sparverius
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Posts posted by sparverius
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hell yeah Nick. Good to see you back at it. The rib healed up ok?
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alright. Be careful up there. It would be fun to wait for snow and do a ski traverse of the mentioned peaks.
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thanks for the TR and great trip Steph and Donn. My bedsores from Mount Fury have begun to heal, and I'm looking forward to another Pickets trip with both of you. I can't imagine being tentbound with better companions.
here are a few more pics
the moment I realized we would be spending a third night in our foggy purgatory. Soon after, the chocolate and bourbon supplies were exhausted.
Donn and I wore parallel sleeping grooves into the snow on Fury that somehow managed to slope into one another. So we'd often wake up practically on top of each other, or feel the other's hot breath on our necks.
Our first unfiltered sunshine in 60 hours. A glorious morning. I stood on the summit ridge shuffling my feet to stay warm, just waiting for the sun to rise. I had to see it to believe that we would soon be making a jailbreak.
Soon after descending Fury, I became enamored with Terror's North Buttress, which seemed more alluring the closer we got.
I was bummed that we couldn't climb it as planned, but we were able to sleep in it's shadow at one of the most spectacular and comfortable camps I've experienced in the mountains (Frenzel camp)and hatched a plan to climb it in the future. The heather beds we had there were a major upgrade from our grim situation on Fury.
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north sister is scary pile of dog feces late in season. Why not wait till it's snowy and frozen and safer?
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nice work. We must have just missed you guys up there. Were you able to follow a trail coming down to Terror Creek from your bivy near the chopping block? We ended up going mostly straight down and didn't see the trail until the OG crossign of terror creek.
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nice work. Thanks for the info.
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Thanks for the TR Steph. Here are a few more photos from the trip. I look forward to the next one.
The chopping block from the forest
Donn leading the crux pitch
Steph on the crux
Rappeling down to the Terror Glacier
Our unsavory crossing of the barrier
Summit of the chopping block
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nice work and sweet pics. The picture of J'berg above the clouds is a great one. I think that the mad campsite crapper should be tarred and feathered and left on top of Dome peak, unless there were extenuating circumstances.
I would love to know what extenuating circumstances those were. Bad venison?
bad venison or a rabid marmot
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nice work and sweet pics. The picture of J'berg above the clouds is a great one. I think that the mad campsite crapper should be tarred and feathered and left on top of Dome peak, unless there were extenuating circumstances.
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The pinnacle wasn't bad, except for getting the rope stuck on the first rappel. We used 3 or 4 pieces on it.
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Trip: Mt. Jefferson - Jefferson Park Glacier
Date: 7/10/2008
Trip Report:
James and I climbed the Jefferson Park glacier yesterday. We hiked into high camp on the moraine on Wednesday night and had all evening to study our route around the bergshrunds.
It was a perfect evening on the mountain. There was running water 50 meters from camp, and the wildflowers were off the hinges. We were hiking by 3 the next morning and by first light were trying to negotiate the first shrund.
We traversed far left and found a crack that had not yet opened. A short (five feet) vertical ice step had us over the lip and directly beneath Mohler tooth. The second bergshrund was also gaping, and forced a traverse to the far right, where we climbed steep slopes beneath Smith rock.
The knifes edge ridge and summit pinnacle were snow free and went without problems.
We were unnerved by falling rock while traversing under the summit pinnacle. The rock on the northernmost part of the pinnacle looks like graham crackers stacked on top of each other. We lazed on the summit and soaked in the morning sunshine, waiting for the snow to soften in the upper milk creek cirque.
three sisters and the santiam rockies
The descent was another adventure entirely, as we traversed hard steep snow in the upper cirque, under the knifes edge ridge and up to the ridge just climbers left of smith rock. We realized as we topped out on the ridge that we were not exactly where we needed to be to gain the Russell, but descended anyway. Steep snow gave way to a rotten gully with condition that James described as "boulders sitting in pudding." James just happened to grasp one of these boulders to avoid a rock that I had sent towards him. I couldn't see him in the gully but heard sounds of a large rock moving and yells from James that sent a chill down my spine. I yelled after James and the response was an eery silence. I panicked and tried to move, but it just sent more shit down the gully. After what seemed like an eternity James yelled up to me. He limped out of the gully and onto some more stable slopes. It turns out that he had surfed a tv sized boulder down the gully for 20 feet, headfirst. The boulder rolled over his hip before careening down the glacier. He was lucky to escape with a deep bruise.
