Chriznitch

Trip: Borah Peak - SW Ridge Date: 5/16/2008 Trip Report: Borah Peak (aka Mount Borah) during the drive to the trailhead While on a work trip to western Montana, I took a couple days off and drove down into Idaho to climb Borah Peak. Conditions called for no precip, but little did I know that meant a heatwave would be hitting the western US! This summit is the highest point in Idaho (12,662'), and interestingly enough grew 7' during a 1983 earthquake. I solo'd the southwest ridge route on May 16th 2008. The trailhead was deserted, offering a quiet and peaceful place to set up basecamp for a couple nights. I enjoyed the solitude and got a start on things around dusk, after a warm night. Following the climbers' trail to snowline, I made pretty good time moving through the forested portion of the climb. Gaining the horseshoe-shaped ridge (reference photo above) that marks the "southwest ridge" and leads to the summit. I had been sweating pretty good wearing pants and a long sleeve tee, but figured that things would cool when I reached the snow. I donned my fleece gloves briefly, but once the sunshine hit me it was hot for the rest of the day. Along the ridge, the views of the Lost River Range peaks to the south were pretty impressive. I negotiated "Chicken Out Ridge", which was pretty straighforward in the morning with firm snow. Great views continued, with some enjoyable exposure along snow aretes and snow saddles. looking up at "chicken out ridge" looking down onto my tracks along "chicken out ridge" The ridge continued all the way to the summit, and as the temperatures warmed I noticed the snow was quickly softening in the sun. final ridge to the summit looking south at some cool geology I summitted and sat there for a while, soaking up the sun and watching cornices break off around me. With the avalanches rumbling around I figured it was time to get past the ridge to firmer ground. I snapped a panorama and headed down. I found the downclimbing much more tedious, with my crampons constantly balling up with snow and the snow ridge conditions becoming poor. Taking my time, I finally re-traversed the ridge and reached the thawed lower portion of the climbers' trail. I descended through the woods and began to think about getting back to the trailhead for more water, Bayern brew, and dinner! I reached base camp with plenty of light left in the day, so I hid in the shade and enjoyed having the place to myself. The prairie dogs and birds kept me company. Having a professional interest in forest roads, it was quite intriguing that the PD's had many burroughs built right into the compacted roadway around the trailhead. All in all, this was a very interesting trip. I definitely recommend this area for mountaineering (in colder conditions), and based on the amount of people I saw (zero), I would guess that nearly every peak besides Borah offers guaranteed solitude. Someday I might return! I definitely saw some attractive couloirs and ridges on the adjacent peaks... Gear Notes: economy rental car, ice axe, crampons, sunglasses!, sunscreen!, water!, hat! ...and I didn't even think to bring shorts (doh!) Approach Notes: just follow the climbers' trail from the trailhead to chickenout ridge, then follow the ridge to the summit

CA-89 is plowed into both ends of the park, roughly 1.5 miles from the north and 5 miles from the south. The winter trailheads are basically the parking areas near visitor centers at each boundary.

Trip: Lassen Peak - NW Ridge Date: 3/30/2008 Trip Report: Lassen from Lake Almanor, a week and a storm before the climb After a few years of thinking about this peak in winter, and at least 2 aborted attempts, my friend Chad and I finally climbed it. So what if it was officially early spring... We climbed the Northwest Ridge in a day from Manzanita Lake. On the drive over the hill, everything had a fresh snow cover as we neared the park, which added to the scenery. The approach is basic--follow the east fork of Manzanita Creek and Chaos Crags will steer you right toward the NW ridge. As we hiked through the trees, I thought about how warm things felt. This feeling would soon go away, as a biting chill set in as we climbed above timberline. This is a pretty straightforward route that is recommended only when snow covered. There was some frozen talus exposed on the route, but we were able to avoid this on the ascent by following the snow on the north face. We did encounter a couple hundred feet of 40deg snow and some 3rd class moves on the crater ridge traverse over to the true summit. After topping out at the summit plateau area, the traverse over to the south side of the peak and the summit is beautiful & spectacular. We also passed quite a few fumeroles on the ridge and around the summit. As we rounded the ridge we finally got our first looks at the summit, a hill atop the plateau: We topped out in a cloud so the views were limited to the south, but it was still a decent day for climbing. We had to snap a shot of the summit symbol: As we neared the truck later that afternoon, we also neared the civilization of the north park entrance. Gear Notes: snowshoes & poles, ice ax, crampons, balaclava Approach Notes: head straight towards the peak, southwest from the parking lot at Manzanita Lake (visitor center). Head for the easternmost fork of Manzanita creek (west of Chaos Crags), this will lead you straight to the ridge.

that's a big wombat

Brad is planning another Aconcagua expedition for 2008-2009. I joined his 2006 team and climbed the Polish glacier direct . It was a great trip. If you're looking for an unguided, relatively cheap, laid back expedition where you can climb independently, this may be the ticket .

