bedellympian
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Posts posted by bedellympian
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I'm headed to Bozeman with some friends from Bend Feb 19-29. We are looking to split costs and keep stuff cheap while climbing a sh!t ton of ice. Any beta on where to sleep, eat, climb, or a fourth activity that I haven't yet considered, is much appreciated.
Cheers,
Sam
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Not sure if this is the right place to post this, not really a partner search or standard ride share but figured I'd throw it out there where most people will see it.
I am in the early stages of planning a trip to the Waddington Range for this summer, late july/august. I talked to Mike King (White Saddle owner/operator) who is the go-to guy for flying in. He quoted me $3200 canadian or $2600 US for 4 people and gear to helicopter in to the plummer hut, a little more for sunny/rainy knob. If you are interested in sharing this cost ($600-700 US /person) please PM me with your contact info and possible dates.
Thanks,
Sam
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Thanks for the invite Montypiton, that sounds like a good option. I will see if I can pin down the time and let you know.
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i live in Bend. Have a week off in late Feb and wanted to get some ice mileage. Was thinking a trip to Hyalite would be the ticket but I've never climbed ice outside the PNW. Any suggestions?
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Check Daniel's TR of Hood North Face, also the list of routes on the thread Ade posted.
Where is your location? People might be able to point you to nearby gems, no need to drive a ways if you're just getting into it.
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Ade, I would love to read over that list but every time I follow the link it takes me to a 3 sentence blog post saying you added a winter routes page. The hyperlink to the "winter routes" page just takes me back to the blog post I'm already on. There is nothing else on the page. Am I missing something? Browser problem? If anyone has an idea let me know.
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Wayne, I haven't heard of the Bull River before and an internet search turned up minimal info. Can you provide some beta for us? What are the climbs like? Access? Is the season shorter than Banff/does it come in reliably?
The idea of breaking up the long drive with some more ice sounds great!
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Maybe you could inform us as to what you actually want to do in these locations? What are you able to do? Are you looking to new route or climb existing lines? Do you want to rock climb, mountaineer, full on alpinism, or hike around on some trail with a guide who will cook you dinner?
Personally, if I was going to do a once in a lifetime trip I would want to do something on a really big feature in Patagonia or Pakistan... long, technical and varied to a difficult summit.
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I just wanted to revisit this thread and thank you fellas for the suggestions. I aid solo'd the west face of the monkey yesterday and it was wild. Someone said it would feel like a grade V and it kinda did, well at least a grade IV. Took me 9 hrs car-car and that was with linking the bolt ladder as a single pitch. Jugging the dynamic rope was ridiculous and motion sickness inducing. I'm pretty sure aid climbers are supposed to bring a hook for the move off the belay anchor for the final section of bolts to the cave, for me it involved etrier to blank slab stemming to gain unprotected slab moves to a short finger crack from which I was able to clip the next bolt in the "continuous bolt ladder" definitely took some time to figure that one out.
Does anyone have some suggestions for aiding overhangs? I found the steeper parts to be very strenuous and taxing and found it really hard to reach the next bolt at times, I'm 5'10" with a normal ape index so I'm guessing this should not be a problem if I do it properly. On the really steep stuff I would clip both aiders to the same bolt and push one out behind me to allow a precarious stemming stance, then I would stand up and hang a draw from the next piece so I could clip an aider to it while sitting in my harness fifi'd to the last piece. It seems like there is probably some technique for standing up on just one aider without having your feet fly out form under you but I couldn't get it to work on the really overhung parts.
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MDre gets after it! Makes me jealous but as someone who can only get away for big trips in summer its nice to see that Patagonia can have good conditions in winter too!
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Based on "SW coast" I'm assuming you're from Canada... lousy weather. You should come south to Oregon and climb the North Face Crack on the Monkey... just torque the sh!t outta those tools!
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Anyone have experience with climbing AK Range in June or July? Glaciers, approaches, route conditions?
