marc_leclerc

1 hr 15 in approach shoes, stopping to chat with people, mellow. 5hrs drytooling in winter, kinda full on. Winter is just generally scarier and slower. Like Dru said.

Interesting reading through all this. I've spent a few nights shivering, on or near summits of things, punching the air trying not to freeze until the sun comes up. But usually it was part of the plan, not that its much fun. But practicing on snow then ditching the pickets and most of the gear, climbing on a single 8mm for routes like these, and brewing up completely at the bivy and ditching the stove, all would speed things up a lot. You don't want to be scared while climbing though, so extending the comfort zone is the most important aspect. thanks for writing up your adventure!

solid work guys looks fun indeed

winter, then! Yes, second that! Looks like a fun winter face to me.

i walk on the lower cable and use the upper for a hand line. The first time I took two daisies and a harness to clip in while I got a feel for it. I'd generally recommend that system although I frequently do it without. 10 mins across max, super fun.

This is really tragic news. Condolences to the friends and families of all involved... Last year two friends nearly died in a similar accident on fitz Roy's supercanaleta. Roped together, one fell and both tumbled to the base. It is miracle they survived. In such cases the rope only provides an illusion of safety. Keep safe out there.

I use dromedary's, 2, 4 or 6 litres depending on what I'm up to. The only time I fill my 6 litre fully is for camp. As far as taste goes, on a 'serious' objective I have bigger things to worry about than the taste of my water. As long as I'm not going to die of dehydration I'm pretty content. A half litre nalgene is great for a quick hit clipped to the harness or waist strap of a pack. It's also ideal for making hot water bottles for shivering it out overnight in the winter. A hot water bottle can keep you relatively cozy held close to the body for a couple hours! Then drink it and brew up again. It's always good getting two birds stoned at once.

Crossover peak might seem to involved a serious unbalanced ratio of alder crawling and/or snow slogging vs climbing. Maybe a couple pitches at the top? The Nesakwatch spires definitely has a steep approach but in good conditions it can go pretty fast and the mixed climbing up there is great in my experience! The shorter routes are not too intimidating and there is lots of rock gear available, as well as nice thin cracks to torque your picks in and positive flakes to hook. The North Ridge of the North Spire could be fun, we climbed an M5 ish line up the NW face with short cruxes and good gear, descent is easy on the SE. I'd bet Rexford from the col with the south spire would be great too! Another fun route in winter, although with a lot of elevation gain to approach, I'd the east ridge of Alpha in the Tantalus. I've done it twice in mixed conditions, including a couple days ago. The 5.7 pitch feels like a short M4 or M5 and there's a fixed pin. The rest is easier but not boring with some good mixed and classic snow ridges. Again an easy descent to the West. Alpha is a long approach for only a couple pitches as well. But seems a bit more classic overall than crossover! Both have great views to enjoy. Good luck getting out there! It's gotten pretty stormy again it seems.

Hey, any honest mountain brothers (or sisters) in the Bellingham/Northwestern WA zone that can help me out? I need a USA address to have some equipment for an upcoming expedition shipped to,as I can't get it shipped to Canada unfortunately. I'll come down to pick it up before I fly out on Dec 10th. Can buy a few beers for anyone who is willing. Cheers, M-A

Yes there are anchors available for the rappels, and once you are on the slabs at the base of Navigator Wall the slabs are an easy 15 minute walk back to the propeller cairn. The topo is done and will appear on a different site soon enough, I will link that page to here once it is uploaded. cheers!

I'm working for a topo on the SE descent, but I definitely need to clarify that it is a good deal more technical than the standard descent off the summit tower, just in terms of 5th class downclimbing. It's really fast if you are comfortable with it, involves less hiking than the crossover pass route and takes you directly back to the propeller cairn. I'll post a link to the route description when I am finished, hopefully it works for some other folks as well.

Trip: Slesse Mountain - Triple Link Up Date: 8/30/2014 Trip Report: Here's another one some of you guys might enjoy. What a day! Blog Linky Gear Notes: Not much. Approach Notes: Drive - Walk

Been back in there twice since the last report. Once for Navigator Wall and once for E Pillar. Both fun. There's less ice in there than the previous post and things are about as mellow as they will get. That being said I probably wouldn't stop to have a picnic in the pocket glacier cirque. But right now is definitely the time to go.

Hey guys, how would it be to pick up the Sigurd trail coming the other way headed down off the north ridge of Tantalus? Beta?

Brette and I climbed the NEB yesterday. 12hrs car to car descent via crossover pass. Still lots of death blocks lingering in the cirque. Sliding frequently. We managed to stay mostly clear of the line of falling ice by staying high on the left side of the cirque employing multiple shoulder stands and 'teamwork' body aiding off each other to get by blank sections of polished slab. no joke. about a 45 second dash beneath the ice brought us to safer terrain on the right side of the cirque and the bypass ramps. A party behind us bailed after several VW sized blocks ripped through the cirque as they were preparing to cross. I watched this go down from the crux of the direct route below the bivy ledge, glad no one got hurt. Its still fully heads up, make good choices. We had a great day. When I climbed this route six years ago at age 15 I couldn't have imagined that I would team free solo it with my girlfriend one day.

