wimsey

fresh snow below 4500' last night, more expected tonight

A friend got to within 1 mile of Pole Creek TH last weekend in his truck. Said the climbing was excellent

that downclimb must be played back at 2x speed or something.

what the f? real?

Oh, I thought he was talking about some other crag since he mentions Cougar separatly.

where in bend are these?

Alan Watts in the new guide p110: "Although the entire route is called Zion (combining Zebra and Lions Chair) many climbers use the misnomer Zebra Zion.

Just an old unnamed TR on the Shakespeare wall that we always liked to run a lap on when we were over there. Don't know who named it, but it got 3 stars. Cool.

Well, what do you know. One of the "new" routes is named after me. What a nice surprise! Happy New Year

Does Castle Crags count as PNW? East Face of Castle Dome is one of the most outstanding rock climbs around.

Aren't all the new routes pretty much common knowledge already? What is everyone expecting to discover?

Dave and I left Devil's Lake trailhead at 10:40am on Wednesday September 9th. The temp was in the lower 60's and it was calm and mostly clear, a great day for the traverse, although we were a little worried about what conditions we'd find in the bowling alley. We'd hoped to get out Monday but there had been 6" of snow above 9000 feet on Sunday. Ten days before that, our plans were stymied by a 30% chance of thunderstorms. That was the same day the Bulletin front page headlines screamed 6:39! by Mitch Thompson. Dave and I had hoped to knock 90 minutes of our time of 8:40 the previous year, maybe with an outside chance of breaking 7 hours. This was an unexpected turn; initially I was psyched out by the news but after a week of mulling it over and over and over, I convinced myself we had a chance. Dave was confident. The first 1.5 miles of the Devils Lake trail are steep. We alternated between a slow jog and a shuffle until treeline where it is possible to run a bit. The upper slopes of South Sister were in great condition as the weekend storm had somewhat firmed up the usually loose trail. By the time we hit the crater rim, I'd burned through the nervous energy and could tell I was feeling strong. Dave had had to wait for me a few times but not as much as usual. We ate some fresh snow as we jogged across the crater snowfield. I'd finished the 36oz. of water I'd brought and wouldn't refill for a few more miles at the snowfield under the south slope of Middle. There were 12 or 15 people on the summit who asked what the hell we were doing in T-shirts and how long it took us. It was 12:20, so 1:40, 5 minutes ahead of our goal and over half the vertical climbing done. We jumped down the 5' cliff band off the rim into what is usually deep scree and the first hurdle of the day. We'd never descended the north ridge of South before. The first 3 or 4 hundred feet were slower than we hoped as the scree was somewhat frozen and didn't offer the easy fall line run we'd hoped for. Then we dropped through a notch and a came to a standstill. The diagonal traverse through the red band cliff was half covered in 6" of snow and half bare rock. After 10 minutes of playing around on the different surfaces, I decided on a lower route mostly on snow and Dave tried a higher route on rock. Once committed, the snow went well with only one 10 foot steep exposed section. Dave retreated to my route and soon we were bounding down easier slopes below but slightly behind our goal time. We made good time covering the open country between South and Middle, refilling water on the fly and started up again. The greatest reason for heading south to north was to climb instead of descend the 2500' of talus on the south side of Middle. What is a painstaking, tiring descent is a simple, enjoyable climb limited only by lung power. We made up great time here and the obvious success really added to my energy. We topped middle at 3hours39minutes; again 5 minutes ahead of the pace we thought would match Mitch's mark. The descent of Middle in this direction is a quick blink of the eye and soon we were jogging across snowfields below the south ridge of North. In gaining the ridge, we again benefited from the recent precipitation. The scree was relatively firm, we were still climbing easily and starting to feel confident of success. We were laughing as we traversed toward the bowling alley on trail and easy snow. And the day came to a screeching halt as we scampered up the two ledges into the bowling alley. It was covered in an inch of verglas. Dave made it up the lower angled first 40 feet on sketchy iced features as I pondered turning back. I cannot describe the mental turmoil of the next 15 minutes. Climbing this in tennies was obviously insane. Yet the day to this point was nearly perfect. We retreated and tried getting up onto the ridge to the right of the bowling alley which we could see was clear and dry. The rock turned out to be solid, better than the rock in the alley, and 100' of easy 5th had us rejoin the route at the rappel slings. The lower angle scramble above here was snowy but safe up to the ridge and the summit block was dry and warm. We touched the summit at 4:50. We had 1:49 to descend to Pole Creek and tie the record. According to the Bulletin article, Mitch summitted North from Pole Creek in 1:51. It seemed we'd best that by 15 or 20 minutes even after loosing at least that much in the detour. All I can say is we downclimbed carefully off the summit, sprinted recklessly down the SE ridge, jogged through open slopes to the Soap Creek trail and ran down this without any break. At the juncture of Soap Creek and Pole Creek trail the watch said 5:02. We had 17 minutes to cover the last several miles. I told Dave, who has always been faster than me, to take off. I felt like I was pulling 7 minute miles but the trail dragged on and on...Dave was screaming for me the last 200 yards, even before he could see me... 6:39:20 to the split rail fence across the road. Dave said he'd managed 6:36:10. Where had the time gone? How had Mitch sprinted UP the same route up the horrible scree on that ridge with 100 oz water, a gatorade, a coke, and a sandwitch?....Is it possible to feel elated and crushed at the same time? I felt pretty beaten up but not that tired. Energy gels, which I'd used for only the second time, are AMAZING. My energy stayed up all day. Conditions were fast but much more dangerous in a few places. I know I can go faster, I don't know if I'm up for the effort to take it down another 20 minutes. Dave, paired with a faster partner, could break 6 hours for sure and I think he is psyched to do it. Is 6:36 the fastest time ever? It is impossible to know for sure. Absolutely, many talented folk have done the traverse over the years and we have no idea of their times. 6hours 40minutes works out to about 23 or 24 minutes per mile for the ~17 miles which is not that fast. Max King runs 5 min/mile for trail half marathons at 5000 ft elevation. Certainly, super fit folk could best 20 min/mile or 3 mph. On the other hand, it stretches believability a bit to think of someone cruising 6hours30minutes in a vacuum and casually walking away without anyone knowing. It takes a lot of preparation, planning and inspiration, believe me, and at least a little competitive instinct. Until a few years ago, no one had claimed going under 9 hours. Next year will be interesting, I think.