for an easy, longer climb I recommend 'old original'. It traverses the top of machete ridge (visible from east entrance) . Basically a sidewalk in the sky with a couple mid 5th class moves and a few rappels.

schweet

Trip: grey times on Mt Robson Date: 8/17/2007 thru 8/23/07 Trip Report: I recently took a trip up to British Columbia to attempt Mt Robson. I met my friends Brad (Ontario) and Mark (Colorado) in Calgary, and we drove the awesome roads through Banff and Jasper up to Valemount. Hoping to maximize our chances, we decided to "cheat" and heli in to the dome to be in place for an attempt on either the Kain Face or the North Face. Unfortunately, we were off schedule with the weather patterns. We ended up flying in at the end of a high pressure zone and then escaped at the beginning of the next one. Although the weather forecast said 30% chance of showers, that translates to whiteout, soggy, & winter conditions on the Dome. In total we spent 5 nights below the Kain Face waiting for the weather, and had plenty of time to think and read. The precip was mainly snowy drizzle with occassional wind gusts. After 3 days of storm we had over a foot of fresh, heavy snow. We actually made an early attempt to descend. We packed up everything, roped up, and began down the upper glacier. Not long after pushing through minimal visibility, Mark dropped into a hidden crevasse up to his waist and we decided to return for another night on the Dome. We actually slept better that night after repacking the snow pads for our tents. Finally, the next morning dawned with some visibility and we descended for good. We traversed the ridge towards Mt Resplendent and then moved down the Robson Glacier from the Resplendent-Robson col. After trying a few other traversing routes we successfully descended the glacier negotiating the lowest point in the cirque. There were a couple thinning snowbridges here but things were passable without too much zigzagging. After a long day and evening getting to Berg Lake, the next morning dawned clear as the amazing summit teased us in our camp. The views from the rest of the trail out definitely inspired me to mentally obligate a return trip in the future. Incredible area! Lesson learned: -wait for a "sure thing" high pressure zone before heading in to the upper camp for a summit attempt Pictures: elk driveby near Banff view of Robson before the flight in ready for the flight getting a look at the summit flying over the camp on the dome. Thanks to the previous group for the tent spots. trading spots with a guided group on the Dome farewell to the helicopter looking over to Mt Resplendent early in the storm first rap along the ridge Brad descending the ridge downclimbing the ridge, making progress with temporary views lower glacier panorama awesome, clear views from camp near Berg Lake this is why I will return beautiful Lake Louise Columbia icefield snow bus Gear Notes: Great test of soggyness for my marmot helium eq down sleeping bag. It passed with flying colors. Approach Notes: according to the BC parks ranger, flying in to the Dome is cheating. She said you must have at least 3000' of gain to claim an ascent.

sick dudes

sweet climb. thanks for the pics.

"the consequence of climbing molten rock"

great pics. That last one is cheesy though

I think it was around 0deg F at camp2, which wasn't too bad when not windy. I brought an alaskan sleeping bag, which was overkill, and I didn't zip it up the whole trip. As for sleeping, it just depended on the individual. I felt pretty good and acclimatized well, so sleeping was pretty normal. Another key was the food. Mark and I brought way more food than everyone else (like 20lbs more than the other pairs), but this seemed to pay off. We ate a lot and stayed pretty strong, not losing much weight at all. The only downfall to this strategy was the significant blue-bag cargo we had to haul back to base camp

the Croft book is good, as is the 4-book eastern Sierra climbing series (it's book #4). Moynie & Fiddler's Sierra Classics is now a differently titled Falcon Guide, and it looks like they've added more routes to the 2nd version. Climbing Californias Fourteeners is a nearly complete guide to the 14ers, and Moser's trio published by chockstone press covers lots of climbs in the southern sierras.

cool. Looks like you covered some ground

hey thanks for the comments. We were in the country 21 days, and hiking/climbing for 16 of those. Although most days involved 3000' gains, we averaged 1000' per day, which worked well.

