Dannible

I agree with you, to an extent. Before this summer, I have never had a negative experience with a ranger. The same ranger that gave us a ticket stopped to talk to some guys who gave us a ride down Cascade River Road, and apparently said "time to go bust some violators" when he left them heading towards Cascade Pass. That is not the attitude that I think rangers should have. A few weeks later we picked up a hitch hiker in the park who turned out to be on the park's trail crew. He said that everyone who works for the park thinks that the rangers are out of control this year, as they write anyone, including people who are on the clock for NPS at the time, a ticket. Look back at this post: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/708509/page/0/fpart/1

We normally do get permits. Two weeks earlier we got a permit to go into two different zones, and we were told that the route we were taking was simply impossible (when we knew that many others had gone that way before us), and it took them about 30 minutes to figure out how to give us a permit for both zones. We remembered that when we were going out to do our big trip, which would have been through something like 5-10 different zones, and decided that getting a permit for all those areas would have been a hassle for both the rangers at the office, and us. Also, we would have needed to guess what days we were going to be in what zones, and where we were going to be sleeping, which would have been pretty hard given the length of the trip and the questionable weather. Lastly, there is no way that the permit would have helped them find us in the event of a rescue because all that they would know from the permit is that we were somewhere in or near the park, south of the highway, and could have gotten lost or injured anywhere in that area over the last couple of weeks. Thats a pretty big search area. I don't think that they even say that the permit is for SAR; obviously it might help, but I think most of us give someone more detailed info on where we are going and when we'll be back.

BBBAaaaaaHH!!! I am the guy paying the other half of this. Just got Blakes email and I'm kinda in shock. Terrible news. I just spent my remaining money on skis today, and only have time to work a couple days a week because of school. Horrible horrible stuff. Blake you gotta find out about delaying the payment. Glad my roommate gets food stamps.

Aside from maybe the last few moves, everything on Prusik is a lot easier than a little testis. Save mid sized (around .75) cam for the end of the last pitch.

In case anyone is thinking of going out there, I just called and asked if they need any more help, and they said that they had enough.

I think I hit the 10- pitch, it was going through the overhangs just above a really nice 5.8 crack where the wall steepens up. I thought it was the best pitch on the route. It looked like you could go a couple different ways through there though, so you all must have gone the other way, or I'm just weak.

I did the route last week. Some people seem to not care for it, but I thought that it was amazing. If you don't mind simul-climbing mid 5th and soloing the easy stuff down low, doing it in a day is the way to go for sure. The steep walk down seems never ending though. It would have been nice to have your road map, we spent 2 hours driving around trying to find out where to leave our bikes. A tip for people doing it in a day: if you don't have 2 cars, leave camping gear where you leave your bikes (hopefully you have bikes); that way you can wait to bike down to the main road in the morning when you have a better chance of getting a ride to your car. Otherwise you have a long uphill ride to end your long day.

Nice. I fell 3 times on those last moves up to the summit. Pretty satisfying to mantle right onto the top.

I sent mine to Ramuta's in Montana (search for them online) at the beginning of the summer because last year I dropped them off there (in seattle), and they showed up in the mail just 3 or 4 days later. This year he got them back to me before I even paid for them. I saw a advertisement for a place in Winthrop, but I don't know anything about it.

Sweet! Glad its getting climbed. I spent a while kicking and jumping on both of the things that you called loose blocks on the topo while I was following, and couldn't get them to come off. I think the bottom one will come off at some point, but the top one just seemed to get more stuck in the crack, and might be ok. I didn't see the first deathblock, but Blake gave the one below the zebra stripes a good kicking and it seemed pretty steady. I'll admit, I was pretty scared walking over that thing at first, as it very well could have chopped the rope if it fell. Kind of a fun traverse since its solid though; we dubbed it "walking the plank." I had pictures of Blake on it, but mistakenly deleted them. Nice job on the variation, I'd bet that by the end of next summer every crack up there will have been climbed.

Yep, good call. Someone left a rap sling that looked really new close to where we bailed, so I was interested to see if anyone here would say that they had been up there.

Sweet! I can assure everyone that the overall picture of the ridge doesn't do this thing justice. When we were up there last month we were thinking it would be an easy grade III, but once we got to the first tower and saw how much there was ahead of us we immediatly agreed that rapping 1000 feet down an unknown face (in order to end up in a place where we could go on with the traverse) would be a better option than trying to finish the ridge. How was the rock overall? Was the ridge just past where we bailed as steep and loose as it looked? What was the deal with all those little towers (visible from the south) just before the summit, were you able to just go around them? Cool that you finally got to do a summit bivy. Retire your ropes, G!

Blake is right, this was fun. Next to Rebel Yell I would say that this route has the best rock of any route that I have done in the mountains, and is way better than anything that I have done in the Liberty Bell group (and has a shorter approach, and is 5 minutes away). Fun slabs, splitter cracks, nice face holds, and pro right where you need it.

Good stuff for sure, but I thought the newer one was better. You should post something on that.

Funny, I was gonna say that wildcountry nuts suck. I have a few and I don't know why, but for me they never seem to fit right. Now I only bring them when I might want something to leave behind. DMMs are numero uno.

If it was up to him our rack would have been some nuts and a pocketfull of rocks to sling. So Gordy asked the other guy if he did indeed climb the same ridge? Fun stuff anyway.

Weird summer indeed. Between rain and a couple of small injuries for me, it's not the best time to be a climbing bum. Thanks though. Lets hope for a sunny September.

Yep, I think you know where we were. The route that we talked about would have taken more time than we expected, so we ended at a subsummit and went on our way. The reason I was asking if someone could guess is that we suspect that someone else was up there shortly before us. The part of our traverse that we got through was mostly hiking, easy rock, and snow. The real climbing was to come in the second half

Impossible is a strong word. I'm not saying that I could do it, but I think that south Gunsight, by the south ridge could be quite possible for some people (when the trail is in).

Someone should guess where that first picture was taken. We know that someone knows.

I would think that if you know the area good enough to be wandering around in the dark, those that you list could be climbed in a day (at least Agnes, Storm-King, and Dome; I cant comment on the Fury). The real challenge comes in doing non-standard routes in a day.

After looking at the book again I'd say that both the topo and the description are much different than what I climbed, even though I'm pretty sure I was on route. From the base the line is pretty obvious. The first few pitches are straight up, then after that you have to traverse right from the belays a couple times, once using a sling fixed to bolts above to swing around a corner. After an obvious narrow chimney go left to a big cave (the biggest cave is the higher one), and from there go up and right following the path of least resistance to avoid the A3 that the book says something about. I wouldn't even bring the route description with you, it'll just confuse you.

Gear to 3" is fine. There are no offwidths, just squeeze chimneys that you can protect fine with normal pro. I had to haul my pack through one, but it was not very hard. When I did it the first pitch looked harder than I thought it should so I went up corners and slabs off to the right of the normal start, then traversed left to the start the second pitch. Do not do this; the pro was worthless, and the climbing hard. Just start where the book tells you to. Above that I thought the route was fun. BTW- The topo in the Beckey book is all wrong (I think), and there is some 5.9 here and there.

The worst part is the lowland sun that makes me keep wondering how bad it really is up there. Aw well, it'll get done.

Lots of work to get up there on nasty logging roads (unless you have friends in high places ). I was up there a few years ago and saw old bolts but it is pretty chossy as I remember.