Next year it is going under 6 hours for sure.

"Police say Tom Pfaeffle had just checked in to the Blue Spruce Motel at about 10:45 p.m. He had a room key for Room 8, but he was mistakenly trying his key in Room 7 when Gomez fired a .40-caliber Glock 27 handgun through the door. Pfaeffle was hit once on his right side, just below his armpit, according to Balam. He died two hours later at Mid-Valley Hospital in Omak. Two other shots were fired, including one that went into the neighboring room, where another guest was in bed. The man was not hurt, although the lead from the bullet landed next to him on the bed, a police report said." Wow! Don't make that mistake.

article in bend bulletin: http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090828/SPORTS05/908280381/1041&nav_category= he summited North in 1:51 !

Um, how about lead a bunch of routes with a 15 pound backpack until that starts to feel comfortable. Or practice clawing (A0, french freeing) your way up some harder routes so you know how to get yourself through a tough spot. Really, trying to rehearse 25 feet of climbing on a 2000ft alpine route with a longish approach/descent is missing the forest for the trees.

just a small detail: It was a Chouinard harness; the accident led to the employees buying the company and reforming as Black Diamond.

Wow, that tongue of rock in the middle of the snow traverse (pic 1) melted out a LOT in one week! Wonder what it looks like now. Nice pictures, especially pic 2. Thanks

We (FA party) graded Orgasmophoria 10a. The 10c grade on Smithrock.com was a mistake that we tried to correct, unfortunately the 10c seems to have stuck. Jeff F. wanted to grade it 5.9 but we convinced him it was 10a. Certainly not harder than the first pitch though.

The Bowling Alley is now entirely snow free, as is the southeast ridge. The Terrible Traverse is still under snow, it was about 250 feet across on firm corn snow. This was the only snow or ice on the route on 7/4/09.

Apparently, I have come off badly here. I don't think I usually present as a jerk and I'm not comfortable feeling that way, so I apologize for comments that led to this impression.

I've climbed in the PNW since the mid 90's. I worked for a decade as a climbing instructor and guide. You should be careful with such definitive statements about my sample size. If I have a random sample of 10 data points from a normally distributed population, the probability that all 10 are less than the mean is less than 1/1000. With 20, it is less than 1/1000000. You can argue that my sample is not sufficiently random but I don't think you can say it is too small. I made the offhand comment that 7 hours seemed slow as an average time. Perhaps it is, perhaps it's not. I'm not that committed to figure it out one way or another. What is much more interesting is why a couple of extremely fit, experienced guys took almost 2.5 times longer than me, a not especially fit over the hill guy, to climb North Sister and complete the traverse. And why are they so absolutely certain the North Ridge of South Sister is class 4? Come on guys, pony up and call my bet.

Happy to wager you or anyone else any amount over $250 that that ridge is class 2 by this definition: Class 1 Easy hiking - usually on a good trail. Class 2 More difficult hiking that may be off-trail. You may also have to put your hands down occasionally to keep your balance. May include easy snow climbs or hiking on talus/scree. Class 3 Scrambling or un-roped climbing. You must use your hands most of the time to hold the terrain or find your route. This may be caused by a combination of steepness and extreme terrain (large rocks or steep snow). Some Class 3 routes are better done with rope. Class 4 Climbing. Rope is often used on Class 4 routes because falls can be fatal. The terrain is often steep and dangerous. Some routes can be done without rope because the terrain is stable.

Hey! I never said the average time is 3 hours, just that 7 hours seems slow. (for an average) Here's what I'm thinking: Enough people climb North Sister that the times are roughly normally distributed. If 7 hours is the mean, then as many people take more than seven hours as take less than seven hours. Since I know many people who've climbed it, most taking fewer than 5 hours, a handful less than 3 hours, and none in more than 7 hours, I'm fairly certain that 7 hours is not the mean. Regarding Max King and party, they did the 3 Sisters plus Broken and Bachelor, which is 30+ miles and not really comparable. Bachelor (~2miles, 3K feet gain) is climbed in under 30 minutes after biking 20+ uphill miles from Bend. Granted, this is by uber athletes, who should have no problem summiting North (5.5 miles, 5K feet gain) in well under 2 hours. 3 hours is entirely reasonable for an experienced and fit but non uber climber. If your are questioning my honesty, I am happy to PM you references that will easily satisfy you.

Just looked at my notes. We were actually only a bit under 3 hrs not 2.5 hrs,from Pole Creek to summit of N when we did the traverse. Regardless, I doubt 7 hours is the average time.