Devin27

Any snow along the west ridge of Stuart before the summit? Heading there this weekend along the normal route and would love to ditch the axe

FYI, he was found safe. Car got stuck in the snow according to the news report

Bit of a long shot because the season is coming to an end, but we ended up rappelling back down from the bivy above pitch 6 over the weekend and left some gear behind on the mountain. If anyone should climb it and find any of my stuff, most of it has identifying marks. List - .5 BD C4 near pitch 3/4 - 3 BD nuts at different points - Several slings and biners

I'll post a full TR when I have time, but we headed up to do Slesse's NE Buttress over the weekend. There were small amounts of snow on many of the ledges starting around pitch 3 which got more frequent the higher we went. The bypass around Pitch 3-5 was very wet and muddy. It rained all night Sunday and thoroughly drenched the whole mountain. We stayed at the bivy ledge above pitch 6 and found a good inch of snow covering most of the ledge. We ended up rappelling back down after getting rained on all night. If we get some dry weather, the route is still in, but it is a muddy mess at the moment.

We did climb in rock shoes and carried boots. There was enough real climbing on the route that I was happy to have them. I don't own aluminum crampons but this route made me really want to buy some. I brought my steel. I brought 2.5L from camp to the climb and had about 1L left when we got back to camp. It was a very cold day though so I wasnt drinking much.

