott on the Duffey Lake road. Little to no time spent on steep snow (avalanche risk) and a decent scramble under winter conditions. Nice & high, too.

From the Stubai website....I try to avoid cold knees and shredded calves, but I guess I'm just a wimp!

Two good climbs using some of my approach beta on the same weekend!! Only too happy to help out the cause.

Thanks for the info everyone, we went up the Mamquam instead and drove to 4300' and climbed Mt Gillespie - a possible FWA? By the way Drew, what you posted on the other site as a photo of the Pinecone Lake peaks doesn`t show Gillespie, it`s actually further behind. I`ll put up some shots soon... And nice work on Outram