denalidevo

Monday's my only day off

Was hoping to climb Snow Creek wall on Monday - either Orbit or Outer Space. Weather looks good but no partner. I'm a solid, experienced 5.9 trad leader, willing to be rope gun. Give me a shout, I live in Everett.

Excellent condition. Red, size large. Primaloft synthetic insulation with a water-resistant Epic shell. Very warm. Perfect for cold belays and winter camping. Retails new for $270. My price: $150/OBO. Devin 425-330-0223

Sounds correct. The first two pitches as we did them followed easy, left leading features up to a large ledge. Did you start differently? The "sweet" dihedral isn't so sweet when wet and filled with snow

Climb: Liberty Bell-NW Face Date of Climb: 9/4/2005 Trip Report: Kurt and I drove to Washington Pass Saturday night and spent the night at Klipchuck campground. With the weather forecast as it was, we were planning to climb the Southwest Buttress on South Early Winters Spire Sunday, camp in Darrington that evening, and climb Dreamer on Green Giant Buttress on Monday. What really happened: Sunday, Sep. 4, woke up at 6:30 am, had breakfast, broke camp, drove to Blue Lake trailhead. Sorted gear (I had packed at the last minute and my gear was still in shambles from Torment). Read the route description for the Southwest Buttress and realized that we didn't have enough 4-5" cams to do the route... OK... so we decided to do the Northwest Face of Liberty Bell (II+, 5.8) instead. We finished packing and were on our way at 9:05 a.m. Upon hitting the climber's trail, I began to feel tired and shaky - not my usual self. I chocked it up to having not eaten much dinner the night before. Along the way I became disoriented and thought we had missed the turnoff to Liberty Bell and were on our way to South Early Winters Spire, so we wandered back down the trail where we met a couple of other climbers, also on their way up to climb the NW Face. We finally figured out we were on the correct path and made our way up the choss gully leading to LB and Concord Tower. It took us a while to locate the 4th class scramble to the ledges leading around to the north side of Liberty. As we made our way around to the base of the NW Face it began to snow - very small, light, dry flakes. It didn't last long and the clouds didn't appear too threatening: light grey and high with intermittent breaks of sunshine. We decided that if the weather held, we could climb. Rainbow over Washington Pass I led everything and made good progress on the first three pitches by combining pitches 1-2. Pitch 4 is where things got interesting. We had made the mistake of leaving our guidebook behind with our stash in the gully, so I was navigating by sight. The face in front of me looked to have several options and I headed for the first (leftmost) one. From the belay at the top of pitch 3, I scrambled about 50 feet over easy ground (no pro needed), past a large ledge, and up an easy blocky flake. From there it was obvious that I had hit a dead end; the rock above me was nowhere near 5.8, so I downclimbed back to the ledge and Kurt scrambled up, relocating the belay. My first retreat. I moved right to a lie-back flake leading to a promising crack above. The lie-back was a tad strenuous, but within the expected grade. Once atop the flake, I could see a red hex with an attached 'biner. At first I had thought it was a fixed piece, but I quickly realized someone had used it to bail. Upon closer examination, the crack above was good for only about 10 feet and then petered out into a shallow, flared, unprotectable scare-fest. I took advantage of the hex and - following my predecessor's example - lowered off. My second retreat. I went even further to the right and found the correct route: a somewhat scary series of overlapping flakes leading into a corner belay at the base of a dihedral. We had lost a good bit of time and energy by this point - issues that would come back to bite us later. I started up again, climbing past bongo flakes with dubious protection, and muscled my way through a strenuous lie-back crux fighting cold, numb hands the entire way. Very frustrating to place gear and manipulate the rope when you can't feel anything! I wasn't having much fun anymore - I just wanted to top out, return to the car and get something warm in me. Despite the difficulty and discomfort, we managed the pitch. Four down, one to go. Shortly after I began pitch 5, the weather worsened: a round of heavy sleet and hail dumped from the sky without warning and cascaded like a sno-cone river down the center crack, filling the holds with ice and transforming the walls on either side of the dihedral into vertical granite slip n' slides. The torrent was brief but debilitating: I was 20 feet up, cold and wet and unable to climb any further. At first, I tried aiding higher up to some better holds, thinking that if we made the summit the regular descent route would be the fastest and safest way down. But I was unable to make any headway; I didn't have the gear to aid even a short stretch. Finally, it started hailing and snowing again and I decided it most prudent to begin my third and final retreat. It took some time to work out a plan. I eventually slung a rap ring on a single #9 nut (booty scored on a previous climb) and Kurt lowered me down to the belay. We rapp'ed pitch 4 off two nuts and a prusik chord (all mine). The remaining two rappels were off existing slings. At the base of pitch 3, as we were preparing for our last rappel, big, wet snowflakes began to drop and quickly blanketed us. We were very wet, very cold and extremely miserable. It was all we could do to keep moving, thinking the whole time of a warm car, dinner and bed. Snow falls as I flake the rope for our last rappel. After making the base of the climb, we circled back around, rapp'ed the class 4 section to the gully, grabbed our remaining gear, and hiked down to the parking lot, arriving at 8:30 p.m. Then it was off to Lone Fir campground for a dinner of Miso soup and Green Curry Tofu stir-fry. We hit the sack about 11:30 p.m. Monday we were up at 8 a.m., left around 9 a.m., and home at 11:30 a.m. Gear Notes: Standard rack to 3", 8mm X 60M half ropes. Approach Notes: The choss gully approaching LB sucks!

