NateF

I don't wish to detract from the excellent video, or potential ensuing (and repeated) bolt war, but wish to make the following PSA: dear climbing brethren: just put the rope outside your leg whenever possible unless your pro is fall line and your legs straddle it for a clean fall. make light of it but you set yourself up unnecessarily to get flipped by the rope and smash noggin upon rock. too many people let their friends do this IMHO. it's a pet peeve to me how many people repeatedly run the senseless and avoidable risk of turning a short and safe fall into a trip to the hospital or worse. it drives me nuts how often I have to remind friends who have been climbing for a decade or more of this, but I won't stop nagging and they do occasionally thank me for caring about them.

Timberjack protects well and there's a bolt to get you through the wide part towards the top. I recall a burly move to top out above the bolt but I remember the bolt being good. Good fun. Yeah the anchor's funky up there, old sling disappearing up into the woods to back up the bolts or something. I've followed Gorilla a few times, and offer the following suggestions despite all the bolts (unless you're confident at the grade & with sustained burly laybacks): bring some gear to protect yourself before the 1st bolt, the clip can be awkward. Also a large cam (or two) can be walked up between bolts to provide more of a G rated experience.

Great vid!

that soundbite gave me a good chuckle. all the news that's fit to print!

jeebemus, those are some stories, the UTW tale sounds like what I was recalling from ANAM. I think Messner recounts his tale in his book Solo:Nanga Parbat, about his (2nd I think) solo attempt of the diamir face on nanga parbat. earthquake caused an avalanche which swept the lower portion of his ascent route below him (also his planned descent route). great book, really delves into his thoughts and doubts throughout.

holy cow. there was an account in Accidents in NA Mtr'g a while back from someone climbing during an earthquake, I think they were on the N face of Baring. maybe during the nisqually quake? anyone know who that was?

Chinook Pass. I have not climbed there, but I remember seeing a TR or two on this site and some route beta in an old rock 'n road book. My impression was that it seemed worth checking out if you're in the neighborhood.

Yeah dude! Great pic's, that third one of the clouds.. nice

It can be pretty easy to get disoriented and lost once back down on the lower mountain too. Not as immediately threatening as getting lost up high, but with lots of radial drainages that look really similar it's not a given that you'll find your car easily after you hit treeline. I'll join the refrain: Go with a good weather window for the most fun. Bring ice axe and crampons and know how to use them. You won't need them in all conditions, but it would be a shame to get most of the way up there only to get turned around or sketched out if the steeper slopes are firm. The slope up to the false summit gets gradually steeper and is steep enough at the top that an ax is pretty handy.

TAY thread on uphill traffic @Stevens

jlag, maybe you can get them to put you and your buddies on the clock for your ski cutting efforts. Again, good luck fighting the man (it really sounds like Bachelor has gone sideways since the procurement), this will most likely be a continuing trend and I hope the outcome at Bachelor works out well as it will probably impact us all in some way down the road. With the increasing amount of uphill traffic at ski areas, these issues are likely to continue cropping up.

I don't ski at Bachelor, but what I thought jlag was saying is that he and others are skiing areas where patrol would typically do control work, prior to patrol arriving on the mountain. If I'm mistaken and jlag is poaching some uncontrolled area my apologies. Otherwise, I think it would be very very easy for the resort's risk manager to imagine a scenario in which a skier is injured or has an equipment failure or loss which leaves them stranded someplace prior to control work. They can't consider jlag's experience, skills and abilities in this decision-making process. If he does it, there's no stopping some gaper from doing the same. They'd have to respond in some way to prevent this from happening. Yeah, it's an affront to personal freedoms and I don't like it any more than you, I'm just saying I can understand why it would happen. That sort of thing (if I understand what jlag is saying) is very highly likely to put access at risk, and not because patrollers are upset by seeing tracks before they get on the lift. It sounds like I'm not intimate enough with the situation there to comment effectively, so take my perspective with a grain of salt. Cheers, and best of luck fighting the restriction as I do not agree with it either.

There's your "the few" not thinking about the many. You really think that's a good idea? Over time, events which are possible but not likely tend to happen occasionally. Like a skier becoming immobilized for one reason or another, then later being buried or exploded by control work. The resort has to consider these possibilities and regulate to prevent them from ever happening. Your decision doesn't sound very savvy, how would you expect the resort to respond? And no, I am not for the closure to uphill traffic, but there should be a certain amount of sensitivity and diplomacy exercised by skiers who choose to "tour" in a ski area.

That's kind of scathing. I can appreciate Fred & feldspar's willingness to voice their displeasure with the DOT, and in support of the livelihood of their community, even though I would not benefit from more tax dollars being spent on that road. You have to admit that the state of the economy, coupled with a relatively early road closure would pack quite a double-whammy to the Methow. Last time I was there, Winthrop was a ghost town, barely anyone out for dinner on a winter weekend. I don't know for sure, but I would imagine a lot of folks are hurting over there. I can understand that those of us who don't live in such an amazing place may get a little bitter about people over there having any complaints though!

