eldiente

What counts as a wall? Throw a can of beer from the top, the first thing it hits is where you measure from to determine the height of the wall.

Yes, it would be easy to link this into 4 pitches, Jaime gave me good beta for linking it into 4 and it sounds good. I elected to break it up into smaller pitches so I could keep a close on eye on my partner, she's new to alpine rock climbing. -Nate

Trip: Prusik Peak - Stanley-Burgner Date: 6/27/2010 Trip Report: My first time in the Snow Lake permit area, they aren't lying when say this one of the most beautiful backpacking destinations in the lower 48. I don't really enjoy hiking very much, but going up there makes me want to give up this whole climbing thing and take-up backpacking. The scenery up there is incredible, especially with the half-frozen lakes. Wow! Here is what we found conditions wise. Hike-in. It is indeed long. We hit snow and mud as soon as we got around Snow Lake. There is a lot of snow up there, everywhere that isn't covered in snow is a running river. Following the trail was difficult above snow lake, we missed it and went post holing and river wadding for the last 2 hours to the camp at the base of Prusik. There are dry bivy spots above vivian lake. Beta online and in the guidebook is spot on. Despite having good beta, I still got us lost around P3 and ended up doing two pitches of "der sportsman, 5.11+" before realizing I was off-route. Did 2x raps and some down-climbing to get us back on the route. How I messed that up I don't know, I guess I was getting tired of thrashing around in this dirty gully and got lured in by these lovely cracks to the left. Lovely indeed, but not 5.9. P1. Did the fist crack start. Hardish climbing with flared fist jams. Start of route has a snow-cone on it, shoes will get wet. P2. Link with P1. Easy to link, stop at tree belay. P3. Short finger crack (can we have more of this please!) Move way right on slab and nobs with no pro. Easy climbing but falling here would ruin your day. Move up through short bulge double crack and onto dirty gully system. Do not go left. P4. Climb nice crack below chockstone that you tunnel under. Trick beta here is to drop a loop of rope down to partner to haul pack through chockstone. P5. OW flare, not real long but hard thrashing in there. Good pro though, takes C3s on the right-side and #4 BD higher up. Again, have leader drop a loop of rope down and haul pack or drag it under harness. P6. Finally some good climbing. Crux is a wide OW that you stem around. The stem section was a bit wet on the right side. Save a few C3s for this part, they fit well on the pin scars on the right side. Descent. 5 raps to the snow. Did not need crampons but we got soaked wadding through knee deep snow gaining the ridge on the North side. [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TCuKFSHw5SI/AAAAAAAAKTk/L58uCOs_zhI/s640/P1010385.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TCuKTyp3jmI/AAAAAAAAKVE/w1apv_NKPcE/s640/P1010411.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TCuKWIrydfI/AAAAAAAAKVU/6nARucAO90E/s640/P1010413.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TCuKYrXsGjI/AAAAAAAAKVo/cMlo6ckZlZQ/s640/P1010415.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TCuKcZCTYXI/AAAAAAAAKWQ/pvQzt7p9gBQ/s640/P1010420.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TCuKOSrMVeI/AAAAAAAAKUg/yo2T6rZhaac/s640/P1010404.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XNueStDVX8c/TCuKo6KHEDI/AAAAAAAAKX8/rTOIjDVzFH4/s640/P1010439.JPG[/img] Gear Notes: Single Red C3-#4 BD. Double on .75-#2BD. Nuts. Many long slings. Approach Notes: 9 miles, 5,000 feet of gain. Snow above snow lakes.

The bivy site doesn't have a limit, you will always find a spot to sleep there. You can show up there late and still find a place to walk-in and camp. The grasslands (Skull Hallow) now has limits on the number of cars allowed in each spot but this time of year I would bet the campground would be empty. Not many folks want to climb Smith this time of year.

Winter's partner belaying on the last pitch of "Solid Gold."

I'm no expert with the camera, but I would guess that done in full color, the shadows would not be as distinct in these pictures. I think it works well.

Slowly learning it would seem. Also note that most boulder problems (this is a boulder problem from what the pictures show) don't distinguish between FA and FFA.

Can anyone give me a sense of how long it takes to hike from Snow Creek Wall to Prusik? We'll be carrying climbing kit and bivy gear. Trying to decide if it possible to climb Snow Creek Wall on the hike-in and make it up to base of Prusik before dark. I haven't been up to Prusik so I don't have a good feeling for a long the hike is. Thanks! -Nate

International waters, anything goes. "So you'd like us to tow you and your boat 1,000 miles to shore ey?"