Never leave home without it

Trip: Dorado Needle - SW Buttress Date: 8/21/2016 Trip Report: Over August 20-21, myself and Nick climbed the SW Buttress of Dorado Needle. Great climb in a fantastic setting provided the full alpine experience with rock, steep snow, technical glacier, heat, cold, wind and a whiteout. We picked up permits Friday night for Kliwatti zone and grabbed food in Marblemount before crashing at the Eldorado TH. Moving at 5:40am, we made good time hitting the Eldorado camp at 1:00pm. We each carried 3L of water from the TH which turned out to not be needed as there was plenty of water available all the way until getting on the Eldorado Glacier. Once we got on the glacier, we were melting snow until we got to camp. With forecasts for record heat in Seattle, I only carried a light softshell which worked well for the warm temps and light wind on Saturday, but would regret on Sunday. Tagged Eldo under bluebird skies and continued through the McCallister-Insipration Col to the col between Tepeh and Dorado Needle where we made camp for the night. There was no dry ground at the McCallister- Inspiration col, only snow. The camp at the Tepeh-Dorado Col was very nice, with multiple spots big enough for a small tent or a pair of bivies. There was very small stream of glacier runoff at the col which provided water. Alarms set for 4, we used our bivies for ground cloth and slept under the stars with a steady breeze coming up the col. Morning came a little colder than I was expecting but we got moving by 4:40am and headed down the col to find the base of the route. We tried to follow a path I thought I saw the day prior through the rocks to avoid some of the descent and renascent to the route, don't do this, it didn't work. Just follow the snow all the way down and around, it is pretty obvious. The gulley was not completely snow, despite being called in our beta "the gully filled with snow year round". There was a small section about halfway up that was rock and a stream along with another section that only had about a three foot wide ramp left. It is likely gone by now. The approach will still be doable through the summer and fall, but the moats did make things a little tricky and slowed us down. We lost some time too finding the start of the route. Even with several beta pictures, we still ended up too high and looking at a Dihedral that did not match the description or photos. The easiest way to find the right start is to look for the whiter rock, because all of the wrong upper areas are darker rock and looked very thin on protection. With all the delays, we started up the route at 7:40am. The route is in shade until midday and we had clouds come in just as the sun rose which kept us pretty cold the whole day. This route really is a choose your own adventure. As long as you don't climb anything over 5.8 and stay generally close to the Buttress crest you will not get too far off route, but this climb definitely requires some basic route finding skills. We followed the guidebook and some friend's beta and found all the general checkpoints were pretty obvious. In total, we did the route in seven pitches instead of the 10 talked about in the guidebook. I linked the 3/4th class simul block with the low 5th pitch 3. The only pitch we had trouble initially figuring out was the summit block, which was less obvious with the beta. In retrospect, all of the routes we looked at would likely go, but we ended up moving the belay from the knife edge pitch about 20 feet to the left and going straight up the big face. While it looks heady, it actually goes well up and slightly left. The clouds lowered and we hit a white out just as we started the last pitch, so no summit views. The descent was the crux of this route, as the late season McCallister Glacier was in pretty bad shape. We downclimbed the NE Ridge knife edge, did a 10M rap away from the glacier and then a 30m rap straight down towards the glacier. There are good rap stations for both. The 30m rap deposited us in the moat between Dorado Needle and the McCalister Glacier. The moat was at least 30 ft wide and left the options of descending down the moat or climbing up a 10 ft tall snow finger to get back onto the glacier. We went up the snow finger and while sketchy (steep with moat above and crevasse below), it went. Unfortunately, this meant Nick got to enjoy the experience of pulling the rope while standing above the moat with another crevasse just below him on a fairly steep slope. I'd recommend future parties use the moat, it looked like it went easily. Navigating down the McCallister in a whiteout was an experience I won't soon forget. Definitely the most broken up glacier I've been on before and no visibility to boot. Luckily I had taken a photo the day prior on our hike in and was able to use that to find the best route down the glacier, as the previous day parties steps had melted away. Basically, you are going to need to go pretty far skiers left before winding your way back around the shrund to the right. We got back to camp around 4pm and started the long hike out. The whiteout never lifted and we guessed/weaved our way through the broken up Inspiration to get back to Eldo camp. We finally lost the clouds when we descended off the Eldorado Glacier and finished the death march through the boulder field and trail to reach the car at 9:30pm. All in all, this is a full value Cascade alpine climb. We saw one party the day before and only had one other party on route with us on Sunday. It is nice to find places to climb near Cascade pass that aren't a zoo. Highly recommended. Photos Klawatti Beta Photo if anyone is heading that way. Looks like there was some debris falling off the normal ascent route recently Route up Eldorado is pretty melted out but still very easy Checking out the SW Buttress for tomorrow. Dont get suckered onto the rocks below to try and cut off the down and up, it doesnt go Some big cracks on the Inspiration Descent beta photo for the NE ridge of Dorado Needle. This photo saved our bacon when the whiteout hit. We went far skiers left and then worked our way back gently right. Going too close to the Col up high gets very steep and very broken up Looking down the Col for the next morning This is not pitch 1. In some beta photos it looks like the arrows point you here, they dont. Limited pro and mossy rock. Note the dark color of the rock This is pitch 1. Note the light rock color and ample pro. This is about 50 ft lower than the pitch shown above Nick coming up after the simul block of pitch 2 Party of 4 on the knife edge of Eldorado Nick coming up Pitch 3 I believe I went up to the Buttress crest a little early and so we couldn't make it all the way to the correct belay on pitch 4 identified by a "light colored alcove followed by traversing left around a gendarme" In this photo Nick is at the alcove and about to go around the Gendarme The only other party we saw all day Belay above the 5.7 lieback pitch. Our Pitch 5 One of many sketchy snow bridges and crevasse navigations in the whiteout. Definitely pushed the limit of my comfort zone at times Marmots are basically majestic pigs PSA, dont forget to keep your marmot inflated for top performance Gear Notes: Gear- 0.2-2 BD with double of .5,.75 and 1, set of nuts, 7 doubles and 2 singles. Gear felt about spot on. I used about everything on the 5.7 lieback pitch and only had to runout the easier ground. Crampons were needed for the ascent to the base of the climb and descent from the NE Ridge. Approach Notes: Plenty of water all the way to the Eldorado Glacier. Tiny glacier stream at Tepeh-Needle Col camp.

That sounds equal parts awesome and awful. Nice work guys

Fantastic photos.

