ericb

I believe we did the route as described in the CAG red book, and shown as "original finish" on the topo. It looks like going up and right from the belay at the top of p3 can replace our so-so pitch 4 with a 5.7 pitch and add as much as 2 5.7 pitches to what was a scramble for us. What little I've seen written about the variations made them look a little sketchy ("loose death blocks"), so we stuck with the original route - not stellar either IMHO but OK. Alpinedave.com describes going up and right, not liking what he saw, and traversing back over to the "dance floor" and original finish.

What did you think of the variation pitches?...I wasn't thrilled with pitch 4 of our route.....and pitch 5 was a scramble for us.

Climb: Kangaroo Temple-Northwest Face Date of Climb: 9/7/2006 Trip Report: Thursday, Touray and I made a 4:45 AM Issaquah departure, headed for Washington Pass to climb Kangaroo Temple, Southeast of the Liberty Bell group. We left the Car at ~ 8:30, aiming for Kangaroo Pass, despite the thick haze from the wildfires nearby. After a 2 hour approach, we were standing below our objective, the Northwest Face of Kangaroo Temple, a 5.7+, 5 pitch climb. The wind was working in our favor, keeping the plume from the Cedar Creek fire, (~ 1-2 miles away) to the Northeast. Touray lead out on the first pitch, which was as advertised….run-out 5.7 climbing with limited pro. I think he got 2 pieces in on the whole pitch. Fortunately one of them ~ protected the sketchy downclimb into a gulley below the first belay station. We had stretched our 50M rope to the max on the exit from the gulley, so I pulled up the belay and gave him enough rope to make it to the tree belay. The downclimb on this pitch is probably as/more scary for the follower as there is no top-rope here and the holds are very thin. first pitch 3rd pitch I led the second pitch – a fairly steep left facing corner (5.7+ per Beckey), with great rock, good pro, and pretty good rests to the next tree belay in an alcove (~ 120 feet +/-). Touray took the next pitch (5.7) around a small roof which entered another left facing corner – not as steep, with good pro, but with very few features for hands and feet. There was lots of stemming and underclings on this one (~ 80 feet) to another tree. I took pitch four which was a sketchy unprotected face traverse (good feet, limited hands) on pretty crappy rock with limited pro. I finally got a marginal cam in a hollow sounding flake ~ 50 feet out, which I then surmounted up a face to the “Dance Floor” as Beckey calls it. This was a fairly low angle, highly featured slab with some limited pro opportunities in a corner crack to the right…glad to have the red tri-cam here, although the climbing here is pretty easy. The pitch ends with a ~5.6 corner with some looseness marginal pro. Again, our 50M came up short, and Touray pulled up the anchor to give me 30’ to another tree belay. A short scramble led us to the summit where we looked down into the Cedar Creek fire near Silverstar. We took some pics, ate, drank and headed north to spy a triple bolted rappel anchor. While Beckey’s topo shows 80’ rappels, I’d estimate the first one was a bit longer based on the fun we had at the bottom of the first very steep rappel. After some fun scree skiing, we were on our way back down to the car, eyes starting to sting from the smoke. Cedar Creek Fire First Rap All-in-all, I thought it was a great moderate route, with the big positive being sustained moderate climbing unlike many of the other climbs ~ this grade in the area which, in my experience seem to be 4th and low 5th class climbing with only a few moves harder. More pix http://ericbakke.spaces.msn.com/photos/?_c02_owner=1 Gear Notes: Cams, micros to #2, pink/red tri-cam, small to medium stoppers, Should have had 60M rope Approach Notes: look for big cairn near right side of boulderfield from hairpin

gotcha....I thought perhaps it was slang for the easy route

by "passenger route" do you mean South Arete?

From last Sunday.....as you can see, all things being equal, a N-S wind could make things a bit unpleasant. The peak to the far right is Wallaby, one peak north of K Temple on the ridge. And yes, AF, I did a TR

Haven't, but planning on doing it mid-week this week....let me know what you run into

Yep...saw that...there were some comments in the TR that led me to believe they were not as experienced as my buddy at work.... Nonetheless...they actually ended up doing the NR of Stewart. Tried it in a day from Tenaway and did the upper with Gendarme. Made to the bottom of the CC by about 10PM and crashed on their packs.

