bedellympian
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Trip: Broken Top South (9094) and Main - Left Ramp Direct + High Noon
Trip Date: 12/10/2017
Trip Report:
I wanted to share a little about a recent excursion to Broken Top's Crook Cirque. This is a good venue for winter climbing close to Bend in terms of the routes available. However, it is a long approach (7 miles on rolling terrain) and the Cirque is S facing making it a solar oven in just about any sunny weather. The bad news is that conditions are fickle and hard to nail (this was my 6th time going out there to try climb and only second trip climbing something). The good news is it's a great backcountry ski zone when climbing is out. Hopefully others can learn from my beta and have success/fun.
Approach: If overnighting or snow machining park at Dutchman's, Bachelor has started towing unattended vehicles at night. Fastest skin track is the snow machine access road and you might be able to hitch a ride but its not pleasant. The other two options are following xc ski trails or going down to Todd Lake and then through that way. Expect at least 2.5 hours for a fit person on the move nailing route finding.
Conditions: This has been the crux for me over the years. The south facing cirque gets way too hot in the sun and the ideal climbing aspects get windloaded and corniced by storms. Luckily routes are generally short and quick so you have three options. 1. Ski out and climb it in the evening, then camp or headlamp it back to the car. 2. Camp out and climb it early. 3. Climb in spindrift on the front end of a storm cycle. This past weekend many small ice flows were in but temps were dangerously high as soon as the sun hit.
Route Recs and what I did:
-East face of 9094 has plenty of options that are somewhere between Devil's Kitchen Headwall and Eliot Headwall in length and difficulty. Most stuff has been done unless you are into futuristic x-rated choss climbing. Can be badly corniced.
-South Face of BT gets the full sun effect, the two routes worth doing IMHO are 11 o'clock couloir to the summit and High Noon Couloir. Both are in Oregon High. High Noon, which I finally did this weekend, has surprisingly good rock. There are possibly other options doable up the main buttress, difficulty hard to determine.
Here are some grainy iphone pictures from this weekend to entice those looking for a slog-worthy objective...
Crook Cirque , BT S face center, E face 9094 on L
E face 9094 (~800ft) Saturday evening
Three short but fun ice steps lead into the L of two ramps on E face 9094.
L ramp couloir goes through arch to steep snow top out.
Views from summit of 9094 Sat evening: top pic L-R N Sis, Jefferson, BT main w/ Hihg Noon Couloir obvious, bottom sunset, walk off on scree to the SW and E down snow gullies.
Approaching BT main south face and High Noon Sunday morning.
Sketchy ice flow L of High Noon Couli, exposed scree traverse and wet moss top out, solid sticks though and AI3-, traversed into main couli above this.
Traversing steep snow into High Noon from top of ice flows.
Solid rock at top of High Noon.
T-shirt weather at 8am mid December on the south facing aspect. Bare hand rock climbing with pons ensued... a good time.
Looking down the crux step (low 5th). Many options on these upper steps.
Nice summit views south to 9094 and Bachelor; and north to the Sisters.
Gear Notes:
Light and climbable AT boots, tools/pons, sun shade hoody and tshirt for the ridiculously hot weather.
Approach Notes:
Dutchman's through snow machine road, xc trails are slower but less stanky.-
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This was mine. Rock falling on foot soloing in Pickets. Pretty obvious lesson... don’t onsight solo choss.
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Doubtful, the approach and the fickle conditions will keep this a rarely visited enigma, same as all the goods in OR.
On 12/4/2017 at 2:43 PM, diepj said:Awesome!
Looks like another place that will cut straight from "I've never heard of it" to a conga line on the road in next weekend. The internet - can't climb with it, can't climb without it...
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So Chamonix does look incredible but its not in the cards, neither is AK. Obviously conditions are fickle and that will ultimately determine my destination, BUT what are some areas where there is the potential for alpine MIXED climbing in western North America that time of year?
Rockies, Cascades, and Tetons are on my list of places to watch.
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It's in right now. Follow @markhauter on Instagram.
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Chamonix? Where? How big?
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gavinj4 - Trout is closed end of January thru mid-May at the earliest for raptor nesting, please do not abuse the self-enforced climbing ban that the community has worked out with the BLM.
