bedellympian
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Posts posted by bedellympian
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Like the title says, I'm looking to buy a bolt kit. I will be mostly looking to put in rappel and belay anchors on new back country trad routes. I want to start with a hand drill due to the weight, cost, and few holes I will actually drill.
Does anyone have personal experience and recommendations? Best bolts to place in hand drilled holes? Best drill bit? Where to save money and where to shell more out so I have something that works but doesn't break the bank? General tips for someone new to this?
Thanks.
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Careful climbing up all those ski runs!
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Looking for recs on this year's road trips...
Indian Creeksgiving: 10s and 11s that don't get gang-banged, aren't hard to get to and still let you get in plenty of mileage.
Joshua Tree during holidays: good TR solos, good solo boulder/scramble zones, a good 11b/c to project.
Yosemite Valley in late June: first trip to the valley, stuff that isn't too hot, good wall climbs, good free climbs, stuff that doesn't get gang-banged.
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Like he says, doesn't seem like an issue most of the time, only with smaller ropes. Though if you're using smaller ropes they would often be doubles which would prevent the flip he's describing. Still, I use a MegaJul all the time and have noticed that skinny ropes can slide through in certain situations such as rappels. I usually backup the raps with a prusik on skinny ropes in the alpine. They do sell a MicroJul for smaller diameter ropes which would be the ticket, especially if you were going to use a single half rope on a climb to save weight.
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You could consider Boise, Reno and Missoula too. All have access to cragging and mountains with alpine stuff not that far away. They also have the benefit of not being "on the map".
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Here is my TR from the summer of final climbs...
http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1151855
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Trip: Waddington Range - multiple
Date: 7/23/2016
Trip Report:
I know this is a little late but I hope it will encourage people to get after it in the Wadd and also contact me if they want any beta.
I took a trip to the Waddington Range in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, this summer (2016). We flew into the range via helicopter, with White Saddle Air Services (highly recommended) on July 23rd, and flew out on July 31st. The cost of the helicopter ride was partially funded with the American Alpine Club's Live Your Dream Grant so I was required to write an in-depth TR which I thought you all might enjoy reading and browsing...
I went with my friends Nick, Chris and Josh. We had near perfect weather for 9 days and climbed the following routes:
-West Ridge, Claw Peak (5.6 130m)
-South Ridge, Serra 2 (5.9 45 deg snow 1500m, TD)
-Bravo Glacier, Mt. Waddington (5.7 AI3 2100m, TD-)
If anyone wants additional info, and it's not in the TR link, please PM me.
-Sam
Gear Notes:
About what you would expect... pork shoulder and a pressure cooker were essential.
Approach Notes:
White Saddle helis are awesome!
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Jason, I will. My trip was funded in part by a Live Your Dream grant so I'm in the process of writing a fairly comprehensive one for them. Once I'm done I'll link it and provide the basics in a TR on CC.com
Some other specifics for the training plan...
I started strength training by doing two sets of the circuit and was doing four sets at the end of the first 8 weeks. The isometric hangs were one arm hangs on ice tools.
On max strength I started with 4 sets and finished doing 6 sets 8 weeks later. At the end I was doing 4 reps on squat and deadlift with 205# and 250# respectively. Pullups 2 reps with 60# added. One-arm hangs on straight shaft tools 7x7sec with 30#.
Weighted laps in gym were done on an auto-belay. I down climbed everything I climbed up. I wore Nepal Evos and pack with 15# padded in blankets. I topped out with 55min of continuous laps on a 5.9 (maybe 5.7 outdoors). Nagging injuries in my arms (one from a bike crash in April, and one from an ice chunk while belaying in Hyalite in Feb) forced me to be pretty chill about this and I was not able to do maintenance of my max strength due to my shoulders being pretty messed up.
Weighted hill climbs were done on a fairly steep and loose hill side with 500ft of gain. I wore old approach shoes and did the same deal with weights wrapped in blankets and then also strapped my bike to my pack (awkward as fuh!), when I got to the top I would ride my bike down to prevent impact on my knees with the extra weight but once I got past 30# in the pack the bike descent definitely got a little hairy. Nagging issues from pushing the squats and deadlift eventually required me to take two weeks off from this protocol before my roadtrip to the N Cascades. I cross trained on the bike and was fine once I got to the mountains, but I was pretty concerned for about a week there.
House and Johnston recommend recording volume according to aerobic zone determined by heart rate. I don't own a heart rate monitor and in my experience running (even in zone 1) is much harder on the body than biking or hiking. So I just recorded all running time as volume, cut walking and biking time in half, only counted hiking/approaching/ski touring when going in the uphill direction.