Good Question....I've only done the Beckey Route on Liberty Bell, and the South Arete and Southwest Rib on SEWS. Pitches 1,3, and 4 are quite easy with good pro. The 5.9 second pitch is a good bit harder than anything on the Beckey Route, so I think the audience is different. I'm a newbie trad leader, and felt very comfortable leading the Beckey Route this year, but was glad Blake led the 5.9 pitch. It's tough, and sustained, and there's a section that's difficult to protect. There's bomber nut placement below this section, and it's not exposed, but it's a high angle slab, so a leader fall would be painful here. The first placement(s) after this section was blind Cams behind a flake - feel, know which cam to grab, place, move. I thought the Southwest Rib had more variety, and the cruxy sections (O/W and Bear Hug) while awkward, were pretty easy to protect - didn't feel desperate. I've never lead a 5.8, but in hindsight, I would have been fine on SEWS - probably not on Concord. I think a better comp might be the other Concord Routes. Although I haven't climbed them, I've heard the Cave Route has an unprotectable move with decking potential and moderate grade. I think if someone is a solid 5.9 leader, coming down from a route on Liberty Bell, or on their way back from SEWS, NEWS, this is a great more challenging bonus route alternative to the Cave Route or North Face. It took us three hours, up and down, with a bit of futzing and a couple false starts. One thing that might be obvious from the pictures, is the relative lack of exposure vs. LB and SEWS. Good or Bad....depends on the person.

Climb: Concord Tower-West Face (II, 5.9), SEWS, Cutthroat Date of Climb: 8/27/2006 Trip Report: I met Blake Herrington at the Bridge Creek trailhead at 8AM Sunday with the intent to get in as much climbing we could by dinner time Monday. We did the Southwest Rib of SEWS (5.10b P#3 variation) first on Sunday, followed by the West Face of Concord, and then Cutthroat Peak, South Buttress on Monday. The TR focuses on Concord as there's lots of Beta on the other two. If anyone wants more details, feel free to PM either of us. We left the Blue Lake trailhead at ~8:30. After completing the Rib on SEWS and descending the South Arete, we traversed over to the Liberty Bell/Concord Gulley where after some contemplation of where the route started, we geared up. We started the first pitch ~ 5pm. According to the one route description we could find (summitpost.org), the route starts around 1/3 of the way up the gulley, so we started out on an obvious ramp/ledge system that looked to gain a broad ledge. The first pitch was about 120’ on solid cracks. Blake backed off of a direct route up (~5.9) after encountering a hornet’s nest, and continued up the left side to a belay at a tree (5.6/5.7). P1 Ramp with P2 ending at tree on upper left The route description we had implied that next-to-come was a right arching 140’ 5.8/5.9 flake/finger crack that transitioned to a jam crack. We didn’t see anything resembling that, but moved rightward from the tree belay and then up a large crack-protected slab. We then worked up steepening cracks past a large hollow-sounding flake, and aimed for the prominent tree growing above a long finger crack. We climbed a rightward-layback finger crack (Blake rated it 5.9 or 10a) and then jammed the crack when it widened (2-3") up to another tree. Overall, this was a great pitch. There was one ~ 20 foot section where the crack was shallow and flared, and the sharp edge was eroded. This made for a fun combination of no pro and a less-than-perfectly-bomber lie-back. The upper portion of our pitch kinda resembled the route description, but we’re still not convinced that we were on the original route as the description recommends “hexes to include a #10 for a bombproof anchor (end of P2)” - we found a tree belay. I had to pull up the belay to give Blake ~ 10 more feet on a 60 meter rope. Me nearing the end of P2 Pitch #3 - From the tree belay, we moved up and slightly right, under-clinging a roof, and then followed the crack upwards, climbing on chicken-heads and moving back right and up upon seeing the infamous "cave". (5.6/5.7) Pitch #4 – Up easy ground past a tunnel like feature, deemed “brackets” in our reference TR, up an easy slab to the summit – (5.6/5.7). We arrived on the summit at 7:30, and didn’t dally as the shadows were getting long. Blake on Summit Me on Summit We rapped off a tree/bolt anchor at the summit, and after a minor hang-up on the first ramp (small scramble to free rope) were back in the gulley at 8PM after three or four single rope raps. We then moved as quickly as possible to retrieve our packs and get out of the gulley as a party of 6 was preparing to rappel off of Liberty Bell and we didn’t want to be in the line of fire. We reached the car in darkness at about 9PM, and rushed down to Dinner in Winthrop to discover that nothing was open (Sunday night, 9:40 PM…Duh) Instead we got to clean out the remaining deep-fried gourmet at the mini-mart, and topped it off with chocolate milk and ice-cream sandwiches. We returned to Washington Pass, parked, and threw down our bags on pads next to the car for some much needed rest. The following morning, we started our approach to Cutthroat a few minutes before 7AM. Once gaining the ridge by the left most gulley, we followed the path of least resistance....Sounds like we were lucky with the routefinding compared to others, and we were on the summit by noon. We both thought the "unprotected 5.8 face" out of the gulley was the scariest move on the route, and climbed the last 5.8 off-width without a #4 and without incident. The downclimb + dozen single raps went without incident (i.e. not stuck ropes) and took us a little less than 2 hours. We were back at the car a few minutes after four, and Blake was hiking home by a few minutes before 5. I thought about his body's battle to digest his cliff bars during his 15 mile hike home as I, in-turn, struggled with how to dip my jalapeno poppers in the bronco berry sauce safely at 75 mph. Pix of all routes: http://ericbakke.spaces.msn.com/photos/?_c02_owner=1 Blake - if you'd like to post a relevant Concord pic or two in a thread or if I've misstated something please chime in. Gear Notes: Few mid size nuts, Cams - Green BD C3, to #2/#3 C4...(can't remember if the #3 was placed or not [blake???]), #7-#9 WC Rockcentric Hexes, 6 extendible draws, and 2 or 3 48" slings as P2 is a wandery rope-stretcher Approach Notes: Lib/Concord Gulley...wear your helmet.

