ryanb

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.

I've met some climbers from there in Leavenworth, they mostly climbed at the Elwha wall which is steep sandstone sport crag accessed by walking across the (to be removed) Elwha dam. The new olympic climbers guide covers that crag and a few other developing areas...pictures make it look pretty cool.

I hiked around the cordiera huayhuash without a guide in 2003 it took us 9-10 days of walking plus at least 2-3 days on buses/micro buses each way from lima plus time to acclimatize (can't budget enough of this...5000 m passes will kill you with a pack full of 9 days of food). my advice: 1) Learn more spanish. enough to explain to a farmer why you are on his land and convince him to let you camp there. even remote trecks in the northern andes are usually on land people live on and you will need to know how to barter for transit, permission to camp, figure out if the dude talking fast at you is a ranger demanding to see your permit or a scammer pretending to be a ranger, buy fresh fruit in villages you pass etc... If you can't do this higher a guide even if you carry your own weight. 2) acclimatize. that shit is tall. also be in shape. 3) Buy your maps before you leave. 4) Ditto for backpacking food unless you want to live on pasta, soup mix and soy protean (what we ate). 5) Budget plenty of time (days) for missed bus connections etc. 6) two weeks isn't enough time for two "long" trips. 7) Head to the town of huaraz in peru, spend 4-5 days day hiking, mountain biking, (Julio Olazas was the best guide/rental place when i was there...also the only dude who would sell us a map for our unguided excursion...looks like he now has a website: http://www.chakinaniperu.com), checking out the museum then go on a 5 day hike (cordiera blanca is popular) and head home.

Mythos are the rock climbing equivalent of leather telemark ski boots or maybe leashed ice tools. They work fine on moderate terrain where comfort is more of a concern then anything else, there are a couple of dudes out there that can tear it up with them but most climbers interested in doing anything remotely technical would be far better served with a modern shoe. There are many shoes out there that provides much better support while edging or smedging, smear as well, jam as well with a bit of practice, stretch less, are almost as comfortable and don't need to be fit painfully tight. I think the anasazi lv ("women's" shoe but c4 is a plus over the men's velcro), verde or velcro are good choice for trad and the new white anazazi's are hard to beat on thin face climbing (ie most 5.11's at index, gear or bolts). The mocasyms are good initially but stretch too much for me (i know lots of smaller people who love them though). If you prefer sportiva the katana and the miura are also great shoes.

The major wind storm the day before the fresh rock fall was first noticed must have been a clever cover caused by the stealthy perpetrator: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2010/05/extraordinary-may-storm.html I'm sure we can all agree this is simplest and there for best explanation. I wouldn't be surprised if he/she also caused the major low land freeze earlier this winter to help get the rock moving with frost wedging.

So, any one re-free the pitch yet?

Matt, thats a good start but can you provide equivalents for those ratings in bryan brudo's "s" system as well for clarity/consistency?

Climbing' defiantly much easier on the internet... hopefully all this rating spray will increase the self loathing to the point where I actually lead something this weekend instead of doing another crash pad protected rope free enchainment of (very) minor summits in the icicle creek drainage Where does LL put you? Do you end up on library ledge or somewhere right? Edit: Library Ledge is on snow creek isn't it...der...

Do you mean the 2nd pitch of City Park or Leapin' Lizards? No 5.11 found on either. I thought .10b. Lizards is more sustained. How ever I do find clipping the anchor on Slow Children a sand bagged .10d I think Sky Valley Rock has p2 Godzilla aka "Leapin' Lizards" listed as a dirty 11a? though as I said I haven't done it and the only guy I know who has (Eric Gratz) said it was pretty soft...I can only see Cummins online guide here at work and it does have it at 10b so you are probably right. I'll have to try it next time I'm up there. Glancing around the Cummins lower wall pages (hoping this rain clears up soon and dreaming of 11a cracks he calls Death to Zeke and Dr Sniff and the Tuna Boaters both 11a and Julie's Roof and Gogum 11a/b so those all might be better comparisons then the sport routes in the country I listed. I'd say Dr. Sniff is easier though I did fall at the crux when I tried it...I think sky valley has it at 10d. Death to Zeke felt harder though it was kind of dirty when we are on it and it is pretty short...I think sky valley gives it 11b. I'm ashamed to say I haven't done Sloe Children ... I was saving it for the onsite but now it's so built up in my head thanks to people like you calling it hard I'm kind of scared of it...I lead p3 J Gardens left of it which is supposed to be similar (endurancy fingers in a corner) and had to resort to swearing, thrutching and hanging more then I would have liked...I definitely do better on routes with distinct cruxes and good rests. I also haven't done Julie's Roof or Gogum...though Julie's looks good and I think it gets 11a in Sky Valley? Anybody been on it? Any other classic gear 11a cracks out there?

I don't think thin fingers (with the slab) is the easiest 11a at index. I'd put it kind of in the middle ... harder then frank presley, leave my face alone or hairway to stephan. Easier then pressure drop, newest industry, elvis nixon or p3 japanese gardens all of which get 11a in sky valley rock. It might be the easiest gear 5.11 there though I've heard p2 of Godzilla is pretty soft but haven't tried it. Sure is fun though. I've found the slab move is 50 % mental and 50% shoes...i'm the doofus who always has to stop and tighten his shoe laces before committing to it.

In the 10+ to easy 11 range you might try Cunning Stunt, Tunnel Vision, Angora Grotto, Leave My Face Alone, and Heaven's Gate. Others I haven't done but want to are Kite Flying Blind, Hairway to Stephen and Golden Road. They're safe so go for it! Nice list! I'd add: Dr. Sniff and the Tuna Boaters, Pressure Drop, p3 Japanese Gardens (11a fingers) and Death to Zeke ... man this is getting me stoked!