Dannible

Yeah, from the top of middle 8 mile we headed up to Buzzbomb, and followed a ledge system around the corner and up just a bit to the cave route. Lots of ticks in the spring as I recall.

Hell yeah guys! That NE coulee has been talked about a lot around here; glad someone went and did it. Some people think you need to ski 50-100+ days a year to be really getting after it, but those people don't know Dan.

Actually this isn't really late season for Dtail. Last winter and spring I was up there pretty much every month and May and June were the best for ice. It's still been snowing up there so just avoid the first sunny day after a dump. I'll know more in a couple of days!

It's just a few minutes above the upper 8 mile crags in the drainage to the east as far as I can remember. Near a little stream this early in the year. It's not as cool as I hoped it would be. Wide but not deep.

Trip: New routes in Leavenworth - Colchuck NE Face, Snow Creek, Tumwater Canyon Date: 3/31/2011 Trip Report: It’s hard to beat winter in Leavenworth. We were climbing ice the day before thanksgiving, climbed roadside ice and skied deep powder through December, and had three weeks of good alpine climbing conditions in January and February before the arrival of a long pow storm cycle. Sometimes the possibilities seem endless. In late January Jens Holsten and I headed up to Colchuck Lake with heavy packs and a couple of days to kill. Our main objective was the NEB of Colchuck. This outing was similar to the other times that we have headed up to check it out in that we didn’t climb the route. At least this time we got to climb a couple of (hard) mixed pitches before we were stopped by unconsolidated snow and iced cracks. On the way down we stopped to scope out a flow of ice running down the NE face to the right of the NE couloir. The next morning a well timed start had us as the base of this flow by sunrise. Two pitches of perfect AI3 ice had us at a snowfield. From here one could go up and right on easy snow and maybe wrap around and connect with the NBC, but we simul climbed up and left for a few pitches. The path of least resistance took us over a pitch and a half of mixed climbing and snow covered rock before a snow bowl. The snow on these pitches was very unconsolidated and we pretty much had to keep digging down to rock for pro and ground solid enough to support our weight. In better conditions you would be able to cruise over these pitches, but in worse conditions they could shut you down. Above the snow bowl I set up the belay below a nice looking ice filled dihedral, but it turned out the white stuff wouldn’t support any weight. This would be a fun and more direct option if it forms up. Jens traversed about 20 feet to the next weakness, a steep chimney that we climbed in two pitches. Overhanging and technical, but with enough moss and pro to make it work, this was the crux of the climb. Jens gets ready. The route from the base. Dragontail lookin good. More steep snow and mixed climbing took us to a low point in the north ridge. Pulling onto the ridge was one of my more wild moments in recent memory. All that was left of the sun was a pink glow on the horizon, and a stout wind tried to push us off our perch. After dark I am able to climb and stay relaxed knowing that at least it won’t get any darker, but there is something unsettling about dusk when you are on a route without bivy gear. The summit felt a long ways off and a 15 foot tall 4-5 inch wide crack stood in our way. No big deal if we were down in the icicle, but here, now, with crampons on our feet and no number 4 cam it was a disheartening sight. Jens made due with a couple of pins (one is now fixed) and after a short fall and some tense moments he ran the rope out along the ridge. A traverse brought us to the NW couloir which took us to the rime covered summit and the easy descent. After some of the best ramen I have ever eaten and a quick nap we packed up our camp and walked back to the road on shaky legs. By the time I got home it was time to go back to the mountains to go to work. That night I stood in the driving rain next to my chairlift at Stevens Pass and tried not to smile as my co workers groused about the bad skiing conditions on our weekend. We are calling the route the Holsten-Hilden 1,600’ WI3 M6, steep snow. One thing that most people don’t know about Jens is that he is an extreme