moronbros

Trip: Colchuck Balanced Rock - West Face Date: 8/2/2008 Trip Report: After assembling the ultimate franken-beta from three past TRs on CC.com and the pic from the nelson guide, we were set on climbing the route in a long day. It was clear that after doing this, we weren't as strong as we'd like to be but it WAS SO WORTH IT. The epic began when Oscar forgot the rope back in Kirkland. Our little Kirkland trip allowed us to munch some tender vittles at subway and stuff our pockets with energy bars at QFC. yay. Here's my over-sized TR. In the car on the way out, I get an email from a buddy with a link to a "funny video". Oscar almost killed us driving off the road laughing while watching this. We forgot our cameras, so for those of you that need pictures, here you go. This climb has been brought to you by this video - Google "jon lajoie show me" if you're not at work or insensitive. Beware, this video is a bit strange and probably off-color, but it served a point. We knew there had been others to climb the line car-to-car in 18 hrs or so. This was a lofty goal, but we gave it a shot anyway. We hauled ass up to the lake, through the slide alder, up the gulley and to the base of the route, but from there it all slowed down. It was an efficnency/alpine urgency issue at this point. Our goal was to free the whole thing except for the P5 huge roof and the (5.12?) A1 roof at the top of pitch 7. Left the car at 0500 on Saturday ditched bags at colchuck lake at 0745 The Approach: Make sure to scope out your line through the slide alder to the gulley by standing back at the lake for a better view. 'schwack from rock patch to rock patch and you're in the base of the gully in 20 minutes. Remember, deciding where to start walking into slide alder is like deciding where to shoot yourself. Just go. You always lose. base of the climb at 0900 and now for a blow-by-blow analysis of the *actual rock climbing*. note: I'm using pitch numbers from the nelson/potterfield book. P0 (half the parties scramble this. i'd much rather rope up.) Oscar climbed the first pitch of easy 5th to the base of the 10+. P1 It was like being woken up by falling out of a bunk bed. A total smack in the face, this 5-move, all-4-in-the-crack pitch was a real kick in the balls. 10+ is a perfect rating. P2 linked this 5.7 chimney with P1. Belayed from the notch below the actual 5.9 step across. way better gear for an anchor here! When linking these two, pay attention to rope drag. P3 Oscar hopped up to the 5.9 "step across" into two totally bitchin' cracks. The right crack is fingers on a face and the left crack is hands in a little corner. All stemming, totally fun. He fired it in good style. P4 I ran up the easy lower 5th terrain to the base of the super-bad-ass sustained corner crack below the roof. I sat there hanging in my harness looking up at that corner, drooling, not really paying attention to my belaying. P5 This is why we came here. It's a beautiful, steep, fingers to hands sized corner running up to a massive roof. Oscar freed it and followed. We hung a few times, but it was marvelous. We had doubles of BD .3-#3 but Oscar lamented the fact that we didn't triple up on .75 pieces for this pitch. It would have made freeing it mo' bettah. The last 15 feet is wet in the crack. We freed it anyway, but it was pretty damn slimy. P6 There are fixed pins with a bunch of mank hanging off of them at the belay under the huge roof. Someone tied knots down a 1-inch sling hanging about 6 feet above the belay, so you can aid right off this to get up to the crack under the roof. I suppose you could belay from right below the roof, but you'd have less of the insane view of Stuart and the rest of the scenery. I aided through the roof and switched to free after the roof. about 4 free moves to the base of P7. Note: beware of the notch in the roof when you pull around it. Set a directional piece to avoid rope drag here. P7 This was spectacular as well. 5.9 hands on an arching right-facing dihedral. Not as steep as the .11 below but SO FUN. Sequences of jamming, then laybacks, then switching to aiding at the top. I plugged my handy #4 into the roof here, noted that I could have hung a cadillac from it, then aided past it. I stopped below the "5.9+" chimney, hanging the whole shit-show from a couple aliens and an equalette. Time was an issue at this point. We had been on route for WAY too long. I fixed the line and Oscar jugged this pitch. The sun was going down in the next 20 minutes. We dug around in our pockets for headlamps. oh bother. P8 It was Oscar's lead. We knew all about this pitch. Everything they say is true. This is one of the most heinous offwidth chimneys we had ever seen in the Cascades. He cursed and yelled and bled all over this pitch, but he got up it in good time using mostly #2-#4 pieces, his bleeding extremities, and his helmet. Instead of hollering "good job!" or "you're kicking ass!" it was "knock knock" and then I'd get a "who's there?" from Oscar (see video link above). This brought our spirits up a bit. We laughed, we cried. We decided I'd jumar this pitch to save time. yeah, that really helped.. The last section to the summit: Once up, he pulled all the slack up to me, fixed it, I jugged, then he soloed up as far as he could go above the top of the chimneys (easy terrain) while I jugged. He built an anchor, fixed that section of rope and batmanned back down that line to me. I showed up, we sobbed tears of joy, and then I led off into the darkness toward the balanced rock. I ran out of rope, he came up to me and climbed past to the balanced rock. If there were still daylight, we would have simul-climbed this section. Summited at 2030 - gettin' ready for an EPIC! The sun was long gone, headlamps moved around down at Colchuck Lake, we shivered and ate and drank and laughed at our silly little adventure to this point. The De-Proach: There's a bunch of tat hanging off the East side of the balanced rock. This is the top of the 30m rap that goes to the sandy ledges. DO NOT rap toward the edge you can't see over. You can look East toward Cashmere and Wenatchee at night and see the lights. This is the direction you go. We found that out the hard way. When going to the ledges, you literally fall off the end of the 30m rappel and go about 1 foot onto the sand. perfect distance. um. yeah. we had a bit of an epic from this point onward. All I'm going to say is that we didn't descend the right way, we got cliffed out, and we had to shiver all night on a small patch of moss in the trees. So much for the "easiest descent in the Cascades" hah! We ended up doing some 1:30 AM scree-surfing down toward colchuck lake. Luckily I have a headlamp that I could cook food with, so I could see a couple hundred feet in front of us. At least I could see that we were *absolutely screwed* and that we needed to wait until first light. We got up with the sun and noticed we were looking at the route from below. We were about 200 feet below the route and out to the West on the scree slopes. We ended up traversing back to the last col you climb to right before the base of the route. two raps off trees got us down to the col and it was smooth sailing from there. This climb is quite nice indeed. Back to the car at 1100 on Sunday - that's about 30 hours. ouch. Other Notes: - if you have to do any gardening, you're off route. - get good descent beta before you climb. - do not bring a backpack. stuff your headlamp and food in your jacket pockets. - clip shoes and water bottles to your harness. - get good descent beta before you climb. - there is no water on route...well except for the inside of the top of of the .11 crack =) - Gear: a double rack is ideal for this route. - bring aiders, stuff them in your pockets - clip some jumars to your harness. - get good descent beta before you climb. - not only does the bacon at Kristal's in 11worth look like a dog toy, it tastes like one too. And that is the story of my first unplanned night in the woods. Gear Notes: Doubles in camalot sizes .3 - #3, bring a #4 for the second small roof. jumars/aiders helpful for both leader/follower. cams/nuts sufficient for all aiding, no hook moves Approach Notes: Watch out for fanny-pack tourists on the trail. One of the biggest hazards on this trip.

