Alpine_Dreamer

While scrambling around in the rain last Sunday I left a Grivel 360 mid-size screw (black handled) amongst the Coleman seracs. It's got lovely pink nail polish to ID it. If you happen to find it, good karma and a six pack of quality beer will come your way should you choose to return it to me. Thanks!

I watched someone climb it a couple weeks ago, and I believe they were throwing in pro on the right side in cracks ~ 2-3 feet from the chimney? I'm blowin' smoke though, since I didn't get on it myself. Midway was enough chimney for me that day. . . .

I'm already on the ropes w/ wifey - my rack would be a smoldering heap in the back yard if I use that line. Offsets are on the list, for sure . . .

Wow, Dan Jaffe (one of the FA's) will be happy! He was wondering earlier this summer if anyone had repeated it - it's a bit obscure. Beautiful area - nice job!

I'm sure it woulda held fine if it hadn't been tied off, but since it was, it took an ~10ft (I fell 5 feet to it, then another 5 past it) factor 2 fall - no dynamic stretch from all the rope below, no easy catch from a belayer, penalty slack, etc. Plus it was set shallow in a pin scar, not deep in a crack. It still works, but was pretty mangled. . . .

Climb: Index-City Park (gumby goes aiding) Date of Climb: 9/25/2005 Trip Report: I realize writing a TR about a one pitch climb is pretty lame. Moreover, my first aid and solo climbing experience is somewhat embarrassing to share, since it was the biggest fawking epic I've ever had on a single pitch. I share it mainly because other hacks like me who are thinking about trying aid may learn from my mistakes. Over the past year I’ve slowly been accumulating the gear and motivation to try aid climbing. I have no plans or desire to climb a “big wall”, but there are lots of great free routes out there that, with a bit of aid, I could manage to crawl up. I’ve also been thinking about giving a go at roped solo climbing for a while. Since I usually get permission to climb at the last minute and for odd hours (like “can you be back by noon?” on a weekend morning), it’s often hard to get partners excited to come along. I was thinking about this dilemma a week ago when I noticed MattG selling a used Silent Partner for cheap. I immediately jumped on it! For my first experiment I thought I’d try City Park at Index, often recommended as a great beginner aid climb. I was supposed to be home by noon, so I left Seattle at 6am – ugh! I began climbing around quarter to 9 after setting up my anchor, triple checking the system and gear, etc. It starts off w/ a bolt ladder, which is awesome for getting the feel for moving w/ aiders (and also gave me a chance to back up my anchor w/ clove hitches on a couple solid bolts). Then it was into the crack. I started off hugely puckered, because it's seemed to be mostly pin scars so the pro is not "bomber" by my normal trad standards (I know, it’s C1 and I suck). I slowly got the hang of it, and to stretch out my gear I used cam hooks between placements. The cam hooks worked great, though my heart rate picked up a bit when one that I thought was solid shifted on me. They'd work AWESOME in a laser cut thin crack, but City Park is fairly flaring from all the pin scars. Anyway, I was moving along okay, watching a party climbing the classic “Godzilla” just to my right, and digging the beautiful day. As I neared the end of the pitch I noticed that the weight of the rope below me was pulling slack through the Silent Partner. The instructions warn of this, and tell you to tie off periodically to a piece of pro to reduce the weight of the rope pulling down on the Partner. I was a little worried about doing it since it'd reduce the dynamic effect of having the full rope out, but I went ahead and clove hitched a green alien. I shoulda thrown in something right above it, but I was running out of small gear (I had 2 sets of BD nuts – triples of 4-7 would’ve been nice) so I cam hooked up a bit higher and placed a blue alien (smallest alien I've got). At this point I was less than 10 feet from the end of the challenging part of the pitch, and about 20 feet from the anchors. The blue alien placement sucked by normal standards, but I tested it and it seemed good. Sure enough, shortly after I moved up on it, it popped. I then factor-2'd on the green alien since it was clove hitched, and that popped too. When it was over, I'd fallen about 20-30 feet, and stopped upside down w/ a foot caught in one of my backup loops. It was a clean fall, so I was okay aside from huge blisters on my right hand from grabbing a rope as I fell. I plan to erect a shrine to the orange TCU that stopped my fall. After cleaning out my pants, I took a long while to get my nerves together and reorganize. I got a backup belay for a few minutes from none other than Mike Massey who happened to be at the anchors at the top of the pitch (shared w/ Godzilla, which he'd just floated up) while I got my head back on. I finally sacked up and finished the pitch, more sketched than I've ever been. I'd planned to head over to Toxic Shock to try some moderate routes on lead w/ the Silent Partner, but that plan was out the window. I'll go back and try the Partner for solo leading sometime, but I need to let my mind settle a bit first. Man, I'm a jackass! But I learned a few good things yesterday about marginal placements, aid and solo technique. And eventually I'll try City Park again and climb it w/ no falls. . . . If you’re an ubergumby like me and want to try clean aid, you may want to start off on a vertical ~.11 crack somewhere (preferably on a weekday, cause you’ll probably be slow). If you’re using a Silent Partner, I wouldn’t recommend tying off to anything beyond your anchor (other than a bomber bolt). You could tie off occasionally w/ prussiks on <1mm cord that would snap if loaded, but that sounds like a pain in the ass to me. Good luck! Anchor note: As mentioned in other City Park threads, the boulder at the base has two bolts w/ nuts, no hangers. I have no hangers, so I wrapped webbing around the boulder. Gear Notes: Way too much gear >1” Too little gear <1” (for my weak self) 2x60m ropes – trailed 1 to rap off. Approach Notes: Um, none