snowshoe enthusiast. It doesn’t matter what weather or conditions are like, he just goes out and walks hundreds of miles in those things every winter. Sometimes on his walks he sees lines on crags and mountains, and stores these memories away for later use. Promises of white granite, blue ice, and unclimbed mixed lines led me to strap on the snowshoes to head up the Snow Creek Valley a couple of times this winter. At the end of February’s high pressure we headed up to try a route on Temple Ridge, and while we did climb some nice ice in the sun, the switch in my head was flipped from up to down when the sun caused an apparently windloaded bowl above us to slide on our route, a bit too close for comfort. A couple of weeks later the death of an acquaintance in an avalanche on Mount Cashmere shook the community and my confidence. He was doing what he loved in an area that he knew better than almost anyone, a short snowmobile ride from his home. It was a beautiful day and he was with good friends, skiing steep, deep powder. The kind of day that we live for. A day that people around the world dream of, full of the moments which make magazines and ski movies, but for him it was just another day in the life of a guy who chose to live his dream. Today would be Danny Z's 29th birthday. When someone dies climbing or skiing it’s hard to avoid dwelling on the risks I’ve taken and will take, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unexpected and unaccounted for. Without risk however, climbing wouldn’t mean much. Summits and nice views are great, but deep down I climb to learn about myself and see where my limits are. This mindset is inherently dangerous, and sometimes it all seems pretty pointless. I want to be an old man someday, but at the same time I want to be able to inspire my kids and grand kids to live their dreams. In the words of Henry David Thoreau “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Last week Jens and I headed up to another potentially new line in the Snow Creek Valley and with the first swings of my tools all of the doubt and fear of the last few weeks was gone. The question of why does not exist in the mountains. Our route followed an ice runnel and a snow ramp to an obvious 200 foot ice filled corner, and up steep snow and rock bands to the summit of a small middle of nowhere tower. To get there start heading uphill just before the millennium wall, aiming for the tower with the obvious dihedral. The route is directly across from the Snow Creek Wall, and is about the same height. Jens is calling the tower Millennium Tower, and at the time he suggested calling the route 1,000 Swings to Nowhere, which I think is pretty fitting. M5, steep snow. The route goes up the slanted corner splitting the face left of photo center. Earlier in the winter Kurt Hicks, Aaron Scott, and myself also climbed an undocumented ice line in the Tumwater. Mr. Gecko has a picture of it from the road in this thread (to the right of Comic Book Hero): http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/997719/5 Walk across the red bridge, head west on a hopefully packed down old road grade for 20 minutes to where a rock slide blocks the path, and start climbing. Two pitches of WI2, and at the top we climbed an amazing pitch of WI 4 in a chimney. One of the cooler ice routes that I have done in L-town for sure. No one told me it was a FA until we were down, which was neat. An alternative to the last pitch that we climbed is to climb the obvious, less steep flow left of the chimney. I returned the next night to climb that after dark (because snow and rain was about to ruin everything), but downclimbed about halfway up because it seemed a bit wet and insecure. We never really talked about a name. Aaron liked Milf School 6, after a DVD he found on the highway that morning. I kind of like the name Another Roadside Distraction because I looked at the thing so many times driving up to the pass before we climbed it, but it doesn’t even exist anymore anyway, so maybe it doesn’t matter. Kurt has better pictures of this one here. A very PNW topout. Gear Notes: Colchuck NE Face: Double set of cams to 2" singles of 3 and 4. Nuts, pins, and 4 or 5 screws. Millennium Tower: Cams (singles), nuts, screws. Tumwater route: Screws (Stubbies too!) and you might be able to place a small cam or two in the chimney. Approach Notes: Walk like you mean it.

