ryanb

You can't ding the guy for not scrubbing something. What have you scrubbed lately? Good point but that corner does look fun (if it ever dries). As to what i've cleaned recently. Mostly bits of rock that fell off the better crags: Some fun stuff though. The wide crack still (to my knowledge) awaits an ascent that doesn't end in head first dive into the pads below. If anyone is interested in an after work trip from seattle let me know.

I'd say: +2 for unearthing a fun looking moderate route. +1 for attempting to name something after an Episode of Futurama. -1 for announcing it to the world and discovering it had been done. -1 for not scrubbing the corner next to it. Still I'd say a net gain and I'd recommend following up on it by scrubbing and renaming the whole wall left of there down to and including the lower lump. Got to be some classics in there.

I tried to lead the first pitch and had to pull on gear. I haven't even tried the chimney- it was the most miserable, just not fun rock climb that I've ever done. I want to enjoy my climbing. Many can do that pitch but few actually enjoy it. One, surprisingly popular, approach to it is to decided you are ready to solo it and then deck from the crux. Short even steven and the variations (sticking to one crack or the other, avoiding the arete) are worth adding to the list of widish crack climbs...you need to learn to get just enough from your hands/forearms/chicken wings to hold you into the rock while you move your legs up... and be content with inch by inch progress as that is often all you will get. Also, i seem to recall that you can get up battered sandwich without any hugh gear if you sling chock stones etc... some 2's and 3s and maybe a 4 would be enough big stuff.

You can also get a weird wide crack style knee bar at the base of libra crack before it pinches down which lets you swing your upper body up to decent thumb cams. Honestly though the start of libra feels only slightly easier (and similar in style) to the first 5.11 crux on japanese gardens. I think it falls in a certain class of "5.10" TR puzzles which are better viewed as character (and technique) building experiences then typical examples of the grade... In terms of routes you should get on, at some point when I was working through the 5.9's at index I acquired some wide gear and went on a tour of the index moderate wide cracks which is something I'd recommend to anyone who aspires to be an all around leader as lots of routes have at least a bit of the wide. There aren't many of them and most of them are pretty classic. GNS area: Aries p1, Butt Lipps, Timberjack Private Idaho: Magic Fern, Battered Sandwich, Istanbul Other Areas: P2 and P3 GM, That thing across from toxic (easies one on the list). Read up a bit on wide crack technique first and try to lie back as little as possible. You also really need to get on some harder routes that aren't steep...there are lots of routes that are much more about footwork technique on insecure moves then sustained jamming like libra or BOC. Short Japanese Gardens is probably the best easily accessible easy 10 example of this. There are also some 10d ish routes at Private Idaho that are worth trying on tr if you have a rope there already.

Do you boulder? If you boulder you should see if you can follow some of the mid-hard tens (p2 city park, dr sniff and the tuna boaters, klaus van bewler, tatoosh) as they have distinct cruxes but nothing as enduro as libra. If you don't boulder you should take up bouldering... Also all of the short variations (short shirley, short japanese gardens, short sag, short thin fingers ... probably one or two other) are pretty doable. I think my first ten lead was plumb pudding but sky valley rock calls it 5.9+

Last year around this time I ran into Colin and Bjorn on a sunny afternoon in the index parking lot... they said they had decided they were happy with what they had done in alaska and decided to move their plane tickets up and climb some dry granite. Then they hopped in colin's beat up station wagon and speed off to try to make it to rockfest in Leavenworth in time for free hot dogs shouting jokes out the window as they left. Good guys and I hope they find some sun and a few hotdogs to help them recover and plan the next trip.

I emailed Jeremy.

midweek colchuck lake permits (and sometimes even weekend) are reasonably easy to get if you show up at the ranger station at open (7?). enchantment lakes are harder but you might get lucky (or you could camp somewhere in the colchuck basin and blast up in the morning). Banks lake, mazama and the tieton river canyon are all decent rainy weather destinations depending on exact weather patterns. Sometimes the weather is good in the tieton when it sucks further north and the rock is better than vantage. The serpentine arete has some snow/glacier involved in getting on route and off the peak.