That looks fun! Glad to see you're avoiding the full-on atrophy. E-mail me if you think you'd have a day to climb when you're back in town - I'd take a day off fer sure. Remember to bring back the ice screws . . . it's starting to get cooler here!

I did the N. Face of Vesper w/ Happy Camper a couple weeks ago - fun day climb! Due to crap visibility, it was more of an adventure than I was expecting. Downclimbing to the glacier does get you a few more pitches of climbing on fairly decent rock - I thought it was well worth it. Definitely hope to go back again in better weather . . .

Partner found

C'mon people, help a brother out! Don't make me set up an uber-cluster roped solo rig on GNS or Aries. I could be tied up for hours on Godzilla! I'm sure the spray/recounting of the scene could make entertaining reading next week, though . . .

Anyone want to climb some moderate routes at Index Saturday am? I need to be back to Seattle by around 3-4. I don't mind driving. PM if interested . . .

Thanks for the beta!

Anyone have recent info on the condition of the gully leading to the w. ridge notch? I'm thinking about attempting the ridge as a day trip soon (w/ aluminum poons & a light axe), and I'd be shut down quick if there's any ice or mixed climbing to deal w/.

Wow, beautiful pics! Nice job on the climb, too. What's the peak just to the left of Buckner in the 2nd picture? Now I really need to get up there - thanks for the stoke!

Nice job! I'm thinking about doing that route in a few weeks. Can you take a wild guess how much time would have been added to your climb w/o the snow bridges?

Not sure - we thought we were racking up to start Sisyphus when a couple very nice locals (Rick and Missy) showed up and said the route was "Methow Buttress" and rated .9 or so. Doh! It started on a buttress w/ a old dead snag and a live somewhat large pine. We later found the start of Sisyphus, and the route we did was maybe 300-500 yards to the lookers right.

