nordicpunk

Nice work Kevin. No skate skis?!?!- just point em haha -Erik

University of Wyoming. Duh!

Most everything is in now for hyalite. some things in thin condition. all the grade 3/4 climbs close to the trailhead were done. also cleo's (not touching down), resposible family men, winter dance, Dribbles, Silken, Twin, Thrill is gone, Elevator shaft, fat one, and Mummy I-IV. probably some others too, but I can't remember.

yes there is! it is seldom reliable though. Some worth mentioning.. crater creek running off the broken top plateu has some good pitches. Early Bird WI2/3,Sins with Twins and Seldom Seen WI 4/5, right of sins with twins WI4 is very reliable- third pitch down from the top. The top one (Early Bird) is almost always in, the next two down are better though. I would ski upto the plateu from dutchman and then head down to try and find the highest pitch. It is hard to find (and I suspect im the only one who has found/climbed these) so you will probably need a quad topo of the area. the top most falls are close to a trail which should be shown on the map and originates at Green Lakes trailhead (not the falls creek trail). Sometimes there is too much snow to get to this place but it is awsome on a good year. All day ordeal too. Cougar bluff (on your right to Tumalo falls) has some mixed lines but I have never done them. I think they are to the right mostly. And there is topropabe stuff usually on the right of the falls. Also Cougar Slayer WI3/M2 is a fun, although thin and hard to protect, climb that is on the steepest right-hand part of the bluff by the Hoodoo ski area. Ice is hard to find around Bend but just keep exploring and you might find some more. (let me know if you do )

Well I have to agree just a little bit with jamin, but only with respect to alpinists and certainly not to an alpine newbie. I think it is easy to forget how we felt on our first mountain. The only person that I would lose respect for hiring a guide to get up a mountain is myself. why?- because I love the experience of doing it myself and have,over the years, grown into that mindset (that we probably all share). That being said, I remember my first alpine climb as 1/2 fun, 1/2 terrifying. A guide would have been nice. Ranier (DC) is an easy climb, but I climbed a lot of other alpine stuff first and felt confident when leading my own group up Rainier. since this will be your first real alpine ascent, you SHOULD have a guide ENS. You will learn sooo much, hopefully feel more comfortable about the climbing, and have a wonderful time! Maybe when you get a couple mountains under your belt, you will enjoy a trip sans guide. Good Luck- Rainier is a great climb.

Yes, I know people have climed the ice that sometimes forms up in the gullys on the (climber's) right hand side. I can't remember anything about the middle. seems like there were large chunks of ice forming on that part last year too but never linked up enough to be in my ability.(just a few free hanging pillars yikes!) just keep checking it out and it may go. ice is a fickle beast in Oregon. Sometimes ice will form along the sides of Tumalo that you can TR. Also- check out the Strawberrys. Best ice I found near Bend (~3hr drive).

panther- on the way to Bachelor. wanoga is the best for skating and can be awsome if you hit it when they goom (used to be wed????) and Virginia Meisner has excellent classic track skiing. Hoodoo has decent trails too. Also-still have to pay a little for the snowparks - you need a forest pass to park there ($3 day per car) which you can also snag at Pine Mtn. Sweet pics of Paulina. climbed there last season. takes a while for that ice to form but it can get much bigger on the (climber's) right flow.

yes- do lots of different exercises. however, I think the standard pull-up is the best one and should be an integral part of your training . The reason- 95% of the time you are doing a simple pull-up motion to move up the ice (unless you're doing hard mixed, then core strength and lock offs could help). increasing the range of motion in your exercises actually decreases the force of any one motion. and until you get to WI5-6 that motion is a pull-up (no swinging your body around on the way up! haha). I would definately stay away from those kips if you have shoulder problems (and maybe even if you don't). I don't know who invented these but it is just asking for rotator cuff trouble. keep your pull-ups a controlled motion. Also -thought the bit on training for certain expeditions was very interesting. would love to see more on that in TR's as well. the best training is to change your muscle type (as much as you can) to match the climb. Long climb? -drop that fast twitch, too inefficient. Want to be a stud at the crags? -work on the power.

