pac man

Trip: Tatoosh Range - The Castle - west side of N Face Date: 3/20/2010 Trip Report: Due to the expected warm temps, we headed up Friday night to get an early start on Saturday for Pinnacle Peak's North Ridge. We ended up taming our plans down due to a wrist injury that happened the week before. We chose to climb the west side of the North Face of Castle (route shown in red), but as we walked by we were very tempted by a couple ice lines up the center of the North Face (ice variations shown in yellow, probably WI3?). North Face routes We climbed about 350 feet of somewhat steep snow before roping up at the last tree. Looking down our route before roping up Begininning of roped pitch The one roped pitch involved mainly slightly steeper snow and a few easy rock steps with nuts and cam placements, ending with one ~10ft step of mixed climbing. Looking down the roped pitch Mixed step I found this climb very relaxing and a nice step up from Lane Peak's Zipper Couloir (at least at this time of year). With all of the trees, I would imagine it would be easy to bail. Gear Notes: We brought way too much for our alternate plan. Gear we used: 2" cam for last step, ~.5" cam, medium nut, webbing for the short rappel on the other side, though you probably could down climb if you traversed east along the ridge Other possibly useful gear: a couple other cams in the .5-1" range, set of nuts, possibly some pitons, slings for trees if you desire to simul or pitch out the bottom section Ice variations: 3-5 screws Approach Notes: Park at Narada and head to Castle on the ski track

Does anyone know where to get the Simond Ice Screw rack or equivalent? I've been looking for a bit and when I asked the Ouray climbing shop, they said Simond isn't distributed over here anymore. Thanks in advance.

Ellensburg the town. The route is the snow melt drip right across from Umptanum Falls.

Set it up again and double checked the clove hitch both times because I was so shocked it didn't lock up. I had only tried vigorously pulling the rope through the Silent Partner to lock it up and didn't trust testing it with a fall. After vigorously pulling a section of the rope through it, it eventually began to catch, so I'll be waiting till the rope is used often before trying the two together again.

I went to use my Silent Partner on a new 10.2 dry treated rope and before I started climbing, I tested to see if the the clove hitch would catch a fall. With the "slick" rope, the clove hitch would not prevent rope from feeding out even though the drum of the Silent Partner was locked. Has anybody experienced something like this with a new rope and this belay device?

Trip: Dwindling Bluewood and Ellensburg ice - Bluewood and Ellensburg Date: 1/30/2010 Trip Report: We went out searching for whatever ice was left so that we could swing our tools before a trip to Ouray. We found that the "high mass" ice flows of Bluewood and Ellensburg did survive the recent high temperatures, but they were definitely the smallest I have seen them and parts of them were highly suspect. On Saturday we climbed a short WI2-3 at Bluewood and did some laps. Our climb, and the only climb on the main wall I was willing to lead with the conditions, goes up right next to the branch found at the top center of the picture. Then I convinced the wife to take the sharp end and lead a short low-angle WI2 on the far right side of the ice flow. Being hopeful, on Sunday we headed to Umptanum Falls but did not like that the main snow fed drip did not touch down and we suspected that the ice had little bond to the rock. Since we were already there, we climbed the short gully between the snow fed drip and the main falls, which is definitely not worth the drive or hike. All in all, as expected it wasn't a stellar weekend of ice, but with low enough standards, we found something.

I haven't tried them yet, but these look pretty cool for an extra addition to normal climbing holds: Ice Holdz

I have a fairly narrow foot and I have unfortuantely found that La Sportiva boots are way too wide for me. The boots that worked best for me are the lace-up style Vasque M-Possible SS Mountaineering boots, though they appear to not have the same quality of build as La Sportiva boots. Other boots that had a fairly narrow fit were the Mammut Mammuks and to a lesser degree the Scarpa Freney XT GTX (I had a little more heel lift in these). In retrospect, I should have probably tried a female version of the Nepal Evo GTX as well.

After finding out that the access to the usual camp spots near the road between the bridges was closed, we ended up camping at one of the numerous pullouts along Hwy 12 right next to the river. There are also some nice spots on the way to and at Lava Point (off of Soup Creek Rd just across Hwy 12 from Hause Creek CG). Moon Rocks also has a few nice 5.10 cracks.

Thanks for the info. I really enjoyed the climbs there and will definitely be back to check out the others.

Anybody have any info on the sport routes just left of Moon Rocks? It may be a new crag and is definitely newer than "Tieton River Rocks" guide book.

Climbed at Mist today along with 4 or 5 other parties. Mist is in similar condition to Tuesday (ice is decent, but the temps were a bit warm). From 84, Crown Jewel definitely doesn't look as good as before (thinner at top and more exposed rock), but it's still there.

Is there a shuttle from Grand Junction to Ouray?

I'm itching to swing the ice tools again, even if it is on Elliot. Usually it would be a no-brainer this late in the season, but with the snow lingering around so long I wasn't sure and wanted to see if anybody had seen it recently. Does anybody know if the crevasses at the toe are open?

Maxim Apogee 9.1 and Maxim Pinnacle 9.5 recall

More details on the original mod can be found at: Nomic hammer mod

I found this when debating about Nomics. Haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising. http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/503/nomic_finished1.jpg[/img] Nomic mods