A few pics here: http://natetack.blogspot.com/

The plane that went out and spotted her burned through full tank of gas to get there. (10,000+ gallons of fuel) That's a lot of gas to burn to find out that she lost her rig and was hanging out waiting for a rescue. All of this reminds me so much of the high profile rescues we see in the climbing world. Yes, if it were me (or my daughter) I'd want to be rescued in that situation. However, the conditions she encountered are normal for that area of the Southern Ocean. Maybe before going into such a place they should have thought how they were going to get themselves out if they lost the rig. (Somewhat common occurrence for Open boats racing in the area) Side note, a French fishing boat is going to go out and pick her up. How stoked are those guys going to be after being at sea for a long time. The first female they've seen in in months is a blond American bobbing around in a wrecked sailboat.

My armchair thinking says she lost all her systems during a knockdown. (com, autopilot etc) The boat is now "dark" and adrift with no way to speak to the outside word. Without access to her team ashore that is more our less guiding her across the world, she turns on the rescue beacons to call in the calvary. The boat is most likely afloat but the skipper is wrecked and doesn't feel up to the huge task of sailing the boat to safety without the assistance of electrical gadgets. (For our climbing friends this is like calling for a rescue on Hood because your iPhone stopped working and it is snowing hard. Of course now move Hood 1,000 miles offshore) That would be the best (and most likely) scenario. The worst case is that the boat was dismasted in a knock-down and is sinking and she's in a raft in cold water. Burly. Some really strong male sailors twice her age have died in similar circumstances.

Sucks about your rope and the close-call, but based on what you described it doesn't sound like this was malicious. The survey group may have used your line to tow their truck out of the mud, or maybe some dumb kids tried to use it for a rope swing before coiling it back up at the top. Either way, if this an urban crag with sketchy access issues, there is a probably 100 possible ways for a rope to become damaged without the person doing the damage knowing what the rope was used for. How's this for scary? Somehow I doubt it was East County Meth heads that stole his anchor. http://davemacleod.blogspot.com/2008/08/near-miss.html

Thanks!

Has anyone been up to WA Pass recently? Is there still snow on the rock? Thoughts? If anyone has pictures from this past week, please share. -Nate

Will Gadd gets in on it. http://gravsports.blogspot.com/2010/06/david-lama-red-bull-patagonia.html That's an interesting post from a guy who gets his paycheck from Red Bull.

If nobody is falling maybe we should be unroped. *laughs* Kidding aside, if I'm on mellow terrain where nobody is going to be falling, I belay the normal way just because I can pull the rope faster. Even this way, I always have the rope going through the some pro. Belaying off your hips with an ATC because you don't trust your anchor is serious business and should only be used in the most dire of situations. Once in a while you see people do this when they are at a bomber anchor, eeek! Reminds me of the new climber that is scared to weight a rap rope so they try to down climb while holding the break hand at the same time. That's redundant right?

Indeed connivence for the belayer is important. The leader is doing all the work, taking all the risks, anything you can do to make her life more comfortable is a good thing. Let's face it, you were too scared to lead that pitch and are glad to be on top-rope. I'd feel guilty making my leader catch a bunch of falls off their harness after they were kind enough to put up a hard pitch for me. With the auto locker in place, you can fall all over without worrying about taxing your badass leader's groin. Plus, with so many walls getting cell service now, you can thumb your iPhone while still giving your second a SAFE belay. :-)

I'm going to disagree there about the safety of the auto-lock Joseph. While I'm following I want my leader to be hydrating, eating, organizing the rack, putting on a puffy, none of these tasks are easy to do or very safe if you are using a "normal" belay. I'd be pissed if I pulled into a belay and my leader hadn't sorted the rack because he was too busy belaying me. You can get tricky, but there isn't a safe way to put on a pull-over while belaying without an auto-locker. Very unlikely but what happens if the leader is hit by rockfall while belaying the second up? Bee sting? (Climbed with a girl last year that is so allergic to bees she'll go into shock in just a few minutes, hell yeah I want her using auto locker!) Side note about this. Belaying has nothing to do with climbing, it is a necessary evil (like ropes, cams and bolts) to make climbing safer. Lazy?! Hell yeah, belaying isn't supposed to be work, the work happens with moving your body up the wall.

