Dannible

So, you climb well feeling anger and hate but climb poorly when you are happy? Did I get that right? You hit the nail on the head there. I've seen him. When happy he is a weak, giggly school girl who would rather look at the clouds and drink soda pop and talk about life. When the hate and anger flows is when all he can do is climb. Geoff, from the start of this whole thing I was gonna ask why you don't just embrace the fear and the anger, but I figured you'd come around on your own. It's funny, while I was reading this a missionary guy came to my door and asked me to answer some questions and prayed for me. I should have asked him for you.

Purity of Essence.

It always depends on the situation. One weighs nothing and the other tends to be a bit too heavy if you have much of an approach. Having said that I've been known to forgo a sleeping bag so that I could bring the canned bivy on a couple of occasions. Very light weight on the way out going that way. Obviously a pint in a plastic bottle is faster and lighter than bringing beer, but sometimes a guy just wants to drink some beer. What was this thread about? I guess it doesn't really matter.

Thats how a belay jacket should be. They aren't meant for long periods of movement, just for when you are resting or belaying unless it's really cold. I'm completly sold on the Mammut Stratus hooded jacket. Weighs 2 pounds and has kept me warm through sub zero montana winter climbing and a lot of cold damp cascade climbing. Almost two years of very heavy use (three winters because I spent one of our summers in Peru) and I'm just now starting to want a new one.

I just took a little drive (five minutes from home) to see if all is lost in the rain we've been getting. The Rainbow and Careno climbs are getting thinner but will be back in good shape pretty quick as long as some coldness comes in. One can assume that the same is true for most of the climbs that have been in recently. Poor ice conditions, rain, bad skiing. Thank jesus for whiskey.

Get rich or die tryin.

Word. More snow followed by a bit of warmth followed by cold is a good deal. Lets hope it stays cold.

Looking at this thread has made me think back and realise that I really did have an awsome year of mountain stuff. In 2008 I never really got into it for a couple of reasons. This year I spent 6 weeks in Bozeman in January n Febuary, climbing 3 or 4 days a week, and skiied Baker in the spring (my first volcano ski deal). In June I graduated from school and I was thinking that this might be my last summer of freedom before the real world sucked me in, so I tried to do a lot: Torment to Forbidden in a day (shut me down in 2 days in 2006), N face of Triumph, neb of Goode in a day, and fun smaller stuff in the north cascades and enchantments. In the fall I moved to Leavenworth, had more fun bouldering than I thought I ever would, and now am stoked on ice again. I don't think back on the past year much because it seems like I'm always just daydreaming about what I want climb in the future.

I once asked this same question. Answer is on the bottom of this page: http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/637334/3

Stevens is waiting on another solid foot, which may not be too far off.

No, I'm pretty sure that's near the topout on that one route on Rainier. Whats that route called again?

Hell yes.

I heard somewhere that Croft soloed Goode, so it's possible that he did it in a day since that seems like his style. Others could have too.

That is incredible. Did you do the NE Buttress? How did you approach? Yeah, I sent you a pm Dan. Rainy Pass and Bridge Creek to NEB and out via Park to Bridge. Not really a day, but 10 minutes over (good enough for me).

Nice dude, a little bird told me that you were going to go try that. As Lowell said, earlier in the year there would be more water available, but it could be harder to get your confidence and endurance to the right level by July. I had a long day of my own this summer, Goode in a day. I think that going solo helps on this kind of thing because energy levels can go way up and way down over the course of a long day, so one minute you can be hardly moving and the next you are crusing. I could see that causing issues. On the other hand the moral support of having someone else there could be nice.

There should be more than a few big, strong, drunk guys around if anyone has a problem. Is this something that a little bit of intimidation or violence can't fix?

The guys at the other end near the CG host were the guys who were from the south and brought moonshine. They weren't part of our group until they met a group of us at classic crack and climbed a bit and came to understand that we a lot of beer. Lookin forward to it. I might be working, but in Leavenworth so I should be able to drink even if I can't climb.

I won't comment on the controversy other than to say that this quote is about the worst case of armchair dickishness I've ever read. The guy went out and climbed some hard shit that the vast majority of us will never be able to free and in doing so completed a major goal of his. Is that not what this is all about? Nice job Tom!

Sent.

Chill out and know what you're talking about before you go around accusing people of almost killing people, mkay? These guys know what they're doing. I'd guess it wasn't punk teenagers either.

The real advantage of foam is that it's lighter. I have a pad that I got in Peru that is about half as thick as a normal foam pad, and provides very little padding or insulation unless it is folded in half, so really its half length. I only bring it when I am really concerned about how much weight (weights half a pound or less) I am bringing, and will usually spread out the rope and my pack to sleep on for more insulation. I don't always sleep well all night doing this, but I've gotten used to it and it's good enough. For the winter or when I don't mind the extra weight I use a thermarest. I'd like to get one of those light weight 3/4 length thermarests; they're the best of both worlds.

Yeah, go get it. When I said I don't recommend the route I really mean caveat emptor. It's a fine, off the beaten path adventure if that is what you're looking for. And yeah, I wanna do Bear one of these days.

I'd agree that the upper route is pretty good, we went fast over all of that but were still testing almost every hold because that scary pitch made us distrustful of the whole thing. While it is a remote and amazing place, we agreed that the line lacked the aesthetics of similar routes like the NEB of Slesse since you spend so much time far from the crest.