Another description is in "ways to the sy, historical perspectives on north american mountaineering" here: http://books.google.com/books?id=aXRz6_EIAYQC&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289#v=onepage&q&f=false

I heard Joe Puryear did it and I think Fitz Cahall gave it a good go.

If someone goes up there with a drill the two bolts on Terminator (5.10b fun knob route just above the BOC anchor) and maybe the anchor could use an update as well... quarter inch button heads on what could otherwise be a fun moderate pitch.

Here you go: http://probcast.washington.edu/

Most Definitely! Scramble up that gully some time! There are some fun well traveled pitches (timberjack, and gorrilla my dreams) on winki dinky cliffs directly up from the gully or you can walk right (to the top of breakfast of champions) to access the dihedrals. Actually, if you do the great northern slab, scramble up the gully and walk right, do defoliator (5.7...possibly old bolts at the belay) then continue up the (undocumented?) crack system above the left end of the defoliator belay ledge through an interesting chimney/tunnel through and then figure out how to top out the wall (we traversed right for a pitch and then did a pitch ending ant an old fixed rope leading into the trees.) you end up at the base of the mid wall and can do robin's ramp, effectively linking a good portion of the <5.7 pitches at index into a fun multi pitch feeling thing...be very aware of loose rock...there are people below you.

The jetboil boils much faster with a full canister then an empty and the sodo is probably the same way so if might make more sense to actually see how much water you can boil with different sized canisters. The way I understand it, the jetboil design was optimized for fuel efficiency while the reactor was more optimized for consistent, short burn time and use in extreme conditions.

The jetboil, though not as fast, wind cold or altitude resistant as the MSR will boil 11 L per 100g canister according to manufacturer specs (translates to 25 per 227) and weighs much less as well. I suspect it is the best choice in canister stoves for most cascade adventures. Particularly because I find a 100g canister will last me a weekend, non snow melting trip ...

If you have identified those muscles as your week point then go for it. I'm just saying that you could probably make bigger gains, with less risk of injury, with other tools. Grabbing small dowels is nothing like grabbing small holds. Grabbing big dowels (like pipe) might be kinda like grabbing slopers but i think the ladder would move around too much to really simulate slopers....a bachar ladder out of 3 inch pipe would be pretty cool though. What ever you do work into it slowly do plenty of opposition (push ups, hand stands, triceps presses, yoga), don't down climb the thing and lay off it as soon as you feel your elbows start to tweak.

Ladders target lock off strength ... the rungs are too big and jug like to train grip strength or endurance.

A friend and I built one a while ago. Put the rungs closer together then you think if you use old dynamic rope. Good way to develop elbow issues, never used it enough to see any gains from it. Front lever training seems like it works a lot of the same muscle groups.

Where did you get the idea the belayer should be attached with minimal slack? Sounds like some bs the mountaineers would teach. I would argue that the belayer needs slack to dodge falling rock or gear and to maintain circulation on long semi hanging belays and that a soft catch, as provided by the belayer jumping/being jerked up, is the far better and safer catch (ie the one i like to be caught with when i fall...and i fall a fair amount).

I immediately thought the same thing myself. Not making any judgments here but as I'm fairly new to trad I'm curious to hear more about this. How could a fall onto a piece at your knees on the 2nd pitch result in a ground fall if the belayer holds the fall? Something doesn't make sense. The forces on the other two pieces that popped were basically TR falls? Sorry if rehashing this bothers anyone I'm just curious and I hope everyone involved recovers quickly! There is a big slab at the base of the steep suff on p2 he probably hit. Newish leaders (and alot of "experienced" leaders who don't fall much) often place small cams improperly oriented for the direction of pull, which can allow the cams to "lever" themselves out of placements when weighted/rotated. This is particularly an issue with U-stems and the semi u-stem, super narrow head of the c3's is prone to it. I've seen c3's lever/rotate/walk out of placements from rope drag alone so, in my mind, this is a likely failure mode in this case. Which isn't to say that c3's are bad cams, just a specialty piece and not something I would want as my only small cam.