I've heard folks complain about how the TftNA approach takes too much time and is not intense enough since it emphasizes easy aerobic volume. What I got from the book is that you should do easy aerobic volume regardless of how much time you have. I also didn't think it was lacking intensity; 2 hard strength workouts each week, a cragging day where you hit a ton of pitches in a short time, a threshold day, and a long workout (can be done pretty quickly with a run) on your weekend. That is 5 days out of 7 doing something that is fairly intense in one way or another and only leaves 2 days each week to do easy aerobic volume. I also found that if you are trying to get mountain experience on the weekends you end up getting a ton of volume in those days. Many weeks I would just bike commute to work (20 min each way) and that was almost all of my Mon-Fri volume if I wanted to progress according to the 10% rule since I would then put in two long days approaching Sat/Sun.
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I figured I'd post this here in case folks were interested. This year I followed a plan I made that was based on "Training for the New Alpinism". The focus was on strength which I had very limited experience with prior to this. I also chose to allocate an extra day for climbing each week and remove the threshold workout since I was a collegiate runner and have 10+ yrs of bi-weekly threshold workouts under my belt but only 4 yrs of climbing, and wanted to significantly improve my technique on ice/mixed this year. I trained from the start of 2016 (Jan) and peaked for a two week trip in late July.
Here is my plan...
Weekly Schedule (first 16 weeks)
M-Strength
T-Zone 1
W-Pitches
R-Strength
F-Zone 1
S/S-Climb/Ski/Hike
Aerobic Metabolism (mostly Zone 1)
-start at 150min/week
-10% increase/week
-50-70% down week every 4th week
Cicuits (first 8 weeks)
1. Turkish Get-ups (full)
2. Split Bench Squats (legs)
3. Push-ups (arms)
4. Box Step-ups (legs)
5. Pull-ups (arms)
6. Squats (legs)
7. Dips (arms)
8. Hanging Leg Raise (legs)
9. Deadlifts (legs)
10. Isometric Hangs (arms)
11. Incline Pull-ups (arms)
11. Incline Pull-ups (arms)
Max Strength (second 8 weeks)
1. Squats (legs)
2. Pull-ups (arms)
3. Deadlifts (legs)
4. Isometric Hangs (arms)
Strength Endurance (until road trip in June)
1. weighted endurance laps in gym (boots and pack)
2. weighted hill climbs (steep)
3. Max Strength maintenance (see above, OR hill sprints, car pushes, bouldering)
Weekly Schedule until roadtrip
M-Zone 1
T-Weighted Laps
W-Weighted Hills
R-Pitches
F-Zone 1
S/S-Climb/Ski/Hike
10 days in North Cascades
2 down weeks (hiking and light running, some easy cragging and hangboarding, one max strength workout)
drive to Bugaboos to climb while waiting for weather window, heli into mountains and climb big routes
I feel like this got me in pretty good shape but also wrecked me a bit> I probably could have chilled out on the max strength, I got pretty excited when I started seeing big gains and pushed it.
If anyone has any questions I would be happy to answer them, or if anyone with more experience has suggestions for how I could improve or tweak this in the future I would appreciate that.
-Sam
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almonds and chocolate chips or any similar trail mix type of thing, pb and honey sandos, whatever snack bars are cheap... clif, odwalla, fig bars... if they taste good, wont freeze solid, and have plenty of calories I'll use it
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Haven't done it this year, but did it last year around this time with my wife. Should be fine given we had more snow this year, crevasses were not an issue. I would bring some light crampons just in case its firm in the morning, and a light axe never hurts for comfort either. If you are quite comfortable in that situation I'm sure you could run up there in tennies but since you're asking I'd suggest erring on the side of caution.
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I was with the only other party climbing in there when it happened. We ran into Steve and Alex coming down to camp as we went up to try the same route. I only met Laurel once when cragging at Index but we got in touch via facebook when we both saw that we were going to the Waddington Range. I was really looking forward to sharing the experience in there with her and her partners. My thoughts are with her friends and family.
-Sam
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For those who have been up there a bunch, what do you prefer and find most reliable for given areas? Environment Canada doesn't seem to have the ever-helpful point forecast that NOAA does (or maybe I'm missing something?). Been checking multiple sites but having trouble pin-pointing data specifcally for higher elevations.
Thanks,
Sam
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Thanks for posting Max, I was disappointed not to read a sick FA story, but I totally agree with your assessment. If groups want to practice long-roping for crevasse travel they should go to other parts of the mountain, maybe where there are actual crevasses, and not endanger everyone else.
Like diepj said, there is a reason most of the local and competent climbers don't climb Hood during tourist season.
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Nice Work gentlemen! Glad you got some good conditions this late in the season. I would not have expected that.
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Trip: Mt. Baker - North Ridge
Date: 6/25/2016
Trip Report:
Posting partly as a conditions report and partly to see what others have done...
Saturday I climbed the North Ridge on Baker. This was my first time to the summit (I attempted something on the south side a few years back).
