Alisse

Upgrading my AT setup including boots! Anyone selling a new or like-new pair of ski boots for tech bindings, mondo size 24.5? Let me know, thank you! Alisse

I don't feel very motivated about writing this, but I told some guys we met on the way in that I'd write up something... Last weekend, Joe and I went to check out the Gerber Sink on Dragontail, but after talking with the two parties coming out and then seeing it in the evening, decided on Triple Couloirs. "Be prepared for long runouts.. good thing you brought pickets..." Yes. We brought pickets..screws...pins...rock gear. Heavy packs! Approach was pretty uneventful, stashed our road shoes and switched to our boots once the snow got deeper and more consistent, about 2 miles in from the gate. We speculated about when the road would open and what all the Enchantments permits holders would say! Walked across the frozen lake and camped on the south end in chilly yet calm conditions, good stars out! Lots of snow up there! Unconsolidated snow, seemed more like March than April. Unsupportable crust with 1.5-2'ish of powdery/sugary snow beneath. The direct trek up to the base of the route was ridiculous -- took us three times as long as we expected, post-holing our way up. We weren't stoked or fit enough to hurry on up the nearly unprotectable slog/wallow in deep snow and also feel good about the sunny forecast/avy conditions for the way down Aasgard. So we turned tail and hiked out. Ah well... it was a good fitness camping trip!

Still looking for a pair of collapsible backcountry ski poles. I don't care if they're beat up, as long as they won't collapse when I'm using them... BONUS points if one is a whippet. Also looking to upgrade my heavy axe with a PETZL SUMMIT or SUMMIT EVO, 52 cm. Thanks, Alisse

Bump... $50 OBO!

Craigslist ad

I've sent out some PMs to sellers, but thought I'd also post this. Anyone have a used pair they aren't using but are in decent shape? Looking for something like the Cassin X-All Mountain or BD Viper. Not looking for brand new or almost new prices! Thank you Alisse

We did not get it back. I'm pretty sure someone was exceptionally stoked to booty it. Fair 'nough!

Beautiful photos, great set of introductory sentences, and overall fun TR to read!

Trip: Cashmere Mountain - West Ridge Date: 7/10/2016 Trip Report: With a good chance of real precipitation, Andy and I decided to hike/scramble Cashmere Mountain off the 8-Mile Lake trailhead on Sunday. We went over Blewett Pass and as we rolled through Leavenworth, the rain was coming down onto puddled streets. However, when we got to the trailhead around 8:30am, there were only intermittent spitting drops. The hike in was pleasant and uneventful. Andy did it in Tevas and didn't put on boots until we reached the ridge. The trail is in good shape with a few spots of the brush encroaching on the trail, so we didn't get too wet. Beautiful area! It would be even more beautiful on a clearer day! As we gained elevation, up through burned forest, we got to experience some great wildflowers -- mostly lupine and indian paintbrush. Andy was extremely happy. FLOOOOWERSSS! The views on the ground made up for the lack of views out far away, as the clouds were very low... we had discussed taking the more direct variation off-trail on the south slope, but with probable low visibility, we decided we'd probably stick to the standard ridge walk. Once we got to the ridge, the wind picked up and we could see ..not much. Very low visibility! There were a few patches of fairly flat snow that were fine to cross without traction or getting out the axe. No issues with moats, etc. There is a pretty solid path and then several cairns (but not too many) and we found our way to the summit without much difficulty, around 1:00pm. Fun little scrambling bits and no views at all, totally socked in. We actually weren't completely sure that we were on the true summit until Andy spotted the USGS marker thingy. We couldn't find the summit register. On the way down, we somehow got down the wrong ridge/drainage and ended up on the northeast side of things, with some steep/stiff terrain behind us. I think that we came down on the north side of the west ridge (the route does come onto the north side for a bit), and then were turned around with the increasing visibility and kept going, crossing another ridge/drainage to the northeast. Instead of trying to get back over onto the southwest side of things, we decided to follow the drainage we were in (unnamed, east of Lake Victoria) toward the northeast, down to Icicle Creek, see if we could cross to the road or bushwhack along the creek to the bridge, and then walk or hitchhike back to the trailhead. I'll just say that the bushwhack down 5,000+ feet of elevation was fantastic, that I love slide alder, and I'm happy to report no puncture wounds. It was really beautiful to be there, with a much more wild feeling with no trails, finding our own way and not knowing if our route down would go. We wore our helmets the entire way FOR EXTRA SAFETY. When we finally got down to the Icicle, we opted not to risk fording it (we found some calmer but deeper sections that looked enticing) and continued bushwhacking and following goat/game trails all the way to the bridge. A very kind and badass group of three women who were going back to Car #1 after an Enchantments traverse gave us a ride to our car -- THANK YOU. Our car-to-car time was still under 12 hours, which we had seen in a few trip reports from people who descended the "right" way... My own lessons: - pay more attention on descents, particularly if the ascent is in very low visibility - make sure one's GPS device is charged...(I had my InReach but its battery was completely dead -- not sure how that happened) - (Obvious) make sure you have a quality map (I had taken pictures of the maps but they were not sufficient for route-finding -- we did have compasses though, and Andy's phone worked as a GPS) Approach: FLOOOWERS! Ridge: Scramble: Descent, as the weather improved.. A good day. Gear Notes: We brought crampons and axes but used neither. I wore approach shoes and they were fine for the snow.

