bugabooed

I'll be heading up there in your time period. i already have a partner but may have a 3rd person interested. i'll also send a message to your hotmail. cheers.

hey if you need directions go to googlemaps.com and type in trout creek campground. check your PMs

You're welcome. I don't know either. What I've gathered from some of the old Smith crowd is that most people (at least the ones I've mentioned) came, checked it out and went back to Smith. That's pretty much what still happens. Apparently Suzuki went out there with Brooke S. and they led a couple routes. Maybe they also did the one to the right that we call Purple Pinky Eater or the next one over we call Space Mission and so on all the way over to Gold Rush (including several of the routes we still haven't attempted) and then just forgot or decided that they only wanted to mention Mr. Squiggles and the one to its left to be mysterious. I'm as surprised as you and I agree with what your getting at, especially with lines like Gold Rush. I've had the same thoughts and conversations with people. That's why I mentioned in the guide that areas like this should be viewed with a bit of mystery and our hats should be off to the unknown pioneers that quietly came and went after they had their adventures. Just because someone hasn't bothered to come forward about an ascent doesn't mean they didn't do it. Anything that potentially tops out, which really, is almost anything at a crag like this, could/should have been climbed before. Gold Rush isn't exactly hiding, none of the routes up there are. I would say there is a good chance that a lot of the routes recently equipped with anchors are not FAs, especially on the main wall where little to no cleaning is required before hitting the rim rock finishes. If it weren't for the half a dozen mankey bolt anchors that were left up there, I wouldn't have added more at other stances. I seriously doubt John, Brett, Jamie, Nate, Gavin, Pat, or others would have either, at least not without really thinking about it. With that said, most people that visit the crag seem psyched and in agreement with where anchors have been placed. If somebody comes forward who spent time out there and wants a grade or a name adjusted or anchors removed I imagine it would happen. It would be awesome to hear that Ramsey or Suzuki or Sandahl or Watts or whoever did a bunch more or all of the routes. I think most of the people up there would still be excited on the climbing and the view regardless. I know I would be.

Yeah, good points about attitude and issues with keeping things on the downlow. As far as routes done to the top and anchors added prior to recording them...not long after I started visiting Trout Creek I heard that, Lively Up Yourself (the very first thing I climbed out there with JR) along with all of the routes in the immediate area from what we call Sleepy Hallow to Shasta had been done by guys in the 80's like Watts, Ramsey, etc to the top of the crag. That turned out to be inaccurate but for some time I thought it was the case and it's not to say they weren't done by somebody else. That's one reason why there are no anchors or names on the moderate climbs that access the top to the left of Lively Up Yourself. Later, John Rich and I walked the cliff and tried our best to line up a rough topo he'd drawn of the handful of routes he and his friends knew of in the late 80's. It seemed that John and pals, had done both Two Step Right and Two Step Left (at least) to the top of the pillar. By that time, I had already put an anchor a little bit higher to serve both of them. Going to the rim from there requires climbing up and right into the last 20 feet of the route we call Double Trouble. So, I wouldn't have put in those anchors had I known...and that's one of the reasons Double Trouble doesn't have an anchor itself. I also put an anchor on JR Token before learning the route was most likely done to the top. Although there was a ton of ambiguity with old hand drawn topo. It actually showed, as best as John could make out, that bolts had been placed under the roof, right where the anchors are currently. There were no signs of bolts or drill holes up there before I placed the anchor in 02. I was a bit confused but figured it was better to assume the route had been done to the top and credited it that way. It is possible to move left around the roof on marginal terrain to get to the top via 5.9ish climbing. Info surfaced later about Mr. Squiggles, Suzuki, Sleepy Hallow and the two routes 'him' referenced. Hopefully, as mention in the guide, more will come out to shed clearer light on the crag's history.

i wish, but i'll be working. have fun. tomorrow looks like the best day for a while.