I left the car at 4:45am. The glacier and ridge were in cloud, it was misting, the fresh snow from Thurs/Fri was slushy. I could see some foot prints leading out across the glacier to where I thought the ridge should be so I followed those. Had to back track a few times around crevasses, and had to sit and wait for clouds to clear a few times when visibility got quite low (with the forecast calling for sun I had not bothered to take goggles which was dumb). Lost the tracks near the top of the glacier.
I eventually found what I thought was the bottom of the ridge and climbed what I thought was the right-hand start. It turned out I was climbing a snow gully that was lower down and more direct, but it went fine with the schrund being the sketchiest part in the fresh wet snow and some slush on rock at a choke point before I reached the ridge crest. At this point the slush had gained a thin ice crust on top.
I wasn't sure I was on the actual North Ridge until I saw the definitive ice cliff through the clouds. Climbed a right-hand variation on the cliff, felt about the same as WI3+ in Hyalite, though since I was soloing it could well have been easier. Topped out by going straight up the serac at the top (it was mellower than that sounds). It looks like the large serac block that was hanging at the top is greatly diminished.
Hit the summit at 11:39am, wanted to set a good time so descended quickly, switched to my approach shoes at the base of the glacier and speed-hiked/jogged back to the car by 2:08pm. So car-car 9:23, but with the conditions I think it could be done at least 2 hrs faster, would be curious to see what others have done?
low visibility
schrund getting on the ridge
ice cliff and sun finally appear, I climbed about 50ft to the left of the rock knob, about a third of the way over to the low angle prow on the left
view from summit, serac on right is directly above the North Ridge
back at the bottom of the glacier
I then climbed Fisher Chimneys on Shuksan the next day but someone already posted a TR for that so I'll spare you all details except to say that the creeks/trails had a lot more water on them later in the day, and the summit pyramid snow gully was getting slushy on that south aspect by noon. But, you all probably already know that
Gear Notes:
stripped-down quarks, strap-on pons, approach shoes on the hike, Nepals on the climb
Approach Notes:
Heliotrope Trail
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Matterhorn Peak scramble up route (SE face I think?) approach from Twin Lakes.
Mt. Thompson in the Trinity Alps is also a fun scramble up in CA w/ no people but a long approach hike (10+ miles), I did it in April with skis.
Castle Peak in Donner Pass during winter/spring would be good too, just check avy forecast. Also, same area, Mt. Rose (NE of Tahoe) is a fun early winter ascent with a little snow. Sierra is plenty serious, closer to home, and offers better access to high elevation peaks with snow travel and more solid rock scrambling.
All 3 of the sisters are pretty easy climbs, Middle is my favorite (less crowds, still asthetic and varied), North is sketchy 4th class (I would save it for a spring-time when you are more comfy on steep snow and mellow ice), South is an easy trail up scree (crowded and unpleasant IMHO).
Hope that helps.
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Bumping this post. I have a partner. We need two people to split the heli-cost with. We are both free from July 12th until mid-August and would like to spend two solid weeks in the range if weather permits.
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I'm sure there is already a thread on this but I wanted some up-to-date opinions. I'm looking for what I would like to be one pair, but I suspect may have to be two pairs.
First, a summer alpine shoe that I can cross some glaciers with and also climb and hike a fair ways.
Second, a super durable shoe that climbs slabs and cracks well.
Ideally, I'm looking for something that I could use in the Bugs to approach the Howsers or to approach something like Forbidden Peak in the North Cascades. However, I would like it if the same shoe could be used to lead something like Serpentine Arete on D-tail, or keep my feet comfy while warming up on Gold Rush at Trout Creek.
Seems like lots of experienced folks like the Boulder X for the latter, there is a mid GTX version of this but it didn't get great reviews that I saw. Ganda is discontinued no? A friend suggested the Scarpa Tech Ascent but I don't think that will climb as well as I want. Saw the review on this board for the Dead Bird FL GTX which is also pricey, but maybe a good combo? I was looking at the Salewa's too, but have no experience with them.
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Yeah buddy! Way to get it done.
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caltopo.com
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Thanks guys! It was nice to meet you mthorman and catstack. Pretty stoked for linkups on Hood. The more I think about it the more possibilities I see.
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looking up at the only real ice step on DKH:
Eliot Headwall beta pics:
first ice pitch on Eliot, hero swings the whole way
looking up the face from the top of the corner pitch, I went to the obvious white line at the top left
the exit pitch up close, deceptively steep but not very long
dropping into Leutholds, tracks from parties who had come up earlier in the day
Buying hand drill... any advice?
in Climber's Board
Posted
Thanks guys. I appreciate the no-bolt ethic and completely agree with you. This is for a couple Oregon locales I have in mind where we will be connecting discontinuous crack systems and trying to get off of especially chossy piles. It will mostly be a safety net that I want to have dialed. If I find something that is really a nice free climb I may consider putting in two bolt anchors but that is hardly a given.