A friend and I climbed a potentially new scottish route across from the snow creek wall last week. 5 pitches, AI2, M4 snow to 70 degrees. The rain might be blowing it. I'm gonna try to do a trip report with more details before the month is over in a couple of days. Personally I'd be very afraid of the stuff around colchuck right now. Meters of snow have fallen since the last big avalanche cycle up there. Might get some rain up high which will be a good start, but a few days of heat and sun (followed by cold) are also needed. The central cascades has now seen 2 avalanche deaths in the last month which is pretty terrible.

Buy used. Look around all year and maybe something will turn up. If you are moving to bozeman you can be picky and stay at home when it's really cold. I climbed about 20-25 days there a couple of years ago and don't remember going out on any really cold days because my partners were locals and wanted to stay inside and drink when it got cold. Cold nights and warmer days is pretty normal. You could also get some cheap used plastics to use on really cold days, and just plan on not climbing super hard (though learning to climb hard in plastics will make you a better climber when you finally get nice boots).

88 mph gusts where I was working at Stevens. Craziest wind I've hung out in in a few years. We shut down early. Pow now!

Nice first winter alpine climb. It's rare for such good climbing conditions and stable weather to match up for so long in the cascades like it did in the Stuart range for a while there. I can't imagine a better long moderate ice route than that in good conditions; one of the best in the PNW for sure. Last spring it was lean and involved a few tricky mixed pitches, but last week there was fat ice everywhere that made lot of reasonable variations possible. A neat way to finish the route is to go straight up the last snowfield to the runnel behind the fin. Last year it looked harder than the normal way, but now it's good.

Meanwhile, we've pretty much had three weeks of good weather in the mountains. Isn't everyone too exhausted to be worried about La Nina?

Bucketz, have you climbed the route? Much more steep climbing than the triple Cs. You climbed the easiest route on the face in 9 hours (didn't set any speed records yourself, but conditions vary) so it seems pretty logical that a harder route is a grade harder. From what I have seem Kurt is an efficient climber. Good job guys, it was fun running into you up there. I seem to always run into friends at Colchuck Lake. Our second climb went well. Fun, full day. There was a party at the base of the triple C's yesterday before dawn so I think people have figured out that it's cool up there right now.

Hot damn this thread is really going downhill. Anyways, Laural I'm pretty sure that is millennium 2. The drip is sure as hell not in. There is a bunch of ice there, but that doesn't mean you can climb it unless you are weightless. There is a nice spray of blood on it now though, which is good for the pictures. Most everything around here that grows ice has some ice on it right now, but tonight it will be covered in snow and in the next week much of it will be brought down by rain. This is Washington, and that's just how it works here. On the bright side, the next two days should be epic pow days.

Rapped in on Rainbow left today to see if it might be climbable because in the pics above it is way fatter than it was just a few days before that. From below it looks ok but up high (and probably down low) there is a huge gap between ice and rock and the whole thing shutters when you swing. Too dangerous to even TR in my opinion. I wish it would get just a bit colder.

Rainbow left is still standing, but is basically a thin free standing pillar because the rain delaminated it and huge chunks fell off of it's base. In my opinion climbing it would be very dangerous for the climber and belayer, and would possibly make it be unclimbable for even longer. Let it grow! Stuff might be in up the snow creek valley.

I was pretty bummed out when I drove by Drury today (well... as bummed as one can be after a pow day). Last week the first pitch of Hubba was fat and quality. A little thinner and delaminated up high, but I can't imagine that it all fell down. The lines to the right were thin and a bit snowy. We got 16 inches of snow in one afternoon followed by a few days of rain. Weird stuff. A lot fell down, but maybe it will be ok in the long run. Cold weather coming, and lots of water running. Might as well be optimistic.

Why not just save up some money and fly? I'm sure just being down there will be adventure enough if you've never done anything like that. Driving would be pretty hard unless you speak good spanish and have a very reliable car that is easy to work on. I've been thinking about trying to get down there next season and want to take buses part of the way back for the sake of seeing new places, but I wouldn't recommend that to anyone unfamiliar with travel in latin america. I couldn't comment on taking a boat down there. As for school: put it off if you want. Lots of my friends have graduated in the last couple of years (I did too) and most everyone is still working jobs that have nothing to do with what they did in school to pay the bills, or going to grad school because they don't know what else to do. There just aren't enough entry level jobs (that require a degree) in most industries for the number of people who are being pumped out of schools. The people I know who are most stoked on school are those who are back in it after years of doing other things. Maybe take some community college classes here and there so that when you do go to school you have a head start. Look into seasonal jobs (trail building, fire fighting, AK fishing, ski areas) and save your money. Seasonal jobs will guarantee that you will not get stuck at a dead end job and will allow you to take long periods of time off between jobs. Also, homelessness and hunger build character. Life can be pretty cool if you do it right.