Aside from that I live near Trout and climb there weekly in the fall so it's not exactly what I want to do with a week off.
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I have one week off at the end of March and want to go swing/scratch up something in mountain-y terrain outside of Oregon. Where do I go?
Thoughts so far...
Colchuck/Stuart zone - I've been before this time of year so it would be familiar but still lots I want to do. Plus its a short drive.
Tetons - chance of high avy danger? good skiing if stuff is bad, long approaches in winter
Banff/CanRockies - chance of high avy, ice could still be in low, don't know much about it, long drive
Sierra - sunny mixed on granite, minimal ice?, long approaches
alternative ideas?
Obviously conditions/weather/avy danger at the time will probably be the concluding factor but I'm curious what other folks have done/would want to do? Specific routes?
Thanks!
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Obviously I'll have to wait until closer to the time to see how conditions are but what are some good places to ice climb over New Years?
I was thinking Lee Vining would have more daylight but might not be in much at that time.
Hyalite is another option.
Canmore seems like its usually way too cold.
I have friends going to Ouray but I only have 10 days and it's a REALLY long drive.
Other options?
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If you haven't yet checked out the Training Beta podcast I would recommend taking a gander at the various episode topics. I listened to all of the ones with PT Esther Smith after tweaking a finger this summer. There are some free videos linked on the Training Beta website with exercises and she discusses a specific finger protocol for injured fingers in the episodes. I've been following the finger protocol and it has been working great so far. I was also using her exercises to try address what I thought was elbow tendonitis but eventually resolved to medial nerve irritation stemming from the shoulder. A friend showed me Dave McLeod's book where he recommends a "shoulder slide" exercise with your back to a wall for shoulder antagonists which resolved 90% of my shoulder and elbow issues almost overnight. Both these rehab regimens have been so effective for me I felt like I should share them with people here... hopefully someone can benefit.
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Thanks Marc.
Did the deed last week. Got my 2WD Hyundai to the TH with minimal shenanigans but slow going (not recommended unless you don't care about your car's appearance and are comfortable driving rough roads).
Pocket Glcier is still there at the very top in a very small but tall segment.
The Crossover Descent had two sections that I felt there was not much detail in Blake's guide:
1. The raps off Parke are much closer to the summit than what the topo map suggests. Scramble up on top of the thing and find the shoulder between the two highest points, from there you will see the rap station.
2. Make sure you get to the meadows where you pick up the trail with lots of light. We got there as light was fading and never found the trail. We assumed it was way downhill and after way too much bushwhacking got cliffed out and had to head back up and over to intersect it by headlamp, not ideal.
20.5 hrs car-car seemed like a relaxed pace having not done any of it before. Hike in was 4 hrs, route was 8 hrs, descent with route finding errors was 8 hrs. Make sure you're comfortable on steep snow, loose rock. Stellar route.
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Thanks G-spotter. I'll just walk. Leaving my truck in Oregon will save me 50% on gas... not worth the trade-off!
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Can anyone speak to the road conditions? I want to get in there but I have a 2WD vehicle.
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Thanks Jason
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Heard the pocket glacier slid... can anyone confirm?
Also, anyone driven the road this season? Clearance and conditions on that?
Thanks...
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Anyone know where to find info on routes and conditions for alpine ice/mixed routes in the Sawtooths or nearby area? Got any recommendations? Considering potential of early spring/late winter trips. Would also be interested in skimo beta.
Thanks,
Sam
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Muscular endurance is one of the things stressed at the end of the base period in the Steve House Training for the New Alpinism book. It's basically just doing a lot of (insert muscle taxing activity here). The reason for the change is that my goals for the summer are long endurance climbs, not hard red points.
I'll do some more of this conjugate stuff in the fall and try push my hard climbing farther then.
Plans for muscular endurance workouts are...
TR solo laps on pumpy thin hand cracks
Jug a line in a tree with a pack a bunch of times
Throw in some hangboarding, campus boarding, bouldering to maintain grip strength and try some of the harder cracks and multis now that my redpoint sport grade is higher than them.
Hopefully will be nice and fit when I get off work in late June.
