mountainsloth

Good point Tyson

Trip: Squire Creek Monolith - Illusion Wall - Excalibur Date: 6/26/2011 Trip Report: So my plan going into the weekend was to take a friend out climbing Saturday and give him his first taste of D-town granite but our plans fell through last minute.... damn. Later in the evening while researching something easy and alpine to solo I decided to take a peek at the partner forum here at cc.com To my surprise I see someone looking for a partner for Excalibur on the Illusion Wall and had posted his request only a few minutes prior. Perfect! I think to myself. Within an hour I had plans for Sunday to visit a wall I have wondered about for years with a man who knows it like the back of his hand. It was my first time out to Squire Creek and all I can say is...... The valley opposite Squire Creek Monolith How is it so little people go out there? What an unbelievable valley. Words and pictures cannot describe, but I will try anyway. The Illusion Wall looms left The route is well described in Rainman's TR so I won't bore with details just pictures and comments. This 10 pitch route is very well designed and has a variety of climbing and tackles a steep headwall. Pitch 5 and 1 of the many gem's. Finger locks, chicken heads, and edges oh my! Leading pitch 6 the Excalibur flake. It reminded me of Dreamer's flakes. Rainman working a steep pitch on chicken heads Leading the crux pitch 8. thin fingers corner, a traverse, and then a steep face crux. Rainman leading pitch nine, a pristine corner and arete. View of the summit from the top of the Illusion Wall Coming down. One more look at my two favorite pitches The Wall in its entirety Nature nerds will love the extra large trees The greenery made the long hike out pleasant In all seriousness, this was easily one of my favorite multi pitch routes in recent memory. Every pitch minus the 10th had 3 or 4 star climbing and the rock is immaculate. Most of all it is a safe and an exhilarating climb. The approach is no worse than the Green Giant buttress. You can get pretty decent info on it from Rattle and Slime but I will add more here. More people need to enjoy the climbs out there. Huge thanks to Rainman for his hard work on the route, showing me the way and getting me out to this spectacular wall. Gear Notes: Gear to 3 with an emphasis on fingers to small hands (BD .3 - .75) 15 draws with some double lengths. Approach Notes: The approach took about 2 1/2 hours but was quite pleasant and not too schwacky. Follow the squire creek trail crossing a few major streams. Keep looking for a small cairn sitting on a horizontal log on the right maybe about 30-45 minutes in. This is the start of the climbers path. Follow this through a forest to Squire creek. Cross on a perfectly fallen old tree, head up the creek for 100 feet and follow a dried up stream bed. Look for a large cairn on the right and take a right onto a steep forest trail. This will eventually bring you to open slabs and bushy ledges. Follow the slabs and ledges up using the path of least resistance and treading slightly left. Some zig-zagging is involved. You are aiming for the obvious wall seen in picture #2. There are a couple of scrambling moves over some of the rock and a crappy piece of rope to aid you (trust with caution). Eventually you end up on some flat dirt ledges under the face. The first pitch follows bolts and shallow cracks to a bush up and to the left.

I did this trip with my girl friend during Memorial day weekend 3 or 4 years ago and that ridge was snow free. Didn't make the summit due to weather and a not-so-psyched lady.

interesting. how is the rock quality?

yes please

best news all week!

I've been drooling over this route for a while. Thanks for the info.

that rock looks killer! Isn't there supposed to be some long rock routes on those peaks?

stunning sunrise photos!

people go see! It is a gem! Frankazoid is right, Free radical is spectacular. Rad showed me around last Fall and I have been back twice since and look forward to more when I am a bit stronger.

beautiful photos!

stupid weather man Glad you are ok.

Right on brother! Any other style at Banks would be uncivilized! Nice work on HOS. Easily one of my favorite climbs out there. Gonna have to check out post modern wall next time I am out there as well as the devils tower right next to the orange wall. I had a good glimpse of the climbs on it from Lesser evil and they looked exciting.

yea it was really tricky to find. we almost gave up on it when one of my partners poked his head around the left-hand corner of the ledge you start out on. Did you guys finally get a canoe or did you brave the 4wd road and schwack?

you are correct Riley, Lesser Evil is the left most route on the wall.

wicked! I always wondered. Thanks!

@ andy: Thanks, that makes sense, they are some purdy flowers @ the hammer-dancing-dude: butterfly it is. The top out of that route is rounded and anchors far back. It was much easier to see my followers, remove unnecessary rope drag, and avoid sending loose rock down. @ Off_White: I noticed those bolts on the way out and was curious. Thanks for scratching that itch. I will give it a go next time.