I ride in the mass every month. It's hilarious. Most of the time, the drivers we stop are laughing and know it's just going to blow over in 10 minutes anyway. Sometimes though, people get pissed. It's expected and we all anticipate it. We usually deal with it peacefully and everyone goes on their way. Then, one day *four or five* out of THOUSANDS of cyclists become assholes and start punching people in cars. Now thousands of cyclists are in the drivers' crosshairs because you can't possibly realize the fact that the jerks who threw punches and smacked that guy in the head with a u-lock are simply a minority. Drivers and cyclists are no different. We all pay property taxes for the infrastructure we use and we're all human beings who should respect eachother. You know, there are people who simultaneously own bikes and cars. wow. think of that.

One good habit I've picked up is to put gear in when at rests - not on some flaky tough section where you're going to get flamed trying every stopper on your rack. If you climb toward rests where you will be putting gear in, it gives you something to look forward to and you can concentrate on the climbing. Of course, not all the rests are the best places to put gear in, but you get the idea.

amen to that. I picked up a reactor and it's only good for one thing. and even better... it's so good at it I don't give a crap about anything else that it can't do! It boils water fast and that's it. If you need snow turned into boiling water in 7 minutes, get this stove. perfect for alpine assaults when you aren't needing to simmer your damn veggies or make pancakes with your girlfriend. you just boil water and get on with it. that's it. that thing is ridiculous and I love it.

I wouldn't exactly call yourself an idiot, Matt. I mean, you're practically the mayor of the entire Darrington climbing scene. You're pretty far from an idiot! =)

This is assuming that Mr.Pimp here gets along with others and prefers individual 1-on-1 instruction. Who knows? Perhaps he needs some hands-on experience with some other variety of partners. Or maybe he's lived his life only getting formal instruction. He could do that too. It's always an option, but it's up to him. I think the point you are most definitely right about is the variety point - when learning, make sure to mix it up and learn from a variety of sources in a variety of contexts. That should get you on your way.