Awesome! Good amount of detail, and it's great to read about thinking about risk assessment in a trip report.

I'll just throw in my two cents for another perspective -- my partner and I climbed the West Ridge and the Beckey Davis routes on Prusik last weekend. We felt fine going over Aasgard in approach shoes and a trekking pole. We also rapped with a single 60m rope and did the 15' of 4th class downclimbing then walking to the one of the stations, as Brian Maher mentioned. To avoid that, take the second rap station to skier's right on the first rap off the summit. After the raps, the snow was definitely steep but quite soft (and between our two climbs/two days, the melt was noticeable) and we used the static line to go skiier's left/west/back to the base of the west ridge route. The static line is wrapped and tied around a block on one side and it's knotted and jammed in a crack in a block on the other -- not bomber IMO. From there, my partner and I scrambled up and then were able to stay on rocks (2nd/3rd class) back to the base of the West Ridge route. The bit of snow traverse that we had to do was OK for us to do carefully -- we didn't feel that traction or poles/axes were necessary for us.

Thanks, both of you! And it was very ironic to see you at the beginning and end of our trip, telemarker! keenwesh, thanks! I definitely suspect that wailing on it would have done the trick; however, I wasn't in a position to get my hands on anything big/solid enough to hit it with... some time/light constraints prompted us to continue upward. Good to know, anyway!

Don't worry, we didn't get it stuck in the OW pitch....

17 hours car to car, that's awesome. I won't mention our times... For anyone reading this -- Joe and I climbed Dragontail via Backbone Ridge on Thursday, June 30th. It was his #6's maiden crack voyage, and it got stuck about halfway up the route. If you return it, you will be GENEROUSLY COMPENSATED and REWARDED! I know it's a long shot, but if you have it, please let me know. Thank you very very very much in advance.

Joe and I climbed Dragontail via Backbone Ridge on Thursday, June 30th. On its maiden crack voyage, his #6 got stuck about halfway up the route. If you return it, you will be GENEROUSLY COMPENSATED and REWARDED! I know it's a (very) long shot, but if you have it, please let me know. Thank you very very very much in advance.

Joe and I climbed Dragontail via Backbone Ridge on Thursday, June 30th. On its maiden crack voyage, his #6 got stuck about halfway up the route. If you return it, you will be GENEROUSLY COMPENSATED and REWARDED! I know it's a long shot, but if you have it, please let me know. Thank you very very very much in advance.

Awesome, Ilia!! Thank you for your detailed and useful trip report!

