mthorman

I have about 5 years of pretty hard use on multiple pieces and they are all full of holes and in need of replacement. I would be pysched to get 10 years!

I haven't been out to Banks yet, but judging from Spokane temps I doubt there is much yet. We have been highs in the upper 30s or lower 40s and lows just barely below freezing until late last week. The last several days have been colder finally but things definitely seem to be getting a slow start this year.

Awesome report! That climb has been on my list for awhile. The car incident reminds me of last winter when we came out from 3 nights backcountry skiing to an empty parking lot (truck was stolen). Yea the RCMP said the same thing..."It happens all the time up there".....and I was like "maybe you should think about putting up some cameras or patrolling it more often". Thankfully I got it back a couple weeks later though.

Found them randomly on Instagram. https://www.hexclimbing.com/

The only other option I have seen is this one. It isn't a different ax but lets you use your normal tools with these picks. I haven't tried it personally but know someone who has and liked them. https://www.escapeclimbing.com/product/dry-tool-picks/

Thanks for posting Scott! And congrats on one big adventure.....man running until you are sweaty and then sleeping until your cold sounds awful!

Nice job and thanks for the report! It sounds like you guys had a fun time up there. Crazy how much drier things are this year.

Mt. Adams can still be climbed in a day trip even if the road is closer lower down. I did it several years ago in March from one of the lower snow parks. It makes for a much longer day but the plus is fewer people! Of course you could easily turn it into an overnight or even a 3 day. It really depends on what you want. If you are looking for good skiing then you might be happier just staying slightly lower as the upper mountain can get pretty hard and windswept....obviously condition dependent. I think it is worth the effort and I honestly had a lot more fun being the only person on the mountain than when I went back later in the season and walked up the ant line of people.

This looks really good! Thanks so much. I sent you a PM.

Man looks like a beautiful trip! I love all the great pictures.

Just did this route last weekend and it was awesome! We climbed it on Saturday of Labor Day weekend and never saw another party......didn't know that was possible up on WA Pass! We followed the beta in Blake's new book Cascades Rock. I found the topo in the book to be very accurate. We followed it pretty much exactly as described and found the belay's to be great locations and rope drag manageable. The quality of the rock was very good with the exception of the the middle of pitch 4 through a couple of roofs. We were able to trundle all the loose blocks in that area but there is still some crumbly rock. I climbed up past the Zebra wall all the way to the top roof and then traversed out which was awesome but felt more 5.10 than 5.9. The next pitch up the open book hand crack was the money pitch and the chimney off-width was thought provoking. Honestly there weren't any "dud" pitches and the climbing was fairly sustained at grade. What surprised me most was how much slabby face climbing there was on the 1st couple pitches. Seriously this is a classic climb! Approach Beta When you are following the old road don't cut up the hill at all the rock carins. We did on the way and the trail quickly disappeared and left us in thick brush and much too far climber's left. Instead just keep following the trail until you reach a creek. Before crossing the creek turn left uphill and follow it up to the basin above. Keep the creek close by on the right until you reach the open treed area. Passed this you reach a large slide alder section from old avalanches. If you stay right on the edge there is a pretty decent trail that you can follow all the way up to just below the boulder field. A few more easy boulder hoping and you are right at the base of the climb with very little bushwacking. We found this on the way down and it was WAY better than the route we came up. Decent Beta Once above the chimney on the last "real" pitch there is still a full rope length of 4th class scrambling to the route. Make sure you go all the way to the big flat slab before trying to rappel down to the right. We knocked all the numerous loose blocks off the rappel and the anchor cord looked in good condition. From the end of the rappel we hiked up the gully a hundred feet then crossed it on a decent ledge to the treed ridge. From here it was an easy hike down the ridge contouring skier's left to the main low angle gully system. No nasty scree down climbing necessary.

Strong work!!

Looks like a really fun trip and you guys had excellent weather! I really need to get a trip into the Pickets. And awesome sighting of the wolverine!!

I guess I am one of the slow climbers then because all 3 times I have hiked up to Muir with an overnight pack my times have been closer to the 5 hour mark at a casual pace.

I just got back from Eldorado yesterday. The snow line is somewhere between 4800 feet and 5000 feet on west aspects. Lots of snow from there up. Freezing levels were between 7k and 9k but we didn't take any kind of flotation and were fine. Definitely would have been faster with skis though. I have a friend who was in Boston Basin last weekend and he said the river crossings were covered in snow and easy to cross. I assume things would be pretty similar although it has definitely melting fast up high this week. It was forecasted to rain 2.5 inches of rain up to 9000ft on Thursday and believe me when I say it did on Eldorado at least!! Looking at Forbidden from Eldorado the west ridge looked pretty melted out. I am sure there might be some snow still lingering in a few places but it looked to be mostly all rock.

Link works fine this time. I like the looks of that. Interesting that it fits webbing too.

