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Nick Sweeney

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Posts posted by Nick Sweeney

  1. Speaking out of sincere concern and well wishes:

     

    I am seriously worried about you and your friend living for very long. You are in your first year of climbing and mention multiple epics and serious injuries. On this climb, you used a bunch of single point rappel anchors.  There's other things you wrote that give me concern too, but I'll leave it at that for now.

     

    You seem to be making decisions like you are running out of time to climb... which you might be, if you don't start making more conservative decisions. If you slow your roll a bit, dial in the fundamentals, and make more conservative choices, you'll have a long climbing career and live to tell the tale. It would be a shame for a stoked climber like you to have (another) serious injury that takes you out of the game, or worse.

  2. 20 hours ago, Phil K said:

    Cool TR, that's a spectacular face.

    How was the road? Back around 2018 or '19 we drove that in my wife's Prius (Not my idea!), shortly after it had been regraded with dozens of water bars. I was sure we were going to get stuck and cause a huge Cluster F.

    The road was chill, we had more than a Prius but less than a truck. No issues!

  3. On 8/29/2023 at 8:18 PM, Matt_Alford said:

    Agreed on the 5.7 r rating on this one.  I took a 50 foot factor two fall on the second pitch about 25 years ago.  The tree in your first photo and a good belay kept me from much worse outcome.  

    God damn! I was so scared on the first pitch that I didn’t even notice the second one being badly protected, though it totally was in retrospect.

  4. 10 hours ago, robertm said:

    I agree with @JasonG -- great peak all the way around and probably my most frequented in the cascades.  I have climbed it many times from all directions.   S. face sort of scares me due to reputation and I still haven't done the NW Ridge which looks really good looking at it from N. Ridge.

    NW Ridge/Face/Buttress/Arete is as good as it gets. Truly one of the best all-around adventures you can have as a climber in the Cascades. Do it!

    • Rawk on! 1
  5. I had an incredible backpacking trip in the Selkirks earlier this month. Among other things, we climbed Twin Flakes on Harrison Peak.  The South Face Standard and Keystone routes get all the attention on this peak, but the locals agree that Twin Flakes is the best route up there. Check it out!

    Full trip report with photos: https://spokalpine.com/2023/07/25/harrison-peak-twin-flakes-ii-5-8/

     

     

    TR text:

    I had my first “vacation alpinism” trip of the season recently when Larissa and I backpacked up to Harrison Lake to climb some of that delicious Selkirks granite. Our first day was spent swimming, eating bread rolls, and questing up a few routes just above the lake. On July 2nd, we trekked over to Harrison Peak for Larissa’s first mountain climb: Twin Flakes!

    After a quick approach, I racked up and quested off onto the first pitch of Twin Flakes. Among hardcore Selkirks aficionados, this route has a reputation as the best route on Harrison Peak and I was excited to try it out! The typical Selkirks first pitch experience was in full effect: somewhat run out, ambiguous climbing is often required here to gain significant features. I found a comfortable belay and brought Larissa up.

    The second pitch is among the better alpine rock pitches that I’ve climbed in Idaho. Full commitment laybacking and stemming brought me up a perfect corner to a stance, before another interlude of attention-grabbing climbing. Excellent protection allowed me to enjoy the climbing and sunshine, despite some lichen-covered rock. This ain’t the Cascades… this route might only get climbed a time or two per year.

    The final pitch had some sweet face climbing before I found myself below the “rock cornice” mentioned in the Laird guidebook. Feeling the exposure, I traversed slightly right, placed two good cams under the overhang (safety first), and made a committing throw out right that allowed me to snag a secret hold and mantle onto a ledge. A few more meters of climbing brought me to the summit ridge.

    The walk off descent went quickly and brought us back to camp at the lake in time for a big dinner on the lake shore. The next day, we returned to Harrison Peak to repeat the South Face standard route [ Harrison Peak – South Face (II 5.7+) ]. The final pitch of the South Face is just as good as I remembered!

     

    Gear Notes:

    We brought doubles of .3-3, a single .2, and a set of nuts along with a single rope.

    Strategy Notes

    Harrison Peak is easily climbed car-to-car, but camping in this area is worth seeking out. The Beehive Five Traverse [ Beehive Five Traverse (III 5.4) ] is right in the neighborhood as well! We climbed one route per day on Harrison, but experienced teams could easily climb two or three in a day on this wall, stashing gear at the base of the Standard Route.

    • Like 1
  6. Trip: Cabinets Mountains/Ojibway Peak - SW Face Standard Route (III 5.7)

    Trip Date: 09/04/2021

    Trip Report:

     

    Listen up nerds, climbing in the Cascades is just too easy.  Good trails, tons of beta, and the routefinding decisions typically come down to "follow the clean rock" or "ascend the obvious gully."  Western Montana has some REAL adventure climbing.  Alright, I'm being somewhat facetious, but the Cabinets are RAD. It's incredibly rugged up there and the vertical relief is impressive.  Even a scramble route in this area is going to feel like a massive adventure.  Not that these peaks are super tall (the giants of the range are around 8000 feet) but the valleys are so deep that the scale is similar to that of larger, higher ranges. I finally made the trip and in case you haven't noticed, I'm PSYCHED and the trailheads for this range are only three hours from my front door. Anyone want to get back there for a big adventure in the next couple of weeks before the season closes? I have my eyes on a few things.

     

    Check out my TR for Ojibway on my site: SPOKALPINE

    Gear Notes:
    A single rack .2-3 works great for the standard route. 70m rope recommended but a 60m will do you just fine.

    Approach Notes:
    Easy, until it's not. But still easy...

    • Rawk on! 2
  7. Trip: Dragtontail Peak - Backbone Ridge

    Trip Date: 08/28/2021

    Trip Report:

    Had a great time on Backbone last weekend! Quality aventure route.  We did the rappel descent - not much beta out there for this, but they are easy to find following Blake's beta in Cascades Rock. Full report with photos: SPOKALPINE

    Gear Notes:
    Doubles to 2, single 3, 4, 6

    Approach Notes:
    Pooper at the South shore of the lake!!
    • Rawk on! 1
  8. 9 hours ago, jkh359 said:

    Yeah, I really don’t know! 5.8 is well within our limits and we were expecting at most 4 hours on the rock. I’m wondering if it was exhaustion, lack of food/water that was making us slow and indecisive.

    That makes sense. Good job sticking it out and getting down safely.

    • Like 1
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