ptownclimber

How about the Sunshine route...anyone know what condition it's in?

Trip: Snow Creek - Outer Space Date: 6/22/2008 Trip Report: After a stellar day of single pitch slab climbing on Fish Rock and the Off Duty area and a great night hanging out at the best camping spot EVER...Gabrielle, Zen with an edge and I headed up to Snow Creek wall to check things out for the first time. We hoped to do Orbitz or Outer Space and expected crowds. After a leisurely breakfast and some hackie sack on granite (Zen with an edge insisted), we got rolling sometime around 11 or 12. The hike in was nice and warm. Better weather than Saturday. We hung out with a family of goats and ate some lunch...happy to find that we wouldn't have to wait to get on Outer Space. It was warm enough that we didn't think much about layers, wind, etc. We had our shoes, some water and a camera stuffed in one of the rope bags, and two headlamps. We had been duly warned to not descend in the dark Now, heading out as a threesome, late in the day, with no experience on that route was a little audacious, but we lucked into following another party of three...some guy who'd done the route dozens of times. In spite of this obvious advantage, we got promptly got off route, overshooting the traverse left (pitch two). Evidently we were not the first as there were a couple of rap stations just above the bolted anchor. Bucking the stereotype that men have a stubborn compunction about asking directions, we confirmed our predicament with the party ahead. Back on course after the inevitable clusterfuck of a belay station with two fat ropes...we found ourselves in the shade and starting to feel the breeze. It had been a nice breeze on the way in. Gabrielle 'won' the rock/paper/scissors for the next pitch, which she soon regretted, but led the pitch with great style, as usual. Zen and I were both glad we didn't lead the pitch. Very funky moves on that upper ramp. The fourth pitch delivered plenty of rope drag and more challenging climbing than we expected, especially getting to the top of the pillar belay. By this point we were really beginning to feel the shade and the wind. It proved unfortunate that we had to enjoy such fine rock in the cool of the long, near-solstice day. Now, these ladies are not only beautiful, smart, funny, and talented, they are also WARM...which made all the difference in this particular menage-a-trois outing on granite. So here is where the fun really began. First hand in the crack: "oh, baby!"...move feet, hips, hands..."oh yeah, there it is!"...(God this feels good)..."that's it, right there!"...repeat. We could hardly contain ourselves after the long build-up to the really good stuff. And the goods just kept coming. Start of pitch 6: cool moves right off the belay; my first heel-hook on a trad route . More beautiful rock. Farther up: wishing we had more gear in that hand-jam size range. The ladies are clearly having fun, laughing incessantly. I'm starting to wonder what's so funny. I don't find run-out amusing. Still farther - climbing is getting easier and rope drag is getting worse. Still farther - must be close to topping out, getting easier, run-out...running out of gear and slings, getting judicious with placements because of rope drag and lack of gear. Topping out...huge funky jugs like I've never climbed on before. I guess that's where the name outer space came from. I can see this crack right at the top...still have a few nuts, tri-cams and one big cam...damn this rope drag! Just a few more feet...Shit! Something must be wrong. I'm yelling down that I need more rope, can't hear anything comprehensible back. I'm pretty sure they're trying to say that there's no rope left. Pulling...PULLING...I can reach the crack, nearly on the flats...but not enough rope to tie in and zero slings left. Shit. I place a tri cam, a nut and the big cam as calmly as I can...jerry-rig some kind of shitty anchor together using the one remaining quick-draw, loose biners and nuts as slings. OK. PULLING...shit! still can't reach. I've got really good feet and all but I'd really rather not downclimb back to the last piece or belay w/out an anchor. Some more yelling, some more cussing...one more mighty pull and I manage to clip the rope through the 'biner. No knot, but I can tie one after I've belayed up a couple of feet. Better than nothing. First I have to yard up enough to get the belay device in. Gabrielle and Zen follow very quickly, happy to be getting on top so we can get out of the chill. I'm in a t-shirt, Zen in shorts. We get our crap together and cruise down as soon as we've all changed shoes. 8:50. We take a quick look around...a goat is sticking its head around the corner, silhouetted against the skies to the North...looking at us and wondering why the hell we make it look so hard. No time for pictures or high-5's, but we'll have that mental image forever. The ladies both have headlamps so the descent goes off without a hitch. We even had food, water and warm clothes back at the packs. All in all we narrowly avoided some kind of little epic on a perfectly good weather day. We had a blast. Thanks, ladies, for a great climb. Looking forward to the next one. So has anyone else had a rope-stretcher like that on the final pitch? Do most people just sack up and walk around the low angle crap on either side of the large flake/roof? Belay lower down? Gear Notes: -Could have used another red camalot or two...and more clothes -60m ropes -Arugula, salami, tomato and cheese bagels (Thanks, Zen!) Approach Notes: Thanks for all the nice cairns...