We did the last two rap's in the dark, so didn't see evidence of a rope.

Climb: Mount Torment-South Ridge Date of Climb: 8/20/2005 Trip Report: This weekend I went to the North Cascades with Winslow Gregory Gerrish, his friend Shawn, and Kurt to attempt the Torment-Forbidden traverse. Friday night we slept at the Boston Basin trailhead. Shortly after arriving, Kurt noticed the left-rear tire on Greg's Subaru was flat, so Greg changed it out with the podunk wimpy spare. Saturday morning we hit the trail at 7:20 am and made base of the Taboo Glacier in 3 hours. Getting onto the glacier was a bit tricky, involving a 10-foot ice climb to the glacier proper. We then traversed the glacier to the hidden gully leading to the South Ridge Climb. Scrambling up the gully, Greg followed the wrong chimney and got stranded. Shawn eventually lowered a rope and he was able to climb the rest of the way to the notch at the base of the South Ridge. The route started right off with a few mid-5th moves; the rest was a mix of 4th, low 5th and 3rd class, with the occasional loose rock and scarce pro. Greg and Shawn led out; Kurt and I followed, simul-climbing most pitches on a 60M half rope doubled to 30M. We climbed cautiously and didn't move particularly fast. Difficulties in routefinding also slowed our progress. Greg and Shawn were a ways ahead but waited on a ledge just before the 3rd class section leading to the notch in the South Ridge. We continued on roped and, passing through the notch onto the South East face, found easy but insecure 3rd class climbing to summit. We summited around 6:30 pm. At this point, we realized we weren't going to make the bivy on the ridge before nightfall and decided to rap the SE face back to the Taboo and camp in the basin. We started our descent around 7 pm. Five raps (and over 3 hours) later, we reached the glacier well after dark, and spent another hour wandering around crevasses looking for an easy exit. We eventually found ourselves back at the same spot we had climbed onto the glacier Saturday morning. I downclimbed on belay, followed by Kurt and Shawn; Greg descended solo. After locating some (almost, but-not-quite) flat bivy spots on the slabs below the Taboo, we ate a quick dinner and fell asleep somewhere between 1:30 and 2 am. "Long day" doesn't describe it. Sunday we were up at 7 am and hiked back to Forbidden camp where we dumped our packs and scrambled up to a view of Sahale and Sharkfin tower. Then we left Boston Basin, arriving at the car at 11:30 am. On the ride out we stopped and had some awesome burgers at Marblemount Good Food. I was home by 4 pm. Gear Notes: Nuts, sm. - med. tricams, camalots .5-2, ice axe, second tool, crampons, 8mm X 60M half ropes. Approach Notes: Boston Basin, Taboo Glacier. The moat was still passable - necessary to traverse far right to cross the 'schrund and gain the upper snowfield. Then an easy traverse left to the hidden couloir. We rapped off the SE face into the moat, but were able to gain the upper snowfield with a little pendulum action. Not sure how much longer this approach will be doable. The Torment Basin side looked considerably better.

Strange, but true: We were camped next to you at 9000' on Rainier last weekend. That's wild! If I were climbing this weekend, I'd ask you where you're gonna' be, but I'll be at a family reunion.

