spionin

yeah, and so small! you can drive across in 3 hours, 2 million people (and all climbers seem to know each other), lots of options for climbing. cheers!

thanks all! this is an awesome place. i should clarify that i didn't know anyone here before, and it's just from emailing with people that we have made some plans and just went along. i'm super impressed with the welcome and the openness and generousity. very happy. this is the second time this season that i totally lucked out with just meeting people online, taking a chance, and climbing (thanks dave and troy for starting off my season!) no, it was sick. i actually asked the shooters later if they were going to do anything with it. the best was hiking down the blood-stained trail later. yeah- the goat's enjoying more attention than the routes! i just want to clarify that it was shot NOT because it couldn't climb M6. baa

Trip: slovenia - logarska dolina - skušnjava Date: 2/4/2010 Trip Report: my awesome host here, in maribor - silvij, maja lobnik, and i went out to logarska again. because here you have to stand in line to get on wi5-6 routes, we chose a later start time and a longer approach, and climbed skušnjava, a wi 5+(6), 120 m, 3 pitch route. a typical morning has been starting with a drive through tiny villages, a visit to a bakery, and a stop at a coffee bar. no real plans. we arrive, it is maybe 9 or 9:30, people start calling people, we have an espresso (some people take a shot), and a few smoke breaks later climbers start rolling in and everyone assembles into teams. awesome. this was a great, super stout route for me. maja and i both followed silvij. second pitch was by far the more difficult, starting with a small rampy section, up a thin curtain that felt overhanging, and up a thin veil to a plastic finish. the pro looks really closely spaced, but it is not. hard to show the scale, BUT THIS PITCH IS 55M LONG! third pitch was a steep but short, maybe 3+. climbing is serious business. real climbers have rocking mullets! awesome day again, it burned so good. Gear Notes: lots of light beer in green bottles Approach Notes: about an hour up steep knee-deep pow

Trip: slovenia - logarska dolina - ojstrica and zahodni breg areas Date: 2/2/2010 Trip Report: on monday i flew into venice (cheaper than ljubljana), took a train east, and at 18:30 was picked up by steve's friend silvij. we got to maribor 2,5 hours later, and after a quick dinner of bread, cheese, and olives i proceeded to pass out. at 6:45 a.m. we were off to go climbing! about a week before i arrived, there was a cold snap and falls formed up nicely, but then 2 days prior there was a significant snowfall, and the avy danger flew up. so we are stuck with cragging for now. we picked up boris strmšek, peter ferk, and maja lobnik (voted this year's top female alpinist in slovenia), and went to logarska dolina (logar valley), about 2 hours driving from maribor. after a 20-min approach we climbed the first pitch of Slap pod Susičo (this pitch was maybe wi3/3-), rapped down and hiked another 15 min up to the 4-pitch Slap pod Tunelom (wi3/4, according to guidebook "zimski vzponi" by gregor kresal). the name of the route means "route under the tunnel", and indeed the walk off looked like this the conditions were great, so of course we decided to come back the following day. after climbing we stopped by everyone's friend andrej's house to pick up some free firewood for silvij's wood stove. then we went to a pub for a few beers, and enjoyed some roadside snow sculptures. starbux mermaid, anyone? day 2. we went up to logarska again and climbed the 3-pitch route Čaša. the book rates is at wi6,x, but we were the 3rd party on it that day, and it would be unfair to understimate the chopping work they did for us, although it is stout. i've never climbed anything rated 6, so it's hard for me to say, but swinging into plastic, pre-screwed, and pre-shelved pillar on top rope made for an really enjoyable climb. silvij, who is credited with the 2nd ascent of this route, also said that he liked it much more than the first time he climbed it. while climbing p2 i saw two people come up to the climb. we hung out with one of them the previous day over beers. he asked me to throw some ice at the opposite wall to "scare the goat". ok... i did. then i went on climbing. as soon as i cleared the crux of the pitch, he yelled up "ok. now vee shoot". BOOM. a mountain goat crashed down the ground from the wall opposing me. wow. FF>> we found out later that apparently this goat was trapped on a ledge and couldn't move up all day. lack of reaction while throwing ice confirmed that she was sick. so they fetched a local with a boom stick and took her down. two people approaching the goat (next to the rock, upper left) after the climb we went over to the restaurant/hostel owned by lavro's family, and had some homemade blueberry brandy (boroničke), beer, coffee, and delicious noodle soup. amazing, thanks! ok, two more weeks of this Approach Notes: huge thanks to people who've been helping me since i started planning this trip last june, and been insanely generous with advice and answering my emails, sharing places to stay, rides, food, drinks, beta; loaning equipment, guidebooks, friends, cars, climbing partners, and just being awesome and climbing with me!! (in random order) - silvij morojna, rok roškar, steve house, jasna and andrej pecjak, maja lobnik, boris strmšek, roger strong, dušan golubič, lavro govc, and others.

right on! right on! you did this tour a few days in a row, right? nice meeting you guys, thanks!

Trip: stevens pass - jove peak Date: 1/17/2010 Trip Report: ..mostly just a conditions report - a few friends (lee, kevin, nick, and rok) and i skied east of stevens pass yesterday. bergdorfer offers a few tours in the area (lichtenberg, union, jove peaks). we started from smith brook rd at 9. there was definitely a bit of rain crust, but the snow got better as we climbed up. by the time we stopped at 2 (to give ourselves enough light for a safe descent), we were in deep (albeit heavy) powder, 400ft below the summit. snow conditions were alright, another party dug a pit and reported on fair stability. we forewent repeating, and just skied down along our up-track until we reached trees. far from optimal, but still surprisingly good conditions given the weather we've had! skinning through tree bumps pow downhill: Approach Notes: bergdorfer

11/30/2008. there was another group of three up that day. http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=11377.msg47274#msg47274

it was actually a great time. i think in the pic i'm kind of shaking my head at myself for not having left my POWDER skis lower on the mountain. i guess i just remained hopeful about finding some fluff.

hi J, the access road to cold springs campground is the issue. the road doesn't get plowed, and tends to get snowed/iced in very rapidly. in early march there's still enough snow to require a whole-day approach to where you'd normally park your car and start from in summer. skiing in early december (the latest i've been able to drive up to cold springs before snow) looks like this: you can contact the gifford pinchot forest rangers, and they'll be able to give you exact info. cheers!

