JonParker

Wow, that orange!

Nice photos! Pitch 2 alone is worth the hike

Thanks for the beta dump, there’s not a lot out there for Despair. Did you happen to see the north side of south Despair? I’m wondering what a traverse of the two would involve, never seen a report of that.

Awesome, love these photos

I considered exploring that, but from where I was I couldn’t see the down climb on the other side. I also vaguely recalled a description of some scary shit in Abegg’s old TR. So I went with the devil I knew. View from the summit (see the pic facing Snowfield) seems to confirm it’s non-trivial. Glad that you found it was ok passage.

Oh yeah I should add this photo from the area in July 2018, because look at it

Trip: Colonial - standard Trip Date: 08/03/2021 Trip Report: After various plans fell through over the last 2 weeks for various reasons, including life, rain, and smoke, I was itching to do something, anything. On Monday I checked the next day forecast on windy and saw a pocket of good air predicted over the area including Snowfield, etc. On a trip to Snowfield a few years ago we skipped Colonial. A pika had obliterated my partners backpack straps at night. We improvised something out of our glacier gear, which my partner deemed suitable for getting back to the trailhead, but not inspiring enough to add another climb on our way out. Given the favorable smoke forecast I thought this must be my chance to go back for Colonial. Popping out above the trees I could see the forecast was spot on. Haze all around in the distance, but plenty clear locally. I could also see that the face below Colonial was mostly bare ice. It looked intimidating, maybe impossible to do solo with my one axe, approach shoes, and kahtoolas. But I thought I’d proceed for a closer look, and just go as far as I thought I safely could. Upon reaching the face I assessed. The ice was probably unavoidable, unless you down climb steep exposed snow, where it might be possible to skirt around the ice to some choss and back onto snow. The ice was steep at the bottom, below the point where the approach intercepts it. But higher up, from where the approach meets it to the notch looked about 40 degrees. And the runout wasn’t too bad at the beginning of the ice (gets bad 1/3 way across) so I grabbed a sharp rock for my 2nd tool and tried it out. The going was ok and I soon reached a crack in the ice that I used as a kind of ledge to traverse to the notch. I’ve never seen a route described as AI1 or WI1. Maybe this was it. There was a little snice here and there. The cracks in ice had a little snow on the border. When this snow is gone, which won’t take long, the route will require a real ice pitch. I couldn’t have got away with my single axe and light crampons if not for the ‘ledge’ system bordered with snow at the margin. There was a chance of thunderstorms beginning in the afternoon, and I wanted to avoid headlamp time anyway, so didn’t overstay my welcome on the summit. Military jet or two came by to desecrate the area for a little while. Too bad the wilderness act doesn’t cover air space. Traversing the face back the way I came was about the same difficulty as the way up. Definitely required some concentration for the no fall zone. Checked out a small glacial spring on my hike back. The water was quite warm, and the floor was extremely slick, glad I didn’t get stuck in there. The slabs on the way down the ridge made travel enjoyable, as did the knobbier granite from 5800’ down to 5400’. But I felt old on the hike down as knee pain started to kick in (maybe too much fun on the slabs earlier). The winds aloft started picking up and thunder began to rumble in the last mile to the car. Gear Notes: Crampons, two tools would have been good Approach Notes: Be prepared for ice if going now/ late season

Ha I wonder if that bear is parked there, we saw one really close to the trail head on the 18th

Trip: Crescent Creek - Terror W ridge, wild hair crack, chopping black NE Trip Date: 07/15/2021 Trip Report: Went to the crescent creek area 7/15-18 with Alex. Shwack before terror creek is confusing at times but not exactly heinous. The creek crossing (ford) was easy for us. Trail on the other side is superb, possibly the steepest I’ve hiked, and very beautiful too. Not as enjoyable going down though. Once at the crest the path becomes ambiguous again. Didn’t have any trouble on the way up but somehow kept losing it on the way back. It took a while to reach the 6400’ notch and weather was coming in so we opted to just rest in the evening. We could see only the lower portions of the basin, and the going looked tough from afar. The spires were still a mystery at this point. Top priority for the trip was Wild Hair Crack, and Stoddard was 2nd. We needed two full days of good weather on days 2-3 to pull them both off. Waking to very low visibility on the morning of the 2nd day we called off Stoddard (next time) and planned to push wild hair to day3. We caught up on sleep for a while, finally getting going after noon towards the west ridge of terror as consolation, because the weather didn’t seem to be getting any worse. Traversing the basin ended up not being as bad as it looked. Took an hour to reach the base of the gully leading to Terror. Crux of the day was in the middle of the gully where a break in the snow forced a tenuous step down onto slabby choss and a few moves up from there before returning to snow. On the way back we chopped back snow to excavate an anchor at that spot. If I’m not mistaken the chockstone flexed when I tested it, but we rapped anyway. Poor visibility made it hard to find the start of the route but eventually we did one diagonal pitch from a notch to a slung rock. We unroped and scrambled from here in the mist. Some of the rock on the route is quite nice, more like the granite in the basin than the crap in the gully. Just as we were reaching the summit the cloud layer thinned out. I was remarking that this was glory weather and sure enough, a large white ring formed behind Terror. We got flashes of clear views to Fury and MacMillan. Saw our own halos for a minute then headed back. The climb was done to pass the time during poor weather, but a glory sighting took it to another level, validated the whole day. The weather finally cleared mid morning day3 and we were soon at the Otto Himmel col. The chockstone had fun looking moves on its right side, but probably 5th class so we kept it simple with ledges on the left a little ways below the stone. WHC did not disappoint. I mostly took small cams and they were mostly useless. The first good spot I noticed above the runout chimney is a thin horizontal crack, so some small pro helps. Other than that it seemed like most pro opportunities were in #2-3 range. The climbing was easy and solid enough that I was fine with long run outs. We relished the views up top, calling to the tiny figure over on the summit of Terror, our neighbor for a couple days. Descending with 60m rope worked fine, there are probably more anchors around now than in the past. On our last day we went to the NE side of chopping block, doing some exposed scrambling before roping up at a rap anchor. To my surprise I reached the summit in one 60m from there. This is another great vantage a place to mull over various traverse schemes deep in the backcountry. As we were packing up for the hike back, someone arrived at our spot. It was not his face but his lack of a backpack that helped me correctly guess his identity. Not a lot of people do day trips in the pickets. At least one who does has posted some insane reports here. My suspicion was confirmed and it was nice to meet and chat with dr dirtbag himself A dip in Terror creek and another in Goodell at the end of the trail helped wash away the grind of the descent, literally and metaphorically. Gear Notes: Axe and crampons for gullies Try to keep it light but mostly large in the cams Approach Notes: Useful gpx are out there

‘Bird’ Mtn looks nice, did you climb it from the south?

Yeah I think NCCC’s hyperbolic style is a bit dumb but their comments and others like Sierra Club’s are worth reading https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Public//ReadingRoom?Project=58218 I’m certainly no expert in these matters but it’s hard to picture how cutting big trees and constructing new “temporary” roads could be good for forest health. Seems like there’s a lot to take issue with, even with the less shitty alternative 2.

Awesome! This reminds me that I should try adding bad jokes into my repertoire instead of relying solely on tangled ropes.

It’s sketchy, go get it!

Love the shadows heading back to the notch

Yeah thought it was unlikely but I hadn’t seen one that color before, thanks for the info!