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Thanks Sol,
I'm taking a week off of training and just climbing fun stuff if the weather is nice. I will be refocusing on muscular endurance training with crack climbing and multi-pitch days on the weekend. Plan is to hit Yosemite and Sierra in late June once I get off work for the summer. Hopefully some stuff in Canada later in summer.
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I tried to mix it up for a couple months after reading Sol's post about conjugate periodization. I had been climbing a lot of random stuff (no consistency) with the occasional hang board session (~once every other week). I then spent 2 months doing the following:
Tuesday:
Easy bouldering warm-up
Project 1-2 routes at my limit (total 4-6 goes)
4x4 bouldering
arm strength and core
Thursday:
ARC 30 min
Project 1-2 routes at my limit
4 sets on campus board
4 onsight/flash boulder problems
leg strength and core
Sat/Sun:
Early in the training I ARCed a third day in the gym, later I climbed routes outside.
Early in the training I worked on boulder problems I could send easily and focused more on the ARCing, doing it as a warm-up both days. Later I treated the ARC as a warm-up and focused on pushing the harder boulder problems and the 4x4.
This definitely got me strong specifically for sport climbing, but I feel that having a bigger and more consistent climbing base would have paid off more. Also, you wouldn't want to do this for long, 8 weeks was a lot of intensity and my body had some lingering aches and pains.
Results: I sent a climb that I could have probably sent before with a lot of work but I did it easily in 4 tries and it upped my redpoint best two letter grades.
... my 2 cents.
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Looks like this thread has been dormant for a while. Maybe some folks will come back out of the woodwork and get us some stoke for the end of this cold snap. I'm interested if anyone knows anything about...
1. "Gothic Rock" north of Sisters at the end of Green Ridge.
2. If you head up the White Water River from its confluence with the Metolius it looks like there are some big south facing cliffs above the drainage at around 5k' that might be similar to Cougar Crag near Bend. Anyone been there? Rock quality? Routes?
3. West Ridge of the Strawberries and the range west of that above John Day both have some domes/spires. visible from the road. Anyone know?
4. Table Rocks near Medford got any routes?
Thanks folks!
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Good suggestions. I run in barefoot already. I also run on trails as per DPS' comment almost all the time. I do some lower leg stuff but could probably do more.
Sol- running is necessary to my sanity. I don't live where I can just do a steep hike out of the front door
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So I was running a lot and not climbing this fall due to hand injury. Got better just in time to head to Indian Creek for Creeksgiving and hiked around a bunch with lots of cams and ropes and climbed a lot of long hand cracks. Result: ankles feeling tweaky and swollen.
I've had this happen before. When I'm running a lot the ankles are pretty stiff and don't move much. When I hike up hills my feet can get pretty dorsi-flexed. When I crack climb my foot jams are rolling my foot and ankle to the inside. The combo or sudden transition can be somewhat unpleasant.
Question: anyone got ideas for how to avoid this in the future or just exercises that seem to be particularly helpful for helping the ankles stay strong with both sports? Ya know, besides being reasonable and careful
Thanks,
Sam
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This is a cool idea. It reminds me a lot of the multi-pace training Frank Horwill (another Brit) used to train middle-distance runners (which is probably about the running equivalent of power endurance sport climbing). He also broke down all the energy systems involved and suggested training them simultaneously to a degree. It resulted in the UK dominating that event category internationally for most of the 80s. It's interesting to me because I've experimented with both concepts for distance running, rock climbing and alpine climbing. I definitely get bigger gains in an area with regular periodization, but can gain more experience due to better all-around readiness when using conjugated periodization. The more common thing seen in distance running is to do "base" period of ARCing/volume and then engage in the conjugated periodization.
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Not specific but the village of Trient is a nice spot at the NE end of the Mt. Blanc Massif just across the border in Switzerland. That end of the Massif had way fewer crowds and less glacial gnar to deal with. Several nice huts I visited up next to glaciers. You could hike around the Massif's NE end, sure there are some good mellow hut-hut hikes there that would meet your criteria.
Top rope solo with Wild Country Ropeman
in Climber's Board
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I use the CAMP Lift with my Microtraxion which works great. Can't comment on the Ropeman.