KaskadskyjKozak

Trip: Dome Peak - Three Fingers, No Lube Date: 6/29/2016 Trip Report: This was my first excursion up Suiattle River Road since it was washed out, and my first ever past the Green Mountain trailhead. Bulgers. Oh the places you'll go. The plan was to bag Sinister, then Dome. The prior weekend, actually. However, weather instability, a marginal hydrological outlook und so weiter thwarted my best laid plans. Fortunately I have cool climbing partners with a commensurate appetite for torture and willingness to make shit happen at all costs. I went to work on Monday and requested Tue-Thu off, wrapped up some loose ends and packed. Two of my partners had just completed a three-day ski tour of Glacier Peak, and met us rough and a bit ripe at the Downey Creek TH Tuesday morning. A work crew was on site placing a brand new TH marker. We were impressed by the trail maintenance along the Downey Creek trail virtually all the way to 6 mile camp. Soon thereafter things got ugly - at times uglier than a warthog's asshole. In the 3, 4, or whatever miles from Bachelor creek's confluence with Downey up to the avy swath we must have encountered a hundred fallen trees. Most involved much more than a simple step over, and route finding on the far side of each was a given. And the brush. Holy fucking shit. We took the bypass at 4100 (as described by Franklin Bradshaw RIP, and others). That was our one relief and escape from Green Hell. Sometimes you are the hammer and sometimes the nail. In this case Bachelor creek came down on my skull like a 16 pound sledge. But I got up it. My partners seemed completely unphased. Time from TH to Cub Lake? 10 hours. Humbling. Demoralizing. I mustered the willpower somehow and managed to move this ancient decrepit form up another 900' gain, crossing a waterfall and slick slabs to arrive at camp at 6200' on Itswoot 11.5 hours into the day. Sunset at camp: The conversation then turned to start time. Yeah, it sucks, but the best I could do was alarm set at 4 am. We awoke to mist and clouds and headed up at 5:20. Time to the col should have been 2.5 or 3 hours but took just over 4. The snow was soft most of the way - not postholing, but enough to slow us down. The glacier was very smooth with only a few crevasses showing. At the col near the toe of the Dome Glacier: It was now late. 10:00 I think. I cautiously approached the top of the Chickamin expected a wall to wall Bergschrund. Nope, but it looked sketchy, and a punch through seemed more than plausible. I picked a line and started to slowly plunge step. After a dozen steps or so I set off a microslide. The conditions were classic as NWAC warns in its spring statement. Pinwheels. Wet snow. Entrained slide. FUCK. No sinister today. Fuck you Chickamin glacier. High on the Dome Glacier Next time, mother fucker: Well, we could at least tag Dome and head back. How long will that take? It's only 400 feet up and class 3 with a few 4th class moves. 30 minutes? 40 max? Nope. The third class terrain was covered with snow. At first there was a n Eldorado-like snow arete, then there was 4 inches to a foot or so of rock on climber's right with steep snow on the left. It took a couple hours for the four of us to work up to the summit, mainly because we were simulclimbing, and had to pass a knot between two climbers. Best laid plans. Underestimating your opponent. You name it. View up from the sandy bivy sites at 8700' View along the summit ridge The author, stoked, on the summit: Not much more to tell. We pitched it out on the descent - 3 30m pitches, then hiked back to camp. Near to camp we crossed a recently deposited swath of avy debris, including a serac the size of a refrigerator. Good times. Living the dream. Day three involved a 9+ hour hike out and copious high fives and alcohol consumption at the TH. I have to get back somehow to tag Sinister. Gear Notes: Ice axe, crampons, helmet, rope, pickets, small alpine rock Approach Notes: Miles of blowdowns and brush.

it's probably smart they did. We found the col at dome unsafe and bailed on sinister after I set off a microslide.

Well done! We could see your boot path from the Dome-Chickamin col yesterday

Good post. Another alternative to soloing this or staying roped and setting pickets on a running belay would be lead up the chute and hip belay the rest of the folks (that needed a belay). The belay would be off an anchor (deadman a couple pickets). any belaying in there clogs up the chute of course. I think teams (including clubs that often often 9 or even 12 folks out) should strongly consider limiting their size (4 max?) on this route, at least on weekends.

