bigeo

You guys rock! I've heard this attributed to bush pilots in Alaska, but it has many applications: you start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. You hope you fill the latter before the luck runs out.

I've always believed that climber types were good for something. Nice that someone else thinks so.

It is!

Climbed this last week. No problem finding the start (lines up with the arete). Really fun climbing and amazing position. Gratitude and respect to GZ and crew for putting this up.

thanks guys. descision made

Thanks. Kind of what I figured. I'll plug that into the decision matrix. Could wait and do it next year (already put if off for 40 or so)

Thanks for a great TR. Thinking about doing this at the end of the month. What are the chances that the snow patch near your bivy is still there?

Nice! Thanks for posting that.

It must have been you we met at the WR ranger station after abandoning our plan to climb Liberty Ridge based on the "field report". Your pics make me feel pretty good about that decision. I can sympathise about your situation, having baled off of Curtis three times. It really looks "out" this year. Glad you got a concilation climb on the Emmons. We drove around to Paradise and climbed the Kautz. It was in good shape and pure type 1 fun. Image is from 6/29/22

I'd say DPS owes you a pair of skis.

Had a great multi-day trip to the Enchantments in late September 2015. Very few folks around other than us crazy hippies. Still have to get my wife up there though.

I was thinking "how absolutely sublime" until the last bit about the crowds as you hiked out. Way to dodge the masses when it counted.

Hey, lets face it, rappelling is dangerous and slow.

Happy 40th Joe!

Thanks for the stunning pics to remind me of one of the most beautiful places I have been in the Cascades (or anywhere else). Got to get back there. I don't live by the rule "If you wouldn't kill it, you shouldn't eat it." but I do find the notion of killing a warm-blooded beast in that environment disturbing.

I climbed Ptarmigan Ridge about 10 years ago and two things "diminished" the experience for me: I forgot my sleeping bag (and my pad blew off the ridge and floated down to the Carbon from our high camp) and that slog from the top of the route to Liberty Cap was brutal. Maybe I should go back and try again. Cool that the rock step was actually ice. My partner and I bailed off of Curtis ridge (third time now) the week before you were up there. The rock bands on that route were holding neither snow nor ice and the evidence of rockfall on the snowfields between was sobering. I'm sure Curtis would be an amazing climb if you got the conditions right, but I'm not sure if I've got another attempt in me. Liberty remains my go-to ridge on Rainier, but Sunset, hmmm

we too can be gods, if only for a moment

Strange that it was filed in "spray". That was defiinitely a trip.

I related this annecdote on the thread here that followed Marc's death, but I'll throw it out again. Our party encountered Marc and partners descending Slesse after climbing the NE Buttress. He was with a quite elderly Austrian and a guy from WA whom he had hooked up with through the CCs partners forum. He told us about he and the Austrian retreating from Slesse a short time before in a storm and leaving his rack behind. He seemed to me very much the goofy kid (still in high school at that time) whose posts I had seen on this site and I mentioned this to my partners after we continued on. My friend Grahm, who has gone on to become a worldclass alpinist (LInk Sar, Piolet d'or among other notable accomplishments), had a different take: "you'll be hearing about that kid" was his reply. I guess it takes one to know one.

What I get from that quote is that Marc had come to realize that he was not there to "inspire us".

I'm pretty sure that enablement of a minor in the pursuit of BC snowboarding is a moral failure if not downright criminal. I know many reformed splitboarders. Maybe they could help with an intervention.

Your pictures make me consider going places I have never considered going. Thanks

bump for lower price

sold

Great write-up of a bonafide "soft epic" (full-on shit show where nothing really disastrous happens). If you get through one of those at the beginning of your climbing career and want to go back for more, you're a climber.