Enjoyed yer write-up, thanks!

Shinsain obviously found out the hard way that you don’t climb hood at this time of year. No reason to bag on the guy joe.... Sounds like he learned not to climb Hood at this time of year, but is somehow blaming the lack of recent trip reports (hmmm, is that a clue?) and the guide book for bad decision making. Not sure how many sentences would be required in the guide book to get the point across. I don't think he would have had to ask too many people (besides Matt the Director) before being steered towards another objective.

Huh, I was thinking about this yesterday. Any idea why hangers would be set near horizontal on a pair of recent belay anchor bolts? Are they sometimes oriented in the 4:00 - 5:00 o'clock position so they'll tend to tighten the nut if they're loaded? Seems like a bad idea, since they can't be expected to rotate to the proper orientation if they are loaded. And if they do rotate, and if the nut's tight, the bolt may rotate too. Yuck. I'm sure many of us have failed a fastener in torsion.

Thanks for the TR guys. That sounds like a fun area, for skiing and climbing. Glad the ledge collapse turned out A-OK. The crappy guidebook sounds like it adds to the adventure, despite chapping a few a**es. As for hordes, it looks like you escaped them and got some climbing in.

If the situation had been that you had no way to verbally communicate and hadn't agreed on any rope signals, i'd say you did the best you could under the circumstances, and it worked out. Given that you say you could verbally communicate with and without radios I don't really understand what the question is. Like Joseph said, if (assuming you were BB) you're wondering whether they're off belay, just ask them. Sometimes people forget to tell you. I'd guess that since you yelled "That's Me!", AA either figured you had taken them off belay already, or they didn't care whether you took them off belay or not because they didn't have any rope to pull. They must not have considered that you could save some time and energy by knowing they were off belay. Maybe you can tell us, did AA just forget to tell BB he was off belay or what?

note that snoboy's scenario is without any slack. falling with slack onto a daisy, sling, or other non-stretchy stuff will generate a high shock load and is not good for the anchor, the daisy chain or your body. rocketparrotlet, what are you using for a personal anchor? how long was your fall onto it? there are a few reasons OSHA approved safety harnesses have screamers attached, one is to protect the worker's body from the shock load.

gotta second that motion!

iluka, yes, I respect, understand, and agree with these points regarding personal adaptations to altitude. Based on your response I think you may be misinterpreting my posts. I don't recall saying that dehydration is the same as AMS, I get that. These folks are not going to get very far into "acclimatization" by spending, like, about 30 hours between 8K & 14K. Since they are not allowing time to acclimatize, my point is that they should focus on things which are under their control to make sure their bodies are feeling good to make the effort. Rest, hydration, fuel. As far as "climb high, sleep low," there's just no time scale for this outing with which to apply such tactics. besides, isn't it typical to take a good rest at a relatively low elevation before making a final push to peak altitude? They are driving to 8K, hanging out or day hiking (doesn't matter which as long as they are fresh and good to go for the 1AM wake-up call), and then realistically getting like 4 hours sleep. They will be dragging up there for sure. I don't think my advice of resting, drinking, and eating is going to endanger anyone. FWIW I think spending time and getting some sleep at the portal is a good idea, I was just initiating what I thought might be an interesting discussion. There are some who would advise going through a full acclimatization routine with gradual ascents and efforts at altitude (including climbing high and sleeping low), followed by a rest period at low elevation prior to a final summit push. I'd be curious whether that may still be a good idea if no time was given to acclimatize. For folks here in Seattle (like you I imagine), who frequently make weekend trips from sea level to 8-14K, there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that sleeping high (the opposite of sleeping low by the way) may be counter-productive when gaining elevation in short periods of time.

Wow chum, glad you are still with us. It would be interesting to pull that last hanger and see what condition it's in. Off, yeah, that's right, if galvanic corrosion occurs, a carbon steel bolt should corrode in the presence of a stainless steel hanger. Even if they were both stainless, galvanic corrosion is still possible (there are many varieties) but would be greatly reduced. This hanger looks to have delaminated between layers of the grain structure of the metal, and there appears to be obvious internal corrosion visible at the surfaces of these layers, whether it was chemically, galvanically, stress induced, or some combination is a ? There is very likely more going on than galvanic corrosion, if that was a factor. Any metallurgists out there? Edit: I just read Rad & Bill's posts, and yeah, wow, crazy to use a plated, coated or anodized metal for this application. Even though stainless isn't perfect it's the way to go.

I've noticed that the stiffness of the rope is a factor with the reverso 3 (haven't used other devices) in autoblock, it seems to get stuck easily or won't work at all with stiffer ropes. Surprised that you're having trouble with a 9.8 though. Try it with a few of your friend's ropes and see how it goes. mine won't work with my 10.2mm edelweiss, but works great with my buddy's rope which I believe is a 9.9mm edelweiss and is much more supple. Diameter is probably a factor, but the difference in stiffness of the ropes is what seems to make all the difference in autoblocking. I'd also like to hear any tricks of the trade..