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Jacob Smith

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Posts posted by Jacob Smith

  1. Hey all, I'm looking for a competent and experienced lead climbing partner for the Seattle vertical world on weekday afternoons. Ultimately I'd like to be going twice a week and it would be super awesome to find someone who could make it a regular thing.

  2. I find it interesting how if you read the older lit, specifically that Greg Child article, dirtbag is definitely a derogatory term, but it has somehow now lost those connotations and is now applied to the lifestyle that Fred Beckey and co. pioneered.

    I suspect that there is a substantial generation gap in how climbers define the term.

  3. I'd very much like to get out to Lillooet next weekend (friday - sunday, thursday optional) but my usual partners are all busy.

    I havn't climbed real water ice in almost two years so I'm looking to start small (TRs and easy leads in the Icy BC area) and then depending on conditions do some longer climbs.

    I'd be coming from Seattle.

     

    reply to lyons14833@gmail.com

  4. Trip: North Twin Sister - West Ridge

     

    Date: 11/28/2015

     

    Trip Report:

    I broke my last camera over a year ago and Josh forgot his, so all we took are crappy camera phone shots that I'm not going to bother to upload [Josh: if you got any good ones maybe throw them or a link to them in the comments?].

    Anywho, we climbed the west ridge of north twin on Saturday. To my surprise, we had the whole mountain (whole range?) to ourselves for the day.

     

    Gear Notes:

    There was a good deal of snow on north aspects but the route itself was surprisingly passable, we didn't break out the pons until the final 100 ft, although they were mandatory for the north route descent.

     

    Approach Notes:

    As we anticipated, the road is not, in my view, terribly bikable at the moment, there was about 4-6in. of snow from a mile or two in, and thick frost and ice before that.

  5. I would avoid the Sherpa glacier that late in the year, I tried it in august on a more normal snow year and epiced kind of majorly. You should probably count out any and all snow/glacier climbing for your trip, as most of it will be gone and what's underneath is almost never not terrifying, chossy, borderline impassable nonsense.

     

    From Stuart Lake the north ridges of Stuart and Sherpa are both accessible, as is any of the stuff at Colchuck lake if you get an early enough start.

     

    This also means that there will be no easy way to get down Stuart on the north side, meaning you should count on descending the Cascadian and hiking around over Goat Pass, which is doable but should be expected to take the better part of a day.

  6.  

    This is an alpine climb

     

    That's a bit of a stretch....

     

    The approach takes longer than that of the east face of liberty bell, and there are no bolted belays, and the rock is kind of shitty, and there's a bunch of lichen. Lets call it alpine cragging...

     

    Oh and skip Outer Space entirely, it's not that good. Really overrated honestly, just go to Index instead and get on the new Park Ranger link-up, it's the same grade and needs the traffic.

  7. Trip: Spickard -

     

    Date: 6/6/2015

     

    Trip Report:

    Some people invited me on a trip to the Chilliwacks. We climbed Spickard. A good time was had by all.

     

    My report can be found on my Obligatory Climbing Blog

     

    I don't have a camera anymore but Adam does, here's his trip report

     

    The discerning reader will notice a few differences in our accounts, just chalk it up to the subjectivity of human experience I guess.

     

    Gear Notes:

    We didn't fall in any crevasses so no glacier gear required

     

    Approach Notes:

    Yer gonna die

  8. I've used a clove hitch quite a bit, up to around C3, and I would say it is no more dangerous than a grigri (although i am unsure what would happen if I fell while adjusting the knot). It's mostly just a pain - extremely slow and difficult.

  9. Yes, the standard descent is 4 single rope or 2 double raps straight down the north face from the summit. The anchors can be kind of tricky to find when there is snow, it helps to have done it before when it was dry.

    I get the impression that the other rap stations along the west ridge route exist more for people who have done the face routes (Solid Gold, et al) but don't want to continue up the ridge to the summit.

  10. A couple things,

    Historically speaking I have had trouble finding partners to aid climb, mostly because everyone I know would rather free climb if at all possible, and I'm not super into climbing with people I met on the internet (did an entire trip doing it, and the trip ended up being a lot shorter than expected because I trusted the wrong person).

    Cams in pods on the ltw can awesome, or not. You can make a pretty bomber, fully equalized, anchor below city park with a couple largeish c4s, i was less excited about my anchor below stern farmer.

    Regarding blocks, trees, etc. Sometimes they are there, sometimes they are not, and sometimes they just don't inspire much confidence (i.e. that block you can sling below Green Drag-on that, while huge, seems like it would have to move about 1cm for your anchor to fail.

  11. So I've had this problem on a couple aid climbs around the town walls, where I go to aid solo them but there's not much to anchor off at the base. At the ltw it seems like there are typically pods i can throw cams into but i was scouting below Golden Arch the other day and I couldn't find anything I would be terribly psyched about belaying myself off of.

    The first pitches of Golden Arch and Abraxas looked like they were kind of game on from the get go so not much opportunity to just tie the first couple pieces together. What has occurred to me is to take up a haul bag and fill it full of rocks, although i am far from certain of the kN strength of the straps i would be attaching to.

    Any input/beta?

  12. Regarding the "whinny little bitch" comment – that is exactly what i mean about dog owners and non-dog owners having different ideas of what constitutes dogs bothering people. Some people are ok with a dog licking their hand, others are utterly and completely not. Several members of my immediate family have a real fear of unattended dogs; is it irrational and kind of ridiculous?- yes, but its not that uncommon either.

     

    Let me put it this way, a good friend of mine raises reticulated pythons. If properly socialized and treated calmly they are about as dangerous as a pit bull, in that they could seriously mess you up if they really wanted to but won't without provocation. They are actually quite mellow, well tempered animals. But guess where he doesn't take them? Anywhere public, ever, out of common deference to other people, who, by and large, are not comfortable around a 15-20ft snake. There are otherwise sane people who feel about your unleashed dog how you would feel about a reticulated python.

    Use a leash regardless of whether you feel your dog needs it, that's all we're asking.

  13. Some dogs need to be leashed, some don't. The problem is that dog owners are often a pretty poor judge of whether their dog is "out of control." This is why crags like smith, that are heavily managed, have leash laws. While these laws do not exist in climbing areas like Leavenworth and Vantage, I think the majority of us are in agreement that out of common courtesy dog owners should voluntarily keep their dogs leashed.

     

    Personally, I think the whole crag dog thing is getting out of control and in my experience very few dogs are mellow enough to hang out at the base of a climbing area without bothering people. Dog owners, you need to understand that some people don't want to interact with your dog, period. What you think is your dog "being friendly" is what some people find really annoying and/or frightening. You have the right to have a dog, you have a right to bring it places, but your dog does not have a right to be in my face. The unambiguous answer to this dilemma is leashes.

  14. So here's how I imagine that going down, woman hikes up to Headlee pass with her dogs, turns around to descend, dogs refuse to follow because they can't figure out how to downclimb steep, hard snow (when i came down Headlee pass a couple weeks ago I faced in for short sections). I'm a little unclear on how S&A resolved the situation for the dogs but whatever.

     

    The media has a well documented problem with confusing hikers and climbers, although usually its the other way around. It's mildly annoying but I get more p/o'd when people get self-righteous and condescending about other people's misfortunes. There are no nice things being prevented by this sort of thing happening. If everyone who might under some weird circumstance require a rescue was to stay out of the mountains, they would be pretty empty and trails would get overgrown and the forest service would close all the roads.

     

    Sorry, these kind of 'look at this idiot' threads are kind of a pet peeve of mine.

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