We did see that nut on the first pitch, and the climbing up to there was actually fun but runout 5.10 face climbing. We must have gotten off route somehow after that. We didn't see any bolts. The rock was more solid going straight up from where Aaron was belaying, but like I said I was worried about falling onto the belay anchor because I couldn't find any pro. A solid 5.10+ climber (which I am not) probably could have pulled through that with no issues, so maybe that was it. I think the Burdo variation might be the way to go. Way more direct, and the topo shows bolts. The original route starts way far left of the rib and doesn't meet up with the crest until about half way up, where we knew we were on route because of an old fixed pin.

Trip: Triumph - North Face Date: 8/5/2009 Trip Report: Yesterday Aaron Scott (aka AJScott) and I climbed the NF Central Rib of Triumph. There doesn’t seem to be much info on this out there, so I’m bringing it out into the open. Basically we decided to climb this because from a distance the north face is one of the coolest looking features around. Good from far, but far from good as they say. The best approach for this was a mystery. Triumph pass seemed like it would require a lot of sadness and pain, and a past TR said that down from the NE ridge notch didn’t look so good either. Our solution was to climb the NE ridge, bivy and leave our stuff on the summit, downclimb the NW ridge to Triumph pass and approach the NF from there. At least this would allow us to climb one known fun route. After a painfully long stop in Marblemount where we got the landowner’s permission to use their mountain provided we followed their list of rules on how we should poop, sleep, eat and walk, we hit the trail around 10am. We bumbled around and got lost some on the walk between the lakes, but raced up the NE ridge (fun!) and were on the summit a couple of hours before sunset. Downclimbing the NW was easy enough, and we rapped 3 times down low. From the pass it is about an hour and a half down to the small lake, around the corner, and up the slabs to the route. Aaron forgot his approach shoes and did the whole walk in skate shoes. The soles were starting to come off pretty early on, but it worked out. The first four pitches go up to the left of a big obvious chimney (which would make a sweet winter line btw). I lead the first 5.10 pitch which had sold rock and fun climbing but very little pro. We knew that we were on route because of an ancient fixed nut stuck in an overhanging crack. At some point I got scared and brought Aaron up on the first of many piton belays. Aaron lead what I thought was the technical crux right above the belay (5.10 mantle), and about 40 feet up found himself in big trouble. He yelled down that couldn’t find any gear, and couldn’t down climb. After a lot of digging through moss and choss he made a decent anchor. When I got to the belay I could see the terror in his face. He had not been able to find a single gear placement, and had to downclimb some sketchy, dirty shit off to the left. What looked like jugs from below were usually very down sloping, and everything was loose. I took over, first trying to go straight up on solid rock, but the climbing was too hard for me to feel good about when a fall would have been right onto the belay. In the Beckey guide this pitch is labeled 5.10+ and there is no mention of danger. Either we were off route, or 5.10+ is what they called 5.10X in the 80s. I eventually committed to going up and left. I spent about an hour on the first 30 feet because I was digging through so much moss for holds and gear. After getting a couple of pieces in I pulled through the steep crux of the pitch to easier, better rock. I moved faster, but there was still no pro. As I got higher the rock got worse and the climbing steeper until I found myself below a roof of precariously stacked rocks. Everything around me was loose to the point that I didn’t want to put all of my weight on any single hold. I went left, right, up, down, but there was nothing. No gear to bail or to rest on. Sometimes you climb as an escape from your life, sometimes only because you want to keep on living. At times I could feel the fear setting in, but I knew that this was no place to lose it. Aaron later said that that wasn’t climbing, it was survival. Eventually I found a small crack in what seemed to be solid rock. From an incredibly awkward and scary stance I hammered in a piton. The pin sang the right song and the crack didn’t expand. I pulled on it and tiptoed right to where I could reach more solid rock on an arête. Ten feet higher I was at a ledge in the chimney. The pitch took over two hours and I only placed three pieces in 50 meters. From there a pitch of 5.8 lead up to where you move to the right of the chimney towards the rib and then angle kicks back for a while. Two ridiculously long simul blocks from low 5th to 5.9, followed by an off route 5.9ish chimney which we both thought was the best pitch that we had climbed all day got us to the top of the NW ridge and a bit of scrambling had us back on top around 6. “We should take our time on this descent,” Aaron said as we neared the top, “I feel like we’ve both cheated death today.” Many rappels and miles of moonlit walking/shwackin/stumbling had us at the car a few hours after the deprivation induced hallucinations had started, and about 24 hours after we had woken up. Overall I’d say that while this was a good adventure thing that I will like to look back on someday, I can’t really recommend the route. The rock quality and pro got a lot better as we got higher, and maybe we were just off route on the loose stuff, but there is no getting around that this is a big, shitty face. Not many pictures because I was busy and the smoke made everything all hazy anyway. Aaron on top. Sunrise on Baker. One of two pictures that I took on the route: Aaron on the 4th pitch. Descent Our last look at Triumph in the moonlight. Gear Notes: Cams to 2 inches, doubles in the small end, some nuts. A few knife blades and a baby angle. We used pins on every belay and there is one fixed in the heart of the gnar. Approach Notes: Walk up and down for a long time, climb up, then down, then walk down and up over easy snow and your there.