That's a very good point Matt, and I've observed the exact same thing - that people have been climbing for years without all these advanced techniques. A few things are certain though: - There are more climbers now, which statistically increases the number of accidents happening. (and successes) - Climbing systems have become infinitely complex compared to how they used to be. Do they have to be? Probably not. But we can use these new systems to mitigate common problems. There's a very thick book on the subject that we all know about. There's no reason that in this day and age, a non-life threatening situation (like a leader breaking a leg, needing to be tied off) should be turned into a life-threatening situation simply because the belayer didn't know how to tie a munter hitch. To me, that is simply not acceptable -today-

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that you - acting as an individual - have the responsibility to look out for your own personal safety as the first step. If you're not questioning the person that is supposed to be 'teaching' you the skills, you are not looking out for yourself. Do you remember the first time you ever leaned back on a rappel? You feel scared for a reason - because your body is looking out for itself first, instead of trusting the situation. Once you learn to trust and understand the systems, then you can start taking things into your own hands. It all starts with being an actual individual human being and trusting your instincts. With that in mind, you can explain why you see sketchy events go down in the crags and the people somehow make it out alive. Yeah accidents do happen, but there are a surprising amount of near-misses that occur simply because the n00b in the situation felt uneasy about it. If they were feeling uneasy, the instructor was clearly not doing their job. I wish more people who tried to teach their friends realized this. This is why the big clubs can mitigate accidents and dangerous behavior. They have a high collective experience level and people are constantly critiquing and talking about climbing systems, techniques, and safety. I'm instructing for one of those major local clubs right now, and to tell you the truth, it was a wonderful way to learn what I wanted to get out of the mountains. If you are a newbie, I strongly suggest taking this approach if you have the humility and foresight to realize these are the only current formal training options on the subject. Surprisingly, after only a small bit of instruction from a local club (or just reading FoTH), you can get the skills used to turn an otherwise life-threatening situation into a controllable one. Just because some guy boulders V7 at the gym doesn't mean he can tie a load release hitch. I -totally- agree with you guys. How are n00bs supposed to know it's probably a bad idea to climb with someone that can't escape a belay? That's the question right there.

Fender, here's a pic Emily took of you guys descending toward sherpa around 12:30. Was that you guys or the other team? http://www.flickr.com/photos/26657904@N08/2570776290/in/set-72157605554197944/ I can't get over that perfect snow.

You should see that break on a small day. good times. It only gets as big as that once every year or two. That is, if it's jaws up on the north shore of Maui. I'm pretty sure it's Laird, right?

Got it in the mail this weekend. I brought it on the bus, flipped through it and read about 1/3 of every article because everything was interesting. Yeah, Index is a little stiffer than most, very true. If you look at the pic of the towers at red square, I think you can see where the bolts were chopped on the adjacent pillar. More info on Denali than I'd ever need. ho hum.. Then I walked into the coffee shop and ended up on the back page only to shoot flaming hot coffee out my nose when I got a look at the pics of Fred. The resulting mess was so worth it. I love reading about our friends/locals/crags in that mag.

We saw all the steps going up dragontail on Sunday. The whole area was getting gang-banged due to the fact that the forecast shifted into great weather somehow. Daniel - that group heading toward ice cliff might have been my buddies. Where did you see them?

Nice TR. I have yet to climb this route and I've heard just about every description about this route. One thing I do know is that the snow this weekend was absolutely perfect in the area. I was over on Argonaut sitting on my ass belaying and I saw one of the groups of three descending toward Sherpa around noon thirty. It was like alpine television watching you tiny-ass dots scrawling around on the improbable slopes of that mountain. You get to talk to any of others? One of those groups of three was a Boealps group who are friends of mine. I heard they had just as good of a time up there as you guys did. Perfect styrofoam for kicking steps. Too bad I left my board at home. Argonaut's descent was shreddable about 2 weeks ago.