Badly shaken, we continued down the Russell, still in the line of fire from the rotten headwall. I kept looking up at the spot on the Russell that we should have descended, realizing that we could have skipped, glissaded, or ran down it. As the slopes mellowed on the lower Russell we were able to breath again. A traverse across the lateral moraines of Jeff Park/Russell glaciers had us back to high camp by 1:00, 10 hours after setting out. We passed out in the shade and then enjoyed sections of snow free trail that lead to cold beers at the trailhead.
It was a fun climb with a new partner, and an unsavory descent. The incident in the gully was the scariest thing that I've experienced in the mountains and surpasses the time I saw a Russian girl try to self-arrest with her fingernails on Casaval Ridge. Thanks for the great trip James.
Above the first shrund
Knife's edge ridge
Summit pinnacle
Gear Notes:
two pickets (never used), one tool (handy for exiting the first bergshrund), light alpine rack, 60 meter 9.4 rope
Approach Notes:
Trailhead is accessible by car. The trail is snow free down low and still covered in deep drifts higher up.
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According to the ranger station this morning, the gates are open, but the road is snow-bound past inspiration point.
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nice pics Matt. Getting off route early on and hitting a dead-end rotten rock wall on Yocums was the most thrilling part of the climb. No photos of your donation to the bergshrund on the reid? It will probably end up in PDX's drinking supply in 2,000 years.
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nice effort jlag. I couldn't justify the drive from Corvallis with sub-marginal conditions. Hopefully it sets up soon.
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Thanks for the info. Sounds like the Hayden is a safe bet. See you guys up there.
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when are you hiking in? I'm not leaving Corvallis until saturday morning. Perhaps I'll see you at camp lake?
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I was planning on going into the sisters this weekend for some skiing, but my partners bailed at the last minute. Had hoped for camping at Pole creek tonight (or 2 miles from pole creek according to the ranger), skiing into Camp Lake tomorrow and skiing the SE ridge on sunday. If conditions are unstable I'll opt for the hayden glacier instead. I'll be driving from Corvallis.
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According to the sisters ranger station yesterday, it's about 2 miles from snowline to pole creek trailhead.
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mountain shots, what is your estimate of the angle of the slope in the first photo?
It's hard to tell looking straight at it.
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thanks for the photos. I'm curious if Hogg Rock is close to the snotel site for Hogg Pass? Seems to be the same area.
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Interesting news about Santiam Pass. We were skiing up on Nash Crater Sunday and didn't see any slide activity in the area. I'm guessing that this was triggered by the recent denser snow burying the powder. It would be interesting to check the crown
to see which layers slid.
I reckon this doesn't happen very often up there.
Snowstorm Causes Slide, Traps Cars
POSTED: 8:20 am PST January 8, 2008
UPDATED: 4:28 pm PST January 8, 2008
SANTIAM JUNCTION, Ore. -- A winter storm settled over much of Oregon on Tuesday, with snow slides closing several highways.
The National Weather Service said snow would fall over much of Oregon from the Cascade Range east to the Idaho border.
The heaviest snowfall was predicted in the southern part of the range, where the service issued a blizzard warning.
On Tuesday morning, a snow slide closed Highway 20 near the Santiam Pass after trapping several cars. Nobody was injured, officials said. It was quickly cleared.
The Oregon Department of Transportation said heavy snow and other weather conditions caused the slide.
A second slide, 80-feet long, temporarily closed Highway 20 later in the day.
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Forget about it. No contest here.
BOZEMAN, MT
Not your typical liberal arts screw off in the woods school. With more science oriented majors students that attend school there are generally more focused and motivated than in other areas. They'll actually show up before 8 am to go climbing. Crazy I know.
You have Hyalite for ice and the Gallatin for rock. Great partners, small town and great skiing.
Bozeman is a great place for a climber to live and go to school with so much good climbing so close. Wake up early jam up the spectre and then go to class, it doesn't get much better.
Boulder, Durango, and all of the other schools that have been mentioned are just fine. There are way more people which means way more bullshitters and hassles to contend with in the hills.
BOZEMAN.
I hear that dudes with dogs and pickup trucks outnumber girls 2:1 in Bozeman.
Bozeman is not a prime spot if adventures on glaciers are high on the priority list.
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you might still be able to go the back way from hood river though, no? take a right off 35 going south in whatever the hell that last little town is?
Parkdale
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very nice. It looks like B.C. arlready has a good base.
[TR] Sinister, Dome, and the Hanging Gardens - 8/16/2008
in North Cascades
Posted
nice flora and fauna pics