counterfeitfake

Thanks Blake, yeah I had seen the rap option, but wasn't positive about where Golden Road was and didn't bring the picture. I liked walking off anyway, we were wrung out enough that rapping would have been stressful. I really thought about the roof to start P3, it didn't look very hard but it did look unprotectable. Doubtful.

Coming down from the Tooth, along the cat track between Source Lake and Alpental, I found a headlamp. If it's yours I'd be glad to return it.

Trip: Index - Davis-Holland to Lovin' Arms Date: 6/28/2008 Trip Report: As Jared points out, hand jams are hard when you're sweating, but if you don't bring enough water you'll eventually dry out. My hope for this summer has been to push my climbing into some new grades and become less intimidated by hard routes. My buddy jaredvg is on the same mission. Having recently led my first 5.10a at Index, what better way to push it than embark on a 6-pitch 5.10c? And just to ensure we weren't going to wuss out partway up, how about we don't bring along enough rope to retreat? Sounds good. We met at the smokestack in Monroe* around 9 am, and it was already hot. After stopping for a quick bite from the Sultan Bakery, we were packing up in the Index LTW parking lot. The approach to the UTW was short but steep, and it was hot, and we were sweaty by the time we got to the base of the route. We were also both nervous about what we knew would be one of the toughtest climbs we'd ever done, but we knew we had it in us and just had to get moving. Davis-Holland: We found there was a group above us, but a quick assessment showed that they were moving plenty quick to not be an issue for us. We threw rock paper scissors for first lead, and I got it. P1- 90 feet of kind-of-awkward 5.9 gives way to 4th class grass. I couldn't find my chalk bag so we were sharing one, and I felt bad for Jared sliding out of the crack on sweaty hand jams. P2- The business starts. Jared leads up off the anchors into the steep thin-hands dihedral above. It continues to be hot and the jams continue to be greasy. This pitch is excellent, very sustained and seemed like some of the hardest climbing on the route. There's even a surprise little bit of offwidth just before the anchor. P3- The "crux". Right off the belay we were confused- there is a bolt around the corner to left, in what looks like tricky face climbing terrain, before you get some decent holds in a corner and up into a grassy right-facing corner. I could see the crux above but how to get there? I deliberated a long time before committing to the face moves. They felt hard and I was stressed out, but it would be easier if I did it again. About 40 more feet up the nice easy corner and you're at the 5.10c crux of the route. It's super unintimidating. You get to stand in a solid stem and look up at it, and there's a very good fixed nut you can clip before really committing to the move. Then if you're tall like me, a little footwork and a reach or two solves it. I was shocked by how simple it was; your mileage may vary. Easy terrain above and the anchors finishes Davis-Holland. Lovin' Arms: It didn't make sense, but we had both been really fixated on the lower 3 pitches of DH and not paying much attention to what was above. We had also elected to not bring a topo with us, which I KNOW is foolish... P1- Standing at the anchors we really didn't know what to do. It seems LA gets way less traffic than DH, as there was nothing but lichen above. I had told Jared that this section was "I think like 5.8 or something." After a little wandering back and forth and looking up he was freaking out. I would have been too. After getting a little gear in, Jared sucked it up and went. It worked. We would look at the topo upon returning to the car, and find it was supposedly 5.10b. Nice. After the sketchiness you get into a nice hand crack, and then a mossy chimney with all kinds of options. The final moves to the anchors felt pretty hard on toprope but I believe I was just distracted. Jared was hugely relieved after the stressful lead, and was happily chatting away. Meanwhile I was thrutching on toprope, sweaty and tired, and thinking about the next pitch I had to tackle. P2- The original route goes right off the anchor, to a bolt which is the single point of aid used by the FA. Or it goes free at 5.11c. I didn't like either idea and decided to try the high traverse, which goes farther up the chimney and then rightward to gain the little corner system you follow up farther. The hand traverse to get there was awesome and you get a nice tiny ledge to stand on while you contemplate what is above. It looks thin and tricky but really isn't very bad, as you climb ample pro and handholds present themselves. Reaching to some jugs and traversing, then mantling a ledge brings you to the anchors. P3- Now I was glad I was done leading, and Jared got the stress of the final pitch. We remembered the topo had one bolt above, and we saw it, but for some reason we'd been guessing some more bolts had been added. Not so. There is "enough" pro but it's not a trivial pitch. Jared described it as "lots of disappointing handholds." The face is kind of a quartzy rock with a lot of little edges, but many of them are downsloping. Overall not so bad, but not trivial. You can escape left on a ledge, which we did, or you can continue another 20 feet up the face, which we should have done. Solid ground, FINALLY! We looked at the time and it was around 4:30. We had been pretty slow, but not abysmally so. Time for the summit shot and to do the walk-off. The trail is easy to find, just go to the big dirt road, follow it down to the cable fence, and turn left. I don't remember ever being so dehydrated before. When we got to the base of the wall to retrieve our packs, we decided to chance taking a drink from the dripping waterfall. So far, so good. A half hour later we were cooling our feet in the river and drinking gatorade and beer. This combo of two routes is excellent. The climbing is varied and you get to do a little of everything. It is also very sustained, every pitch has something hard about it. Definitely the hardest multipitch I've done and a good way to get summer properly underway. * We've been parking at the smokestack in Monroe for a long time. Very recently, unbeknownst to us, "NO PARKING" signs were put up. We came back to find Jared's car had been towed, and it cost him $400 to get it out of impound. Ouch. Learn from our mistake. Gear Notes: Nuts, TCUs, double set of C4s to #2, one #3. Would have been nice to have: - more water - more chalk - a topo Approach Notes: Trail is steep and always a little harder than I expect.