Trip: Gunn Peak - Standard Route Date: 6/5/2016 Trip Report: This was a consolation prize for poor planning. Roads do wash out from time to time, and that might be checked at least a few days prior to a trip rather than the day before. That bitch Luahna did me in again. I'll get even someday. But that's another story. Last year I started tagging more Smoot climbs in a semi-systematic manner, covering Persis, Baring and Merchant in the dry winter of 2015. Gunn and Index remain from that area. Gunn it was! We started up the trail just after 8 am and it was already hot as hell. Barclay creek was flowing fast and one of us dipped a boot in 2 minutes into the trip. From there the trail was easy to follow and snow free until after the waterfall crossing at 4200' or so. Snow was continuous at and past the Gunn-Barclay divide. We had some shenanigans here trying to avoid dropping down (and going up instead). We lost about 30 minutes on at that detour before sucking it up and dropping down. Did I mention it was fucking hot? Snow was soft and easy to ascend. The hidden gully wast mostly dry and the N side traverse was 100% snow-free. Woot! Mountain P0rn galore on the summit. View of summit block when you drop down the divide: Snow still covers most of the talus bullshit: Hidden Gully: Summit block scrambling: Mountain p0rn galore: Descending from the divide: Gear Notes: Ice axe, helmet. Rope for those preferring to rap exposed class 3. Approach Notes: Cross a full stream in summer heat, then go up a really steep fucking trail

Nice work, Porter! More kids need to get these kinds of awesome experiences.

Trip: Dark Peak - Dark Meat with Veggie Floss Date: 5/31/2016 Trip Report: Oh, the places you'll go... when you are ticking Bulgers. Ted Geisel himself could not have invented such a strange and fabulous landschaft replete with alien fauna and flora, including the dread prickly vines of doom in a green hell maelstrom. Ok, it was not actually bad. It was enjoyable, classic, type 2 Cascade fun. And the views... mountain p0rn worthy of hand lotion and a few kleenex. But, I digress... The plan was to tag Dark Peak over Memorial Day Weekend proper. However, suboptimal weekend forecasts followed by a perfect high-pressure system soon thereafter prompted a change in plans, warranting vacation days from work, sick time, or whatever it took to GIFD. And it was worth it. Somehow I convinced four friends to join me. Some have climbed with me before, and should know better. None admit to seeking the full century of summits, but I am dubious as to their claims. De Nile is more than a river in Aegypt, so they say. I've never been to Holden, Lucerne or Stehekin. Never ridden either "lady" of the lake. So, this trip was novel and a bit of an adventure. Enough of the ramblings and banterings. Here's the trip in captioned pictures, which are worth a thousand words apiece, if not more. Need a route description - it's on Summit Post. Ride the lady. Enjoy her frothy wake: Take a bus to High Bridge, then walk the PCT ~9 miles to Swamp Creek Camp: Start on the PCT. Gawd, it's gorgeous! The abandoned Swamp Creek Trail is hard to follow in places (especially upon descent in the dark). Here's a bit of it close to camp just after dawn: It was easy to find a log across Swamp Creek. We found this one at the base of a boulder field at 3600' with a beautifully engineered cairn in a talus field to demarcate the spot: Our perambulations took us through much of this open forest terrain: The lower basin of Dark could be construed as a stairway to heaven, and the slide alder as either purgatory or hell. YMMV: Typical section of slide alder hell with an interleaving, gurgling rivulet. It's all fun and games till you lose an eye, or get an uninvited testicular scrape or probing anal intruder: We hit a lot of snow patches. They helped a lot, and saved us time: Shangri La. Yes, really. When I'm on my death bed, I'd love to be transported to this spot to expire with this view. Then a cougar could eat me and crap me out, and my digested remains could fertilize some slide alder - circle of life and all that: View of the snow and glacier route from the upper basin (5000'): We roped up for shits and giggles around 5500'. Well, it was either drag the ropes, continue to haul them, or dump them. The glacier was pretty damn mellow in late spring conditions, truth be told: Approaching the col at 8200'. We hit two slopes with semi-sketchy snow conditions and modified our route accordingly. We considered bailing, but pushed on: At the col. Be here or at work? Easy choice: View along summit ridge: Mountain p0rn pano: Bonanza and more: FYMF! Gear Notes: Ice axe, crampons (see below), helmet, rope if you want Approach Notes: PCT: needs some TLC. Swamp Creek Trail: needs a machete and Roundup. Lower Basin to Upper: don't fall Upper Basin to Summit: evaluate snow conditions. 'Pons useful, but may not be required - YMMV

Quesadillas and bratwurst

I want to go back and bag Constance!

