Tom_Sjolseth

I still haven't got my book yet, but wow, you did a great job on your Winter Climbs section, Lowell. A very interesting read!

Nice show, Ivan. Aid climbing looks like fun - I need to learn how to do it. And good idea, if anyone else wants to add their year in photos to the thread, it would be cool to see what everyone has been up to.

Now that we're wrapping up 2011, I find myself looking back on one of the greatest years of my life. Here is a 10-minute slideshow featuring some lasting memories that I got to share with many of my good friends in 2011. I did not include every photo (not even close), nor did I include every trip for the sake of brevity. I hope you enjoy viewing it half as much as I enjoyed living it. Thanks to all my friends who came along for the ride.. I am fortunate to know each and every one of you and to be able to call you my friends. Here's to 2012, and the great things that are sure to come in the new year and beyond. Cheers! The slideshow contains a mix of hiking, climbing, and skiing so if that's not your thing.. The 720p HD version is available for viewing on Vimeo. It will only let me embed 480p below. [video:vimeo]34243380 Thanks to all my hiking, climbing, and skiing partners this year - Dan S, Wayne W, Lane B, Geoff F, Sean M, Carla S, Yana R, "Iron" Mike H, Mike C, Josh H, Franklin B, Eric J, Doug H, Moira A, Matt B, Gabriel D, Don D, Stefan F, Greg K, Mike Z, Craig P, Tim S, Dane B, Marko P, Norm B, Don B, Don & Natala G, John P, Martin S, Eric E, Trevor W, Fay P, Fred B, Erin B, Sergio V, Nastia B, Roy M, Jeff H, Nicholas C, Jack A, and Bryan S.

Nice, Jeff & Matt. You guys have been getting after it.

Wayne's got a bunch of great shots - I didn't bring a camera. It was very chandeliery in spots and we were knocking down a good amount of ice, but some of the ice was really great. We were barraged with spindrift pretty much the entire way. It takes some balls to lead this climb in these conditions, and Wayne and Daniel apparently have them! I found the climb to be steeper and more difficult than it looks from the ground. Wayne made it look too easy though. We climbed in two teams of two.. Daniel and I, and Wayne and powderhound. Wayne and Daniel each led the business.

Wow, what a line. Wayne, powderhound, Daniel Jeffrey and I climbed this today. A very fun and aesthetic line so close to the parking lot. Thanks to Wayne, powderhound, and especially Daniel Jeffrey for a great climb.

That looks sweet! Nice work.

Nice work, thanks for the reports. Wayne posted a topo showing LA Express and others here.

That pitch is the upper ice step on the Right Gully variation. Such a fun pitch, but short. dougd.. coming down the spur was pretty good if you're comfortable with downclimbing steep snow. We reverse front-pointed about 1200'?? on everything from firm neve, to sugar, to alpine ice (near the top). Here's a crappy iPhone photo looking down the upper spur..

I saw the video.. you guys had a good excuse.

Literally zero wind all day, and ~25 degrees on the summit. This was my third time down there in the past two months trying to get this route in good conditions (ie no wind). My worst success rate on any mountain anywhere is Mt. Hood.. I'm 2 for 8. Almost all my failures have been because of wind. Good luck.

Wind was zero all day. We topped out at like 12:30?? And actually, we climbed it Monday NIGHT and Tuesday. I picked my partner up from the Seahawks game on the way down.. he only drank 5 beers though..

Nice TR, Crackman. We daytripped the right gully from Seattle on Monday.. ice was QUALITY, the whole route was perfect. We running-belayed the first ice step and belayed the second ice step. Everything else we soloed. We downclimbed the Cooper Spur and the whole route took us a little over 11.5 hours round trip. If you can get it without any wind, this is the perfect time to do this route..

I've got four pairs of photochromic lenses from Julbo.. the Zebras (Julbo Advance, Julbo Race, Julbo Revolution Goggles), and the Camel (Julbo Explorer), and I like them all a lot. They transition slowly (over the course of minutes), but they do transition and it is noticeable. I never have a problem with them being too dark on rock or too bright on snowfields and glaciers. The Camels are polarized cat. 2-4, and the Zebras are not polarized cat. 2-4.. but the Camel lenses are darker than the zebras at all times - still, they have never been so dark that I felt I needed to take them off.