"I think the point of training is so you eventually DONT ruin your climbing days by pumping out. To get ther though, in the process of training, you will have to "pump out" to make progress. High reps and little weight does not significantly increase strength." -dmuja -sorry I messed up the quote thing Strength is a very vague term. Be careful with the "heavy weight training." constant heavy lifting will lead to hypertrophy (muscle mass)- this is not your goal. You can add power with out adding mass by keeping the reps between 5-8 per set, ~3 sets. lower reps than this will be doing you no favors. Endurance lifting is fine but I would say thats where climbing comes in. Use climbing as a specific strength workout and focus your weight training around the 5-8 rep limit. Maybe add a circut workout once a week where you do 1 min of 20-30 exercises- no rest in between. Otherwise I think dmuja has very good points on what your training should look like.

JayB- I would recomend starting even earlier than we did to make it a little more safe. You can see from the fourth pic that there were spots with huge seracs AND crappy rock/ melty icicles. We tried to move quickly through these sections and looked for the best looking rock to hide out under to rest. There were small ice chunks and rocks coming down sporadically but nothing very big broke loose. The route is great but just know that once you start up the route you should be comitted to move fast and hard to get to the top (which is exhausting because of altitude and steepness). Also, there is a lot of rockfall below the icecliff and we approached well to the left of this.

Before I even read the other posts I was thinking the exact same thing as them. I did the the North face at the end of Aug last year and it was excellent! the sunshine route is straight foward and fun- it may be icy but is not very steep. Also BE SURE TO GET UP TO THE TOP EARLY. August storms roll in quick at about 11-12. If you are in good shape, then you could do both H2C and Hood. I disagree about the order that the others recomend however. I would do the climb first. rbw1966 is definitely right in that you may not feel like climbing a mountain after H2C, but you can easily do the H2C after climbing hood. IF YOU ARE IN GOOD RUNNING SHAPE- the H2C is easy. you only have to do 4-6 miles at a time. great plan though- I think you should go for it!

Yes Oleg- I am also wondering why more people don't do this route. I saw it in a guidebook and thought it looked cool, but was described as "prob. never climbed". and then people said you guys had 2nd ascent maybe. After climbing it- our group was a bit sceptical of all that. It just seems such an obvious line to the top. Granted, it was no cake walk, but it wasn't rediculous either and such a pleasing line. Grateful on anyone wanting to chime in on if this had been climbed before or if not- then why?? we are just curious about its history- don't really care about 3rd ascent, 4th, 200th, whatever... p.s. awsome TR Oleg, it got us all very excited for our trip! great pics too.

Climb: Mt. Rainier-Nisqually Ice Cleaver Date of Climb: 6/7/2006 Trip Report: Rolled out at 2:15am from Paradise Lodge. We were socked in and hiking in drizzle, but soon climbed up above the clouds. The mountain was clear and my earlier doubts about the weather vanished. We roped up just passed muir when we saw crevasses in the basin below the ice cliff. Our party was Myself, my buddy Eric and our good friend Mr. Peanut (Joey). We reached the ice cliff around 6 and decided to unrope before starting the steep climbing. The snow was wind-scoured in places and basically solid everywhere but soft in the center of the glacier. The conditions were very solid on the left, where we planned to take as direct a line as possable to the summit. (Red is Ascent route, Green is Descent) Saw the TR of the group a couple weeks ago and it looked awsome! We had already been planning this line and their report got me even more stoked! we went very similar except for continuing direct toward the summit where they exited right here. After pushing hard all morning, exhaustion was setting in fast as we trudged toward the summit ridge. We made it to the top just after 12. High winds and zero-visibility clouds soon joined us. We hunkerd down behind a small fin of rock to get out of the blasting wind. Eric boiled water while Joey and I nodded off onto our axes that were anchoring us into the mountain. After some discussion we decided to decend down the Gibralter Chute. The snow was questionable at the top of the chute, but we soon noticed that a skier had scraped away most of the bad snow in the chute. We felt a little safer and the downclimbing went very fast. It turned out to be an excellent descent route. We stumbled off down to paradise and made it back to the car around 7. About 17 hours CTC. We had a great (if exhausting) time and the route was excellent! Gear Notes: 2 pickets 4 screws rope (didn't use screws or pickets though)

Sorry, can't get those at Mtn. Supply... just everything else you could possibly want

Don't you mean "Freedom Technique"

Okay Matt- My guess is Petzoldt. I hope I win- I could use another night in your arms. And we will do Vedauwoo many times this summer. Oh yeah- And I did a new route yesterday near Bend on about 6- 10 cm. thick ice. friggin sweet!

