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Dinonuggetz

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Posts posted by Dinonuggetz

  1. -Road is clear to TH

    -Snow starts when the forest opens up at the last creek crossing

    -Glacier walking to gain the N Ridge had a few crevasses crossed on bridges

    -40° nevee to gain the Ridge with minor rockfall hazard, wear your helmet!

    -Ice cliff surmounted in 1 70meter pitch. Took screws well.

    -Steep nevee above the ice cliff afforded 1 screw for a few hundred feet of climbing (we didn't take pickets)

    -Crossed 2 crevasses to gain the summit. Skirted the first on the right, second crossed via bridge

    -walked to the true summit then descended via the standard route, W-SW towards the Roman Wall. Aiming for the Col before Colfax. Dropped over to the N side and then plunge stepped back to the trail.

  2. Third time trying this now ha! Use paint it works!

    -Road is clear to TH

    -Snow starts when forest opens up at the last creek crossing

    -Glacier walking to gain the N Ridge had a few crevasses crossed on bridges

    -40° nevee to gain the Ridge with minor rockfall, wear your helmet!

    -Ice cliff surmounted in 1 70meter pitch. Took screws well.

    -Steep nevee above the ice cliff afforded 1 screw for a few hundred feet of climbing (didn't take pickets)

    -Crossed 2 crevasses to gain the summit. Skirted the first on the right, second crossed with bridge

    - Walked to the true summit then descended via the standard route, W-SW towards Roman Wall. Towards the Col before Colfax Peak. Dropped over to the N side and then plunge stepped back to the trail

     

  3. Trip: Mount Hood - South Side Snowboarding

     

    Date: 1/11/2016

     

    Trip Report:

    A vicious arctic wind battered us the whole way on our first attempt at the summit on Saturday. On our way up the left side of our bodies had been completely frosted in ice. It was miserable. Cam, Don and I made it to the top of the Palmer Lift before deciding to turn around. We skied as best we could back down to the lodge. It is quite hard to stay upright when you don't have a sense of where you are or if you are even moving. All 3 of us fell more times then either of us could count. I tried to take a picture from the Lift Station but as soon as I took out my camera it became coated in ice.

     

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    The next morning we awoke from our comfortable car chair beds and took off after some hot drinks. The wind was calm but the mercury was a little low for my liking. The sun crested the horizon and warmed us up. We made it to the top of the Palmer Lift station by 8am. Just a little over two hours. We took a short break and continued up towards the Triangle Moraine and eventually the Hogsback.

     

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    At the Hogsback Saddle we dropped our harnesses, rope and pickets off. We brought them just for the fun of carrying more weight... "Nothing like taking the gear for a nice scenic walk". Here we strapped on our crampons and equipped our ax's. We chose to venture up the Old Chute seeing as how the Pearly Gates was beyond full with 10+ climbers. We wrapped around and arrived at the chute. We were going up along with another party of 3. While many others were descending... This made for plenty of ice-fall and the fear of having someone tumble down and take everyone else out. It was quite the traffic jam. I stashed my board at the base of the Chute and scurried up to the summit. Cam and Don joined me shortly after. We took a few photos and began our descent.

     

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    We down-climbed to the base of the Chute and I got strapped in. I snowplowed down the boot-path until I reached the open face above the Hogsback. I put in some turns and stopped back at the saddle. Here I waited for Don and Cam to rejoin me. As they arrived we repacked our gear we had stashed and we strapped on our boards and Don donned his skis. See what I did there? Anyways from here on down it was an amazing ski back down to the lodge. Just avoid the fumarole on the left and you've got it made. The run seemed endless. Fresh low angled powder for thousands of feet! PARTY RUN!!! We made it back down to the car and headed back to Washington.

     

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    Gear Notes:

    Boots and Socks are a good choice for this one.

     

    Approach Notes:

    Follow the Boot Path to the top

  4. Trip: Dragontail Peak Das Nordwand - Backbone Ridge

     

    Date: 9/27/2015

     

    Trip Report:

    Bryce ran out of partners in his contact list, so he got a hold of me this last weekend and told me he wanted to do Backbone Ridge. I suggested Castle Rock or some pebbling instead. So we compromised and woke at 3am and started trudging towards Colchuck Lake at 4:15. We arrived at the base of the route in 3 hours just as the sun started to shine.

     

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    We soloed the broken 4th class up to the first real pitch which lead to a nice belay ledge with a solid tree anchor. We then bumped the belay up to the base of the OW. Bryce was happy to take this pitch. I feel about halfway up he had some regrets. He clipped his pack off just as things started to really get awkward. After a few grunts and a whole lot of hard work he was bringing me up on belay. We hauled packs halfway through the pitch.

     

    1st pitch 5.6

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    Bryce halfway through the offwidth where he slung his pack to a chockstone.

