Valhallas

Any thoughts on the grades of the two lead lines at the Cougar mountain crag? I went there the other day for my first non-gym dry tooling and for some reason made up the numbers M3 and M4 for the left and right lines, respectively. For some reason I thought that's what my friend said, but he asked me where I got the number, so evidently that was all in my head. Anyway, they felt harder than some M3 and M4 lines I've done at stone gardens, but the holds there are 1) big, 2) mostly wood, and 3) I was wearing rock shoes rather than boots and crampons. I'm just curious as a point of comparison when I see M grades in writing.

a friend of mine climbed denali earlier this year and the lcd froze, destroying the camera. he said it looks like he smashed it on a rock, so thats something else to consider.

thanks for the heads up. gone by the time I saw it.

Looking to buy a used MSR Dragonfly stove. Have you got one sitting back in the closet behind your shiny new reactor or jetboil? Don't like lugging around your non stove-integrated pots? PM me.

I realize this is a bit far from Washington ice, but I thought most of you would enjoy the ice porn and that maybe some of you would be motivated to make the drive and actually climb. Here are some photos showing the Weeping Wall (location of Polar Circus and many other routes) on the Icefields Parkway in Jasper National park, Alberta, Canada. I took them on Monday the 25th. I don't know what the conditions are normally like, but based on the photos I found after a quick search on google images, it looks to be in pretty fat condition. Much to my dismay I didn't have any of my climbing gear on this trip. If I did, I probably wouldn't ever have come back. The whole thing [img:center]http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ansEpFOcjYo/S2CI-QIhcUI/AAAAAAAAEn0/Xo8M1K93lEg/s640/IMG_7049.JPG[/img] The bottom [img:center]http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ansEpFOcjYo/S2CI-kx0--I/AAAAAAAAEn4/Te5PjMJrczU/s640/IMG_7050.JPG[/img] Closeup [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_ansEpFOcjYo/S2CI_AmX_TI/AAAAAAAAEn8/zGE83c3IRs0/s640/IMG_7051.JPG[/img] The top [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ansEpFOcjYo/S2CI_a3Ez9I/AAAAAAAAEoA/BMJkGMBZ6A8/s640/IMG_7052.JPG[/img]

Nevermind, wasn't them. They sank 5 feet from the shore.

Dunno about taste, but I love the smell of that stuff, so no problem there.

If that works, how long does it last?

Just use the v-threader and blow into the screw.

Hey, I found a single Grivel g12 crampon on Mount Adams last year. It's for the left foot. I brought it to Bozemen once to give it to some guy and he never picked it up, so it ended up back at my house in Seattle. If you're missing the left one and its the same model (or it'll work for you) you're welcome to have it. It so happens that I'm also driving down to the Three Sisters area tomorrow, so if you live somewhere on my intended route, perhaps we could meet. If you get back to me tomorrow before say, 1 or 2 PM we can probably work something out.

Here's Bridal Veil Falls on Saturday, 12.12.2009 Here's another step farther up the flow from the top of BVF. It was definitely not in on Saturday, and is probably worse now. Here's a couple fat lines off the Silver Gulch near Silverton. These last two are probably gone by now, but if we get another cold snap they may well form up again, along with the many other lines in close proximity. Zee and Waterboy nabbed a couple of the new lines over the weekend.

I actually enjoyed walking in the fresh powder, although it was admittedly a bit treacherous. Jim and I each slipped a few times and I snapped a pole. It wanted to be replaced anyway. nice job on the FAs.

