sweatinoutliquor

Just wanted to join the masses and say a big congrats to you and Shirley and the rest of your team... Your adventures and trip reports are always a pleasure to read!

Well done guys!

Nice work guys... I hadn't realized that lassen was such a neat looking mountain. Good route you picked, looks like it made it wintery conditions, which I can imagine is better than summer!

Gotcha... Sorry, I haven't heard of anyone doing it that way. If you start at S. Sister and work your way north, the technical difficult will become incrementally harder with each summit. The route from the top of middle, down the N. ridge to the saddle, and back up the S. ridge of North is pretty clear when you are there. Technical difficulty on the ridges is pretty low, although the scree can make it a pain in the ass. Once you get to the part of north sister where you have to traverse around the camel's hump you will start to get a taste of the exposure on this part of the route, and I would suspect that from this point to the summit, a fall from any point would be a long one. The terrible traverse is indeed terrible, and although I have never done it in the summer, I never wish to either (search for some TR's in the "Oregon" forum for photos). People do solo N. sister, but they are generally pretty experienced and I think it's pretty common for them to rap from directly below the summit down the "bowling alley" pitch, even in the summer time. Like I said, if you approach the route from the south you will be gradually stepping up the difficulty, but you will also be insuring that you have a great and memorable trip (the top of south sister alone is quite beautiful). I second the recommendation that you should consider including broken top, rather than reversing your route. Why climb the same stuff again when you can knock off another one!? Good luck and be safe out there.

You can run, but you can't hide (from atmospheric deposition)! I used to live on the east coast and the mercury levels in fish there were alarmingly high. There were always warnings not to eat more than one fish you caught per month, and not at all if you were pregnant, etc. Sad for sure.

Looks like a beautiful day in an awesome area! Good work on getting out there!

1. What's a double traverse? 2. Can you define what you mean by "I don't have much alpine experience" cause the summit area of North Sister isn't a good place to be for someone totally new to alpine climbing. p.s. Welcome to the site!

Ummm... I haven't used the tibloc or ropeman for this application, and I have both... My expectation would be that falling on either would be bad, although I think the tibloc would be much worse. Especially on a rope <10.2mm. Even on the "non-toothed" version of the ropeman I would suspect that a fall would be pretty rough on the rope's core. Also, if you are going to use one of these setups, you will probably have to anchor it with a multidirectional anchor, right? (so it can handle the upward drag of the rope, but catch a downward fall from either the leader or follower)? Anyway, I won't ever do it, and I would recommend that you at least test it out before using it. Maybe try testing both setups out real close to the ground to see 1) if the rope feeds through easily without pulling the gear out and 2) what happens to the rope and hardware with some "top-rope" style falls. I'd be interested because this certianly isn't the first time this discussion has come up.

Impressive line Kevin, and some great shots on the way down! Way to get after it this past weekend you two!

Funny, but I've made it through modifications one and two listed above, but haven't thought of cutting the trigger part off yet. Only other mod I can think of is rubbery mastic tape on the shaft above the grip, which is nice for extra grip and insulation. Thanks for the pics!

Photos look good! Nice report too. and welcome to the site! I'd also like to comment on the excellent choice of maple bars at the bakery.

Still a lot of fun to read what's there... Thanks for the good lunch entertainment!

I lived in NH for the first 22 years of my life and never went ice climbing once. Then I moved to OR, and have tried to take up the sport after getting a taste of it on some of the volcanoes out here. Seems pretty hard to do out here unless you've got a flexible schedule, and don't mind driving hours to get the the frozen stuff. If only I had the money, desire, or intelligence to try it back when I was there! Great work and nice report arentz!

This is actually a pretty good topic and I think a lot of good discussion has come out over it. Personally, I think having tricks like looping the rope over the top of your tool are good to have. Most important is not to take a fall. But, I think if I was climbing a route, I would want to hang using that trick to be my absolute last resort, and when I finished with that climb I would make sure to step it down a grade until I could climb it without having to rely on hanging. At least for me leading ice right at your fall limit is scary, which makes it less fun. I'd rather feel safe and comfortable leading something humbly within my abilities. Good discussion though!

Hey 311, I'd recommend vertical + 10-15 degrees overhung, or make one of those adjustable ones if your really savvy. Like RuMR says, vertical won't get you a workout, and too vertical and you will be spending all sorts of money buying holds that are appropriate for that type of wall (which seem to be larger and more $$). I think on the one I'm working on now I'm going to shoot for an angle that's somewhere between the two flat bouldering walls at the OSU gym in the corner by the cave. Good luck man! It's fun to have one at home for sure, especially if you can make it tall enough to string 5 or 6 moves together.

Damn that's nice work gents! Way to get after it with the nice weather we had!

Thanks for the great report! Damn though, it looks like your bro is ripping tele turns on rime ice... Ugh! Nice work!

Dude, those are some tasty pics... Way to get out and get some lately. Nice blog too!

Thanks for the photos, looks like a beautiful morning to be out there.

Just a suggestion, but I find that bivy bags that have a zip down part of the side are extremely helpful... I've got a OR "toploader style" and it's such a pain to get into and out of to take a leak, etc. Also got a bibler bipod that is pretty rad... Bulkier and a bit heavier though.

I went to OSU, yes they have a cool climbing gym, but unless you are super driven, you will get sick of fighting the crowds and waiting in line to climb there. If you want to go cragging, you just gotta accept that you are looking at a hour and a half drive to choss, or 3+ hour drive to Smith. As a college student, I'm guessing you aren't going to have the $$ to pay to be going to smith every weekend. The drive also makes midweek climbing impossible if you actually plan to get anything accomplished at school. In my opinion, if climbing is really an important part of your school selection criteria, don't go to school in OR.

Whitewater usually isn't gated, but there has always been a healthy dose of the white stuff way before the trailhead this time of year. Sometimes trees across the road too. If I'm in the area I'll check it out and post back here.

Maybe I got a lemon, but my spot is a huge P.O.S. Light works great, but all the plastic parts seem to have broken

Just a thought, but the best GPS is the one that you are willing to take with you... I've got one of those garmin rino's with the built in radios... Thought I would use the radio feature all the time... Right... Probably only once. Anyway, the sucker seems to be heavier than it needs to be, and if I had to do it again I think I'd go for the smallest/lightest Garmin I could find (for example, the geko?). If it's small enough you can keep in in a pocket inside all that clothing next to where it's warm. Also, all that mapping software can be handy (especially for finding small roads), but really, you can program everything important right onto it in advance (using google earth!). I do admit that the ones with color screens are sweet though. Especially if you are really fired up about using the TOPO software.

Awesome writeup and pics John. and Also thanks for the advice on how to work vacation... I'm going to have to try that out...