eldiente

Depends on which route your doing or what the snowpack is like, but generally I don't mind getting a late start and topping out late in the day. Less people and softer snow for the ski down.

What kind of climbing are you looking to do? The alpine climbing in CO gets a bad rap because there are so many walk-up summits. (drive-up maybe? ) If you start looking at some of the lower peaks you'll find some steeper stuff. Take a tour into the San Juan and be prepared to crash your car as you drive around looking at all of the peaks. I would agree that some of the climbing in CO is spread out and takes a lot of driving between areas. However the big plus is that every style of climbing you can think of can be done in CO, and at a very high level. There's some fun granite in the NW, but comparing any of those places to the best crags in CO is total stretch. I mean really, low angle wet slab climbing that is climbable 10 days out of the year (Darrington) compared to the Diamond? Get a partner and get out there and report back.

I haven't been up there recently, but typically the the road is not drivable until June or even July.

I too got some strange emails from NW hikers guy.

Alright here's a few photos that I was able to get in between camera malfunction. Looking up Levitation 29 from the base. Cruxes marked. Hiding on a cave to keep out of the rain. Caustic Cock Sport climbing 5.11b Zach Bouldering Kraft Bouders, V5ish. Yes, it seems like Fiddler on the Roof is getting rave reviews from everyone. That pitch above the roof does look wild.

" CNN is reporting that Navy sharpshooters were secretly parachuted onto the fantail of the USS Bainbridge and hid there, out of view of the pirates. "

For Triassic we did a total of 6 pitches. After the 4th bolted anchors there is no clear route to follow, head mostly straight-up and slightly left on low 5th class terrain with a few spots of 5.7 for 300 feet or so. There is a little boulder that blocks the finish to the summit, maybe 10 feet of 5.9. Shortening your rope and simul-climbing to the summit would be a smart move. You end up right next to Frog land and use the same descent, easy 20-30 minutes down left and to your packs. I haven't actually seen anything in the guidebooks for topping out this route, but it seems fairly obvious once your up there (and the only choice if you forgot the rap line on the ground) Yeah you should give Cloud Tower a try, it definitely has the "holy shit" factor going for it when you look up at at some of those pithes, however it is all splitter crack and you can pull on gear to get you past the tough stuff. Unique for RR in that there is almost no holds, it climbs like a multi pitch Indian Creek climb. -Nate

I'd agree that the Cloud Tower is very near the top for the best route at RR. I climbed Cloud Tower last year and highly recommend it even though I got spanked on the crux pitch, that pitch is thin! For Wholesome Fullback I was just going with what the guidebook gave for a grade, not sure why there was an "R" in guidebook for this. There is a 20 foot horizontal traverse about a 100 feet up on the first pitch that might be ugly if you blew it, I would guess this is what the author was thinking when they gave it an "R" rating. I didn't think the traverse was too bad, I noticed SuperTopo did not give it an "R" rating so who knows. I've never been on top of Rainbow mountain, but would love to walk off one of the routes on that formation at some point.