Climb: Pictures for Strawberry mtns TR- Date of Climb: 3/15/2006 Trip Report: Sorry Im a cumputer idiot and couldnt get the pics on the origional TR so Im posting them here. also-there is a lot more ice than what you can see in the main picture of the falls.

Climb: Strawberry Mtns.-Strawberry Falls Date of Climb: 3/15/2006 Trip Report: Oregon ice can be an elusive beast and when someone actually finds some, its like pulling teeth to get anyone to tell you where it is. Well, Im officially calling BS on this practice and telling the whole dang world about a super fun weekend I had in the Strawberry mtns.(near John Day, OR) Headed in on Strawberry Campground rd. out of Prarie City. An earlier scouting trip resulted in our Subaru getting stuck in the snow. we came prepared with my 4Runner this time around. The great thing about SUVs is that you can drive in way further before you get stuck. so.. after a good warm-up of digging out the truck we grabbed our skis. (I recommend parking where the road begins to go uphill). It is about a 2-3 hour ski to Strawberrry falls. Luckily the skiing is very easy gradual uphill the whole way and you can cruise on the way out (~1 hr). You may want to add time to this estimate depending on the amount of new snow and your skiing skill. just to give reference to my skiing and climbing observations- if you are wondering if you are a better skier than me- your not...if you are wondering if you are a better climber- you're way better You can reach Strawberry Lake in 1.5-2hrs. There is a lot of cool (read: way too gnarly for me to climb) ice around the lake. There is a great looking ~2 pitch climb with lots of other short stuff. but beware of the avy danger if it has snowed a lot. everything is sitting in a bowl and warrants caution. After drooling over the ice at the lake, we continued up to strawberry falls. The trail is somewhat inconspicous when covered with snow. My advice is to follow the left shore line and cut gradually right as you head uphill at the end of the lake. You will hit the trail eventually and 30- 45min of skiing will bring you to the falls. We lost the trail off and on. future parties should not be overly concerned about this as we were. The small valley ends in a bowl that is hard to miss. The falls are very wide and nothing over one pitch. We climbed the obvious line in the middle ~100ft. There is a sweet line up the right side (much longer) if you want to traverse right over the punchbowl first. Other than that, there are lots of short top-rope problems, some with short mixed sections in them too! We had a great time running laps up the various lines. I would guess that the ice will be in until mid to late April depending on weather. There is also a ~6 pitch climb in the bowl beyond the falls. It looked bad ass- sorry I didn't grab a picture of it. Again- some avy danger so be wary. Would love to go back sometime with a better climber than myself to do it. Spent two days here, recommend camping at the lake. Skiing and climbing were both amazing. I know this report isn't that cool but I just wanted to give everyone some beta on super fun ice that will prob be in for a while yet. If anyone is wondering about lesser known ice in Oregon, I do not hold on to my secrets. (Having trouble with the pictures so hope to add them soon) Gear Notes: Standard ice rack. rock gear to 1" if you want to lead the cave at Strawberry falls. BC Skis- race crowns are sweet if the snow is solid enough

Matt how did you get to be so cool. If it were scientifically possable I would want to have your babies. Your trip looks badass- I will put up something about Oregon.

Yeah- we were headed to Canmore, but my climbing buddy got the plague, and we opted for a shorter trip after he got better. Anyway we did go to the strawberries and it was pretty sweet. maybe I'll get a TR up soon

Anybody know of ice climbs in the Strawberries?

I have the book- I just wanted to know if anything was in bofore I drove up- thanks though

My buddy and I are looking for good weekend of ice in Washington maybe? from Bend- new to the area, and looking for something fairly close. Is anything in at Baker area? Any advice for good climbs (WI3-4) greatly appreciated. Not afraid of 1-2hrs of ski approaches either, but want to spend most of our time climbing, not touring. thanks

Left a nut, quickdraw, sling and 4 biners at the top of a crack at Smith Rock. Alas my partner was not able to climb the route and I was too pumped to do it again to retrieve the anchor. I don't remember the name of the route but it will be obvious because you will be saying to yourself "what knucklehead left all this gear on the route?" pm me if you find it- thanks

If you enter on the Glacier Trail, you will want some sturdy boots instead of shoes. The trail is rough in spots and about 25miles to Wilson Meadows. it takes a toll on the feet. There are other ways in, of course, but this is the best route for the North face- which I recomend.