christophbenells

we've found a metolius bag full of climbing gear, that was most likely stolen last night or in the previous days. please pm me if you think this is your gear.

i like this spot on white river glacier. literally half a mile from the top of palmer lift. these were taken in september, so snow may still need to melt a bit. this is where the snowboarder was killed in the serac collapse last year, so be careful. the walls in this photo are around 80ft tall. little bit of water ice in there too! eliot glacier is great too, just a longer hike at the moment since cloud cap road is still closed, not sure when its gonna open.

i too once went to the n side of adams and got stopped at that snow bank...hiked to the trailhead only to find the lot full of cars... check out the road conditions on this here website... http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/giffordpinchot/recarea/?recid=75056 sounds like you can get to the trailhead from road 5603. thanks for the report, heading up on Wednesday night to there, i'll be driving in from rd 5603!

:tdown:kirkw why do you get such a boner for telling people the south side is non technical?

oh you're talking about video cams.

there we go, take all your retired cams and put them on the trail as "dummy" gear. then they take the useless cams and leave the new shiny ones. genius.

is this an ongoing event? and if so, when is the next one!

i would personally choose a light mountaineering boot rather than hiking boots. in my opinion they'll be more comfortable in the long run. or skis and AT boots.<------ good job dchromey! you've come a long way since joining the mountaineering hordes, its been fun to watch you progress on the website here.

Anybody out there have some good suggestions for what I should climb out at the butte? I'm looking mostly for finger or hand crack lines, but I don't wanna spend the time to find em myself...well...cause it's rocky butte and it ain't worth it! Thanks in advance

Im doing a trip leaving portland april 21st to the alaska range, staying through the second or third week of may. Is that too late for ice and mixed routes in the ruth gorge? Will the kahiltna have better climbing conditions? should I just book the flight and decide when in Talkeetna? any advice/thoughts are welcome and helpful.

i think you need a long window of high pressure...like that found in july. like 2 weeks of high pressure. ive done it in april, but had to rush down in a growing lenticular, and hunker in 50 mph winds wearing expedition mitts, balaclava and goggles. attempted in june when high winds forced us off the mountain, and once in may when avy conditions were so bad the fuhrer finger slid the entire coulior. not saying you cant do it at other times than july, but that is when the highest success ratio is.

i spent some time in atlin b.c. this past summer, staying at the Juneau icefield research program house. I got a chance to look through all of maynard's old stuff, including his gear from the everest expedition. its a shame to what has happened to the foundation for glacier research and all the time and records that they kept. boxes upon boxes of research are just sitting in a dust dilapidated house thats about to collapse. hopefully the new director can get the program back to what it once was when maynard was around and able to run it. there is a museum's worth of stuff crammed in that house!

ice tools huh...

What about boots? I've got scarpa mont Blancs and dynafit tlt5s that I was gonna take. Do I need warmer?

I'm trying to do an expedition into Kahiltna base camp this spring as cheap as possible. Going with a goal of mt France's, mini moonflower etc. and other lower elevation moderates. No Denali. My questions are on sleeping bags and clothing. I have a 0 degree and a 30 degree bag, do you think one inside the other will be warm enough for base camp or will I freeze?Jackets same question... I have a 1 inch lift down puffy and a 3 inch loft puffy. If I wear both will I be warm enough? Any advice would be helpful. Looking to go the month of may.

The Whitney portal road will be closed most likely, but the road to lake Sabrina and south lake should be open year round.

The second pitch of hanging gardens is where they are. 5.6 terrain with plenty of cracks, up to the Sesame Street start. They even put one about two feet away from mr potato heads piton anchor. The bolts they used are climb x brand, those ones that aren't uiaa cert.

I climbed hanging gardens a couple days ago, there is 4 or 5 new bolts, Little climb x jankies. I'm not anti bolt crazy, but why were they placed there?

i was up on hood yesterday, and while it was kinda cold it was much warmer than i had expected. i wore a base layer, wool shirt and windbreaker for most of the day. a big puffy and warm mittens were very nice to have though.

Trip: Mt. Hood, Illumintaion Rock - South Chamber Date: 11/13/2013 Trip Report: Dear Cascade Climbers, Ryan Irvin and I climbed Illumination Rock to the "West Gable" on Mt. Hood yesterday. We found some pretty good climbing conditions, tricky route finding, ice-ball dodging, freezing cold, and boiling hot temperatures. All Photos are courtesy of Ryan Irvin, check out his photography page, https://www.facebook.com/ryanirvinphotography We left the parking lot around 7am, and made quick time up to the zig zag glacier. It was freezing cold, wind cut through to the bone, I wore all my clothes, a big puffy and my expedition mitts. We started up the South Chamber route, I'm not sure if we followed it exactly. The rock blocked the wind from blowing on us, and it now felt really hot. We trended a bit left of the route I believe, up two pitches to the sling belay. Ice balls were raining down with fury. I quickly learned to not look up after a large ball struck me in the sunglasses. Just keep your head down and hide beneath a rock. There was a chimney with nice cracks that was the crux of the route, it felt like 5.7-5.8 to me, although the guidebooks rate south chamber at 5.4. Either way, 5.4 with crampons on and rime on the holds still can get you a little gripped. We made it up through the crux with no issues, and to the final belay at the top of the west gable. We decided to stop there, mostly for concerns with safety and time, satisfied with the vertical rock we had climbed. The next pitches were horizontal rime with minimal protection, just to say we tagged the summit. We made it down with three rappels and sketchy downclimbing through the south chamber. Skiing back down to the parking lot was absolutely terrible. The whole mountain was a big ice cube, I'm still feeling the bone jarring effects of the snow in my legs. The climbing on Illumination rock was surprisingly good and safe. I'm looking forward to a nice season of alpine climbs, with several new goals focused on I-rock. Thanks for reading folks! Chris Benelli

It's kind of back around the corner...

In the hand crack photo the dirty fingers is just to climbers right, then about 6 feet right of that is the off width. I'm not sure why anyone would choose it when that hand crack is so nice.

yeah those were the photos i was seeing, i ski toured alot in the pollalie canyon last year and it looked pretty good. http://www.portlandhikersfieldguide.org/ph/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4093&p=25013

I've seen the falls there freeze over before, has anyone out there climbed it?