bedellympian

For solo aid I also use clove hitches. Always have two so you're backed up as you feed slack on one (I entrain them on the same rope). I've taken a fairly large whipper on this system and it was fine. For free climbing there is a fairly good community here https://www.facebook.com/groups/LeadRopeSolo/ where people share their systems. Seems like most folks these days are trending toward a gri-gri with a microtrax or similar, to hold the rope allowing easy pulling of slack and the weight of the rope not causing problems feeding in the gri-gri. I haven't tried the method myself but I've watched someone with it dialed run a quick lap on Lost in Space at Smith (10c 4p). Looked pretty slick. @bargainhunter where did you learn the deets for the back loop system? I've heard of it before and the name gives me some idea of what's going on but I'd love specifics.

As a father, I salute your commitment to the cause!

Thanks @JasonG for that snarky but useful response. I thought about gaiters too. Given that I would be wearing something like a modern double boot with built in gaiters I feel like this is an annoying solution. I think hemming/re-seaming like @kmfoerster suggested is the only option besides returning them and buying something that fits better. Mostly I'm just annoyed that they were listed for alpine climbing but are just baggy ski pants.

I recently ordered hardshell bib pants from Mountain Equipment because they were on sale in my size and said "alpine climbing fit". When they arrived they fit great BUT they are SO baggy around the ankles like a ski pant. This seems ridiculous for a "climbing" fit and even with G2 boots on they seem like they are at least two inches too wide and just snag on crampons. Anybody have any ideas for how to either fix this, jerry rig it, or what to look for to actually get a a climbing fit?

That last photo of you sitting at the table is great! The others are decent too I guess, but that one is my favorite.

Thanks Marlin. I talked to Duncan too, I guess he might be up that way this summer as well. If anyone else hears/knows anything let me know!

Anyone been into this zone and have advice on approach strategy? More unlikely, but anyone climbed on Geike and have beta, especially for the descent back to the North side? Thanks!

So you didn't use skis? Looks cool.

They each lost an average of 13 kgs (29 lbs). Eighteen days on route. Also, that tent site looks terrifying.

The Waddington Guide by Serl lists Corilair and Island West Air as options for planes from Van Island. Corilair offers float planes while Island West Air offers float and wheeled planes. The guide was published in 2003 so I'm sure things have changed but hopefully that gives you a starting point... https://www.corilair.com/ Looks like IWA's website is no longer up so they may be closed down. I bet all those pilots know each other so I would just call up someone and tell them what you're looking for.

Thanks for the detailed answers. Two more queries if you don't mind... How was the rock you encountered? What elevation was freezing level during your trip (night vs day)? Would also love to see more photos!

Sounds like quite the summer, would be great to hear about your other 7000m peaks too. I'm also curious how it was to setup logistics and what the cost of this sort of trip looks like?

Does anyone know how close you can get to this with a car in winter???

Some other people may have something different to say, but I would stay off of those peaks in September. The rock is bad and will be exposed, and the crevasses will be open. If you will be on a trip and don't want to climb something more technical, then go do a 3rd/4th class ridge scramble in the N Cascades. If you want to climb a glacier route plan a trip for May/June.

Thanks for sharing these climbs Nick. Always cool to see these more obscure routes out East.

Can you be more specific on what you mean by "resources" and "dead ends"?

Totally agree on the ice. Its interesting to see the numbers, turns out I'm pretty similar. For mixed climbing we have a couple local dry tool crags, one up by Bachelor ski are and one at an overlooked cliff at Smith Rock. There is another mixed crag getting developed up on the Cascade crest but its early stages. The other thing I do is go to this less-travelled rock crag in winter and climb the mossy/chossy grooves on gear between the actual rock climbs. Done a few 2 pitch routes that way and it makes for a good bad weather adventure practice day. Also, trying to get on more mixed stuff when I go up to Canada and other places. I feel like mixed is one of the limiters of me doing harder routes in the alpine. Like you said, M3/4 in the alpine is fine. Getting on bolted M6/7 is convenient and straightforward. But getting on alpine M5/6 with confidence opens up a whole slew of possibilities.

If Oregon, I would also say that it is in good shape right now, just wait for a day of sunshine before getting on North as there was fresh snow up there yesterday.

mthorman would you mind sharing where you are for ice pitches and what type of numbers you look for in a pyramid? I had the same idea and feel like my ice pitches are pretty good, but more importantly I want to round out my mixed pitches because of the more unique movement than on most ice.

