Rime_Ice

Gary, I appreciate your last comments and I thank you. Be safe and I look forward to reading about your future adventures in this forum and enjoying the climbing pictures you'll post. Climb on.

Gary, thank you for the apology. I appreciate that. And here's an account of that day written by a friend of mine that I've posted for him: Gary: I happened to be part of the "Comic Relief" you referred to on your Shuksan climb account in Cascade Climbers. Interesting story, we arrived at the Pyramid a few minutes ahead of two young women who we let pass. My buddy was bringing up the rear when a party of three, unroped, passed us as we were retreating and started up the central gulley. This must have been the group that came up Fisher Chimneys because your account, and Aaron's, is of the SE Ridge. Yes we bailed because we couldn't set a second picket properly which our leader referred to as "psych pro" as in psychological pro. This was a good decision. We didn't have any rock pro and no one wanted to free climb the SE ridge, like a few of the skiers we saw do. After our retreat, as we stood next to the climbing rangers, we watched the women descend the central gulley. As they inched downward, using only ice axes in self arrest, they set loose a large rock nearby the group of three that were ascending. We heard some very strong words. Poor women, they must have been at the top of the gulley for a half an hour before they started down again. Then we headed back to our base camp, turning every now and then, watching in agonizing length as these women, followed by the party of three, down climbed for the next 2 + hours. No, as it turned out, we weren't an accident waiting to happen. The accidents waiting to happen were the two parties that down climbed the gulley without protection. I'm surprised by your comment that you felt that you didn't want to be anywhere near us. Despite our apparent ineptitude, we really posed no problem to anyone and did have the right of way to be where we were. I have been on many club climbs and have never felt unsafe. On the contrary, due to our litigious environment, if the club errs, it's on the side of safety. I've climbed and taken classes from some very capable people in the club, including two that summited Ama Dablam last year. I have the utmost respect for the time and effort the leaders in this organization put into climbing safety and education. The Club takes very seriously reports of close calls and staffs two separate safety related committees. Regards J.

you know the purpose of this message board is to exchange information not insults. but since you started this flaming string not me let me say that the reports of the south gully we'd gotten the day before was that the south gully was well covered in snow and protectable so we made the decision to leave the rock pro in the car and take the snow pro. However when we got onto the gully it was quickly apparent that was not the case. Either the reports were wrong or there was a huge melt out over the previous 24 hrs. The plan had been to do a running belay but when it became apparent that there was going to be no possibility to set snow anchors so we turned around. So yes that is why we were roped with "no pro". And that is why we turned around. However I'm sure that since you are such a bold climber with so many years of climbing experience and with your vast grad student body of knowledge of all wordly endeavors that you have the wisdom to post your foolish criticism here. Were you on the south gully that day? No, you weren't. And good thing you weren't because the conditions turned out to be terrible. But obviously we didn't know that until we were on it and then wisely got off. And yes there is risk taking the time to plan a safe descent. And yes that exposes one to the risk of rock fall. And yes we decided that was much smarter then rushing down and risking a fall onto the rocks below. It's a judgement call and you were not on the gully. By the way, that was brilliant planning descending fishers not having ascended by that route and of course misjudging your food and water as you did was brilliant also. Your trip report would have been just fine without the ill informed rude inconsiderate comments you made about another party. One day when you're doing one of your bold climbs you or a member of your party might fall or get injured in some other way. I certainly hope that never happens - however remember that we are all part of the climbing brotherhood/sisterhood and one day it might be a party of mazamas or mountaineers that rescues you (or maybe someday you'd be the one to rescue us). I hope you will post your future trip reports without criticizing others because it doesn't enhance your reports - it only needlessly antagonizes other climbers.

you're right ! and if I'd written "wet slippery greenschist(which is what shuksan is made of)- a metamorphic igneous rock largely composed of chlorites instead of quartz (which is how it differs from granite)" would you have had a clue what that was? Just trying to keep it simple for you folks. That rock is slippery when wet - and that was the point.

Gary, congrats on your north face summit and safe descent down fishers. the south gully that day was 6-12" of wet slush on slippery shuksan granite. It was unprotectable. The runout was down into several large rock outcrops. The south gully is a 40 to 50 degree slope. Now maybe this sounds safe to you but it doesn't sound safe to me. Turning around was the right thing to do if you want to be an old climber. And that's my goal. I wish you good luck in your climbing and be safe.

I just bought a Fujifilm 'finepix' E550. digital 6mp (so you can get poster sized enlargements), 9 oz, runs off lith batt's so should be cold resistent, relatively small size.

thanks for the report and great pictures Mark. but I'm wondering why you're now eating powergel. whatever happened to your slim jim's (dangerous food).... from mt shasta last summer?

bergsch is nearly closed - can step over it snow above top of palmer may be soft to knee deep (it was this past wk-end) but melt/freeze this wk may help. no snowshoes leave at 5am is fine

4 of us left timberline at 5:30 a.m. to do Leuthold. we encountered knee deep soft snow/powder over an ice layer all the way from top of palmer to Illum. saddle. From the saddle we spotted a party of 6 moving very slowly up Leuthold in what looked like knee deep (or deeper) soft snow so we decided to bale on that choice and instead slogged up West crater rim above the hot rocks in more knee to thigh deep soft snow. So after these several hours of postholing "joy" we cut over to the hogsback for a bit of rest and met up with the party that we'd seen doing Leuthold. They reported knee to thigh deep soft snow for the entire route and a continuous rain of rime and other assorted white stuff up thru the hourglass. They also reported some avy activity off the Reid HW. They left timberline at 4am and got down to the hosback at 3pm. When the snow consolidates I think we'll give LC another shot but will hit the snow by 3 a.m.