farflung

Or East ridge AND south ridge . . . makes for about 8 pitches of fun climbing under 5.7

Awesome! Nice to see more trad routes at 38. Thanks for your hard work.

Nice photos and congratulations. Always nice to be high on mountain while the rest of western washington languishes below the clouds!

That's roughly a 40 mile, 8,000 foot day. Burly. It's been done though: http://www.wwwright.com/climbing/speed/2004/06/buzz-burrell-climbs-mt-olympus-in-16.html

Nice job! I've been thinking about doing the exact same thing with my 8 year old this summer. Maybe I'll bite the bullet though and haul up a 60m.

Love the time lapse. What camera did you use for that?

Thanks for your hard work guys. Can't wait to get out there!

Anyone want to hit vantage this wednesday? Moderate trad or sport, I have rack and rope and could meet in Auburn or North Bend for the drive over.

Stop by Erie Saturday for the Dallas Kloke memorial clean/climb. We're meeeting at 9 to start cleaning and trail work, then climbing in the afternoon.

Welcome to the area Jim. I'll keep you in mind for upcoming trips. I'm also at Edgeworks a couple times a week if you want to do any rainy day plastic pulling. Jason

As others have said, take a course or two. You might be able to scrape together the same skills from a variety of partners over several months (or years) but taking a course is a great way to get the basics and start out with good habits. +1 for the AAI course--they are not cheap but they are awesome. My .02

I will be there!

April 21 will the 2nd annual Dallas Kloke work and climb day starting at 9am.

I have a black diamond whiz kid that has worked well for my kids as early as age 4. I think it will fit them for years to come. Ditto on the figure-8 chest loop.

Sounds like we have similar schedules. Pm sent

pm sent

Trip: Clearwater Wilderness - Summit Lake Ridge FFA Date: 9/5/2011 Trip Report: First Family Ascent, that is--on Labor day weekend a new route was established on the crags above Summit Lake in the Clearwater Wilderness area. The route was put up in the most impure alpine style possible—first I cleaned it up on rappel, then sent up the 5 to 9 year olds up on top rope to suss out the harder moves, with each kid establishing a new high point. Finally after my brother in law TR’d the whole thing in tennis shoes, I placed a few pieces and pulled through the 5.5+ crux on lead. Phew. Though the technical portion of the climb is only 50 feet or so, I’m giving it a grade IV considering the difficulty of coaxing/carrying the necessary grade schoolers and their requisite climbing gear, pillow pets, marshmallows etc. up the approach trail. Contributing to the route development and beta gathering were: Sequoia, Elias, Brisa, Jasper, Melody and Zac. Viva la familia!

Three hours with a day pack, 5ish with overnight/climbing gear.

pm sent

Hi Will, I have a lot of weekdays off, feel free to pm when you're looking for a partner. Jason

Trip: Chinook Pass/Sourdough Gap - Cupalo Rock Date: 8/10/2009 Trip Report: Cupalo Rock Aug 1 and July 21 2009 Cupalo, near the center of the photo, as seen from just below Chinook After seeing a typical Becky description of this crag in the CAG I got curious and decided to check it out a couple weeks ago. The SW face is visible from Chinook and very prominant from Sheep lake. All of the routes in the CAG are on the East face but the crack systems on the SW face were too tempting to pass up. SW Face; Blue is Aug 1 Chimney; Orange is July 21 crack/face Our route for the 1st of August was up a prominent crack system splitting the middle of the SW face. A few face moves get you off the ground and into an body width crack/chimney. Follow this to a small roof and then exit via crux face moves onto a short arete that bypasses the roof. Continue up the crack past a snag to a nice heathery ledge about 100' off the deck. Pitch 2 starts with an old piton protecting a few lieback moves up to more crack and face climbing. 5.9 with good pro up to 3". My cheesy sequence compilation, P1 of the chimney route On July 21 I had also climbed the rightmost crack on the SW face with Brian Case. This route follows a couple crack systems to the same ledge and a small tree anchor with a couple of ratty slings. Protection above the tree looked thin to nonexistant so I opted to move the belay ten feet to the left rather than tackle the 5.6 X direct finish. The second pitch starts out in a dihedral up to a steep finger crack. This looked like a bit much for us so I exited to the right via a few face moves. 5.7 or 8, with good pro up to 2". Stretch and I also headed up and through the keyhole to check out the East face routes described in the Alpine Guide. Brottem's "easy 5th class" route follows a weakness from just below the keyhole notch. After crawling through the keyhole and down the gully a short but somewhat tricky rappell gets you to the base of the latter three routes. The two "chimney" routes are really dihedrals and looked pretty clean and well protected. After some debate as to the whereabouts of the 5.6/A2 route I found an old Salewa hook at the base of a weakness that petered out into what could be A2. We didn't climb anything on the East face, but the routes look like fun. Cupalo's East face. The 5.6/A2 route is about 15 feet to the right of the NE Chimney "MADE IN WEST GERMANY" All told this is a fun place to climb with excellent views and plenty of alpine ambiance. As has been noted elsewhere, the class 3 gully decent on the SW corner is not class 3. There are a couple trees to rap from. I'm curious, does anybody know more of the climbing history here? The summit register had maybe 20 entries dating back to 1999. I couldn’t find any record online of ascents on the SW face but it’s definitely been climbed before. Someone even put metal sign at the base that reads “Shaman”. A few more photos at: More Cupalo