ScaredSilly

Okay I got a look at the Falcon guide today. I looked at just the Eastern Oregon section for High Valley and Anthony Lakes. Of the dozen plus routes at High Valley 4 were missing and a couple had incorrect names. At Anthony Lakes one major route was missing and another was incorrectly named. So I am not sure what to think because the authors did at least talk with a local (Steve Brown) who I know and I am sure knows about the previously published into. Also there is no history or FA information in the book which think is a shame. The Horton guide from the Mountaineers will be out in September.

Your guess is correct. They came with solid walls and with a template that you could use to drill them out to make them lighter. Later they started coming predrilled. The mid late 1970s for this I think. The asymetrical hexcentrics came out in the early 1970s. Chouinard followed the lead of the Brits who were making them first. I have full set of both the symmetrical and asymmetrical hexcentrics - well sorta they are down at BD for their gear display. Both have been home drilled which ruined a fair number of drills.

I am looking for some old REI Glacier Glasses that I can use for parts. I need both a left and right temple for a frame that has prescription lenses in them. Send PM if you have an old pair with cracked/scratched lenses that are ready for the recycle bin. THANKS.

It is very easy to tell if a rope has been melted. The seath and core will be stiff at the ends where it has melted. If it is "clean" and still supple then it is a cut. Something that I encourage everyone to do is to take two pieces of rope and use one to saw through the other. It is very easy to do. When I want to remove old tat from a climb with out a knife I often use this technique. To do this tie one in a loop around a tree branch. Put the other through the loop and wrap the other in your hands pull it towards you and start sawing. I can often saw through a slings after a couple dozen strokes.

Once through the ice crust what was placement like? This should give a clue as to how good the placement would be. For instance, if after two wacks had the picket easily gone in I would continue pounding it in past the ice crust to try and get it into firmmer snow. If it is still garbage pull it out as then your partners will not have any false sense of security. Also could the ice crust have been just been a surface freeze from the night before? Are pictures available of the ropes in question - while possible for one rope to melt/burn through another I wonder if perhaps it was cut by a crampon or axe as suggested. The difference would be easily distinguishable. Perhaps an adendum to the report would include "secondary roped party climbing directly below another" Many/Most of the accidents on Hood are compounded due to this error in judgement. Unfortunately, for Hood this is the standard operating procedure. Hopefully the secondary party learned something as well.

So I have a #7, straight-sided, with shrink wrap and "tested" like you described. Is it correct to believe it was produced in 1980? I have smaller wired stoppers circa 1981/1982 that have the tested sticker on them. So probably about 1981 or so. I think there were a few years where they made both the larger curved or straight sided stoppers I can not remember when they stop making them. So call it 25 years old. Should have plently of life left in it. I am still using mine.

The Old Chute is to the climbers left of the Std. S. Side Route. For several decades the Hogsback lead up to it. It is well described in Jeff Thomas's book Oregon High.

Ditto ... go do a canyon.

Old but not that old, I started climbing when I was barely a teenager back in the late 70s so I have seen lots of the gear through the years. And happen to know a few the original folks from Chouinard Equipment who have helped fill in the history.

Given just the hole size for the perlon, it would be a third generation stopper. Eg. 1-12 made some where around 1980-82. 1st generation #7 would have 9mm holes and be 3/4" thick 2nd generation #7 would have 8mm holes and be 7/8" thick 3rd generation #7 would have 6mm holes and be 1/2" thick Hope this helps.

Though I started climbing with the whole/half sizes my first set had the new numbers and they were the first curved stoppers. Like your buddy I feared bailling off of them so I quit climbing with them about 15 years ago. By that time I had enough booty stoppers for a pretty complete set of the medium/large ones so I used them. Actually at this point 2/3 of my stoppers are probably booty stoppers.

Most of the replies are about half right. I have several sets going back to the original stoppers. All are now down at BD as they are making a display of Chouinard gear. 1. Chouinard marked all of the gear he made with a Diamond C - the exception being biners which said "Chouinard" and even then some biners did have a Diamond C on them. If you find something without a Diamond C it means it has been used enough that it is gone or was made by another company. Marking gear was very important as Chouinard wanted other climbers to know that he made the gear. (BTW Chouinard was not the first to mark gear using the Diamond C another well known climber used a Diamond P) 2. Chouinard started making stoppers in '72. For the first few years they did not have shrink wrap on them. The first curved Chouinard stoppers 7-12 where made in '81. 1-6 remained straight sided for several more years. 3. After the number change from 1-8 to 1-12 in 1980 it was very hard to tell the difference in the smaller sizes. Although I seem to remember that an old 2 and new 3 were similar or something like that. 4. In the early 80s Chouinard started putting little stickers on the swage that said "Tested" (White paper with red ink). If it has something else then it would be mid/late 80s. This was under the shrink wrap. 5. Because there is no shrink wrap then it will be hard to tell as any markings could have worn off. Also given that it was bootty there is a good chance that if it did have shrink wrap that it came off long ago. Best guess: more than 20 years but less than 30 years old. If there is no rust on the cable, wrap the swage and wire together with duct tape, stick on your rack and go use it. For those know want to go nuts here is a link to the Nuts Museum http://www.needlesports.com/nutsmuseum/nutsmuseum.htm

These are the typical Falcon "state" guides for traveling climbers who often want to visit the classic established areas. I have used them once for some climbing in the MidWest and it was not bad and in some regards better than the local guide (which was not even written by a local). Because these are generalist guides, doing these book does not need to be done by a local with absolute local knowledge but by some one who can do really good research by working with locals. That said it does often step on some toes. Often it may be someone local who wants to make some money or a name for themselves. Although as several friends who have written guides have stated - "There is no fame or money in writting guide books." The book is scheduled to be out in August. I will try to grab a copy at the OR show and check a few of the areas that I used to be considered to be "local" and see how they did.