Oh My God

If you descend the North Dome Gulley, be prepared.

Hahaha... I don't!

So HOW did you do the mantle? I am probably in awe of you. I understand what you're saying. Even so, with two practice runs I almost feel like I could lead it now. With the A0 finish. It's short and bolted, after all. Oh yeah, the bottom part is pretty hard too...

DON'T FEED THE TROLLS PEOPLE

Come on Kevbone, I say it right there AND provide a link to a topo.

I'm gonna predict locusts.

There is no reason to use a #4 anywhere on the route. The bottom half of the OW will take a #5. Without a #6 I would be shitting my pants, but maybe you can handle a 30 foot runout on a 5.9 OW.

Pinky jam! Tape up! Yep - climber cleanly till the last move then fell off again and again and again... So I climbed GM to Heart of the Country yesterday with jaredvg. Excellent climb. On the way down we toproped this. I thought for the most part it was hard and really fun! I haven't climbed too many 5.11b routes. I took two laps on it and got it clean the second time. As for the finish... can ANYONE mantle that? I don't get how it is possible. Maybe if your head is really heavy? I got my right hand on the sloper, put my left foot up high, and just levered up until I could grab the chain. So I guess I climbed it at A0. I took another stab at mantling the left part of the slopey ledge and actually stood up, but then could not move to go right towards the anchor, and just fell off backwards in slow-mo. NO KIDDING. Holy jebus. Cummins' topo says 10c and even that seems too easy. Standing on nothing while crimping on nothing.

I'm not sure what you really want to know- I was up at Washington Pass a little over a week ago, and looking at that east face it seemed ready to go. I don't see any reason Liberty Crack wouldn't be climbable. You'll be approaching on compact snow.

70 L is too big for an overnighter. Get something smaller, 50 L or less, and lighter. Carry less gear. Be lighter and faster. I would not try to get one sleeping bag for all seasons. Summertime here, 30 degrees, wintertime, probably fifteen-zero degrees. I love my Serratus Icefall but that company doesn't exist anymore. I've seen a lot of Cold Cold World packs on the backs of friends and other climbers I respect. A guy here named crackers runs Cilogear and a lot of people here like his stuff.