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    After the OW you get to pick a series of crack systems in order to get yourself to the base of the fin. 3 or 4 pitches brought us to the large right leaning ramp. Nothing harder than 5.8.

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    The Fin

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    Bryce fired off the first 2 pitches of The Fin. And I got the last 2 pitches. These were the 4 best pitches on the route. Perfect hand and finger jams the whole way and just as things seem to be getting harder a new crack system appears. The Fin is a little dirty but the lichen has been cleaned just enough to have good feet.

     

    Bryce pitch 1 The Fin

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    The perfect layback corner on the top of pitch 1 The Fin

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    Pitch 3 The Fin

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    Hanging Belay Pitch 3

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    To top out we scrambled up a loose gully and then started to walk off. We got to the the glacier and quickly realized that there was no way we could get down safely since we did not bring crampons or an ax. The glacier has no snow left on it and is just bare ice. We slid down into the bowl to check it out anyways but quickly turned around and had to do some easy 5.5 splitter ice crack climbing to get back up onto the plateau. We decided to traverse to the southeast and look to see if any of the gullies would go. We ended up having to go all the way to the end of the plateau in order to start descending loose slopes. A rappel then led us to Isolation Lake where we then headed back to Aasgard Pass and started our long knee bashing descent. We were back to the car at 9pm and made it out in time to reward ourselves with some well earned Mcdonalds.

     

    The edge of the plateau where we finally were able to start descending to the rappel above Isolation Lake.

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    Snow Creek Glaciers. Quite impossible without crampons.

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    The start of good ol Aasgard pass, probably every ones favorite part.

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    The Larches are beautiful right now up there.

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    Gear Notes:

    Medium rack to 2"

    1 #3, #5, #6

    Ice ax

    Crampons

  5. Trip: Aasgard Pass - Acid Baby

     

    Date: 6/15/2015

     

    Trip Report:

    It was the last weekend to camp up in the Enchantments without a permit. So Adam and I decided to camp at Colchuck Lake and have Vern meet us at the lake the next morning. On Saturday we climbed Acid Baby on Aasgard Pass. Every pitch was stellar, with great jams, fun stemming, some liebacking and even some slab all capped by a wild and exposed ridge traverse. The descent was one of the most pleasant descents I've encountered. We spent a little under 6 hours on route. If you haven't checked this one out yet I'd recommend it. See pictures if not convinced :P

     

    View of the route from Aasgard. Ridge Traverse pitch is the comb-like feature on the skyline.

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    Vern leading the start of the Ridge Traverse

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    Adam on one of the sweet spots of the Ridge

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    Myself on the Ridge

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    Topout view

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    Casual sandy descent

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    On a side note, we couldn't believe the amount of people up there this weekend! At one point Vern counted 60+ people slogging up Aasgard. As we watched throughout the day I estimate at least 200+ people made the hike up over Aasgard to camp in the Enchantment zone. Every site at Colchuck Lake was taken. The boulder field was also clogged with tents as well as people camping right on the Lake shore. There is obviously good reason for the permit season in this area. As we got out there were cars lined up all the way from the Stuart Lake trailhead for a mile down the road. Need some no parking signs?? Anyways.... hope you are all getting out and having fun!

     

    Gear Notes:

    Doubles to 3" and 1 #4

    Small selection of nuts

     

    Approach Notes:

    Colchuck Lake Trail, 3/4 up Aasgard on the left.

  6. Bailing crossed our minds at one point but by the time we hit the deep snow we had a few hundred feet to top out. Descending most of the route with 1 rope didn't seem like a good option. Also the deep snow did not continue the whole rest of the route. It was from the start of the upper cirque until the bergshcrund if I recall correctly. So we had about 2 rope lengths of fairly flat wallowing on the base of the cirque. What I would do differently in the future? I am always packing a space blanket from now on. Also I think I will look for bigger weather windows. The one on Saturday was small but It looked decent enough to give it a shot. Doing the route as a 2 day trip would also be much more enjoyable :D. We did not summit, we just got the hell outa there.

  7. Trip: Mount Stuart - The Ice Cliff Glacier a Long Open Bivy

     

    Date: 4/25/2015

     

    Trip Report:

    Colton and I set off from the trail-head at 3am. 6 hours late we arrived at the base of the moraine. It had taken a lot longer then we had expected. Hmm, no big deal we still have plenty of time its only 9. We continued on and approached the ice cliff. We took the left hand side. The pitches consisted of amazing nevee with areas of fat blue ice. Protection was good and the climbing was truly alpine in flavor. The last pitch of the icefall was a true gem. I left the belay traversed to the left and started to climb upwards, the ice steepened and I ended up stemming and eventually chimneying up this last section of ice. It was amazing! After pulling off the ice chimney the top kept me focused with a hearty runout on good nevee.