I'm sure lots of you know who Dave Macleod is... one of the best all-around climbers on the planet and a training guru of sorts. I never looked at his stuff too hard as I was more focused on alpine routes than hard rock climbing, but now that I have a kid and rock climbing is much easier to access in a short time frame from my house than other things I've started taking a deeper look at what he has to say. A big point of his is that you need to work on your weaknesses (duh, though a lot of people don't do that). His classic training example is when he went from 8b to 9a (that's 13d-14d) in 18 months. After years of climbing he realized his weakness was grip strength and started hangboarding consistently which he credits as the main reason for his jump. Of course, everyone seems to hangboard these days, myself included, and its not my weakness (though I'm certainly not amazing at it). He mentions that this came after a good base of climbing movement and described this as doing 1,000 routes from E1 to E4 (that's 5.9+ to 11c). I initially thought I was pretty close but decided to check. I've done a fairly good job of tracking routes I've climbed thanks to MP, guidebooks, and a log of routes. I rounded up to include anything from 5.9 to 5.11 and with some rough estimation figure I'm at about 350 pitches in this grade range, much less than anticipated. Of course if you expand that to 5.7 and up (or 5.0 and up) then the number sky rockets, but a lot of this climbing doesn't teach you much about movement and technique which is Dave's point. This got me thinking, a friend of mine (apparently I hang out with like minded people who like data) had taken all the routes at Smith Rock, our local crag, and put them into a spreadsheet by grade (OCD for sure, but it takes one to know one). According to the spreadsheet there are almost 800 routes from 5.9 to 11d at Smith. I went through and marked off all the routes/pitches in this grade range that I had done and it was less than 100! I was very surprised by this. At first I thought that despite the plethora of routes at Smith there is a lot of crap rock. However, I also think a lot of routes fall off the radar and aren't popular. I think I've probably repeated a lot of the routes, and they are good routes, but there are routes that are right by the car that are perfectly good (2-3 stars) that I've never done because they aren't super classic, or in an obvious spot. So going forward a goal of mine is to increase the number of routes I've climbed in that range, with the ultimate goal fo reaching that arbitrary 1,000 number. Obviously there is nothing magic about the number 1,000, but it gives me a big goal to shoot for in the long term that gets me working on a probable weakness. I've also decided to include boulders in the V0-V4 range as part of this, since its also teaching me movement, and is logistically easier than going cragging. So I guess part of me wanted to post this to put my thoughts out there to see what others think. Is this uesful? How so, how not? Also to see what others have done. Where do you think you are in your 1,000 routes? You could also apply this to ice, mixed, or even alpine (1,000 alpine routes! Crazy!). Or scale it to suite you, 5.6 to 5.9, 5.0 on up, 5.11a to 5.13d?!

Just had our first and we have an old carrier pack a friend passed on, however I would love to be able to do a lot of longish hikes with the kiddo (maybe with extra weight) and am curious if people have things to consider or models that they find really good.

Looks like Adrien changed his Instagram post. Good for him, and knowing the guy, I bet he just didn't care enough about social media to make the change right away. Cptn, you quoted a post I made on the "Do summits matter?" thread. To be completely transparent I've made the same mistakes of assuming FA-ship in the past, its an easy mistake to make in the scheme of things. In fact, this past winter I claimed a couple "Second Ascents" which could very well be 10th ascents for all I know. That includes the Emde-Ablao on Middle Sister that Adrien and I did without any knowledge of the prior ascent and which I promptly sprayed about, so I'm probably a hypocrite here... though I do like the idea of preserving the adventure as I said, especially in Oregon where resources are limited. Anyway, mainly I'm psyched to see Adrien, Matt and others getting after it this winter and I think it would be awesome to have an Oregon crew competing for grants and making trips to bigger ranges like the Karakoram in the next few years to try exploring more off the beaten path objectives and getting some more good adventure stories here.

Good points. I retract my recommendation!

When I did it in June '16 it was pretty chill. Boot pack on easy snow. Seems like you can stay far enough from the edge to not worry about anything but a fully catastrophic serac failure? I have a few guide friends who are very risk averse but have enjoyed that route as a romp.

These TRs from June 2016 probably help. Compare the snow packs from this year to that to get an idea of how to scale. https://sites.google.com/stephabegg.com/washington/tripreports/vesper-ragged?authuser=0 https://sites.google.com/stephabegg.com/washington/tripreports/bigkangaroo?authuser=0 https://sites.google.com/stephabegg.com/washington/tripreports/burgundy-nf?authuser=0#h.f9kufph9eib1 https://sites.google.com/stephabegg.com/washington/tripreports/stuart?authuser=0#h.8ttdu7i41oye