Trip: Waddington Range - Various Date: 8/10/2014 Trip Report: Here's a blog post about a recent trip to the Wadd. I thought some of you here might enjoy this one. Linky! Cheers, M-A Gear Notes: Not enough at times. Approach Notes: Helicopter bitchez!

Nice work! We chanced it with the weather Thurs and Fri and ended up hiking a rack and bivy gear to the top of Recourse in the fog and hiking out the same day. Classic.

Great work! I was thinking about that face during that last window, stoked to hear someone got on it. The Tantalus is magic, especially in winter condish. Its not often you get such conditions on the coast either. Bomber up high, dry approach. I was on the NF of sky pilot and found similar conditions, got the barfies real bad too. Good one boys!

hi eldiente, nice work! we originally climbed that first pitch as an alternate start to Cerb, for those dry winter days when the headwall is prime but the standard approaches wet. We called it Catharsis Crack 10+. I thought it to be quite fun. I did the upper section of labyrinth while trying to find a free route through the wrist twister finger crack. One day my partner Luke and I did the Catharsis Crack and brought the drill and hooks and linked right to join those awesome upper dykes and called it Labyrinth. Its really good and has nicer rock than Cerb. Really aesthetic foot traversing with boulder cruxes. It was fun aiding it with hooks too.Stoked people are doing Catharsis crack into Cerb as that's what it was originally intended for

You need an oversized steel biner, the standard one I use for rope soloing didn't fit. Most large aluminum lockers seem to fit and will get you there and back a couple times before having to retire it. This is all if you choose to tyrolean of course. I typically brought extra kit to make the crossing cruisy, then would leave it at the river while climbing. If I were doing the traverse via hiking up Sigurd I would make a quick stop beforehand and just walk the cable there and back with no pack and leave my scene pre rigged for when I come out with all my shit. Great zone back there enjoy

Keenwesh and I climbed Angels Crest in like 6 or 7 hours this one time

Hi guys

After exchanging emails with Bruce it seems something like this may have happened. We climbed the same first pitch on the main pillar, but where the FA party did a 'rightward traverse with pins for pro' I led directly up a steep dark head wall with no pro at all. I'll draw a line if I have time. Sounds like the original line was no harder than 'stiff' 5.10, our second pitch was honest 5.11 X. It's a fun and rowdy lead but not one I would recommend to my friends, too easy to break a hold and utterly mangle yourself.

Trip: Joffre - Central Pillar (Beta/Spoiler) Date: 9/11/2013 Trip Report: Yo, so a couple months ago I climbed the central pillar of Joffre with my lady. She'd spent some time in the alpine and is a great rock climber, so after reading the guidebook description of 10c climbing on good rock we figured the central pillar would be a good choice for her first real alpine rock climb. Seeing as 10c is piss for her and below my limit for multipitch onsight soloing we opted to go light and take maybe 4 or 5 cams up to a #2, a set of wires and one single 8.5mm half rope seeing as we wouldn't be falling off anyways. We climbed 'The Shadow' the day before, both lowering back down and taking multiple burns on the pitch so our hips were really feeling it on the walk in. Lots of rockfall hazard on the approach, mostly from snowmelt running down the Twisting Couloir. We crossed the schrund to the right of the Twisting and did some 5.9 soloing and a couple quick hip belay maneuvers to get onto the Pillar and away from the Twisting Couloir as quickly as possible. So after lunch, she led a simul block of mostly 5.7 or 5.8 climbing to the start of the pillar on good'ish rock. Then I took over and led the three supposedly '10c' pitches to the top. I thought perhaps I was getting sick, the Shadow had completely fucked me the day before, or I was malnourished and dehydrated as the 10c climbing felt both surprisingly hard and scary. The rock wasn't the worst I'd ever climbed, but not 'excellent' by any means. On the second pitch I had to run it out about 40ft to 50ft off a cam behind a suspect block on sustained steep climbing on suspect holds. A fall from the crux would have meant two broken legs if you got off easy, possible death if you really fucked it up. The routefinding was hard on this pitch, and many of the cruxes would have been desperate to reverse. We topped it out no problem in the end but it felt like one of the more engaging adventures of my summer. Luckily Brette is a very competent climber with a good head and had no problem handling the whole mission despite it being more full on than expected. I personally found all of this really fun, but I know a lot of people who would disagree. I love this kind of climbing and found myself right where I wanted to be in the end, I am certainly not slagging the route. Just telling people how I found it. I wanted to write this as a heads up to anyone thinking of hopping on the route who may be unsure of their ability level. Its a great route and a fully worthy adventure, I would highly recommend it to anyone who is solid and capable and looking for the full experience. Just don't expect it to feel like 'Life on Earth' or 'Mouses Tooth' or other similarly graded routes in the area. Those routes are complete and total piss, this route is hard. Its not long but packs a punch. Bruce you sandbagger! I'd call it 5.10+++ R/X. I would recommend being able to onsight 5.12 on gear consistently and comfortably at the crag before climbing this one, or having elephant sized balls of steel. Maybe I'm just soft, who knows... Took us 14 hrs car to car. We were tired. Bring helmets. Walking in. P1 of the main pillar. This pitch was fine, look out for the next one though... The sick pinnacle belay before the pitch. On the summit. We descended the standard route to Anniversary Glacier. Its fast and obvious. If you want safe climbing on good rock I'd go for this one instead.