Vitaliy M.

Looks like a bad ass way to go (to hell?), but we are going light and fast, do not want to carry the 2nd tool. ; _) My other option is to maybe climb Stuart, than go to Bugs and after that attempt Slesse on our way back to CA around Aug 15th or so. You guys think it is a better way to do things? But I heard approach to Stuart is confusing... N rib looks good. I saw Colin Haley's TR on it a while ago. But I have been dreaming about doing the Beckey route, due to it's history partly. Plus I suck on slab. Heard it has plenty of runout 5.8 slab? PS: people usually approach the bypass route across that huge broken up glacier (unless it slides)? Looks terrible. I guess you do not rope up for it but try to sprint across as fast as you can if you see the route? Sorry for all the questions, the area is really new. You can email and ask me anything about Sierra in return. : )

Is my understanding of what is the pocket glacier and what is the approach correct? Does one need crampons/ice axe to cross the snow bellow usually? I want to attempt the route on the weekend of 5th of August...climbed a lot of routes all over US, but will be my first time in this area..

Link does not work any longer, anyone knows where to find the descent beta?

nope. the better way out these days takes you down the crossover pass descent right back to your start point. Any idea where I could read a bit more about that? Will be my 1st trip to North Cascades....

A friend and I want to climb North buttress of Slesse in the first part of August. We are coming up from CA. Would be nice to team up with another group to arrange a car swap- since I heard the better way out puts you away from the original TH where you start from.

Why not check out other sites? As I understand this is a Cascades site. I would imagine it would have tons of TRs about Hood/Rainier since these are the two BIG mountains with A LOT to do on both. If people decide to share their experience(as long as it is not offensive), one should either ignore it (if they are not into it) or say a few nice words (all of us are human and like hearing compliments, especially when we put our heart into a TR). Personally I never trash talk other TRs. I think we all should be here to share good experiences, and inspire each other, not point fingers and tell someone to be more original. Why concentrate on FA? For me personally it was a first ever FA, and I was really excited about it. For Nastia I believe this would be a first independent line on Hood. 400 ft or not, but FOR US it was a great journey. From dreaming about it back in Hyalite, to improving our climbing, and actually doing something we were not sure would go. It was great. I am not from Oregon, and never climbed Hood. But I had time of my life there (aside from BS on this thread). I'd like to thank Anastasia for being a cool partner! She is very excited about climbing and I respect that very much. If you are bored with Cascades here are a few of my TRs you may want to check out: http://www.supertopo.com/tr/Days-around-Rock-Creek/t11324n.html even Doug Robinson was excited about Carl Heller TR (check out the comments) http://www.supertopo.com/tr/Mt-Carl-Heller-Winter-ascent-of-East-Arete/t10996n.html http://www.supertopo.com/tr/Third-Pillar-of-Dana-First-Winter-ascent-by-a-Cheburashka/t11353n.html

And this is why at times I still do. Sorry to overlook the positive comments. As far as the route goes, I believe for fit parties it is under ten hour car to car day. Great idea if you want to climb some moderate but exciting water ice/mixed terrain. You can approach via regular south side or through the glacier bellow, your choice. We had 8 screws. 2 were used in the anchor and 6 for the pitch (50M of ice). Personally, if I had a way to know how this pitch would be before actually doing it, I would bring couple of more screws, but that's just me. I used a Red (1) BD camalot, and Orange ultralight metolious cam as well (yellow metolious was used in one spot for our simul climb above). Belay was set up in the couloir (45-50 degree snow/neve coulor, a lot milder than it seemed from Sunshine) above from two pickets. Did not see any pin scars anywhere, or any opportunities to use pins- Rock is crap. Helmet is required. I actually think this will be repeated, the climbing is great. The setting is awesome. Here in Sierra people would go through hell to climb a mixed pitch like this. PS: If I would do it again I would also bring some rock shoes and climbed up the Cathedral spire up the obvious hand crack (5.9-5.10b judging by the look of it).

ScaredSilly, Oregon High provides a photo of 7a and a dotted line, far from where we have climbed. I trust that more than a very broad description that could match A LOT of possible lines if it is looked at closely - 'Stay close to the cleaver and gain the col behind Cathedral Spire.' To start our line we had to descend further down towards the actual spire. What we climbed was a LOT steeper than logical stuff on Eliot Headwall. I believe the line he refers to was just higher from us. It most likely follows the ice/snow up through buttresses and has a possibility to exit left towards NF gullies/direct exit, and a possibility to finish vie the exit which is shown in the picture. I was looking at that line of weakness on the approach wondering if it could be a good climb for our second day. But it seemed fairly straight forward and not that great (loose rock etc). With all the honesty I do not think anyone back than would choose our line. Tools were not invented yet. People did not climb vertical water ice. There was even a short overhanging bulge. A snow couloir would not form here IMO. Whatever the case is I KNOW our line was not climbed as an ice climb in 1958. Anastasia got her lead on this line from the author of the guidebook that is in the works now. I think he would know a few things about climbed/unclimbed. This thread is one of the reasons I climb every weekend, and post a TR only on occasion...

I am sorry we do not match the bar for you. It was my first trip to climb in Oregon. The point of this trip was to explore Mt. Hood and do an unclimbed ice line (which was only a few pitches). I wanted to see the regular south side route, have views of I-Rock, both of us wanted to camp around the summit ridge (The views are amazing, and it made sense logistically because we wanted to do NF route day after Ravine. Due to high temperatures/avalanche danger, we decided to avoid a big risk and save it for another time). Anastasia climbed this mountain over 20 times. I completed Sierra Challenge in 2010 ( http://www.snwburd.com/bob/challenge/2010/ ), going 10/10 on Challenge peaks, and getting 7 bonus peaks. Over 10 continuous days I estimate my total elevation gained to be over 68,000-70,000ft. Not afraid of approaches. ; )