Nice TR! Reminded me of a peter croft story you can find at this link: http://www2.thenorthface.com/na/athletes/athletes-PC-interview.html "Yeah. I did a good traverse through the Stuart Range in the Cascade Mountains. The scariest part of that climb had nothing to do with climbing. I was running up the logging road at night to begin the climb when I noticed the headlights of a car approaching from behind. I don't know why, but my reaction was to jump into the bushes and avoid the car. After I came out of the bushes and started running again I thought to myself, "that was silly, why did I hide from that car?" It was the sort of thing a kid does. So when the car came back down the road a few minutes later, I remained on the road. The car stopped and a fellow got out wearing a Hawaiian shirt. He looked at me and he pulled out a handgun. I thought for sure that I was dead; there was no place to run. He began asking me questions, and I figured out he was a cop. He was up there because a lot of cars had been broken into in the parking lot where the trailhead began. When he asked me what I was doing and I said I was going mountain climbing he wasn't certain to believe me because I had nothing but a small day pack and no gear for a mountain. His idea of a mountaineer involved Lederhosen, ice axes and ropes. He backed away and got into his car like he was terrified of me. Then he drove away. The rest of the walk in I was freaking out over every noise that the squirrels or porcupines made."

I'll chime in for the WCC since I've been volunteering to work on some of the IT and fundraising stuff. First of all, this thread is heartwarming! It is great to see people taking it upon themselves to raise awareness and encourage giving even though we haven't done a promotion or event in a while. You guys are digging deep and making a hugh difference! On the subject of multiple donations/gifts. Things are a bit laggy since we are an all volunteer organization but here is how it works. When you make a donation through one of the links on the gifts page paypal logs your donation and which link you clicked on. Every week or two we go through all of the donations we have received, make mailing labels and stuff envelopes. So, if you donate multiple times through the gift page, you will get multiple gifts but if you donate more then the minimum amount in one go we only send one (and consider you awesome). We are also working to contact those who donated more then $300 previously but again, we are a bunch of volunteers and things take longer then they could. If anyone feels we are doing something unfair let me know and I'll bring it up with the group and I'm sure we can work something out. Thanks again for all of your donations and all of your commitment to saving the LTW! -Ryan Bressler Eric Gratz, Natural Log Cabin

Yes. Cams get beat up from taking falls on irregular rock and if one of the lobes of a tcu gets deformed (or rotates) past the point of being in contact with the rock, it will probably blow. I've seen a 0 metolius fail from this and some other cams come close to doing so. This can partly be delt with be inspecting your placements and tugging/wiggling your cam to make sure it seats between irregularities, is no where near tipped out and will not rotate in a fall or from rope movement. It is also an advantage of 4 cams and cams with more range. At index, thin cracks are often quite parallel and i've found small 4 cams (c4's, power cams/FCU's, master cams, aliens in reverse order of confidence inspired) to be the ticket. Aliens and C4's are particularly nice because of the increased range but aliens loose points for the QC. A double axel master cam would be rad. At leavenworth or WA pass head width becomes more of an issue.

This is awesome.

Sure hand sized pieces in granite are bomber but I think the 30% number seems reasonable if you consider all rock types and all cam sizes and the fact that a cam can fail below rated strength in a test and still be strong enough to hold most falls. I personally have been leading or belaying enough to see 4 cams pulls (two rock empires in a fall placed by an inexperienced leader, one purple metolius in a hanging belay anchor placed by a very experienced leader on the passenger, one green alien placed by me aiding), pulled a micro nut or two (marginal placements at index..."klaus von beuler" i think) and caught a fall that broke a carabiner (scott w on "fifth force" ...carabiner may have gotten stuck in a weird way in the hanger that levered it open. Gate ended up outside nose). Friends of mine have been leading or belaying and pulled/broken a couple more cams (small stuff where the lobe deformed/dented/broke on a cristal past the point where it stayed in the rock) and nuts, snapped a fixed pin, broke two bolts (the aluminum ones on calling wolfgang) and broken one additional carabiner. Climbing with eric8 may have thrown off my average since he seems to break gear more then most but still I think that, if you push yourself on gear, you should expect to be involved in at least one gear failure a year. More if you use link cams and other cast crap, less if you climb mostly on bolts. All of this has left me a big fan of the "nest" technique for placing gear on routes with mandatory runouts.