Sure Denali is in condition, but what about the Ruth, Kahiltna or other lower zones? I know some folks got a heli in to the revelations a year ago and were able to get up peaks mainly rock climbing...
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Thanks Kroc that is an awesome resource... I will definitely put it to good use and write a TR when I get back!
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One of the questions asked what my physical and gear limitations are when climbing... what do you mean by that?
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As for the rest of the replies...
Jason4: Yes I have put in lots of vertical in the mountains in back-back days... 5k' per day is pretty chill ski touring for me, as is doing it on 14ers.
G-spotter: Yes SoCan is plenty on the radar and there are lots of routes in the Bugs (thanks Alpine et), Slesse and several other areas on the radar. And yes the Winds are definitely on my list of places to climb too. These just rarely have ice in summer, and I would really like to try the combined challenge of ice/mixed/rock/aid on a big face that I just can't send in a single push.
Sportnoob: Thanks for the perspective, for the record I have nothing against local climbs, including grade IIIs or shorter. I realize there are lots of great local climbs and I really want to do a lot of those. I have no problem staying local and realize that climbing is a process. I am not trying to poo-poo the Cascades or quality routes/classics/testpieces simply because they are not grade Vs. In fact I am stoked on climbing these routes most of the year. I'm just trying to get some ideas on bigger objectives that fit into this time window I have and can serve as big goals for me. Maybe I'll try a bigger route and decide as you did that it's no better than staying local. Either way I have the time and the motivation so I would like to see what a grade V+ alpine ice/mixed/rock/aid route in a "greater range" looks like in person.
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Thanks Jason, yeah I have the Selected Alpine Climbs guide and would like to get up there and do some of those routes working up to the 5.9 A2 grand cours. Obviously that guide is fairly out of date relative to the shifting climate, do you have any specific suggestions on where to get up to date approach beta, I was hoping this thread would catch some folks with recent experience up there.
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Trip: Hulk/Fairview/Dana - Yggdrassil/Reg Route/Third Pillar
Date: 9/19/2015
Trip Report:
I was trying to organize a long weekend trip to Index but no one seemed interested and my buddy Brian mentioned he was in Tuolumne and looking for a partner for some mega-classic alpinesque rock routes. He dropped a few route names that I'd been dreaming about for a few years and he had me hooked. I packed the car the day before, woke up at 5am and drove straight to Bridgeport to meet him. We ditched his car, drove to Twin Lakes and started hiking to the Incredible Hulk.
Ice fog on the drive down through Oregon.
This was a good reminder that the internet, especially a certain mountainproj.com has a lot of BS posted by people who have no idea or else have some severe handicap they fail to mention. The interwebs had informed us that the hike to the Hulk would certainly take around 6 hrs with our overnight packs. In actuality it took 2 hours at a very relaxed pace having never done the approach before. I could have slept til 7am and still done the drive and hike with day light to spare, oh well!
The next morning we climbed Yggdrassil, aka the Red Dihedral (10b, 12 supertopo pitches). We linked a couple different pitches with a 60m rope, making it a 10 pitch route. We had two parties from SoCal ahead of us at the start but they graciously acknowledged we were moving faster and let us pass. I out ro-sham-bo'd Brian for the lead on the Red Dihedral pitch and I was a little nervous for it, having never climbed this grade in the Sierra and thinking it would be akin to a splitter Valley test-piece. It was actually quite doable and awesome at the same time. The left face is slabby and I think most people face this way but if you look over your shoulder several cracks in the right face provide opportunities for stem stances. The crux bulge at the top looked puzzling but I was able to stem through it quite easily. Definitely not hard for the grade unless you were somehow pumped out of your mind at the top and got tunnel vision. The rest of the route was stellar quality stair-step terrain on bomb-proof white granite. Some people say Red Dihedral is chossy but if you have climbed any amount of alpine rock in the Cascades you are going to be impressed. The top out involves hopping over the summit ridge and following 3rd class ledges (ice and snow covered when we were on them) to a dirty block- filled chimney and a dirty 5.6 chimney pitch to the "key hole" finish where you squeeze through a small hole to reach the summit. As someone said in the summit register regarding the final pitch, "that was the most work I ever did to go caving". Beside the last two top-out pitches the route was outstanding and I'd say the best alpine rock climb I've done. Positive Vibes, though only a jump up to 11a, looks much more sustained but is apparently also much higher quality. Given what I saw on the Ygg, the Vibes must be one hell of a route.