WI3... you're right - screws are [mental] aid anyways. i just need to man up...

phenomenal. love the adidas suit. and the lack of helmet. and not placing any pro. i'm going to SLO in a few weeks, hope to see similar conditions. thanks for posting!

awesome!! this wall was the first place i'd climbed ice, 6 years ago. also, i took a swim in that creek once. ahh, memories

nice job! we stared up for a while last weekend, deciding whether/how to approach it. this route is barely discernible from the road, it's nice to get a visual of the falls.

sure. there was a question posted expressing legitimate concern and reiterating something all of us climbers [should] ask ourselves ALL THE TIME (ideally not in retrospect,or following a tragedy), followed by an extremely thoughtful answer by an experienced, cautious person who had no problem owning up to his decisions/actions. if you ever have to defend yourself in a similar argument, you might want to cite his work. thanks craig and bob.

i think that's alpine dave (in red jacket) and his friend zach. we met them in the parking lot at the end of the day, and they said they lapped both carenos + other climbs in the area

the thrill definitely has way more ice than what we saw. what's known about the partially bolted route just to the left? here's a hack job of a picture combo i made of scott (cold iron) climbing and helicoptering off it. the pictures were taken from two different vantage points. sorry, the contrast isn't stellar. last time we looked before he fell he was half-way up the ice smear above. the yellow arrows on the photo are bolts, the orange - scott's pins p.s. i love the razzle-dazzle on "palisade falls"

wow - awesome tr and pictures. love the shot of the drop knee on fender bender! sounds like intense leads - way to pull through dude.

thanks wayne! that's pretty hilarious. i totally hear you though. we sort of just went for it. it didn't look like anyone was home on what we presumed to be tyee ranch. we also heard a really loud truck on the road as we approached the falls, and doug wondered if that was his van getting towed. [insert image of a climber running through thick brush he/she just shwacked, wearing crampons] "i swear sir, all this sharp metal i'm carrying means no harm!"

thanks a lot - that sounds about right. the ice book doesn't have info on these, and i don't have a leavenworth rock book to look up info on the air roof rock climb. i assume that the rambly flow could be accessed by walking off rainbow and possibly rapping down. the structure of pivotal proper then makes sense too (1-2 pitches). again, thanks!

you know you totally wanted to be there - dodging bullets and icicles! so... does anyone know anything about that climb on top of air roof? or the climb that we got on?

thanks troy! we need to inaugurate the new year by getting on something scary.

no, that's the photo of what we think is Tyee falls, the route we actually got on. the fang looked good, and doug actually thought we should do it. it looked solid (as solid as a described hollow-topped pillar will be, probably). the approach to our climb took us about 45 min through trees and across the river. the trek to the fang would probably go faster. it's visible on the left around milepost 23-24.

...just in case, i intentionally spelled gourmet that way. just sayin'

Trip: entiat valley and leavenworth - 01/02-03/2010 - Date: 1/2/2010 Trip Report: doug hutchinson and i went on an ice scouting tour this weekend in his totally sweet eurovan camper. so we left seattle early saturday morning and drove up to entiat. the ice guide talks about a number of routes along the entiat river road. we drove through a pretty decent fog back and forth, and only saw two routes: the mighty fang and something around mile marker 20, tyee falls? so we parked and shwacked towards the prize. this involved crossing a frozen (??) river, where at each step we got serenaded by loud cracking. we decided to try the right side of the falls, which provided a more continuous line. doug climbed a ways up into an unprotectable shower stall, looked for a decent way up, got bombed by snow pretty well, and finally retreated. i think if the weather cools down the falls will fill in nicely and be ready for action soon. we then drove to leavenworth and checked out icicle creek. both carenos look good. careno right acquired two more solid pillars since last saturday (and alpinedave and zach climbed it in good form) we had a warm, relaxed evening in the camper, complete with with some gor-met dinner (not roughing it) on sunday we decided to do pivotal point. the book says that there's a route right above air roof. this is it (from which side do you approach it?), and it doesn't quite look like wi4: around the bend in the road, and up a canyon is this (more likely to be pivotal): doug jumped straight-on to a central pillar while i decided to lead a line to the right. it looked more "interesting", potentially offering a backstep/stem move, but instead forced me up a narrow chimney and the put me in an awkward position under some hangers (bad move on my part) doug then lead up a narrow mixed gully on the left side of the falls, which looked almost mellow, but wasn't (surprise). he placed 4 solid pins and 2 useless screws. and i'm very glad he talked me out of re-leading it. note the delaminating ice on the right. this whole thing crashed on me. ice in the center of the gully also took off. drytooling and moss-sticking ensued. we'd like to call this line "note to plumber, the sink is too low and water tastes like shit", inspired by an outhouse inscription in wenatchee, and by getting covered in crap while squeezing through the narrow, dirty gully. Gear Notes: pins, screws. Approach Notes: according to the book, with happy music. 2 hours into driving doug declared my musical selection (massive attack) too dark, refused to listen to tom waits, and for the rest of the trip i felt like we were in a vw/apple commercial.

nicely done! what were the temperatures like?