For sure, "early interest" is very relative. Some of those guys in the 80's were climbing harder on passive gear then many of us can manage with our piles of ultra-light camming units. We have walked the cliff with a couple of the guys from the 80's but other climbs, and interests, and parties over the years have possibly scewed things in their memories. I'm guessing they did more than they can now remember. Plus, there surely have been many other visitors that have quietly sent several of the "new" additions to the crag before or since then. Imagine if Croft visited the place around when he solo bitzed areas like Arapalise. With that in mind, all the new activity in the guide is listed as first recorded ascents (FRAs) and names and dates have been adjusted, Suzuki for example, whenever more info comes out. Like "Him" pointed out, it is a process; we're adjusting to the growing pains and trying to be as accurate as possible. BTW, Him's "new" route is among the very best at the crag and somehow the early interest (this time around ;-) let it sit untouched until 2008. Come on out and give it a go! It is the plum line to the Alchemy anchor and, although it appears to be "R", the pro is reasonable. The other "new" classic is a couple lines to the left of Gateway, it does not yet have an anchor, so carefully pick your way to the rim. They are both around 5.11+.

Good points, I like to think your assumptions are pretty much right. I'm one of many people super psyched on the place and love sharing it with those who dig this style of climbing. Bottom line, the climbing is really good and everyone who visits is blown away by the scenery. Plus, once the word got out, it seemed like the right thing to have the guide available to anyone who looked for it. I agree with you that directions are not going to substantially increase numbers at the crag, especially compared to an article in Climbing. The issue was/is more about whether there is an obligation to post them in a guidebook or at least let people know they are not included. Early on, we figured access issues like the gov't intervention you mentioned were huge reasons to keep things quiet and frankly it was awesome being the only ones up at the cliff. We snuck around and when we saw fisherman in the parking lot we claimed we were hikers or picnicers or fellow fishermen, then some other people joined us in our sneaking around until there were quite a few of us. More or less, we agreed with your logic and shared info very sparingly: "Risking the area going through a Gov't intervention is more than I want to be a part of even if it's a 1% possibility. This seems at odds with selling a guide online" I eventually came to realize that that attitude, except when we as climbers truly are sneaking around in places we have no legal right to be, is backward thinking. It was pointed out by several people, including the BLM, that exposure from a guidebook or even that Climbing article could give us climbers a stronger voice as a user group, should access really become an issue. That is, of course, if we don't give the BLM reason to suggest we're making a negative impact on the land or other user groups-people hunting, grazing livestock, etc. It's far from an even relationship between usage, impact and access when we're dealing with public land. The land is BLM but access is deeded to the ranch above. The rancher is totally cool with us being there so long as we don't drive accross his farm up top...but he currently has the ranch for sale (251 acres for 1.3 million or you can get the house all the farm equipment and the BLM-lease for around 6.5 mil, if anybody's interested) and a different owner could be a different attitude. Even if we have the legal upper-hand, it is a relationship we need to be considerate of.

Useless is a pretty harsh word there chucK and I do tell people how to get to the cliff, just not the parking lot ;-) but I understand where you're coming from, especially if people are paying for it. One important fact here is that I didn't write the article in Climbing or ask for it to be written. Still, we all have to adjust to the way things play out and that's why I started this thread. Keep in mind chucK, a bunch of people, some of them listed above, disagree with you about what's ridiculous. Thanks Snaileye, that makes good sense. And thanks to everyone else that chimed in too, you included chucK. As of right now, the guidebook descriptions which pop up and remain up until purchases are made, all clearly state that the driving directions are not mapped out in the text of the guides: Inside you'll find all the route activity through 2/08. What you will not find (at least at this point) is exact driving directions to the trailhead. Although if you got here, you can surely get there with a little searching. Since avoiding DRIVING DIRECTIONS flies in the face of the traditional guidebook, people deserve to know. To some this will make the guide a useless purchase, to others it will produce one in a line of many Trout Creek adventures. If you are curious as to why we went this route, check out the link below and, if you want, add your own two cents: http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/772146#Post772146

