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Trip: Shuksan - North Face Date: 7/17/2010 Trip Report: I climbed the North Face of Shuksan with a group of 5 others. The route is in really good shape right now, consolidated snow, glaciers not very broken up, and no mandatory ice. With two ropes of three the climbing went pretty well. We set up the car shuttle to give ourselves options. Unfortunately the road out to Artist's Point is still closed so the best we could do was the Heather Meadows parking lot. We walked up to the ski area and headed out the cat track toward Chair 8. Once we caught a glimpse of the bright green horror at the base of the White Salmon, we decided we would probably try the Fisher Chimneys descent... To avoid the worst of the approach bushwhack, hang a left just before the spur road that branches off left. You should be able to travel through tall timber the whole way. We went farther, past the "clearcut", and I think this made things more difficult. We found a log to cross the creek around 2900 feet, and proceeded eastward, mostly through tall trees, up to the ridge, then along the ridge to camp at the base of the north face. The route itself was pretty simple, from we first traversed eastward under a big crevasse system, then upward and gradually contouring back right to the ridge. After that it was mostly straight up, the "crux" was about 3/4 the way up on hard steep snow, before it rolled over. From the col we walked around the summit pyramid, which takes a little while. Once we got there we found what I expected- many climbers on the south gulley route, much like Gary's old report. The 6 of us didn't want to spend several hours sorting that out so we just headed down. Hell's Highway is in great shape, as is the Upper Curtis. Once we found and crossed Winnie's Slide we kept dropping elevation, looking to the left for the start of the chimneys, which we found at around 6800'. Having read various warnings about this being a hard route to navigate, I was somewhat apprehensive. I was surprised to find it to be DEAD EASY. There's a TRAIL most of the time. The only complication was that there is still some snow getting in the way. Just keep looking around for the easiest way, and when in doubt work your way skier's right. Below the chimneys there is still a lot of snow, hiding what I'm sure is a pretty nice trail. We contoured our way around to Lake Ann and then it was just a rough slog back to the trailhead, and then down along the currently-closed road to where we'd dropped our car. A few pics: Gear Notes: leather work gloves for the devil's club are worth the weight Approach Notes: SHWACKY

Sure, any human could fuck up a belay. I want to know if an ATC-type belay device has ever broken under use.

I wasn't really asking about grigris. This was inspired by listening to the typical speculation about "I dropped my ATC, do I need to buy a new one" where the average response is "Isn't your LIFE worth $25???"

Has there ever been an instance of belay device failure?

This topic gets discussed a lot and you can probably find good info if you search.

Don't worry, they still had their polypro to keep warm.

I saw the dirt from your cleaning on Sunday! I think the thing you're working on is what the Cummins book lists as Tatoosh. I climbed it once, it was doable and dirty. 5.9 seemed about right. We'd intended to continue up for 5 pitches to get to the "top" of the LTW but when looking at the blackberries and shrubs above, we rapped.

Girth Pillar? What kind of a coil are those ropes in?

Proper! I guess you really are an alpinist, Doug.

why don't you tuck them in oh good idea Really? This thread happened? Really?

keep your Beacon-related assholery in the Beacon-related assholery forum.

AWESOME video, Bill. Two years ago, we got our rope stuck at 3:46!

He's not in the all-time list yet, but summitchaserCJB has been workin' it pretty hard the last couple months.

Not really an answer, but I ran across an article on Climbing.com the other day that includes a blurb about this route: http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/features/index_279/index4.html

I will bet you Robert has cleaned more dirt and moss off Index granite than you have- especially since I saw the half-assed cleaning job you did on your hundredth ascent project. So, listen to him. Put on some humility and spend some time doing your homework and making friends. Right now you're making enemies.

SPRAY KING

Haven't we castigated summitchaserCJB enough already?

Friends climbed it last weekend... it went, but it was pretty gnarly with snow and ice making things difficult. I have another group of friends who climbed the East Ridge, which was apparently nice and dry and clean, but had an accident on the way down the WR and had a bit of an epic. Seems like it'll be in great shape pretty soon though.

The mystery continues! That summitpost page mentions a "Sumner and Heath" variation to gain the ridge, which sounds like what we did. I suppose that is the line Bill took on the FFA? Has no one a tale from the land of the Snaffle??

I couldn't figure out where Snafflehound Ledge was. The line must the 5.9 "Sumner and Heath" variation mentioned in this summitpost description. I think that is what we climbed. I did not understand that the B/S and B/D routes share the same final pitch...

What do you call the yellow line to the right of the Beckey/Davis and Burgner/Stanley?

It's actually really interesting.

He wants to know what your 8-pitch 5.10b was.

I think it'll work for some of it at least. The big spire looks like 6 or 7 bolts:

Okay, so I have a dumb question. (photo borrowed from olyclimber's tr) Where is Snafflehound Ledge?? I climbed the Beckey/Davis route the weekend before last- I think. I believe we followed the line in the photo pretty much exactly. We had this description from Summitpost as well as having read and taken a picture of the description in the Kearney book... I don't recommend this approach, as I think they describe two different routes. We started up the OW that is the first pitch of the Burgner/Stanley, hung a right, and assumed we'd be on target to begin the 5.5/5.6 pitches described at summitpost... instead we seemed to go mostly straight up on 5.7/5.8ish terrain. I thought we were lost, my buddy thought we were doing okay, he ended up being right as we wound up right under the 5.9 finger crack that leads to the notch in the summit ridge, and then the splitter 5.10 hand crack to the summit block. Both are excellent pitches. I didn't see no big ledge all day. Have you been to Snafflehound Ledge? What was it like? Did you get there through the back of a wardrobe, or by tapping the heels of your ruby slippers together? I feel very let-down that I could not experience the magic of Snafflehound Ledge. By the way, the photo is awesome, and it seems to have been taken from the outlet of Lake Vivianne, so that if you sit there in the afternoon you see exactly what is in the photo.