Trip: Silverton Sickle, Hall Peak Date:12.13.2009 Trip Report Today my friend Jim and I drove out to Silverton to give the Sickle on Hall Peak a look. We found it in what seemed to be absolutely perfect conditions. The hike in is super easy, and took about 1 hour of casual walking. The trail can be hard to find. On your way in on the road crossing the bridge, look to your right for two smashed up old camper trailers. The trail starts just to the left of them. Follow the orange tape up easy switchbacks along the Silver Gulch. We had to stop to gape numerous times. We counted no less than 11 amazing lines that may well have never been climbed. It was pretty unbelievable. 6 of them at least could be reached easily, as the trail approaches within 50 yards of their base across a dry creek bed. We estimated they were probably all in the WI 3-4 range. Two of them were enormously wide and thick looking. Farther up the valley we saw another 5 or 6 lines on a wall at the head of the cirque below Hall Peak. We were very tempted to try some of these, but decided to save them as a backup plan if we couldn't find the Sickle. We were also a bit leery about climbing unknown terrain with our meager rack (we had 7 screws, and are pretty new to WI climbing, so felt we would want more for longer, harder pitches). All of this is now covered in about 6 inches of fresh snow, but it is still there for the picking. This line kept going up Me on the approach Close up of the two lines from previous picture. Big and fat. Anyway, we found easy walking up hard crust (following some older, and some more recent, maybe 1 day old boot track) to the base of what we believe to be the Sickle. Jim lead off with a nice 50 meter pitch of WI3 that tops out on a large flat and very frozen pool. P2 starts with about 25 feet of WI 3+/4 up a fat bulge (I'm not sure about the grades. It felt a lot harder than anything we climbed on Bridal Veil falls yesterday) to some long, continuously 60-65 degree ice ramps. We only had 6 screws for the leader (we hoped to find some rock pro - got one nut and one hex all day), so I ran it out big time on the upper, very easy portions. Stopped on a nice level spot for an excellent belay. Me on Start of P2. This felt much harder than Bridal Veil. Jim on P3 P2 was more of the ramps broken up by short vertical sections, which Jim lead. Above that we found some WI1ish stuff that we soloed, and then the ice ran out in some small rock steps. I decided to get out of the little gully and we simuled up the snow to the side. We ended up doing this for maybe 400 or 500 feet until we came to another steep section. The start of the snow-simuling It was now around 1:30 and the snow was getting very heavy. Jim started up some WI2 but it didn't really look like it went anywhere, so we decided to head down. We ended up rapping off one tree and 2 v-threads, but if you wanted to it looks like you could hug the far north side of the big gully and walk down continuous snow. We opted not to because we couldn't tell if there was ice underneath all the fresh snow. Unfortunately I forgot my camera again, and we managed to usually give the camera to the wrong person to get good photos. I don't think we have any of P1, which was really stunning looking. We had an amazing time, but are a little confused about what we climbed and how it matches up with the route info in Washington Ice. We feel quite certain we were in the right place on the topo (both the drawing in the book and the actual topographic map). That says the Sickle starts with some WI2, then goes to class 4 scrambling, with the crux pitch being the last one before gaining the notch on Hall's ridge. We certainly didn't get to the notch, and we couldn't actually see it once we started climbing, but we found all the best, most difficult climbing right at the start. We speculate that perhaps these pitches were not in when the climb was FAd? Anyone know otherwise?

Friend and I climbed Bridal Veil falls today. I've never done it before, so I can't say if it's fat or thin, but it was fun and pretty easy to protect. He was there last year and said it was much better this year. Couple wet spots, but mostly easy to avoid with a pretty straight line left of center. Saw only 2 other people climbing.

Thanks for the link Dan.

I'm curious if anyone knows of any research pertaining to the strength of frozen webbing. I'm aware of the effects of sun bleaching and other summertime related strength loss issues, but haven't read anything about freezing. Presumably lots of the webbing in the Cascades that I'm sure many people rap and belay off freezes every winter and, if my limited experience is any indication, it is not all replaced each year. I think the two salient questions are: 1) how does the freeze-thaw process effect the strength of unfrozen webbing? 2) how does being frozen effect the elasticity and strength of webbing?

Climbing, and yes, Micah Dash.

Has any NW climber had his named spelled as often, correctly or incorrectly.

I bought a "mesh laundry bag" at fred meyer for $3 that worked great.

Interesting, thanks.

Maybe you can use some rainbow brite paint so it matches your purse, princess Yeah, wow, I really feel burned by you there. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the responses. I just bought two of them for $12 total last weekend at the used gear shop in Winthrop, mostly because I just want to learn how to use them. I feel like I've seen more fixed tricams out there than any other type of gear, so 1) they are either hard to place well and easy to fix, or 2) people don't know how to place them. I've heard that some people love them, so I'd like to give them a shot.

I'm just curious, when you say two sets of ladders/etriers, do you mean 4 total, of is this a set of ladders like pants come in pairs?

Silly little question: how do you all mark your tricams? I use those premade trango gear tags for all my biners, cams, etc. I'm skeptical that they will remain affixed to the webbing portion of a tricam and there's not really any space on the metal part that won't be in direct contact with rock at some point.

I wonder how long before Fox News starts reporting that some senators are trying to allow the "Evil Dark Lord" to speak at the senate. That can't be good for campaign contributions, right?