Trip: Banks Lake - Various Date: 5/29/2011 Trip Report: Memorial Day weekend forecast: Rain, rain and more rain.... crap. There goes my ski trip up Mt. Adams that has been planned for 2 months. No surprise really. Its still Spring in the PNW. One thing is true, if you want a life in the outdoors you have to be interested in a variety of activities or face sitting on the couch sometimes. So my ski mountaineering trip turned into a canoeing and rock climbing trip at Banks Lake because it boasted the best weather in all of WA. Our goal... a mellow weekend of easy climbing, camping, canoeing, and exploration away from the masses. The weekend went so well, plan B could have been a plan A Launching the boat on Friday with 3 people and a mess of gear for 3 days pushed the limits of my old canoe. This and the choppy waters that afternoon pushed us to camp much closer to the dock and the highway than planned. We hit the first major island across from the dock and found a perfect camp on top of the island that required a 4th class scramble. Our island's inlet views of Highway Rock from camp This not only gave us great views but kept the motorboat yahoos of the fishing derby at a safe distance while on dry land. But this did not stop them from nearly running us over mid lake as the completion started on Saturday. Wave after wave of high speed boats flew feet past our over-stuffed canoe thwarting attempts at peeing and climbing out of our vessel. After setting up camp we explored the shortie cliffs around the island and found a few nice-n-easy hand cracks to mess around on. We are claiming first ascents, giving them a V status, and I am writing up a report for the AAJ since the approach, camp set-up, scouting, and sending took all day. Day two sent us canoeing around our island looking at all the untouched granite and scouting out the climbs in "Weekend Rock". I was surprised to notice that all the climbs in "weekend rock" are not in the "Rock Climbs of Central Washington", especially for such gems as "Prime Cut". If I have climbed a flake as fine, I do not remember when. This is certainly not the norm at Banks and was enjoyed thoroughly. The rock above the anchors have potential for a pretty sweet looking sport line. We then climbed "Supprehension" to "Creamsicle Buttress" on Highway Rock and enjoyed the partly sunny skies and perfect temps. The first portion of "Creamsicle Buttress" Satisfied with climbing, we headed back to camp for burritos and relaxing. A strange sight caught our eye atop the next island North, prompting us to explore. A canoe and scramble got us to the top and discovered an old, broken windmill light installed on top of the island. Anyone have info on this? Chased by a pack of rabid coyotes... My last trip out to Banks included a fantastic trip up the Orange Wall. It took little words to convince mi amigos to take another route up this towering piece of rock. Taken from last Summer Keeping with the mellow nature of the weekend we thought we had decided upon an easy 4 pitch route called "Lesser Evil" but forgot to factor in the approach. Canoeing up to the wall was no issue, but finding the route, navigating the talus, brush, poison ivy, rattle snakes, and exposed, loose, 5th class scrambling proved otherwise. After about 45 minutes of this, we discovered the start and I began leading. (FYI the first pitch is on a ledge at the far edge of the wall and the massive gully.) The 1st pitch was short and ended on a small ledge with a horn. The book says to use wide gear and a bolt, I found it just as easy to sling the horn. The 2nd pitch started with a few bolts and then followed a nice, low-angle off-width. 3rd pitch was a long, well-bolted face climb. 4th pitch pushes through a roof with an interesting couple of moves to unlock it. Bring a #1 or a wrench and some hangers for the crux move as there were 2 or 3 bolts with no hangers. The climbing eases back after this to low-angle scrambling to a set of chains. There is lots of untouched granite out there We hit the summit, took some photos and began to rap. Last year on "Heart of Stone" (a few climbs over) I planned on rapping the route but found that not all anchors were equipped to do so and ended up thrashing through a heinous walk-off with no clear route down in my climbing shoes. Learning from my mistakes, I brought extra materials in case this happened again. Sure enough, The anchors atop pitch 4 had chains on one bolt, but not the other. I fashioned a small piece of webbing and off we went. 3 double rope rappels got us to the bottom without incident. On the canoe back to camp, it finally rained on us. The clound dumped steady rain on a quarter mile square chunk of the lake and followed us back to camp. You could see people outside the ring of rain still sunbathing. Oh well, it could have happened on the rock right? After packing camp and loading everything back into the car we finally deemed it hot enough to take a dip. The Michaels decided to jump off a nice looking rock near the dock. The flowers and greenery make Banks Lake even more beautiful in the Spring. Anyone know this flower? Sun lakes below Dry Falls Dam (Keeps Banks Lake a lake) Long story short... Banks Lake = Gear Notes: Most routes are sport, but there are some quality gear routes to be had as well, bring your rack. For "Lesser Evil" the book says gear 2-4 and draws. I brought singles from .5-4 and used them all. Bring at least a dozen draws and don't forget the rap material. Approach Notes: Canoe, walk, or schwack... your choice.

This was a rap anchor I used on some obscure 5.7 on the snow creek wall. Feeling with my fingers I discovered the rock pinch did not connect!

that sounds pretty cool!

ditto on both points Matt. The granite is of Darrington quality and crowd free. I had the same issue with SATR and missing a cam. I have climbed there a few times and just finally noticed the cam notes on the Topo this weekend. doh!

someone recruit Dan the man!

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/954806/Searchpage/1/Main/74029/Words/name+this+wall/Search/true/Re_anyone_know_this_wall#Post954806 I already tried this.

thanks for the work Frank. The woods and midland are always crowd free and alluring. too bad they always seem to be wet when I am there.

exciting stuff! I always get paranoid about cougars when out in the Middle Fork by myself.