mtep

There are a lot of different options/paths to teach you how to crack climb in the NW. The good news is that Oregon has some top-notch crack climbing crags that together make an excellent progression. Honestly, go to the columns in Eugene. It's literally the best place imaginable to learn to jam/lead. Easy to hang TRs, smooth rock=minimal gobies, many easy, slabby cracks to figure out your jams. To progress quickly, try to avoid using faceholds. (this is good early on, but should be used solely as a training tool to avoid transferring it to normal climbing-think of it as training wheels) Routes to focus on: Fat Crack, Hard Lie Back, Limp Dick, and Satisfaction. Once you're bored of the columns, go to Smith and get down to the basalt. The Lower Gorge is a great place to break into leading 5.10. Good gear, awesome routes, nice, soft grades. Routes: Bloodclot, Badfinger, Cruel Sister, Quasar, Gruff, Morningstar, and the 10c finger crack that I can't remember the name of The end of the treadmill is Trout Creek. Head to Trout once you think you're solid on .10 in the Gorge. You'll probably get paddled (I sure did) your first time, but if you stick with it, Trout will prepare you to climb long, sustained splitters (especially stemming) like nowhere else. The creek will feel soft when you go. (because it kind of is) Routes: Gold Rush, JR Token, Mr. Squiggles, Wondertwins, Two Step Left and Right, Lively Up Yourself, Sleepy Hallow, Bushwhacker, U1-3, (watch out for U1) Landing a Monster, and Suzuki. If you make it this far, your love of crack climbing might have mutated somewhere along the road into a fondness for traditionally protected adventure climbing. If this happens, check out Moolack and Index. Both are comparable crack climbing areas that offer steep, sustained climbing with a very different, more technical style of movement than you typically find on basalt.

...Let the BLM know! This Fall it's come to light that the BLM is planning on shutting down access to Trout Creek Climbing Area from January 1 through August 1 in order to protect Golden Eagle habitat on the south end of the Main Wall. This would significantly impact our ability to recreate there and may be excessively conservative in terms of closure duration and distance from the nest site. At this point, local climbers, the access fund, and BLM staff have met at the crag and the BLM is considering not IF to implement a closure but how restrictive said closure will be. If you've climbed at Trout, enjoyed the experience, and want to continue to enjoy the experience, let the BLM know that maximizing access is important to you. http://www.facebook.com/FriendsofTroutCreek

Zach, glad to hear that you had a good time. The weather's been terrible in AK. Hope you're well, -Max

Cragging: Ice: Alpine:

Just did it. One piece of feedback: I've been injured climbing three times, but they were all athletic injuries to my fingers due to over-use and had absolutely nothing to do with free-soloing. This will likely be a common data point unless you reframe your questioning to filter out this type of injury. (my assumption is that you're looking for a correlation (or not) between free soloists and injury)

See here: http://mountainproject.com/v/for_sale__wanted/unused_la_sportiva_nuptse455/106744977 Feel free to email/PM me w/questions. Cheers, -Max

As of Sunday, you can drive to within a mile of trailhead on Whitewater Creek Road.

Looks like someone left some anchor gear at Moolack this weekend. Describe what it is and where it was and I'll get it back to you. Also I pulled some leaver gear from a climb. Again, describe what/where and I'll send it along.

Are these still for sale? I sent you a PM earlier this week.

5.12+? Granted, Moolack is the kind of place you go and can only learn about a quarter of the routes w/o doing a lot of research, I'm only aware of three, maybe four routes coming in at a decidedly hesitant 12-. Having talked to the people that put them up, all of them were hesitant to even give them that grade. What routes have I not heard of?

Where specifically do you see a need for anchors at that particular crag? Every route that gets done there has been done sans fixed anchors and people repeat most of them frequently. Building there own anchors every time with out a problem. Or were you just trolling?