Agreed that the thread was a little vague on the type of device, but it looks like experience has shown at least a few that despite the fact that the reverso claims to be usable down to an 8mm half-rope, it's not a great idea without a backup. The article also mentions other contributing factors including no knots at the ends of the ropes....seems like a common thread in the last couple accidents. I don't what if any difference there would be performance-wise using a reversino to belaying a lead or follower, but my takeaway is that if I'm using my reverso to rappel on a skinny rope, best to put knots in the end, or use a friction knot back-up, or both.

so are you saying the the OW can be adequately protected with something smaller?

A buddy of mine from work want's to do this this weekend, and only has Cams up to BD #4......Will this work for the pitch 2 OW, or will he need a #5? Thoughts..... He's a 5.10 trad climber, but not a fan of OWs so I suspect he'd want to protect it well. Thanks in advance

As long as we're getting the facts straight, perhaps you should tell him about the difference between the Old Testament (Moses et al) and the New Testament that was found . Other important distinctions - I'd have to guess that most Christians don't get too offended about abject treatment of physical copies of the Bible - it's nothing more than ink and paper - that's why they leave them in Hotels....this thread would be far more inflammatory if it were the Koran.

Told him as much....he claims both he and his buddy are strong 5.10 trad climbers +1 in a pinch. I told them to bring headlamps and think about doing a pre-dawn approach.

I'd still like more details on how it happened

I'd ask you the standard question, "why are you so angry?", but I think I already know the answer... tr.v. Chiefly British Vulgar Slang rog·ered, rog·er·ing, rog·ers To have sexual intercourse with (a woman). Used of a man. [From Roger, spoken representation of the letter r, short for received. V., from Roger, penis from the name Roger.] Here's an idea...be angry at your parents, not Jesus

thanks all...not for me but a buddy at work - much appreciated.

In all seriousness, it would depend on the nature of the poop. Whose poop was it - age, gender, etc. would be helpful. Also, what did this person have to eat ~ 8 hours before they had their BM. Were they well hydrated? Was the rope pulled through the poop quickly or slowly? Was their any sheath damage in the effected area?

You might try visiting Marmot Mountain Work in Bellevue, ProMountain Sports in the U-district, Second Ascent in Ballard, and Feathered Friends downtown, and do some looking and questioning. Also, just because a manf. makes good equipment, doesn't mean they are good to their retailers. Many are notoriously late with their shipments to retailers, or notorious for running out of stock on hot items.

What about getting on the route?

You could drag it over Dirtyharry's herd of sheep once he has them rounded up for the night.

Le Quah.....better have a good excuse

Are both ice axe and crampons a necessity this time of year...anybody been up there lately or late august in previous years?

I prefer anything made overseas in sweatshops - preferably using child labor if you can find it. Unfortunately this really limits you to apparel. Stay away from the liberal wack-jobs at Patagonia as they use organic cotton and filter lobbying $ to enviro-fascist causes, among other things. If you want to carry hardware and footware, you'll unfortunately have to do business with the quasi-communists in Italy and France at a minimum. Fortunately, you will find good gear from our friends and fellow Warlords in the UK.....DMM, Wildcountry (now the same).