Climb: North Early Winter Spire-NW Corner Date of Climb: 7/9/2005 Trip Report: WARNING!! WARNING!! Long-winded, gumby TR with no pictures (partner had camera) ahead! Continue at your own risk!! (I'll add pictures later if/when I get them). Dan and I had planned for a weekend of climbing on the beautiful granite of WA pass. Because I’d actually planned in advance for this trip, the weather forecast began to look bleak as the weekend approached – 20-50% chance of measurable showers . But I had a signed permission slip, so I couldn’t let reason get in my way. Since the weather didn’t sound promising, we opted for a slacker start from Seattle. As we drove, the scattered clouds along I-5 turned to constant drizzle around Newhalem. Ugh! But the rain shadow effect finally kicked in about 10 miles before WA Pass, so it was dry and partly cloudy when we finally pulled into the Blue Lake trailhead a bit before 11. Right on! For day 1 we decided to go for the NW Corner of N. Early Winter Spire. A couple years earlier, after my first multi-pitch climb (N. Face of Concord), I watched climbers on the route and dreamed (nightmared?) of climbing the 80’ off-width crack that runs up to and under a huge roof. Dan was appalled by the big wall/aid-style rack I assembled for the climb, so we pared it down a bit. I begged to bring 3 large (3-4”) pieces and, sick of my whining, Dan agreed. The approach was a piece of cake (even lugging boat anchors), and the view of the spires is amazing. We saw a large guided group starting up the Liberty Bell – Beckey route, some folks on SEWS, but no one on NEWS. Sweet. I drew the first pitch, a nice meandering warm-up. Good thing, cause my fingers were freakin’ cold. Between the wind and overcast, it was a lot cooler than we’d expected. The third pitch was when the fun began. I thrutched up a short, but very wide and questionably protected off-width, followed by nice cracks, then an exceptional exposed (but with good pro) undercling/lieback flake traverse, finishing with cracks to a small belay ledge at the base of the off-width to roof pitch. This pitch made the climb for me! Dan groveled up the fourth pitch. I think he was glad to have brought the big gear. It was secure climbing (just shove a foot, calf, or knee in to rest), but upward progress was slow. Dan couldn’t find a good belay under the roof, and it was a bit wet there anyway, so he continued around the roof until he ran out of gear. He wasn’t thrilled with his anchor, but lacking quality went for quantity – lots of marginal nuts. I chose not to look at it. The fifth pitch, which goes over a small “roof”, was short but fun. Dan finished up the route w/ the long moderate jog to the summit. One rope was fine for the descent. There’s a lot of loose rock, so keeping the raps to <30m probably helps dislodge less anyhow. The giant chockstone rap made for some great glamour shots. I'll bring a boa next time . . . In hindsight I was bummed that we hadn’t rushed up to start climbing sooner; we almost had enough time for another quick moderate route, but opted to head for beers in the car instead. We had ambitious (for me) plans of attempting the E. Buttress of SEWS on Sunday, but on the hike out we got a weather update from a Mountain Madness guide – 70% chance of rain. We drove down to Lone Fir Campground to consider our options. The E. Buttress would be a long day for us, and getting caught on the route in rain seemed like epic-o-rama. So instead we opted for more beers, sleeping in, and a recon of Mazama climbing. I’d brought a topo of a long bolted route on Goat Wall (Sisyphus), but we ended up bungling the approach and climbing a fun 4-pitch route (Methow Buttress). We got a bit of rain, but it was warm and the views from the wall were beautiful. The wine spires and WA Pass were completely socked in, so we were definitely glad we’d bailed on the E. Buttress. We finished up w/ a quick trip to the nearby Fun Rock area. It was nothing spectacular (a bit chossy for my taste), but a great place to try if you’re rained off the Pass. Dan then met his family for a few more days of camping, and I hit Hwy 20 for the ride home. Gear Notes: Our gear list for NW Corner: -1 60m rope -1 set of nuts -Lots of cams: doubles from tips to 4” -Cordelette (didn’t use – rescue/bail material) and webolette (used but could do without) -4 draws, 8 single runners and 1 double Approach Notes: Easy, lots of goat guano.

Nice job - sounds like a fun (?) adventure! And way to hang it out there for a newbie climber. I know I owe a lot to folks who took a chance climbing with me early on . . .

Thanks for posting the TR, Jay. Unfortunately there aren't any pics that capture the 4-5 hours during which things unraveled for us - the rain, snow, billowing dark clouds, water engulfed cracks, and failed attempts to climb cracks that (at a crag) would've been moderate but crushed us in our packed-booted-dehydrated-sketched state. Next time I'm gonna try to be more consistent w/ the photography Mercifully the storm blew over, so at least we didn't get soaked during our bivy below the false summit . . . I'm bummed Jay's moving - he's been an awesome climbing partner.

Rumr's right, but sounds like you're looking for a general area recommendation. Tieton might work for ya - vertical columns w/ rock less chossy than Vantage.

Really, it's great that you all can climb weekdays. Anyone out there interested in the same schedule TOMORROW? I gotta get back to Seattle by 2-3 . . .

I usually use an overhand rather than a figure 8 to tie off the cordellette - takes less webbing. The only downside I can think of is it might be harder to untie after a hard fall, but it's yet to be a problem for me (maybe cause I'm using spectra so it slides easier?). Are there other reasons to not use the overhand?

Sweet! I'll give you a call, James. Your route ideas sound good - I've spent all of a day at Smith, so I'm open to anything. Mark

I'm heading to Bend for a family ski trip at the end of March. Unless there's some serious snow dumpage b/w now and then (yeah, right), I'm not really interested in skiing the whole week. Sooo, I'm hoping there's someone out there interested in hooking up to climb at Smith for a day or two. I'd love to do some moderate (.7-.9 - more if you can lead it) multi-pitch trad, but bolts are good too. Post or PM. Or I can wander around offering beer/bowls for a belay . . .

Thanks to Marcus at the Seattle REI, I picked up their last 4.5. W/ spousal employee discount, got it for like $25. I was eyeing the Big Bros, though - wondering how tough they are to place. Sure look to be a lot lighter for similar size range . . . .