Gas station boycott! It's funny that some people understand economics even less than I do.

They break.

Excellent. I've been intrigued by this route since seeing that picture in Squamish Select. Nice to know someone actually climbs it.

I am skeptical about this until you give some examples.

Those pictures were very helpful to us Blake. The only gap in our comprehension was between the leaning block and the offwidth- do you remember what you did?

Trip: Burgundy Spire - North Face Date: 6/15/2008 Trip Report: Myself, fenderfour, madeinmontana, and Jeff went to Burgundy Spire last weekend. Despite the fact that the climb is mostly loose blocks perched on top of kitty litter, we had a really good time. The weather was perfect. The approach is brutal but short. We hit snow around 6000 feet and camped around 6500. Our plan was to climb Paisano Pinnacle to get up to the NF of Burgundy. We spent a lot of time at our bivy site staring up at the route, and figured we had a good idea where it was. There it is. From here you can't tell Paisano isn't attached to Burgundy. Sadly two of us were wearing sneakers, nobody had crampons and we had brought only one ice axe. If we'd been smart we would have actually kicked steps up to the base of Paisano, this would have fixed our footwear issues as well as our routefinding issues. But we weren't smart. In the morning the snow was very solid. We found a boot pack going up to Burgundy Col and followed it, planning to traverse right to Paisano at some point. When we started to do this, it was pretty sketchy. Crampons and an axe would have made it a cake walk. We got to a notch and only then understood where we needed to be. We had screwed up. After some conversation we decided to go with the sure thing, and rapped back to the boot pack and headed up to do Burgundy. The look of "we're screwed". We did the climb in about 6 pitches. The first was mostly 4th class, up to the wide gravelly benches below the "amphitheatre". We did another pitch from here to halfway up the amphitheatre, then a third up through the notch in the wall at the top. From here a long traverse rightward under a leaning block brought us within site of the 3 offwidth options to the summit. We didn't really understand where the route went from here, there were a lot of good-looking lines above us, but no obvious way to get onto them. Pulling a few slab moves on lichen would have gained us the sweet little dihedral, but with no pro it would have taken a bigger man than I. I ended up going right around a little corner and climbing a cool dihedral, probably the most fun pitch of the route for me. From there Nate led sideways across an easy traverse (with psychological pro placed behind wimpy flakes) and then up into the 5.8 offwidth. It was his first OW lead and pretty spicy for that; he led it with aplomb. offwidths r hard After a bit Robert and Jeff joined us on the summit. We lounged for a little bit enjoying the view, but as the climb had taken us longer than anyone had planned, we headed down before long. It took us 6 double-length rappelsl, which went pretty smoothly, except for one stuck rope I had to lead up to retrieve. Summit shot! It was almost as bad as it looks. Once at the col we gathered our stuff and changed into our boots quickly, and headed down through the snow which now was, of course, very soft. Hitting the bivy site we packed in a hurry and continued down the steep steep dusty trail. Everything went smoothly and although the last steep climb back up to the car is a real punisher, we were all glad to have gotten back before dark. After a long day the drive back from Washington Pass takes forever. Dinner at Burger King was the best we could do, at least it was calories. Good weekend. Gear Notes: Rope and light alpine rack. If you're comfortable with a short OW you only need up to a #3 C4, otherwise... ? I'm sure if you wanted you could place a #4, #5, and #6. Crampons and axes would have been really nice in the AM. Approach Notes: Very steep but short. We hit snow around 6000 feet.

qu'est-ce que c'est?

Also snow started at about 6000' below Burgundy Spire, I'd guess the west side of the Liberty Bell group is similar.

Have you been given a speeding ticket by an SPD officer?

You could definitely post a picture of that wall. Then it would be harder to doubt you.

I hear PAM works great. No, really.