Hold on, I'm late here but if I'm reading your previous posts right, you were very loudly arguing that BD gear would now become unsafe Now you are saying "BD equipment won't become unsafe." Which way you want to go with this? -Nate

Quick question for you John, answer as you like. EX: You buy a used car, low miles and dirt cheap. The previous owner meets you and says this "Man, I'm bad. I ran over a kid with it while I was drunk. I owe lots of parking tickets on it, would you like to buy it?" The deal is cheap, so you agree, pay off the parking tickets and go about your way. Now you are the owner of a child killing car. Does that make you a "bad" person not fit to perform the job of safely driving this car without running over any more kids? The fact remains, you are the operator of a child killing car. I have only scanned the links above, sorry I'm not that informed. However, reading your post it looks like the new owners of BD bought a company that used to make un-safe products. This is what you are saying, yes no? Oh and Jersey, Connecticut, is there a difference? All of those States that you can walk-across in a day can die. Nothing good coming out of there except failed banks.

This is all very normal stuff more most businesses. Without looking at the books, it appears BD grew too fast and over extended themselves. That's great their revenue is growing, but this can be a curse. I would be curious as to what BD's cash situation is and how profitable they are? To sustain themselves and all their new ventures, they need cash and that's where XYZ Corporate Giant from Hell comes in. BD got into a lot of new markets recently, skis, packs,tents, headlamps etc. I'm not sure this was such a hot idea as it takes them out of their core competency. I hate to see groups like this grow for the sake of growth. Some of these products are OK, but some are downright awful (BD's packs are the worst I've ever used) Staying small and focused isn't for everyone, however for a climbing company I would rather they do a few things well instead of trying to do everything half-ass. (When is BD coming out with a bike, or ropes or boots?) Going forward I can't see any reason that their hardware will become "unsafe." Cams, binners and the like are fairly simple things to make, assuming BD keeps using the same tooling there is no reason that their hardware will change. Also, last I checked BD was pull testing cams to half strength before they leave the shop. Good enough for me. Gear wise, BD makes a few nice things (hard to not like a nice #2) but there are others out there that are doing just as good of job or in some cases, doing it better. I now consider the Master Cam the gold standard for cams and reach for them most often. Unlike BD, Metolius is a local company doing just a few things really well. If you like the idea of supporting local business and climbers, buy their gear. If you like to give your cash to a bunch of ass-hats from Jersey that know zero about climbing, buy some BD cams. -Nate

Hey boys, why don't you take this to email or PM? As a whole I wish the Mods would crack down on this, if you want to talk to someone, please email them or PM. Common courtesy there. -Nate

Yes, we got shut-down on the first 5.11C pitch (P7 by the guide) I can't see of anyway to aid through this section, no crack and the next bolt is 20 feet above and would be too hard to stick clip. (Although I didn't try it, maybe using an aider off the bolt would help to get the feet up and make the moves?) I could be wrong, but I feel like if you could get over this section, the rest would go. (Other folks told me this pitch is more like .12 where as the other crux pitch is easier) Good question about Texas Tower Connection. I didn't have the topo with me when were up there so I wasn't feeling brave enough to go up into who knows what land. When we bailed I could see up high and left a line of old bolts ( I clipped one while down traversing during the bail) and also a high tat anchor about 150 up and left of Texas Hold Em P7. I would guess this is the Texas Connection. With a topo and some balls, you could do the same lose traverse we did left and bust up to the ramps of Lone Star to finish it off. This might be contrived but still a huge day on some really cool terrain. No endless crimp ladder like POD! I'd be stoked to see someone do this. It would be worth it just to do the Texas Tower Flake. Yes, last year Jens and partner (?) linked Texas Hold Em and Lone Star. He was very kind and gave me good beta, we were planing to do the same thing but unlike him, I'm weak. -Nate

Thread drift on this one... In defense of gym rats everywhere. All of the really hard gear climbs being done lately are being done by people with gym backgrounds. Think of Pringle climbing .14R on gear a few months after learning how to place gear. Kevin Jorgensen climbing .12C at Joshua Tree his first week trad climbing. Alex Honnold started with gym comps etc etc. Obviously were talking about some very talented folks here. Starting out trad climbing you do a lot of dumb things, but how do they say, if you're gona be dumb, you better be strong. Gym climbing makes you strong, on a trad climb there is great benefit to be able to dead-hang a crimp and fiddle in some gear without getting pumped. If you're not pumped, you can spend all day hanging out firing in gear. Plus the stronger person is most likely going to climb steeper routes where the consequences of having a piece pull are less severe. I think mounties/Mazamas should require mandatory hang-board training before they teach you anything about gear. If you can do 20 pulls on the 1/8in edge, you won't have any problems with that 5.4 crack they'll make you lead out at Tieton. "Who needs gear for this route, I'm stupid strong." :-) -Nate