Trip: Cerro Aconcagua (22841 ft / 6962 m) - Polish Glacier direct Date: 1/5/2007 Trip Report: Last year I got the itch to climb a big mountain. Thinking about where to go, last spring I saw Brad Marshall's post here on cc.com looking for teammates for a 2006-2007 expedition. He was offering to do all the logistics planning, from airport-airport. Not knowing Argentina or the mountain at all, I signed up. Brad's trip report is here It was also appealing that this wasn't a guided trip, so after base camp we would be on our own. And it was affordable =). The Polish Glacier direct route looked good, offering some moderate glacier climbing at altitude, with an easy descent route. So, I teamed up with Mark Hinton from Colorado. We had previously met once on a training climb of the Rio Grande Pyramid in Nov. We seemed to get along good, so what the heck? Arriving in Mendoza just before Christmas, I met my 9 teammates: Mark, Brad, Sue, Hakno, Lyle, Rob, Dana, Alan, and Jim. 4 Canadians and 6 Americans. We enjoyed the culture of Argentina while prepping for the climb. Finally, on Dec 26, we started our approach hike up the Vacas Valley: We passed many frustrated people glad to be leaving. They shared stories of high winds & shredded tents, and all were leaving without getting to the summit. My friend Erik later told me this was called "La escoba de dios", or "the broom of God". Luckily this passed before we arrived. The end of the 2nd day, we got our first views of the peak. Looking up some 12000', it was most impressive: Eventually, we turned up the narrow Relinchos Valley and made the last few miles to base camp (called Plaza Argentina), just under 14k: Here began the hard work, and after a rest day we began hauling our gear up the mountain and continued acclimatizing. The route up to camp1 was interesting, and featured multiple sections of penitentes: Finally, we were staged at camp2 and took another rest day. Although we had a small snowstorm (couple inches of snow), our first potential summit day, Jan5, had a good forecast and we were excited. Camp2 offered by far the best views we had seen: By this time, we were getting used to tent life. We used Mark's EV2, which was pretty comfortable for me, considering that I am 6'2": We scouted out the lower glacier the day before our climb: photo courtesy of Mark Hinton Finally, the day had come. After a quick breakfast, we headed out by headlamp around 0430. There were electric storms coating the valleys below us, but it was clear above 20k. By about 10am, clouds started rolling in. Luckily there was little wind, and enough breaks in visibility to occassionally spot our next landmarks for climbing the route: Most of the glacier was snow (of various conditions and quality), and so the going was pretty straighforward. We simul-climbed, placing pickets and moving pretty well. The route steepens as you progress, and the crux was the 2nd rock band. This featured the only ice on the route, and was pretty fun to climb. After this, the only obstacle is the last, steep (>50deg) snowdome to reach the summit plateau. This seemed to go on forever, but finally we topped out. Visibility was poor, so I pulled out my gps. Unfortunately, it said the summit was about 1/3 mile away and 400' higher. Turns out this was a pretty easy hike, and the summit is actually a small hill on the plateau. Amazingly, the deep snow simply disappeared as we climbed the last 200', and from the top the descent trail (normal route) was obvious. We descended back to camp2 in about 3 hours, moving pretty slow (but steady), and crashed hard. The next day another snowstorm moved through and dropped maybe 4" of snow. After a rest day at 19400', we loaded up everything (= heavy packs), and headed back to the comforts of base camp: At base camp, I celebrated my birthday and enjoyed some beer, pizza, and parilla (bbq). I ended up selling my boots, rope, ice screws, runners, and summit pack to some guides who had lost their gear in a mule accident. I got more money than I would've on ebay, and they got a good deal since climbing gear is so expensive in Argentina. Mark and I had been the first from our expedition to summit, so we waited and eventually the rest of the team descended to base camp. All in all, 5 of 10 made the summit. The other 3 climbed the Polish Traverse route that we descended. Unfortunately, 1 of our teammates was earlier flown down from base camp due to being very sick, but by the time we made it to Mendoza he had recovered and gone to Buenos Aires to party. The hike out was scenic but long! We were all pretty excited about showers, wine, and good food. Prior to the 20 hours of travel back to the US, we went wine tasting and enjoyed some of Mendoza's finest: Uno mas, por favor: Looking back, it was a great trip. Mark was a great ropemate. Brad's planning efforts gave everyone a good shot at the summit. Everyone on the team was nice and all provided their own contributions to a fun adventure. Our schedule had great weather overall, and being there over the holidays meant few people on the mountain. I recommend the Polish Glacier direct for those with experience on moderate snow & ice looking to push themselves on a bigger mountain. Gear Notes: ice axe + ice tool, 60m 1/2 rope, pickets, couple ice screws, strong tent, mules Approach Notes: Vacas Valley - Relinchos Valley - Plaza Argentina - Ameghino Col - Polish Glacier

yeah--that's a typo. They are under 4 lbs, which is pretty good. So, Nate, what do you think of the Evo Ice? Pretty warm?

anyone tried these yet? I am looking for a versatile boot warm enough for Rainier-type conditions. They are much lighter than the Nepal Evo's (3lbs 12 oz vs. 4lbs 9oz)

nice pics Mike. as for this: no offense to the families, my heart goes out to them. But seriously, I don't think any of the guys would want their actions to result in cascadeclimbers.com becoming a G-rated site where climbers can't analyze cause moms are reading.

after rereading everything, it sounds like tracks approached the newton-clark headwall and then backtracked towards the cave. It sounds as if the "gullies" are actually the major right and left gullies of the north face.

the first thought I had after reading about the possibly cut rope--it was due to iced up knots and/or cold hands

There are several black spider routes through that face, and most are connected to gullies. photo courtesy of shredmaximus:

i've heard they excel at higher elevations