The Hulk!
Looking left at Positive Vibes and Venturri Effect (the corner?)
Up from the notch belay.
Views to the right.
Looking back down from the summit ridge.
Summit ridge block towers
What's better than a two bolt anchor? Two bomb-proof #3s!
Brian on the summit. Note the snow still on the north facing aspects behind him.
We hiked out that afternoon, the route only took us 6 hrs. People talk mad-sh!t about the descent gully but compared to Oregon Volcano Choss it was quite mellow and short. We drank some beers and swam in Twin Lakes before heading into Bridgeport for dinner and then to free camping at Buckeye hot springs for the night (worth every penny). The next morning we slept in to the leisurely hour of 7:30 ate breakfast, sorted gear and then drove to Tuolumne.
Our plan for day 2 was to get a late start on the Regular Route up Fairview Dome (1000ft 5.9), giving slow parties a chance to move out of the way. As it turned out that didn't work so well. We showed up to see two parties moving exceptionally slow on the first two pitches. We thought about bailing to Daff dome but found out that the top party had a guy with a dislocated shoulder. The other party was climbing up to them so they could tie both ropes together allowing the first party to rap off. This process took them a while but finally the injured guy got down and the other party continued. We were concerned that the second party would take a while as they were really slow on the first couple transitions but after the first four pitches they started moving better and a couple pitches later we simuled past them.
It seemed like many of the groups we passed on this trip were perfectly competent and able climbers but they all made the mistake of thinking that they were moving fast because they were climbing fast. They were actually fairly slow because they were not good at transitions. By comparison Brian and I had no extraneous gear and took less than 2 minutes at most belays, allowing us to climb these routes quite quickly without ever feeling rushed. If you are taking 10 minutes to swap gear and put your buddy on belay (these guys on Fairview took closer to 20 at the top of pitch 3) you need to reevaluate your systems and also realize that you should let people pass regardless of how fast you move between belays.
Overall the reg route was an outstanding route on bomb-proof rock. It was however very slabby on the bottom pitches, making for some insecure feeling smearing for the grade and we found that we used more gear per pitch than expected because of this (we opted for one set of nuts against the guide book and could have definitely used the two sets recommended).
Brian waiting on a belay ledge at the top of pitch 2.
Views of Daff and other domes from the route
Looking down the splitter slabs of the first two pitches
That night we slept in the pull-out just outside the park by Tioga Lake. The next morning we got up at 6am to go do the Third Pillar of Dana. There was already one car that had showed up in the night and as we were packing up two more groups showed up. One group, foreseeing the ensuing cluster got back in their car and headed for an alternate route. We got on the trail and caught the guys ahead of us; they had just arrived in the Sierra and were struggling with the altitude a bit.