I wrote the guidebook to Trout Creek. Since there have been blogs about the area and several comments about the guide, I decided to create an account here in sprayland to respond to some of them and open up room for debate. First, the banter on this site is classic and I can I understand the soapbox people have jumped on about no directions and such. If you’re interested in knowing why people wanted a guide but also wanted things kept a little on the DL, I suggest reading this whole mostrosity. Maybe it will clear some things up or at least give fuel to some more good spray. If you find all the details of stuff like this really, really boring and you want me to get right to the point, TiVo straight to the very last paragraph (in bold). Why aren’t there driving directions in the guidebook? The short answer is because when I was putting the guide together, that was one of the things nearly everyone I talked to about the crag suggested...but that was a while ago and maybe some of their feelings have changed. The original idea was to have info about the area spread through word of mouth, encouraging other people to tell their friends but not selling guides in stores or spraying to the world through other media. “It's either a secret or it's not” was a theme that came up a few times in another blog and a couple people really seem upset over the idea that while Trout Creek isn't a secret it seems to have secretive qualities. It's hard for some folks to wrap their minds around rational that is neither black nor white. It was never about being a secret but rather letting the momentum build on its own, with a couple hurdles but mostly open doors to finding and using the area. It was a balancing act, especially in terms of writing a guidebook, that I figured some people wouldn't get. I didn't think I would find myself actually agreeing with some of their points. Currently, if someone searches for Trout Creek Climbing online, boom the guide pops up. The fact that people still have to ask around or explore a little on their own to actually get to the trailhead is terribly contrived to some in the climbing world. And if people are purchasing a guidebook, maybe those ranting about it have a good point. That's why forums like this are cool, they let voices be heard and sometimes what they have to say can change things. Granted, the way they are said tends to be the problem with a lot of these types of forums because people grow really big muscles and really quick attitudes behind the protection of cyberville. But from what I can tell its still a good way to talk about these things. Years before there was any sort of guide to Trout Creek and before I started replacing the old anchors left behind from the 80’s, I talked to as many of "the old guard" as I could (Rich, Sandahl, Watts, Ramsey) to see what they thought about a renewed interested in the crag. They all figured replacing the old bolts was a good idea if I wanted to climb there and they were encouraging about the crag’s development, which at that time, was only a few of us. As word spread about the quality of the climbing more people started showing up and a problem surfaced right away. Some of the established routes that went to the top without anchors were “put up” again with bolts added below the rim by unknowing climbers. None of the bolts got chopped but people agreed that a guide would make good sense so that sort of thing would stop happening. Some of the climbers were also really guarded about the quiet nature (and the access issues) of the crag. The guide was a way to let those concerns get out. So, we decided to keep it word of mouth and I wrote a rough guide originally containing about 20 routes and gave copies to everybody I knew who had been up there. There was no need for directions because anyone who had the guide had it handed to them by someone who already knew about it. We all figured that the word would spread on its own (and it has) and there was no good reason to accelerate the process. In 2006, I updated the guide and made it available online instead of trying to burn discs and hand them out to people. That winter, I contacted everyone I knew who had spent time up there and told them to spread the word about a free download available for a week. I also purchased printed copies (they are not free for me either) for about a dozen people who had helped in the recent development. At that point, I considered including exact driving directions but again almost everyone I talked to thought it would be better if people still had to sniff around a bit to get there. Granted they already knew how to get there. I guess we figured it would be a interesting, relatively easy process…especially when the guide speaks to “The stretch of water between Warm Springs and Trout Creek”, eating in Madras, the bumpy road to the campground, etc. Since then, there has been a bunch of new route activity, an article in Climbing magazine and more people out there having a look. At the beginning of 2008 I updated the guide and again made it available as a free download, this time for a month. Guides for the public are now a whopping $5 to download and I only get part of that, and actually less for hard copies. Last year the money that came in from guide sales bought a few anchors and the entire purchase price of a keg and some plastic cups for the fall party. Hopefully this year it will pay for another keg, maybe even some chips. Yep, the word is out. Finding the area was never hard with a little digging and now it is a non-issue with directions posted on this site (edit: they have now been removed). Some people might have it right that if someone's buying a guidebook, they sure as hell should be given driving directions. It’s possible to change the pdf for the guide at any time. I have to say that I'm seeing things differently now that the crag has received so much attention...but personally I'm still a bit torn. From the beginning, this has been as much a group process as possible so your comments here and the input from other people will decide. Cheers.