Any new reports on conditions on Colfax?

Ha, almost forgot about that. On the drive home Aaron shared that he had not been able to find his keys when we got back to our car (his was back in the park and ride). He had no memory of them after he got out of his truck the day previous. He strongly suspected they were in fact sitting in the ignition of his truck at the park and ride. So we spent the entire drive home wondering if his truck would still be there. When we got to the par and ride we discovered his truck was still there, keys in the ignition and doors unlocked. Thankfully Newcastle residents and the transit folks seem to be good people.

Trip: The Craggies - Choss, Choss and Choss Date: 9/27/2015 Trip Report: Random piles of choss way far away from civilization never seem to get much love. The primary draw of the Craggies is they are tall and on the top 100 list, but honestly this was a really fun and easy weekend trip. Beautiful views, larches and did I mention the choss? We wanted an easier weekend to get back to climbing after mostly having our hands full all summer since this little guy came into our lives. We left the Newcastle park and ride at 6am (more on this later) and arrived in Winthrop around 10 after stopping for 2 of the remaining 3 cinnamon rolls in Marblemount and the sugar high was still going strong. Trailhead at 11 and off we went up the Copper Glance trail. The hike in was very pleasant with nice view of the Methow valley and an actual mine to check out. I really wanted to go explore, but the group decided that is how most horror movies start so we kept moving. We broke off the trail near the hump after crossing Copper Glance creek and shwacked our way to the rocky cliff and up the valley. On the way back, we stayed on the rock wall until we reached the small unnamed lake and found a trail there connecting back which avoided much of the shwack. Go that way. We arrived at our planned camp site to discover that my fears were justified and all the tarns were dry from the long dry year we have had. We decided to pitch camp and use the ample remaining daylight to go up Big Craggy and deal with water later. The climb up Big Craggy was not the worst choss I’ve ever dealt with but then I have sampled a fair amount of what the Cascades have to offer. We all definitely agreed this climb would be much more enjoyable as a spring ski or climb. A chossy two hours had us standing on the summit of Big Craggy, followed immediately by a discussion on whether the point 200 ft away was actually higher, a hike over to that point and more disagreement on which was actually higher. We tagged them both, so whatever. The “Mostly Sunny” weather never did actually materialize and we started getting very slight snow flurries and rapidly approaching clouds as we hit the summit. Scree skiing had us back to camp in an hour and we found water about a half mile back the way we came in from a stream near the cliffs we hiked by. Despite chilly temps and the supermoon waking me up thinking someone had a headlamp pointed at us, we were up and moving again towards West Craggy first thing in the morning. Again, a nice ramp of snow to hike up and slide back down on would have been amazing, but two hours had us at the summit of West Craggy. We found a register here, though there was not one we could find on Big Craggy. We didn’t see anyone else on the peaks or at camp all weekend, though there was a summit register entry on West Craggy for the previous day. The temps were great, Larches were perfect and the views were fantastic. This made 39/100 for me and 40/100 for Danika Photos Copper Glance Mine Geology lecture As far as I could tell, it just kept going Methow Valley Love Larch season totally dry tarn Summit of Big Craggy Interesting what I assume were Aspens seem to congregate around the slide paths. Now we got them both Love this lady Backside of Silverstar. The glacier is totally melted out West Craggy Summit Gear Notes: gaiters would have been nice to keep sand and rocks out of my shoes Approach Notes: Follow the trail to the small unnamed lake on the map, then follow the rocks up the valley

This is fantastic. Loved the Ragged Edge, cant wait to try this one. Thank you

On July 11 there was only a small field of snow left near the false summit on the descent. I would be surprised if any is left at this point.

The snow in the approach gully was down below the chockstone (about half way up) but it should still be there this weekend. There was no snow at the notch, but the Mazamas mentioned finding snow by descending on the opposite side from the approach gully into the basin to the east. I did not observe this though.