We ditched a pack at the top of the Third Pillar and scrambled down the adjacent buttress following the beta to stay left, this didn't work out as we ended up too far left and had to go down around the toe of the buttress and hike back up to the start of the route. Once on route pitch one was amazing, starting with perfect hands on, again, bomb-proof granite right off the belay stance. The second pitch went much further left than the supertopo made it look like but once in the cracks was straightforward. This pitch had insecure feeling flared fingers, arguably the crux of the whole route. Pitch 3 had multiple options, I got a little confused and stopped early (there was an old rope hanging out left above a ledge and I stopped there instead of continuing up). Brian led another good pitch and I led a short cruxy face pitch protected by RPs to get us to the belay below the final headwall (if I had just got pitch 3 dialed I could have led this last one!). Brian got this pitch, which is one of the best pitches I've ever climbed, "all time" as Brian said: strenuous, steep, splitter, good rests, good gear, long, varied, amazing position, mind blowing top-out (we both heel hooked through a small roof at the top). Then you just have the mellow 90 minute walk back to the car, no raps, no descent, nothing. We drove down to Lee Vining and celebrated with the World Famous Fish Tacos at the gas station where Tioga Rd meets 395 (best food between Bridgeport and Reno?!).
me on the flared fingers, by Brian
Brian on the final pitch
spot Brian on top of the Third Pillar after topping out, Mono and Tioga Rd below
Mt. Dana proper with a sweet ice couli in on the left.
All in all, we climbed three of the best routes I've ever done in three days. It's a long drive south, but it's sure worth it. Get psyched and go get it before the weather turns!
Gear Notes:
60m rope. Doubles of cams with single small cams and a set of nuts got us through just about everything. We did take most of the supertopo-suggested extras on the hulk and did not regret it, could have used another set of nuts on Fairview but got by without, definitely bring the RPs on the Third Pillar.
Approach Notes:
See above... It's the Sierra, it ain't exactly complicated.
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I just started working as a teacher this year so I have a chunk of time off in the summers. I've been working up to doing bigger alpine climbs and am planning a training cycle that I want to cap with a trip in June next year and then take some down time in July to peak for one or more big objectives in August. I am trying to get ideas for places in North America (I want to build experience locally before going to the Cordillera Blanca say, or other far-off ranges). I realize that because of low altitude and climate shifts many glaciers could be pretty well screwed up. I would appreciate advice of those who have been in bigger ranges more recently on what is approachable and climbable.
I am really looking to get on genuine alpine routes that are big and technical so please don't go spraying about walk-ups on Rainier or "alpine" rock climbs in the lower 48
. Ideas I have had so far include the Canadian Rockies, Alaska (multiple ranges), and Waddington Range, but I'm sure there are other areas in northern Canada that offer similar routes. Obviously higher altitude stuff like Denali should be pretty good in early to mid-summer but I'm looking to not get that high next summer and focus on quality and length of routes without throwing in altitude yet, so stuff under 16,000 ft please. Anyway, that's it, spray away! -
like the title says, I'm looking for some modern touring skis that I can use in variable conditions, a couple resort days, mostly touring, steeps, pow, corn, etc..
I have old skis that are too long and too skinny with Fritschi bindings and want to finally upgrade.
NOT interested in telemark or another set with Fritschi bindings.
Open to a wide range of prices depending on the quality of the setup. PM me if you have something.
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Trent, looks like Steph rapped the West Ridge and its access gully which is on the South face. This is the same route which I climbed. She used double rope raps. Probably no better than the gully I used, plus I brought a 100' rap line so it would not have helped much for that much descent.
http://www.stephabegg.com/home/tripreports/washington/northcascades/pickets/southernpickets2#day2
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Trip: WA Pass - DEB + Lib Crack
Date: 8/15/2015
Trip Report:
This is kind of a tag-on TR from my Pickets one: S. Pickets TR
This will be much shorter but I just wanted to really encourage people to get on these routes. Both are excellent and very doable, but I think their position and rep cast a bit of an intimidating shadow.
Friday night Nick met me at the North Cascades Mountain Hostel in Winthrop... which as I write is evacuated due to fires. But when they get back open along with the rest of that region that is a great place to crash for a night in a real bed and a shower, as well as great company. I was loathe to leave new friends but the mountains called and I was like a child on Christmas morning.
We headed up to the pass that night and bivied road-side. In the morning we headed up to the DEB (Direct East Buttress) on SEWS. This route seemed really intimidating to me because of the grade but honestly if you are solid on 5.9 and pull on a couple draws the route is really very quick and easy.