I agree with the fact that an ATC will have a lot of friction and be inefficient in comparison to a pulley. However when compared to a single carabiner I think it would be a similar amount of inefficiency (although an experimental test with a dynamometer would be interesting to me to compare). I have done a bunch of testing using a variety of carabiners in a 3:1 system instead of pulley and measuring their efficiency. The pulley I tested came in around 93% efficiency as compared to a true theoretically 3:1 system. The carabiners all ranged from 65% to 72% depending on how fat the carabiner was. The fatter carabiners such as a Petzl Attache were the best. My theory is that an ATC with a fat carabiner would be somewhere in the 60-70% range as similar to the carabiners. Plenty happy to abandon my theory if actual tests prove otherwise. Anyway the best solution as Haireball stated is to just use a Petzl microtraxion. It serves the function of a pulley with a progress capture very well and it lives on my harness when I am in glaciated terrain. Hanman I have never seen the CT Roll N Lock but it looks light and nice. Is the locking mechanism more toothed like a Microtraxion or Tblock or is it more of a general rope grab pinch mechanism. BTW your link doesn't seem to work on my computer.

It works just fine. Yes the ATC will capture the progress. When I took a 1 day crevasse course with RMI a few years ago they showed this way and we practiced both this and a carabiner with prussik. The only negative I can think of is if you needed to rappel down to get to the patient for some reason and you just used your ATC up top.

I was solo so just hiked up the backside of Dragontail Peak. Snow was hard and crusty all the way to the top....no powder or post holing at all. The trail was pretty icy as well since the freezing level was like 3500 feet on Sunday. The north face of Dragontail looked really good. Lots of ice plastered all over. There were several really cool looking lines that I would have loved to get on. Here are a couple pics. Closer up, and looking up towards the 1st couloir of TC.

I was up in Icicle Creek today. Didn't climb any rock as I was on a mission up to Dragontail but there were 50+ cars parked at various pullouts along the road. Lots of people out climbing and bouldering today. Everything that faces south looks snow free and climbable except for a couple of the higher buttresses. It was 50 degrees and sunny in Leavenworth so even that high snow in the sun isn't going to last long.

You still have the tent and interested in selling?

As a rescuer myself, I can tell you that knowing information helps a lot. No it probably won't change the timeframe that help arrives, BUT it will ensure that help brings the necessary supplies and streamlines the process. Usually we have everything but if we can pair down to only what we know we need it helps rescuers be more efficient. Also it will probably really help speed the process up in the actual evacuation. It depends on the team and location but many times the decision about method of evacuation isn't made until after the first rescuer arrives on scene to assess the patient. If the team has good information about the patient's condition they can be ahead of the curve and start lining up whatever method of evacuation is chosen. Think of the following example: A PLB gets activated and its location is up in the Enchantments about 4 or 5 miles from the trailhead in what looks like steep ish terrain. Depending on the situation you might get the ground team or a helicopter on scene 1st. But if it is the helicopter it most likely won't be set and prepared to do an immediate short/long haul. They will just drop a rescuer off to access whether the person has a broken leg, a concussion, or is just "lost". If you had a way to communicate to the rescue team that your partner had fallen 20 feet off a small cliff and was unconscious with a head injury I bet they would put a helicopter as the #1 priority and rig it immediately for a haul. In the end though all the devices are better than none if you truly need something....they just all have their own pros and cons. I really like Jason's advice though and think more people should take it to heart. "Your SPOT/InReach/PLB shouldn't change your risk tolerance or decision making in the hills." I just finished my AIARE Level 1 course and the instructor said something similar about the avalanche air bags and risk. "If you feel like you need to have your avalanche air bag out and ready than you shouldn't be there in the 1st place."

What happened to your other group? Did they make it to the hut, dig a camp lower down, or just turn around and go down? Sounds like a great adventure to test some gear and navigation skills. Also since when do you have to take a bear canister to Camp Muir? I guess it has been a year or two since I was on the mountain but I never had to take one before when staying at Camp Muir or above. Please tell me that hasn't changed now...

If anyone gets over to the east side of WA state or ID/MT there is ice. A quick overview of what is around. Banks Lake - some friends climbed Trotsky's Folly today...thin but climbable. This is what he said about the ice. "Everything looks thin. Cables is not touching down. Devil's Punch Bowl is fat but has 30 foot deathcicles looming. As we left, a team was starting up Trotsky's Revenge which looked mega thin." Cooper Falls - Thing but climbable. Had some friends climb the 1st pitch last Monday and it was still wet on the left. Should be a lot better now a week later. Laclede, ID - there is a lot of road cut ice at Laclede right now. Several flows are fat enough to lead although most of it is still too thin. Lots of stuff ranging from 30ft to 75ft tall. Libby, MT - road cut ice just west of Libby is in and fat. I had a friend out there yesterday climbing and the pics he sent me looked good. Several good lines to lead. I have also seen several pictures of plenty of good fat flows on various road cuts between Libby, MT and Eureka. Here are 3 pics from the road cut ice at Laclede, ID.

Great write up, and congrats on the climb!!