It's really nice right now

Trip: The Brothers - South Couloir Date: 5/8/2016 Trip Report: I had some plans fall through at the last minute for Sherpa so I joined some friends on their trip. Forecast was hot on Saturday but cooling quickly Sunday with 10% chance of precip, and some clouds. Good enough to go for sure. We took a midmorning ferry into Kingston and got to the trailhead around 11:30. We took a leisurely hike in during the hottest part of the day - a bit miserable, but it was in the shade. No bugs. Perfect weather. We woke up at 4:15 am to mists and fog, and headed up with headlamps. The trail out of camp is flagged well. The worst part is through an old burnt out section near the bottom of the avy fan. Continuous snow began around 4000'. We had excellent snow conditions all the way up. We scrambled up one short rock section just to climber's right of the hourglass. Soon, the snow was steep and icy enough that we donned crampons. As a bonus we broke through the clouds here. The going was easy, using an old, wide (frozen) boot path from the day before. The top involved a short, icy traverse with some nasty runout before attaining the summit block. (On descent) Summit views were spectacular, with a sea of clouds below us and only peaks above 6000' poking through. N summit from S summit: Gear Notes: Ice axe, crampons, helmet. Approach Notes: Easy, maintained trail to Lena Lake. Unmaintained trail with obstacles to camp at around 3000' just after crossing the stream at the fork.

That may have been my group with pickets. We only had two, and left them at camp thanks to your (or whoever we met for beta). Crampons were required on Sunday - TR to follow.

Thanks, man! I also got this one a few minutes later on my iPhone:

Hey, cool. Yeah it could have been 4:45... who knows. Glad you had a good time up there as well!

Nope, not yet. Sandy has been in my sights for a long time. I'd like to get up Devil's Kitchen in winter, and the N face... maybe, someday

I did that last time I was down there

Trip: Mount Hood - Leuthold Couloir Date: 4/10/2016 Trip Report: I met up with three friends to climb Hood this weeekend. Originally we were hoping to get the Sandy Headwall route but were concerned about how this would go with the high freezing levels all week, and staying at about 10K over the weekend. We met up at T-Line at about 2pm, and headed up to Illumination Saddle. Hood looking damn fine from the parking lot: Approaching camp: This is why I climb. Well, one reason: We took our sweet time getting there and set up camp while the sun set. Based on the postholing we did on the final traverse we ruled out the Sandy and settled on Leuthold. With the shorter route, we slept in to a luxurious 5 am and did not even get moving until after 6:30, mostly thanks to the serialized blue-bagging chain reaction that occurred in the morning. The snow was surprisingly firm - it had been cold and very windy all night - definitely below freezing. Starting out in the morning: A party of 2 had passed our camp around 4:15 am, and another party of 3 passed us in the route. Other than that, no traffic. Rime ice/snow fall was minimal. No sloughs. Perfect conditions, really. View up from above the Hour Glass: View down from the Queen's Chair: Ridge traverse money shot: We descended the standard route around noon. It appears that the Pearly Gates is back in - the Hog's Back was shifted a few years ago. We only had one short traffic jam with 2 skiers and then 4 climbers to get back to the Hog's Back. I have no complaints - this was a great weekend to be on Hood! Descending the Pearly Gates: Life is good: Squeal like a pig! Gear Notes: In these conditions... can be easily solo'd. If you want, bring a glacier rope and 4 pickets. We all had a 2nd tool which made for comfort and fun. Approach Notes: We hoofed it - no floatation was required, but the snow got nasty soft/postholing between the Palmer and the Saddle.

I always have scratched my head how it takes 12 people to convict a man of a crime, but a simple majority is sufficient to set the law of the land, affecting everyone, rather than one person's fate.

that about sums it up for me.... LOL. Well, self-awareness is a point in your favor

Good for you! I never was able to get all the way through it. Probably because it is a genre I truly detest. (The idiot who never learns from their mistakes continues to bumble through life.) Never had the patience for it. He's mentally ill. I don't think it's possible for him to learn from his mistakes. Unless you mean SAncho - he's just a dumbass

Don Quixote (currently in the 2nd book). It's starting to get really repetitive at this point, but I'm committed to pushing through to the end The Revenant. I saw the movie and think this may actually be a case where, on balance, I like the movie better than the book.

if he does nominate and it's blocked on a vote until the election is over - what'll you think happens? Hillary nominates the same person or picks someone else?

yeah, and there is a low bar for president too (natural born, 35 or older). That's how a community organizer becomes president, among other unqualified turds. No need to replicate that pattern. Nominate a qualified judge from the lower courts.

Awesome! Post here - and maybe we can start seeing beer ads at the top of the page!