A short approach with relatively little scrambling leads to easy 5th for a rope length, then two pitches of solid 5.9, then the slab bolt ladder (11-), a traverse pitch (can be combined with the pitches on either side of it, we combined with the pitch after), and a vertical bolt ladder (10+ on good pockets and edges), followed by much easier climbing (5.6 to 4th) to the summit.
We polished the route off in 5.5 hrs and it felt quite leisurely. If we had not been doing Lib Crack the next day I think we would have added on another route like NW Corner or W Face on NEWS. We hiked down to Blue Lake but in the future I would probably try the scramble down to the hairpin as it looks much quicker and not that sketchy.
We briefly scoped the apporach to Lib Crack, even easier than DEB, and then headed to the cars for a nap and food. That night Nick made us a dirtbag deluxe dinner (DDD) steak marinara on pasta. There had been people fixing a line on the first two pitches of Lib Crack. Something we had eschewed for the true single push rah-rah-rah BS. We discussed what we would do and joked about microtraxioning the first three pitches on someone elses line just for shits in the morning... funny looking back and now knowing what they were for.
We woke at 6am and headed up to the big ol' face of our Liberty Belle. And were climbing sometime around 8am. On both routes we opted for a small followers pack with a 4L drom (half full on the DEB and full on LC), extra clothes, some bars, headlights, etc. Nick lead the official pitch 1 (5.11-/10+) and was able to free it with style. I followed with a full pack and pulled on gear.
I took the Lip pitch, Nick watched and laughed at me as I had no roof aiding experience but it was perfectly doable. I tied off the rope once Nick was past the lip and started short fixing pitch 3. Nick arrived just in time to put me on for the first bashie, something that I had never used before and found a little spooky. I was able to aid fairly easily through most of the next pitch quickly with only a few easy free moves and some chicken choking (supposedly there is a sweet hook move somewhere but I didn't bring one and had no idea where it was supposed to be, we got by fine without). While this happened the owner of the fixed ropes walked up... none other than M.S. the Wallstein himself, must be trying to free the roof crack so we both felt like a couple of total noobs floundering around on a stupid C1 pitch... cest la vie.
Nick took the next pitch (5.10 hands, the lucky bastard) and I flailed after him with the pack. The next pitch was the 5.8 "burly wide" pitch but required no OW technique and honestly can be well protected without many big cams. I placed a #4 and #3 C4s but could have easily found alternatives. I think this route could go comfortably with a single #3 if you're willing to run it out 15' on 5.8/9.
Nick lead the next pitch to the "rotten block". He spent several minutes on the "5.10 flare" before abandoning that option to french around the block on the fixed pieces out left (pretty smooth and featureless). This was quite a shit-show pitch for us, and we had a good laugh as I flopped onto the belay like a beached whale. The next pitch starts with more 5.10 chimney moves which I shamelessly frenched/stepped on the belay bolts to get past. I linked this pitch with the next one quite easily (5.7/8 slab corner with a couple moves of 5.9/10) to the first good belay ledge of the route (sweet tree to sit on) but it was impossible for Nick to hear me and took a while to get him up there.
Nick then tackled a 5.6 chimney and linked it with the 5.9 corner pitch before running out of rope. He established a quick belay, brought me up to the last good ledge and then finished to a good bushy ledge in the middle of the 5.0 slab pitch. From here we simul-climbed a short bit of easy terrain until we reached the tree covered ledges for the descent and unroped.
We did the Beckey scramble to the summit and hung out in the sun for a while before the standard descent on over-exposure to the notch. We were back at the car by 8pm (13hrs car-car) and Nick took off immediately to make it to work in Bend for the next morning... that is what we call dedication. What a boss!
I spent a couple nights enjoying the company of new friends and headed back to Bend myself.