Looks to me like you were using what Long refers to as the web-o-lette, which is essentially a cordalette clove hitched to each piece with either a static or dynamically equalized power point. Anchor #1 used this and you had a sliding x at the bottom with a two limiter knots - which makes it an equalette - you just had more than two pieces, which you normally find an equalette tied to. It was dynamically equalized, which means that it would evenly distribute weight to the knots (not the individual pieces) above it. A big swing would have loaded some more than others, but that probably worked well for a downward pull. Nice try with the green sling and the piece to check upward pull. However, you might want to connect that to the power point and not the middle of that sliding x. An equalette is just a sliding x with two limiter knots and an extra locker on the power point for mega-uber-redundancy. Anchor #2 and #3 seemed to look like they used the same type of setup. Who knows. Anchors are such a grey area. They are never perfect. I agree with your description of moscow. If you want a little better experience, I suggest trying out something on the other side instead. The top pitch of white satin is one of the best 5.9 climbs in the park. The first two pitches are junk, but that last one makes it all better.

Sweet job guys. It takes quite a bit of control to walk through something like that knowing there aren't skis tethered to your body for the descent. nice pics too. BTW how far can you get up the road right now? Do I need to steal a snow cat and charge all the way to the parking lot?

This is a bad-ass gig. Now if I could just sell my house, dump my girlfriend, quit my current job, and move to Never-Never-Ham I'd be set. ho hum.

On the west ridge of prusik, there's that lovely cam buried in the flat spot right at the base of the 'crux' 5.7 move. That crux part follows it up with a great rusty pin that I'm assuming Fred placed back when my parents were in diapers. i think that's what makes that route a classic. it's spot to just clip in and lay down and get a tan. One fun thing I like to do to screw with my climbing partner is to lead a pitch and not mention the fixed gear. If it's not too beat up and he can't tell if it's part of my rack, I just sit there while he swears and labors to get it out. He'll eventually free it and that's when I break the news that he just bootied a paper weight. It's surprising what aid climbers do when motivated.

sweet trip, I'm jealous. Trapped in a cubicle all week, I dream about just traveling around to all the spots. That's what I love about Smith - total freak show. I've never seen anyone fire Chain Reaction in person but it must be pretty fun to watch.

booyah. never-never-ham..the climbing land o'plenty! yeah. you like sandstone friction runouts? Boat launch wall - just down chuckanut drive south of town. check the tide tables and go when it's low. you get to climb more =) also, check out Mt. Erie in Anacortes. or...make friends with a Western student and pay your way into the bouldering cave at the gym there. "the realm of the mattress people" I wish Squamish was less than 30 minutes from The Ham...

frickin weather keeps sucking harder and harder every day this week. now it's going to be hurricanes with thunder and lightning and tornadoes. On Monday, Steve Pool said it was going to be sunny. I hate Steve Pool now.

Nevermind. I wrote a sloppy perl script that parses lat/long out of some guy's google map of this route. booyah. #!/usr/bin/perl # written by a climber that wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. print "Stupid GPS converter\n\n"; my $file = "helio1.txt"; open (IN, $file) || die "can't open '$file': $!"; if ( ! open LOG, ">>gpsout") { die "Cannot create gpsout: $!"; } my $first_line = ; while (my $line = ) { chomp $line; if ($line =~ /\s*points.push\(newGLatLng\((\d*.\d*),\s(-\d{3}.\d*)/) { print LOG "$2,$1,100 "; } }

We were driving probably the perfect car for the trip - a subaru with great studless snow tires. We rallied straight past the sno-park lot and parked at a pullout about 5 miles up the road. We just skinned up on split boards the last 3 miles. There is a point about at mile 6 where they have a sign that "no wheeled vehicles" should pass. They groom that road every wednesday and snowmobiles use it regularly, so it's totally flat and passable with at least one lane all the way to the bathrooms at the heliotrope trailhead. Some snowshoers drove and parked even higher than us in a 2000 honda civic. go figure. That's one hour skinning up the road to the trailhead and about 10 minutes bombing back down on a split board at 35 mph. Anyhow, that trail would be a snap to find if we could just get a GPS file for it. Many other snowshoers and skiers use it in the Winter but it's always getting covered up and the quickest way to that drainage is the trail no matter how much snow is covering it. I'm also curious as to how may people use GPS when they hike. I've found it really useful for marking things like crevasses, trailheads, cars, rest stops, etc..

Heliotrope ridge trail is under about 6 feet of snow right now and the snowshoers' tracks we ended up following went in circles. Does anyone have GPS data for that trail? We just need the path from the bathrooms to that first major creek drainage that takes you up to the tree line. All the markers you'd see in the summer are buried, but a GPS output would probably be helpful. i just want to be able to mark where the switchbacks so I don't waste time ascending. Please help! .Bill

I'm *just* joining these forums and I've been climbing for a while in the North Cascades. A failed trip to Forbidden peak this last weekend got me to create this group. This is a pretty good way to share with other Flickr members. Free to join for everyone. .Bill