The bergshrund was open but the crossing was easy, a step up and over. Not sure how long it will last but farther a long there was anohter crossing that will be good for a while longer. Depending on the temps the bergshrund will probably not be the crux but the rock band. Not sure how long the ice will last but I am sure there is a rock alternative that is workable. Yeah the bivy is great. A fairly flat spot and running water from Hourglass. Enjoy

Climb: Mt. Rainier-Mowich Face Date of Climb: 6/22/2006 Trip Report: Just a little story about a few old guys on a big hill ... Because it had been several years since I had topped out on Rainier I was hungry for a climb. Last year I corrupted my friend Brent to trying to get on Rainier's Willis Wall during the winter. We made it about half up the wall before retreating due to being up high in strong winds. The year before John and I got to the base of the North Mowich headwall before being stormed off. This year John sneaked out with Peter and got on Mowich again. However, they got snagged on top of Liberty Cap for two nights in a storm before getting down the hill. During the same storm Vince and a friend were trying to get on Liberty and had to bail. Two weeks later a high pressure was setting up so ... Vince, Brent, and I headed out for a little hike. Unlike most climbers on Rainier we start at Itsup Creek which is low, damn low, real low, 2300 feet low. Most climbers hate starting this low. But we look at this way, where else in the lower 48 can someone get in 12,000 feet of up over a long weekend? Besides it is all training. After doing the hike up through Seattle Park we bivied at our usual site under Echo Rock. (Brent's second time, my third, and Vince's first). The is a nice pebble rock site with running water. The next morning we head up to Ptarmigan Ridge and crossed over at about 8200 feet. This was the same place John and I cross over at two years before. However, this time we able to stay high for a very long time as we traversed and eventually end up at about even with the second bench in the North Mowich Glacier. From there we went across the bench and up along the left side of rock buttress that we previously passed on the right. This was much easier and we found a few tracks from Peter and John. From there we crossed under the Mowich Ice Fall and turned up to our bivy site at about 10k feet. (Note this site is not listed in the books but is a great site protected from the slopes above by a rock out cropping and just left of the bergshrund at the start of the route. It also had running water). By 5:30 the next morning we started climbing. The temperature was probably about 40 degrees. Brent and I decided to do the climb in two pitches, he would take the first and I the second. The hourglass was running water so we climbed a short (15') ice pitch to the right that lead to the upper slopes where we climbed just to the left of "Arch" Buttress which separates the North and Central Mowich routes. (Amazingly the buttress does have an arch in it). The climbing was mostly soft neve' with a few post holes here and there. The conditions were soft enough that no pro was needed. Just past the top of the buttress at about 12k feet we decided to instead pick up the Central Mowich Face route and followed it to the top so I took over the lead. We decided this for a couple of reasons, at this point the North Mowich route goes under the serac tongue and with the warm temps we thought it would be safer on the Central (which has the same problem but lower down). Also the upper Central looked "easier" than traversing through rock bands. So at this point we made a sweeping upward traverse to the right. Because we were getting up there and the terrain was a bit steeper I decided it was time to place a bit of pro here and there in the rock. After traversing under the rock band we turned the corner an into a gully that was about 60 degrees and ended with a short 80 degree section of brittle water ice. From there the climbing got interesting as we emerged on to a 45-50 degree slope that had about 6" of snow on top of ice that was not well bonded and the sun was now beating down on. To make things more interesting Brent pulled out the last good screw before I got in the next good screw. From there we traverse up and around the last rock band which finished with another short step section of rime ice that was good fun. Once on top of the ice tongue we walked up to Liberty Cap for the obligatory photo. This was Vince's first "north side route", Brent's second and my forth (hee hee). From the top we could see in all directions as there was not a cloud in the sky. It also appeared that no one had come up from Liberty Ridge over the past few days as the tracks seemed fairly old. That soon changed though as soon after we left the summit a couple of folks popped up. We did the usual descent via the Emmons which was very mushy, rolling in around 4pm or so. After spending the night at Sherman the next morning we headed down the Winthrop. Though it was in great shape we were highly suspicious of the crevasse crossing as the snow conditions were very sloppy. (This is another descent that is not typically done but then again there were a few tracks from a party that came up the glacier and from John and Peter's descent two weeks prior). As we traversed back to Carbon River we saw a dozen goats, numerous marmots, and to top it all of a big old black bear. We finished the hike out with a bath in the Carbon River Attached are couple of photos I stole from Vince. Looking down the face from about 11.5k Heading up the final headwall High up on the face (The picture is rotated about 5 degrees from vertical so it is a bit steeper than it appears) Gear Notes: 3 Pickets 3 screws 4 Med/small cams 4 small nuts

Last weekend while walking into Mowich and then back around to Carbon Creek I was wondering if anyone had been up on Curtis since we were on the route in 98. Seems so. Cool. Sound like you had a good time. Not many venture up on the ridge. I am curious to know where you went through the rock band. (Can you mark up an image of your rout?) We more or less followed Wickwire's variation (which is on snow and ice and is a free variation) but turned before he did which not too long after the small step and climbed up some easy 5th class conglomerate rock. Which from your photos I am not sure it how fun it would be as it appears the lower steps are prety melted out. We had more snow lower down, though the snow around the steps was quite rotten. Oddly you certainly had more snow on the upper part of the ridge than we did. We had some pretty good ice in places and the lower part of the exit chutes were mostly rock in places. If I can get to a scanner I will post some images of the upper part of the climb. Good fun.