Dude, excellent photos, as usual. Nice route map! Yeah, SE buttress it is.

First pitch: Jport follows through the crux of the second pitch - stylishly in schoeller 'knickers': Looking down at the mank section of the second pitch - the last good rock is the block in the middle of the photo: Top of the second pitch: Snow saddle in the 3rd pitch...and you can almost make out where one of the steps blew a little: Rest of Ray's pic's: Approach:

Trip: Illumination Rock - not sure Date: 6/1/2008 Trip Report: Jport's excellent route map: Jport, Ray-on-tray and I had a stellar day on illumination rock. It rained over night in Portland, and we were dragging ass in the morning...drizzle, overcast, etc. I was hungover (surprise visit from an out of town friend) and still getting over the cold. Ray was not terribly motivated and talking about bailing. Jport was his normal, chill, non-chalant self. We had bounced around quite a few potential plans for the weekend and settled on this one, gear was packed...so we rallied. The regular bagel and Chai from Mountain Mocha seemed to help...and by the time we got to the parking lot, sunshine and blue skies were breaking through. The tops of the clouds are so much nicer to look at than the undersides. We didn't leave the parking lot until 9:15 - in retrospect two or three...or six hours earlier might have been better. I also could have used another layer. Ray was nice enough to loan me his shell - thanks, dude. We had great conditions for skinning and made pretty good time. We scoped things out as we approached - no real beta other than looking at summitpost and cc. The route we settled on took the right side of the large ampitheater (full of snow right now). The first pitch started with an interesting mantel move...then really fun stemming and cracks on mostly good rock. It continued for a full rope length - mostly moderate climbing, trying to avoid water, snow, gravel and choss. Ray led the second pitch - which turned out to be the big balls pitch. The first section was fun climbing in a quality dihedral. The second section was sketchy, run-out face climbing on manky rock - Ray stepped on to a snow block...an indication of how bad the rock was. There were good features and the climbing would have been pretty straightforward if the rock was solid...but it was really hard to trust hands or feet on this crap. This led up to a point above a small snow saddle (kicking steps in rock shoes is always fun) which Jport led - the window pitch up to a cool knife edge ridge. Words and pictures can't describe the view from under the truck sized chockstone. Looking over at the Reid...we were glad we didn't head over there as it didn't look as nice as it did 2 months ago. Every pitch used up a full rope length. All day we had great position, it was peaceful, not too windy...it felt like we had the mountain to ourselves in spite of the hoards. The fourth pitch took us back down along the ridge back to the rap route for the main route (left of the ampitheater) - mostly easy but the last bit was pretty sketch (chossy and exposed) and hard to communicate with the position and rope drag. My throat was still bothering me so that made communication that much harder. The rappel was mostly straightforward (turns out jport and I have matching ropes, distinguishable only by age), but it was cold and the last little bit was downclimbing (postholing) in soft snow in rock shoes. Jport and Ray were smart enough to wear their ski socks. About this time the clouds lifted and vis went to shit. The snow had hardened up again (it was after 6:00) so the skiing was pretty rough most of the way down. It seemed like it would have been pretty sweet had we skied down around noon when we got on the rock. Car to car in 10.5 hours Thanks guys for a great outing. Gear Notes: -obligatory parking lot R.N.M. "...your recipe darlin', is so tasty..." -the power of positive thinking (if you bring the shade hat, you will need it -tomato, cheese and avocado sandwich -alpine rack; tri-cams and more cordelette would have been nice Approach Notes: 9 consecutive months of skiing...3 more to go.

Looking to do something easy on Sunday...less driving

Anyone know what TH access is for either Cascade pass/Eldorado or south side of Stuart?

What are conditions like right now and when is that typically in?

There we have it. Nice work Jport. Thanks for the photos and a great climb. :-)

How about Utah desert...anyone climbed there in November?

Um, yeah. Bill, thanks for the patient belay. And yes, she did make it look graceful, didn't she?

Yes, let's. Next year we'll switch pitches ;-)

Anyone know if the road is open yet and/or a good phone number or link?

How about longs pass down to the creek...how much melt out? thx

Anyone have any beta on road access to any of the above or been up looking around? Other ideas? Doing a B/C trip this weekend but only two days...

Did you use pro in the couloir or was it solo? Too soft for pickets?

$50 for the clinic is a typo. The clinic cost is $25-$30 depending on membership with PRG or Mazamas. Check with PRG