Thanks for the excellent post, Mtguide. Definitely one of the most interesting replies I've read on this site. In Spray, no less..

Thanks for the info, Scott. Daniel and I are headed out for a long day trip tomorrow.. not sure what just yet. Shoot me an e-mail if you're interested, it would be great to have you along.

Has anyone been up in the neighborhood of Colfax lately? I'm curious to know if the ice is touching down and how much of a wallow it is to get up to it?

Congrats to Don, and thanks for the great video.

Your work certainly speaks for itself. I know I will be keen to buy some for Christmas gifts this year. Can't wait to check it out! Congrats, John.

Thanks, everybody. Yeah, there really is some gems on the list - and don't forget Lemolo (AKA Hardest Mox) and Assassin Spire. All the much neater to finish the list 1 year to the day after Dallas left us.

For those of you interested in the list (and others like it), you can read about it here. A web page will load at first which looks like an error, but wait for about 10 seconds and the correct page will load. The 10th peak on the list is N Index, the other 9 are correct.

I'm pretty sure Dallas meant hardest summits to reach, not hardest rock climbing by the easiest route. There is zero rock climbing at all on Lincoln Peak and none of the climbing is very technical, but the summit is definitely one of the hardest to reach. S Hozomeen does have some 5th class on its easiest route and a reasonably complex approach. The routefinding is some of the most difficult of any peak I've been on. I thought about Chimney Rock and its probably in the top 15, but I think Gunsight is harder (way longer approach, tougher routefinding, dangerous & difficult gully to get up to the climbing route). Forbidden a harder summit to reach than J-Berg? I disagree. Go make both of them into a daytrip and tell me which day seemed harder. In fact I've climbed every peak you mention (as well as at least nine of the peaks on the original Kloke list) and, despite being highly subjective, I believe the list is pretty accurate.

Thanks for your input Scott. I agree, there are several factors in determining the difficulty of a peak. While it's interesting to hear others' opinions on how they'd tweak the list in their view, this post really was meant to identify the peaks on the original Kloke list (and the order). I agree with your assessment on Lincoln.. scary is the word that comes to my mind the most. We were in a 12' deep avalanche trough for about 2 hours on one attempt with nowhere to escape if stuff started coming down. At one point, we exited the trough briefly to take a break on a rock island. It was then that a sluffalanche came down that, if we were still climbing in the trough, would have swept us all to our deaths. The mountain just doesn't come into virtually safe conditions, ever. That to me is a difficult summit to reach.

Blake, isn't the easiest route on Anonymity Tower 5.5? I agree that Burgundy is an outlier in that it has such an easy approach. So you're reasoning that AT has a longer approach and is almost as technically difficult as Burgundy? I could see that. I do think it's hard to omit Burgundy in that it's unique -- it's the only peak I know of in the state that requires 5.8 rock climbing to summit - granted, it's not super sustained, but it is 5.8. ivan, I concur that J-Berg maybe shouldn't be on the list, because you can climb the E Ridge (or gullies adjacent to it) without doing much more than a move or two of low fifth. It is a rugged and complex and intimidating mountain though, and I know it was pretty special to Dallas, so understand how it could have made the list. If it were my list, I'd tweak it a bit, swapping Johannesburg for Lemolo, and I would add Assassin Spire to the #1 or #2 spot. I'd probably round out those 9 peaks with Gunsight Peak to make 10.

The late Dallas Kloke, a Cascades pioneer, drew up a list of the most difficult summits to climb in Washington by their easiest route. I saw it a few years ago and was intrigued by the list, but have since lost track of it and can no longer find it online. I believe I have 9 of them figured out, but can't figure out the 10th for sure. Does anyone have a copy of this list? This is what I was able to recollect (in order of difficulty in my opinion): 1) Middle Index 2) Lincoln Peak 3) Nooksack Tower 4) Inspiration Peak 5) Hozomeen Mountain (South Peak) 6) Mt. Fury (West Peak) 7) Mox Peak (SE Peak) 8) Johannesburg Mountain 9) Burgundy Spire The 10th could be Gunsight, but if anyone knows for sure and has a copy of the list, it would be neat to have it. Has anyone else climbed all 10 of these peaks?