Climb: Three O'Clock Rock-Total Soul Date of Climb: 8/6/2005 Trip Report: On Saturday David, Hunter, Kurt and I went to Darrington to climb Total Soul (5.10b). For Hunter and Kurt, this would be their first attempt; for me and Dave, our second this summer. We got an early start and were on the rock by 9 am. Kurt and I took the lead; David and Hunter followed. Kurt and I had finished the first five pitches, and I was about half way up the sixth (5.10b), when David took a tumbling leader fall below on pitch five (also 5.10b) and rolled his ankle in a bad way. At that point, all that mattered was getting David off the rock and down the trail to the car. First we had to figure out how to get down. We needed both ropes to rappel but were separated by an entire pitch, so we quickly devised a plan that would get us into position to rappel. Since David was in no shape to continue, Hunter had to finish leading pitch five. Second, I had to finish pitch six and rap down to Hunter and Kurt. But in order to rap down the 150 feet, I would need both ropes. So Hunter lowered Dave, led pitch five and tied his rope to mine (which I had lowered to Kurt after finishing pitch six). I then pulled up the second rope and rapped. All this time, Dave was anchored to the belay at the top of pitch four. Then Kurt, Hunter and I began a series of three double rappels, picking up David along the way. Thankfully, David was able to rappel on his own, though it looked uncomfortable. On the ground, Kurt taped David's ankle in a manner that allowed him to walk with the assistance of a big stick Hunter found. It was slow going, but David was determined. After an hour of hiking and hobbling, we reached the truck and celebrated with a few cold drinks and munchies. Considering the circumstances, David seemed to be faring well, but that might have been largely due to the 1,000 mg of Ibuprofen he had taken. After driving to the Darrington IGA where we I had left my car, Kurt, Dave and Hunter continued on home and I went north to spend the rest of the weekend in the North Cascades. We were all disappointed with the way things turned out, but were very happy at our good fortune; it could have been a lot worse. Gear Notes: Two 60M ropes, standard racks to 3", quickdraws and a few alpine draws.

Climb: South Early Winters Spire/Liberty Bell-South Arete/Beckey Route Date of Climb: 8/7/2005 Trip Report: I spent Saturday night at Lone Fir campground in the North Cascades, having come from climbing with Dave, Kurt and Hunter in Darrington. Being alone, I was hoping to hook up with someone to climb somewhere in Washington Pass. With that in mind, I was up at 6:30 am, had some breakfast and coffee, broke camp, and was on the road to Blue Lake trailhead by 7:30. The parking lot was fairly empty at that early hour, but I did speak to a couple heading up to climb the Southwest Buttress on South Early Winters Spire (5.8). I followed shortly after them and hiked to the base of the South Arete on South Early Winters. At 5.4, with a lot of 3rd and 4th class scrambling, I figured that if I wasn't able to meet up with someone, I could solo this moderate and enjoyable route. South Early Winters: South Arete (5.4) At the base I ran into a Mountaineer's Basic Rock Climb outing. I said hello and found out there was another soloist preparing to ascend the route in front of them. So I introduced myself and asked if he would like to climb together. He agreed and that's how I met Ron, an Irishman living in Vancouver, BC. The hardest move of the route was at the bottom - an exposed friction slab move about 12 feet up - and we decided that it was best to belay Ron over this section. Once past the crux, we soloed the rest of the climb up through a chimney and over a mix of blocky rock, sandy ledges and a short, exposed ridge to the summit, 7,807 feet. We spent a good amount of time exploring the summit, taking pictures, enjoying the wonderful view, and talking about our climbing experiences. For the descent, we downclimbed the route (maneuvering around the Mountaineers, who had only made it as far as the second pitch), and rapped the last 12 feet to the ground. We had moved quickly; it was only 11:30 am. I told Ron that I was going to head over to Liberty Bell to climb the Beckey Route (5.6). He had initially planned to leave after climbing South Early Winters and get home early, but as we hiked down and I described the route, he changed his mind and decided to join me. Liberty Bell: Beckey Route (5.6) The Beckey route, per usual, was busy. It is the most popular climb in the area, perhaps even Washington State. We soloed the 5.0 chimney on the first pitch, bypassing a couple climbing on the nearby face. The second pitch was a flared chimney with numerous chockstones rated at 5.5. I remembered this as being rather insecure despite the moderate technique and chose to go on belay. We doubled up Ron's 60M half rope to 30M and I started up. This was a short pitch and I reached the belay with just enough rope to anchor off. There we met a young couple guided by North Cascades Mountain Guides and we waited while they climbed ahead. Once they were up, we simul-climbed pitch three with Ron on lead and then soloed the remaining bit to the summit at 7,720 feet. More pictures and conversation followed; then we descended via the south face rap route. We made the trailhead by 3pm - a day of enjoyable and efficient climbing. Ron and I shared a chilled porter and munchies and talked about climbing together again in the future. I gave him my contact info and we went our separate ways. Gear Notes: 60M half rope, nuts, chocks, Camalots #0.5-2 (on Beckey Route)

What kind of protection would you recommend for the ice/snow traverse?

I'm contemplating doing the Torment-Forbidden traverse in early August. Does anyone know what the condition of the ice traverse? Is it worth doing if it's out, or would the resulting scramble be too heinious?