Ok, I was just making sure of that. There have been discussions in the past where people talked about the need for trail markers in remote places, which I'm not that into. I was also just pointing out that in some cases we have done a good job of protecting the backcountry (mostly through a lack of roads going all over the place in the mountains), which was more in response to alpinisto than oldlarry. Sorry if I got too far off topic; it was 1am on thanksgiving, which means I'd been drinking for a long long time.

Really? I've never been there and I know I'm being a bit extreme, but when I think of the alps I think of hords of people, buildings on mountains and cable cars taking people to them, fixed gear and via ferrata. I'm sure there are many aspects of social and environmental responsibility where the are ahead of us, but if you've ever been to the picket range, the Dome/Gunsight area, or countless other remote places in the Cascades or Olympics, then you know that you can feel as out there as in any other major range in the world. You can go days without seeing any sign of people besides a little trail here and there. I know we have to protect what we have, but really I think we aren't doing too bad in some cases. Trails should be marked where there will be a lot of people, but flagging and signs in truly remote places is lame.

Based on all that Mark has said it sure sounds like the first belay at least could use a bolt or two. I don't want to hear about two climbers dying up there when a bolt could have saved them. Beats placing and removing pins over and over, or using fixed pins that will rot out or break quicker. Not a huge fan of the rap route idea, there are plenty of places to go craging around here and I've always thought of that route as one of the more proud ways to get up Dragontail, not just some nice, friendly climb to go do on a sunny afternoon. I know you don't have to rap off if you don't want to but it sure cuts down on the commitment, which is one of the things that makes alpine climbing what it is. Of course that is just my opinion and I respect whatever decision Matt makes.

Not sure if this thread is serious or not but it looks like skiing is indeed gonna come before ice climbing this year so we might as well embrace it. There's a good deal on the g3 onyx here. Way heavier than dynafit according to the listed info but cheap. Out of the tens of thousands of setups I saw working at stevens last year I only saw one person rocking those. They have a good deal on scarpa spirit 4s on there too, which are great bc boots, but not quite as good for day after day use on bumpy, lame, tracked out inbounds stuff. I haven't used enough different skis to have an opinion but I will say that after using cheap, old school skis for a few years a fat pair of Icelantic Shamans completely changed the game for me. I was never really convinced that I liked skiing but after a few turns on those things I couldn't stop smiling and laughing.

But sometimes they do hold falls, which I think is nice.

Some friends and I climbed the NE couloir yesterday. Just above the lake we were all saying that we'd never seen such ideal conditions. Neve, styrofoam snow, and even a water ice stick or two heading up to the route. The route was fun neve and pow until the final, steeper two pitches. Up there it hasn't warmed up at all and we found the worst granite any of us have ever seen covered by fluffy cold snow and almost no ice at all. In places we were literally swinging directly into decomposing rock and getting sticks that would hold weight. Lead falls were taken, picks ruined. It'll be nice to go back someday and climb it when all that stuff is frozen. TCs might be ok since the crux is a bit lower, but expect a slog up high. Still, perfect weather, more adventure than we expected and no one got hurt so it was a good day.

Those two are on the long, never ending list for sure. Something on Dragontail or Stuart first for me because they are close to home. There was sun up there today for the first time in a while so things could be shaping up pretty quick.

Just what we need! Plenty of snow up high, followed by warm temps, followed by wintery temps means alpine ice when you can still drive to trailheads. Skiing can wait another month.

I've never tried to ski there, but I think that trying to combine skiing with general travel there would be a huge pain. Public transportation can be really crowded and crazy and bringing skis and boots from place to place would be pretty hard unless you're planning on staying in one place for the most part. Getting all my climbing gear and other stuff to Huaraz seemed like a big deal at the time, but I was alone and on a tight budget so that could have made things trickier. Also you always have to have some place to stash your skis as soon as you get into a city, when if you just have a pack you can check things out before getting a room somewhere. Another option depending on your money and time is to go there, ski first, mail all your gear back (or bring older gear and sell it when your done, I sold climbing gear for a good price), and then go check out the rest of the country. It cost me about $150 to send 20 or 30 pounds of stuff home. Where? I would guess any of the mountains around Huaraz would be your best bet, and it's a fun town.