     

    We had arrived in the upper cirque, had some snacks, a drink of water and plodded out onto the glacier. At this time the wind picked up and we were getting some light snowdrift. We headed right towards the bergschrund. And this is about the time it really got awkward. The snow had went from ankle deep to a full on wallow fest. Colton was battling for several minutes to gain 10 feet of progress. The snow was now up to our shoulders, but we just kept on moving. We stumbled across 4 other crevasses before reaching the schrund. We crossed all these obstacles via snow bridges. During this time the wind had turned into a fierce gale that cut right through our layers. We could see the the top of the route and the gargantuan cornice we would have to surmount. We just kept going... the closer to the ridge we got the nastier the weather got. 200 feet from the cornice I deemed it not safe to climb anymore. I couldn't see from not only the snowdrift, but my eyes were also becoming frozen shut during the strong gusts. I downclimbed to little nook that was more sheltered then other spots.

     

    I brought Colton up to me and told him there was no way we were gonna make it up over that cornice in this shit. He agreed. This is the point where we knew we had one hell of a night ahead of us. We already freezing but we had to start working on our snow cave. "Wish I would have brought my shovel this trip", I said, as we started chopping away with our ice adzes. 2 hours into construction we deemed it good enough to sleep in. The weather was relentless the whole time. Half frozen, we stuffed our rope into a plastic bag and 2 of our extra layers in another for a mattress and pillow combo. We took off our crampons and crawled into the 5 foot deep cave. We put our bags in front of the entrance and settled in for the long night ahead. At this point I was beyond thirsty but drinking in this small cave spilled more water on my clothes then I got in my mouth. Comfort and warmth were at an all time low. We had no room to adjust to get comfy and we both kept cramping throughout the night. We shivered for 10 hours as we waited for the shroud of night to be pierced by the sun.

     

    "Hey it's light outside, hey come on, get up". At first I didn't believe it. But sure enough there was light shining in through the cracks of our packs. What a night! Nature woke us with the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. Maybe because I was so ready to be warm. We packed up as fast as we could and headed for the cornice. I lead up the left side on some mixed ground getting some solid cams in before I took on the cornice. Some chimney technique followed by some high feet lieback maneuvers and finally I could swing my tools up over the top. I set the belay and brought Colton up and called my girlfriend and told her to pick us up at Esmeralda Trailhead. There was no way we were making it down the Sherpa Glacier descent in our condition. I told her 5 hours we would be down the Cascadian and up and over Longs pass. HA! 10 hrs later we arrived at the parking lot and no cars were present... we walked the road for half a mile and then there she was! We were saved! She served us up some hot soup and coffee. Much needed. Finally we could go home. This is one Colton and I will remember forever of that I am sure.

     

     

    Heading up to the base of the Ice Cliff

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    Top of the 1st Pitch

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    2nd Pitch

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    Top of the Ice Cliff

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    Our Bivy Spot

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    Gear Notes:

    4 screws, 5 cams (.1 .2 .5 .75 1 BD), 2 pickets, 2 pitons

     

    Approach Notes:

    Follow the Stuart Lake Trail until the first switchback and head off left and cross the creek. Follow the climbers trail up into the valley below the ice cliff glacier.

  8. Trip: The Dragonslayers - Dragontail Peak Triple Couloirs

     

    Date: 3/2/2015

     

    Trip Report:

    Sunday morning Kyle Flick and I slayed the Dragon along with at least 3 other parties.

     

    Conditions were great. The runnels were in good shape. The Couloirs were all caked with new snow, making upward progress difficult. We simul-climbed the 1st and 2nd couloirs, and we had 2 pitches in the runnels with a little bit of simulling. We also belayed the transition of the 2nd to 3rd couloir which had a little bit of easy mixed climbing. We then soloed the 3rd couloir to the top and then plunge stepped our way down to the lake in knee deep snow. We spent approx 8hrs on the route.

     

     

    Approaching the Runnels in the 1st Couloir. The strong party already climbing the 1st pitch.

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    Ecstatic to finally be in the sun. Super chilly on the north side.

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    Big wind slab on the decent.

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    Kyle on the summit!

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    We took the right side to enter the hidden couloir. Ice turned into a long section of Neve.

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    View from camp

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    It took me around 5 hours to make it to the lake Saturday night. We woke at 2:00 and broke trail to the base until we were passed by a strong party midway through the first couloir. We summited around 1 o'clock and I made it back to my car at 20:00. It took 23 hours to slay the beast.

     

    Gear Notes:

    We took 5 screws (2 stubbies)

    4 cams, (.4,.75,1) and a purple link cam

    2 pickets

     

    Approach Notes:

    The trail was in good shape. I went in with just my boots no spikes. The fresh snow made the approach easy. I'm sure the trail will become icy again soon so I would recommend some kind of traction to get in.

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