Both these routes are awesome and very doable. Liberty Crack is definitely much harder than DEB and much more sustained, but it is still much more attainable than I imagined. Get after it!
Pictures>>>
top out on SEWS
perfect North Cascades weather
SEWS summit!
yours truly approaching da Belle (photo by Nick Mestre)
under the face (photo by Nick Mestre)
Nick at the belay having freed pitch 1 (photo by Nick Mestre)
myself struggling at the lip (photo by Nick Mestre)
looking down pitch 3's sick finishing finger crack
myself exiting the rotten block belay with impeccable style (photo by Nick Mestre)
the awesome tree belay ledge and nick getting it on in the 5.6 chimney
summit pics (photos by Nick Mestre)
summit... Nick stoked despite the fact he has to be at work in 12 hours
Gear Notes:
DEB... nothing special, a selection of cams and draws, 60mx9.4mm rope.
Lib Crack... doubles from #0 TCU to #3 C4, small offset nuts, one set etriers, small ascender setup for pitch 2 (we used microtrax + grigri for a mere 1/2 pitch and follower just frenched the rest), 4L of H2O all got drank, 70mx10mm rope used but could have gone with a 60m.
Both... 30L lightweight followers pack for approach shoes, water, bars, and spare clothes while climbing.
Approach Notes:
Short climbers trail to some scrambling on both routes.
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Thanks for the beta Nastia! Glad I didn't try that route on Terror. And yeah maybe I was on the best possible option for Inspiriation with that gully... wowzers! FWIW everyone, the ridgeline once gained is way better rock and so cool. I'm pretty psyched on "Walking the Fence" aka the S Pickets Traverse. That would be an amazing route to do!
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for purely illustrative purposes here is a rough topo of my movement on inspiration...
red is line of ascent, orange shows variation on arete during descent, red circle is where is was pinned by blocks, route used only because moat gave easy access, not recommended
[TR] Mt Hood - Reid Headwall 3/19/2016
in Oregon Cascades
Posted
Trip: Mt Hood - Reid Headwall
Date: 3/19/2016
Trip Report:
Solo'd Reid on Sat the 19th. Decent skiing snow above Palmer made for potentially more work to hike around but there was already a boot pack from two guys climbing Leutholds (thanks guys!). I mostly followed the "recommended" variation (14 in Oregon High, 8a in the new Mt Hood guide).
Conditions observations:
-The schrund was barely visible, a whopping 6" step across.
-Bottom half of the route was not terrible post-holing but not perfect neve either (you are welcome for the boot pack).
-Upper half once you traverse left around the snow rib was awesome neve most of the way, lots of hero swings to the hilt.
-Any "steps" were so filled in that there was nothing above 50deg angle the whole way. As a result I made a couple detours to make things more fun.
Detours:
-Above the schrund the gully turns left. The cliff band on the right has a fun but short vertical-ish rime gully with some actual WI in the back. Probably WI3ish, I was able to stem out on rime to either side which made it pretty mellow. Recommended.
-On the upper headwall I followed the gully until I saw a mini rime slot up on the left. It was small and cramped in a Harding Slot kinda way. Not recommended.
-At what looks like you're near the top is a big rime cave to the right. It lead to a couple of body length steps. Thin ice on the first and with easy "mixed" moves. The second was rime covered but still easy. Recommended.
Overall, route is definitely "in" but very easy. Finding variations makes it more fun if you want to do some real climbing.
Ran into a guy who solo'd Devils Kitchen left variation on the summit. He said it was also incredibly mellow right now. Depending on the spring I think it might be a great year to snag steep routes in easy condition. What do ye old spray-lords think?
Total time car-car 6:45... definitely a little tired and not pushing things. A fit and dialed climber could do this leisurely in under 5 hrs.
Gear Notes:
Pickets? Might get some screws if you dig around, especially higher up.
Approach Notes:
Follow the boot pack or bring skis if you want to enjoy the descent.