ryanl

Congrats on your first summit! You have way cool parents.

How'd you arrive at 6 pitches? Like the idea though!

Not much of a story, from my end at least. I'm sure my partner had a better perspective . I'd short pitched us by mistake on P2 and was belaying out of sight when my partner set off on the traverse. He set a purple BD before getting to the business. I was sitting with a bit of slack between me and my anchor. I heard him yell something between a call to god and a warning to me before an AWESOME howl filled the air. I quickly hopped on my butt to tension my anchor and braced for the inevitable. I caught most of the fall with my stance. Partner filled the air with talk and shouts to himself while I tried to figure out if he was OK. He kept yelling for me to lower, which I finally did. At which point he confirmed that he was fine. He set up an anchor and I climbed up to where he waited for me with a huge grin on his face Holy crap!! He'd fallen from a good 10' out on the traverse and had pendulumed out across the arete that bordered us on the left and into-- for all practical purposes-- bottomless space. Upside down, apparently. Would have been spectacular to see. He said he'd been pulling up rope to clip when he whipped, which added distance. Up until then the day had been about as smooth as a bathtub full of broken glass, so we decided to cut our losses. I climbed up to retrieve our gear before we turned tail. Having had an enticing three pitch taste, I'd have to agree that the appeal lies in the combination of adventure, technical challenge, quality of climbing, and setting. Sort of like a 5.10+ version of the North North Arete in squamish. No scratch that. This thing compares only to itself. I'd head back tomorrow if I didn't have to work. It's a great route. And a spectacular first ascent, especially in light of the conditions at the time.

Been laughing at/admiring this photo and caption the last few days. Heck of a climb boys!

Awesome trip and write up John! When am I old enough to join you guys? I'm starting to feel old, if that'll help my chances....

Yeah Lunger!!!! You continue to amaze and inspire. Too bad it turned out to be so chill- I was hoping to read about you and Rolf bickering as that always makes me laugh.

Thanks for posting so honestly Luke. Very commendable. Too bad things went so far south, but I'm happy that everyone will recover fully. Way to keep your head about you! Must have been difficult.

I think John thrives on sketch. Nice write up, and great job getting up there given the forecast

Nice pictures Mark! I climbed that last year and loved it. We thought about heading there on Saturday but ended up on Breakfast. We were lazy. Would have been fun to run into you guys.

Sweet. I didn't know 5.9d existed. It sounds harder than 10a.

WTF?!?! tough crowd around here I guess. Sweet trip and very impressive, especially since you carried safety gear and chose to rope up. I'm on the fence about whether coming from out of state makes something like this more difficult. Sometimes it's nice to be ignorant of "the normal way we do it around here" mentality. Hell of a trip boys!

:tup:

Nice running into you guys up there- glad you had a fun trip. Too bad you didn't get what you were after, but being able to switch seamlessly to a plan B is a good skill to have. Plus, Prusik's not going anywhere. Go get it when the sun's out and you can lounge on the summit!

Was thinking of you Ross as I passed by this on Sunday. Super impressive!

Trip: Prusik Peak - West Ridge Date: 6/3/2012 Trip Report: Yesterday I made a resolution to become more comfortable with uncertainty throughout the day. I left my home in Seattle around 2 and was hiking towards Colchuck lake at 4:30. I couldn't make up my mind whether to ski or to climb, or to do both. The NW face of Colchuck looked prime to ski: A group of 5 or so, and another of 2, were making their way up Colchuck Glacier by the time I arrived. Since I wanted part of neither company nor an audience, I set off towards Prusik. I managed to skin all the way up Asgaard without ski crampons, thinking the whole way up- "this might actually ski pretty well!" I had a fun traverse to the base of Prusik where wind howled hard and clouds came and went. Precip threatened. Without a rope or harness I didn't want to get caught high up in a storm, so I sat and watched the weather for a bit: Around noon I felt good enough about things to switch into rock shoes and begin the climb. What fun climbing! The opening crack made me feel good about things: More Prusik I climbed and down-climbed the first few sequences to gain confidence. Before I knew it I arrived at the slab pitch. Here, circumstance provided a wonderful opportunity to savor uncertainty. I started and retreated several times. Then I stood where I was and focused on my breath. My heart rate slowed but became more powerful. I stretched my left foot out onto the face and breathed slowly while I transferred my weight. Then I reached for a nubbin', then the crest, moved my feet, then the jug. No use practicing the down-climb now. I was in it. At the final summit block I missed the squeeze chimney (probably because I wanted to) and headed further left. When I topped out below the summit I realized my mistake and retraced my steps. I stood staring at the chimney for a few minutes and again slowed my breathing. That's all it took. On the summit I couldn't relax too much for fear that my terrible memory would betray me. That, and my adrenaline was flowing. Still, the top of Prusik is a pretty spectacular place to have to one's self. I made sure to appreciate it. I think I enjoyed the down climb more than the climb. At each step-- I think steps better describe the climbing than pitches-- I would stand and stare at the moves before turning around and lowering myself over the ledge. It was sort of like a game in which you try to re-enact in reverse order the movements of someone you watched doing something. I hardly hesitated at the slab pitch. It felt much easier going down than up. Still, once I finished it a rush of.....something came over me that I can still feel. I think it took me 2 hours total base to base. By then the clouds had broken and I had breaks of blue sky to backlight my smiles. It didn't take very long to skin back to Asgaard where the firm snow of the morning had softened into a pleasant variety of corn. Big sweeping turns made a perfect dessert. I climbed the West ridge and the Burgner-Stanley last summer. SO MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE not having to hike the whole way out! Good climbing AND good skiing in the same day?! I love Washington.

There are obviously a bunch of others who contributed to "the vision", and I don't want to railroad this thread into a backslapping recognition of everyone who's ever skied a sick line in the cascades and posted about it, but I want to throw Phil's name into the list of ushers. When I first began searching for partners/inspiration on the web in the early 2000's I came across his posts as often as I came across Sky's and Jason's. I just looked at the photos here again. Still in awe. I like telemarker's "Lebron and Dwayne" reference. "Vallencant and Baud" come to mind as well. Hat's still off boys....

Dan don't dramatize. Nice one boys. Way to do the Cascades proud.....

Yeah, Dan, looks like a mellow, shred-able, line. Pull any tricks along the descent to make it interesting at least?

It's about time. Great to hear from you Aaron. Looks like a great year

Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions!

Thanks, Ivan, for revealing the depth of my internet search capacities. Who woulda thunk that three words in google would lead to so much. But now that you've got me sniffing the trail, any suggestions of spots that are better than others? I'm going down to visit family for a few days and want to take a couple of folks climbing for a day.

Any fun places to climb near Portland (closer than Smith or Tieton)?

Here's a good shot of the ramp system to get to the top of the Circus. Might as well take all the adventure out of it.... And here's a close up of you, imagine: I saw some folks-- you?-- on top of snoqualmie a bit before. Probably and hopefully some foreshortening going on :

Gulp! Beautiful Steph.

who is this Skykilo guy anyway? Oyvind and Monika skied the Wells and Durr route, and then climbed the hour glass.