Awesome! Congrats!

I'll definitely be on rock at that time. I only have one picket, but if you want to borrow it, PM me

Awesome!! Thanks for the conditions updates!

anyoneeee?

Looking to add to my pile of stuff!: - CHEAP ski poles - LIGHT aluminum crampons (like CAMP USA XLCs?) - LIGHT aluminum ice axe (like CAMP Corsa Nanotech?) - CHEAP ice tools (like BD Cobras?) - CHEAP women's pants for rock climbing, medium/size 7ish. Thank you!

Thank you for this update! So you only had to carry your skis for 20 minutes?

Trip: Oregon Volcano Fest - Three Fingered Jack, Mount Washington, South Sister Dates: 5/28 - 5/30/2016 Trip Report: Check out a few of the key/useful/interesting photos from the climbs here: https://goo.gl/photos/PMaLJQpKZq5MKNKk7 (Look at the "info" for each photo for details) Over the Memorial Day weekend, a truly fantastic human being named Andy and I had our first-ever OREGON VOLCANO FEST. We climbed Three Fingered Jack, Mount Washington, and the South Sister. I think our times are probably average. Three Fingered Jack -- South Ridge Times: 7:15 am - Left trailhead/car 12:00 pm - At summit 4:30 pm - Back to TH There is already a plethora of beta/information on this route, but I'll add some personal touches: - On the route, remember to stay climber's left (west) and go up the scree-y ledges. There was still some rime ice and patchy snow, but all of the rock that we wanted to be snow-free was indeed clear. - The "crawl" section felt fine to us and we did not protect it. We did see one pin (down low) on the descent. - The shallow chimney crux is pretty short (I placed one cam and slung a horn) and easy; the rock looks absolutely terrible (more terrible than the rest of the route), but I found it to actually be pretty solid. - There are several rap stations with decent-looking webbing. There is one station at the top of the chimney, and there is also a station from the summit block. From the top of the chimney to the actual summit there is a bit of an exposed scramble on very terrible quality rock.. it sketched us out a bit to downclimb. So if you aren't up for that, I'd recommend just rapping from the summit block to the bottom of the chimney. - We saw only one other party, who was approaching as we were on our way out. Mount Washington -- North Ridge Times: 7:30 am - Left trailhead/car 1:30 am - At summit 6:00 pm - Back to TH - The climber's trail is marked very obviously with a giant cairn; right now, discontinuous snow starts a bit before it - There was some steepish/exposed snow we took on the ridge - Rock quality is ridiculously bad. Bring all your good luck charms on this climb. - After the first pitch, we traversed right around a corner and went up that way, which worked for us (I got a couple hand jams!!) - Andy signed the summit register -- first entries of the year, what? - Several rap stations with lots of OK-looking webbing and rings/quicklinks. - The NW bowl looks "AWESOME" for skiing right now, said Andy. - No other parties on route! Just some skiiers. South Sister Times are embarrassing so I'm not publicizing them. My fault, not Andy's! - We opted to carry our skis through the woods instead of trying to skin, I think it was the best choice (snow was icy and discontinuous + there are some steep steps) - Skiing was AWESOME, great snow! All in all, a fantastic holiday weekend!! Gear Notes: For Three Fingered Jack and Mt Washington: Cams- .75, 1, 2 [only used 3 cam placements total] A few larger nuts [never used] 3 single, 3 double slings [most useful] 1x60m twin-half rope [necessary] 1 picket [never used] Crampons, axe Approach Notes: We found that for these three climbs, the snow level was around 5,200'.

I think this would be better in the "Climbing News" section -- more people will see it, too, and maybe learn something? I hope the climber is OK and makes a full recovery! I'm still confused how the lowering could have begun and then slack was introduced into the system, the climber must not have been fully weighting the rope at the beginning of being lowered? Maybe it wouldn't have helped, but it seems like it probably would have, to have been using a GriGri...? (I wasn't there and don't entirely understand what happened though, so it's just a guess!)