Trip: Red Rocks - Levitation 29 Various Date: 4/3/2009 Trip Report: Just got back from a quick 4 day trip to Red Rocks this past weekend. Unfortunately we were having problems with our camera all weekend so we didn't get a lot of pictures. I might have a few pictures from my partners camera that I'll upload later Day 1. Cold and windy. Cragging around the Black Corridor and the Gallery. No joke, we froze our asses off. It even snowed for a few minutes before turning to rain. Still, we were amped to climb and ended up climbing a half dozen routes in the .11 -.11+ range. We called it quits by 3:00PM when the wind gusted to 50MPH. Went back to our condo we rented for the weekend. Side note. I hate the campground in RR, it is a dumb and costs way too much. We rented a 3bdr place near the park for $75 a night. Gated community and all. Although there was a knife fight outside our condo one night. Umh. Day 2. Levitation 29. 5.11c 7-9 pitches(?) For me this was the big goal for the trip. I have been thinking about doing this route for a few years but never was able to find the time or the motivation to hike back in there. Often regarded as the best climb in Red Rocks, I was anxious to see if all the hype was justified. Weather was again cold but sunny, even in direct sun I wore a jacket all day. This route is high-up and gets a lot of wind, come prepared. The hike in is indeed long but straightforward,the beta in the SuperTopo is spot on. We actually ended up jumping out of the ravine early and bushwhacked straight-up some 4th/5th class slabs to the base of the route instead of going to the two big pine tress and walking up the slabs. The route we took to the base of the route is actually the descent for the black orpheus. 2 hours I would guess with a lot of elevation gain at the end. All the pitch by pitch beta is well detailed in many guides. The beta from here is good Some other details about the pitches. Pitch 1 is slick and micro nuts are needed between the bolts, not a crack but lots of strange side pulls and flared pods. Hard for the grade. P2 Crux roof thingy. Not an endurance crux, more like a V4 boulder problem from a good stance. I up and down-climbed these moves a few times before committing to the move. It is a hard move or two but jugs out very quickly. There is bolts every few feet at the crux, but lower down on the pitch medium sized gear is needed between the bolts. P5 Other Crux pitch. The angle of the wall gets really steep on this pitch, slightly overhanging and very exposed. The crux for this pitch is low on the route where a fist crack goes through a roof and into some face climbing. I botched my on sight and fell in this spot trying to crimp my way from the fist crack to a shallow finger lock. Too bad as this was the only fall I took on the route. The correct beta is using the fist crack pod like an undercling and getting really high feet gunning for an edge with your left hand. From there it is just sustained 5.11 face climbing with lots of bolts, so many that I actually z-clipped on one occasion. This pitch isn't really a crack, but your following a shallow feature that has a few jams every so often that you can use to take a break from the crimping. Best route at Red Rocks? Ahhh I say no. Lots of fun, and amazing pitches, but at the end of the day it really comes down to it being a steep multi pitch sport route. I happily clipped all of the bolts up there, but all of that hardware gave the route a very mellow feeling to it, like you would get at the crag. Nothing too crazy, just fun bolt clipping on steep rock. The 5.11 c grade seems about right compared to other sport routes. Even if your not climbing that grade do this route anyway, it would be really easy to dog your way up this route with the closely spaced bolts. Gear. Yes, bring some. Small rack, single green alien through #1 BD and a #3 for the 4th pitch move off the belay. A few small to medium nuts. 12-15 draws. You can rap the route with a 70M rope no problem or use double 60s. Day 3. More Sport climbing Calico Basin. Climbed some super routes on the Cannibal Boulder Calico Basin. Short steep routes, projected a few .12s on the South side of the boulder that were more like tall boulder problems than routes. At sunset I soloed up the 2 pitch physical graffiti (5.7) and the the shorter one pitch of Classic Corner (5.8) Both of these routes are perfect hands/off hands cracks that you wish would go on forever. The 2nd pitch of Physical Graffiti features almost 200 feet of perfect hands. Day 4. Crack climbing. Meet up with a guy I met online to do some crack climbing for a change of pace. Went up to Whiskey peak and climbed three good routes. First up was triassic sands, 5.10c 6 pitches. This is the best route in RR, IMO. I did this last year and liked it so much I had to do it again. The real joy of this route is the second pitch, 130 feet of steep hand crack. There is a short boulder problem right at the belay, sort of barn door flake move into an overhanging hand crack, but after that is just straight-in jamming for 100+ feet. Bring many #2s and #3s for this pitch. The walk off is easy and worth topping out on. Wholesome Fullback (5.10 R 2 pitches) was next on the list for the day and I was surprised at how burly this 2 pitch route was. The first pitch is long, 180 feet and features all types of cracks, from fingers to fists. The burly part comes when your forced to make a long traverse right switching cracks. The end of the first pitch is a airy gear belay. 2nd pitch is a squeeze chimney to keep it interesting. Bring at least double cams with maybe and even triples in the hand size as you'll need some gear to build the belay. Our Father (5.10D 3 pitches) We did one more route before my flight. The 2nd pitch on this route is 5.9 and had me shaking. I found 1 bolt and 1 bad nut in 100 feet of slab climbing. 3rd pitch is what we came for, steep corner crack going from hands to tips layback. The tips section is tough, a thank God crimp on the right wall was the only way I saved a whipper and moved up to a nice finger crack below the anchors. Amazing pitch, hard for the grade. This crux pitch takes gear of all sizes, need Aliens or C3s to protect the crux layback Doubles of everything up to #2 would do it. Fly back to PDX.

I dont think he was talking about Trout Creek. This was the place I had in mind...

I know of a no bolt crag somewhere near Warm Springs that is rumored to have splitter cracks and no lead bolts. There is however bolted anchors. Would this meet your requirement for a zero bolt crag? I'm all for the development of new area that emphasizes natural pro, however not installing anchors at a crag is just plain lazy. If the routes are dirty, nobody is going to bother climbing on them and keep them clean if the anchor is a pain in the ass to set-up. Also, installing bolted anchors doesn't "lower" the route or make it a "sport" route. Nor does tying off a bunch of bushes for your anchor make you some sort of bold climber. This is the the anchor were talking about, not the actual route. The anchor has not bearing on the difficultly or skill required to climb a route. Not having a fixed anchor only makes future climbers curse your name as they dig around in the dirt for a bush to tie off at the end of a lead. On multi pitch routes I would agree that bolted anchors make the route easier and bit less committing knowing you can rap at any point without leaving behind gear. In some areas it would be nice to see a few less anchor bolts on longer routes to preserve the committing feeling of the route.

Most of the State Parks in Minnesota are bolt free and it is no good. A standard kit for many of the routes includes 200' feet of static line to tie off trees and boulders that are a long way back from the edge. On a busy weekend there will be dozens of these ropes tied off to trees, bushes, and boulders creating a hell of an eye sore for the non-climbers hiking along the top of the cliff. Really dumb, a few bolts would clean up this mess. So long story short, if you want a bolt free crag, head on up to Minnesota, beautiful weather up there.

Here is a good article on the real problem GM is having. Sounds like consumer demand is the least of their problems. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/gms-problems-are-50-years-in-making.html

I'd second the mental aspect of it, all of my wall failure have been mental failures, not physical ones. The slow pace can be discouraging, but don't focus on it. Often you'll get later on in day and start thinking maybe we should stop for dinner or think about setting up the ledge as there is only a few hours of light left. Nope, don't even think about it, keep climbing until it is truly dark and you can go no further. Your belayer can work on cooking dinner and setting up the ledge while you lead one last pitch before sleeping. Don't worry about getting to that comfy bivy ledge, climb as high as you can and set your ledge wherever you end up for the night.

Index or Squamish would be good choices. The big surprise for people going to the the Valley is how slick everything is. On moderate pitches (5.10 an under) your always on your feet, I find my calves and toes get tired long before my arms do on Sierra granite. Go to Index or Squamish and practice your slab skills. Also, really work to dial in a good french free system. Even a hard pitch might be doable if you yank on a few pieces of gear to get you past a crux move, this is much faster than trying to aid up the same pitch.

Yes, true. The ownership needs to be transfered to BLM, State Park, or County to work well. I hate to mention it, but Smith is really a shinning example of how a high-traffic crag should be operated. Yes, it is expensive, and yes there are a lot of rules at Smith. However the crag is clean and a lot people pack in there ever weekend without leaving behind a huge mess. I still like free and wild places, but if you've got to share a crag with a 100 strangers, I'm favor of a small fee to keep the place clean.

Yes, charge for camping, or even charge for parking. Just give us a place to take a shit.

This is a problem that needs to be fixed. If your concerned about this, please email. vantagepoop@gmail.com We are getting together as many people as possible to address this issue. We've been talking with the Access Fund about this issue and the WDFW but so far nothing.

Well I think KKK is the one with a big boner right now. He made a point! Although take a look at who was working hard to close that loophole, our own Sen Wyden. Dirty politics aside, they (AIG) might have been legally obligated to pay those bonuses no matter the public thinks. One of the key roles of government is to enforce contracts and uphold legal arguments even if the contact is dumb. All the more reason to let them file chapter 11, all of these contracts would be nill.

Interesting question, although I'm not sure taking a minor climbing is any different than taking an adult climbing with you, both could sue you just as easy. If your adult partner is killed while climbing, his/her family could try to sue you just the same as a minor's family could. Also, I'd say taking a kid climbing is no different than driving your neighbors kid to school, both have risks. If your willing to drive someone else's kid around in your car, your already taking more of a risk than you would be going climbing with the same kid. Thoughts?

Maybe your friend should tell this guy he is being unsafe too with that single binner he is about to clip. [img:left]http://www.8a.nu/images/10/10_633718424605415100_demenciasenil9a_fa.jpg[/img]

High-end sport routes at Ozone? Where are these routes?

Good old American family values.

Have your friends post here on CC.com. I'm sure there is some skilled individual on here that would love to make a few bucks to help some people walk-up Rainier.

1) WWII is *not* part of the New Deal. 2) War is not socialism. 3) If you agree that massive military spending is the way out of recessions/depressions in general, then Obama needs to invade a few countries. Of course our recent massive military spending hasn't seemed to do us much good. Your arguments are weak and simpleminded. "War is not socialism." Huh? My simple mind is not following. Is that a complete thought or just a starting point? Now that I think about it, maybe war is the ultimate form of socialism? If we think of socialism as a compulsory way of forcing others to share their wealth to satisfy some "collective good" than this would be exactly what a war is. The government takes your money (taxes) forces you into government employment (draft) so that the group as a whole can prosper by killing some brown people (the collective good) in a country that most of us can't even spell. As an added socialist kick, after you lose a limb you'll now get to be in a lifetime socialist program called the VA. Yes, war is the ultimate pooling of our resources,very socialist yes? The point I was making earlier was that debunk this thought that the New Deal (government spending) was a failure yet WWIII (government spending) was a success. Both were the same damn thing. Building a tank and a fancy ski lodge in Oregon is the same thing. The tank has a shorter lifespan than a ski lodge, and the "good" a tank creates is debatable but aside from that they are the same. The government pays a bunch of people cut down tress (Timberline lodge) or dig up raw metals (tanks) at a much faster pace than they might have in the private sector. The New Deal and WWII were very similar, the Fed spending tons of cash for people to consume raw materials at an increased pace.