Nathan Hadley

Yeah I know!! I had the whole post with additional beta photos ready to go on CC.com! I did try the work around but for some reason it still wasn't working. Eventually is was feeling like a time suck so I bailed. Sorry again for the lame redirect...

Trip: Dolomite Tower (Mt. Baring) - Vanishing Point (VI 5.12b) Date: 9/22/2017 Trip Report: Sorry, I tried and I tried to get everything posted here, but posting TRs on CC.com is a little glitchy right now. So for now, I'll direct you to my site: Vanishing Point TR Gear Notes: Singles from tips to #2, doubles .3-.5, and 16 QDs.

Trip: Chair Peak - NE Buttress Date: 1/31/2017 Trip Report: The NE Buttress is in pretty good condition right now. Great ice in the S-shaped gully and great water ice up higher. Travis Kemp and I did it in 2 pitches, putting a micro traxion in after each crux (1st pitch gully and water ice step) and simuling, enabling us to climb it in just over an hour and still very safely. There's lots of beta out there for this route, so here's some photos! Three ice screws and a few cams from fingers to #1 is all I'd bring if you're comfortable on steepish snow. Trees were probably a third of our protection on the route. Looking up the S-shaped gully. Looking down from the start of S-shaped gully. Looking up towards the water ice step. Looking down the water ice step. Descending from the summit. On the summit.

Trip: Snoqualmie Mountain - New York Gully Date: 1/23/2017 Trip Report: [Photos can be viewed on my site.] New York Gully has been one of the main objectives on the winter ticklist for us. It was potentially the perfect route with serious and interesting climbing to do in good time Seattle-to-Seattle. We were a little too eager to climb it this season. Excited from the early cold temperatures in December, we climbed the first pitch of the direct variation, but decided to bail due to slow, precarious movement on a route not in condition. After a very busy holiday season, we were finally able to attempt it again last Friday, the fateful inaugural day, which was declared by him we shall not name, "National Day of Patriotic Devotion." I'm not sure we had our priorities straight that day. We made it to Snoqualmie Pass and found that freezing rain and wind had obliterated the area. No one had been up there for days. All the lifts were closed. We started putting in a skin track through 5ish inches of heavy snow sitting on a layer of ice. The ice was causing us slide around everywhere. We were moving incredibly slow. Too slow. And it wasn't fun. We bailed after not making it up even a quarter of the approach. Third time's the charm, right? We decided to go for it again just a few days later, on Monday, January 23rd. Travis was at my house at 7:15am after dropping his two-year-old, Sawyer, off at their nanny's. Being the main caretaker of a toddler while his wife finishes up her residency is wearing on Travis a little, to say the least, and making it difficult for him to get into the mountains as often as he'd life. But we were thankful that he has a great nanny who will take his son as early as 7am. No alpine start, which means we needed to move efficiently. We were at the Alpental parking lot at around 8am and found slightly better snow conditions and a skin track. Things were looking a lot better for us. We left the truck at about 8:15, skinned up a couple thousand feet of elevation, making it to the ridge over-looking the intimidating north face of Snoqualmie Mountain at about 10am. We ditched our skis and descend down below the face and then slogged up to the base of the exposed snow ramps that marked the beginning of the route. When I pulled out my crampons, I realized I had grabbed my wife's set and that the straps were cut too short to fit over my ski boots. I threaded the strap through the toe and immediately back to the buckle, leaving the other side of the heel loose. Amazingly, the lip on the heel of the boot was enough to keep it secure. I led the easy first pitch, probably 50-60 meters, placing one cam. Travis led the second pitch, a traverse to the left with an occasional short steep step, bringing us to a belay off a dead tree at the base of the main bit of the route--a steep rightward leaning ramp. Because I am new to this kind of climbing, Travis took off again. He made quick progress, finding decent protection and several fixed pins. Around 40 meters up, on a steeper step, his pick and front points blew at the same time and his body silently fell backward. The rope started pulling though my belay device. I grab it, brake it, and get pulled into the snow in front of me. "Are you alright?" I yell up to him. I think I hear a "yes," as Travis slowly gets back up and starts to climb again. An old pin held his fall--his first alpine fall, a fall many people never take. The climbing on the third pitch was steep and interesting, involving all kinds of frozen stuff to poke, and a bit of rock grabbing as well. Travis again took the fourth pitch as the ramp continued rightward up one last steep section to easy climbing taking us to the base of the route's crux pitch, "the 5.8 crack." That doesn't sound intimidating, but climbing a crack covered in snow and ice while wearing ski boots isn't easy. I took this pitch, so I wouldn't feel like a total wimp, pulling on a couple pieces and then tiptoeing above small cams in icy cracks to the top of the route. Travis followed by free climbing the pitch, saying it was "actually kinda hard." We exchanged high-fives, happy that we finally got to climb the route. We unroped and carefully walked off to the right and descended back down to our skis. We descended in some of the worst snow conditions imaginably, possibly the crux of the whole day for me, a terribly skier. We made it back to the truck at around 4:30pm, just over 8 hours car-to-car. With a Seattle-to-Seattle time of around 10 hours, we are psyched to have such a high quality mixed winter route so close to home. Rack: tips to 2, stoppers, kbs, one ice screw, one spectre! Conditions: not amazing, but good enough to stay safe and have fun!

There's one bad section with maybe 5 biggish alders and a couple smaller sections with 1 or 2. My memory might be a bit off though.

I was there last weekend and it's definitely dry enough! I'm sure it'll be fine this weekend. It's likely that fallen trees are still guarding the approach road, so expect to hike an extra mile. I just wrote a conditions report... http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1148008#Post1148008

Trip: Darrington - Exfoliation Dome/Three O'Clock Rock Date: 4/9/2016 Trip Report: Just a quick conditions report... Two weeks ago (4/3), my wife and I climbed the first 6 pitches of Total Soul at 3 O'Clock Rock. The top two 5.8 pitches were still very wet, so we rapped. Most, if not all, of Silent Running is dry from what I could tell. The first pitch on Total Soul is a easy boot pack up snow. The approach to 3 O'Clock Rock is very easy...probably only a 30 min hike. Last week (4/9), my wife and I went out for another Darrington slab adventure, this time to Exfoliation Dome. The road to the trailhead is blocked a mile out by fallen trees, so we pulled into a small pullout and hiked it. Starting up the correct "granite sidewalk" is tricky. There's kinda two. I have friends who started up the wrong one, had a mini epic, and didn't end up climbing anything. The true granite sidewalk is the second one that you come to hiking the road. Both start in a rocky creek bed. There is a pretty obvious pullout just beyond the correct creek bed. I constructed a cairn by the start of a very faint climber's trail. Proceed to hiked up the creek bed, and carefully scramble up slabs, zigzagging around steep areas. At one point you climb up a tree to gain a ledge on the left side. I quickly constructed a handful cairns that should help the sometimes tricky navigation of the creek. Expect to scramble a bit. Nothing crazy though. After 25 or so minutes, the granite sidewalk begins, and then just slog up to the base of the obvious buttress, where there is a tree and some nice seats. The West Buttress and Dark Rhythm routes start about there. We climbed Dark Rhythm, starting a bit too far to the right, but joining in above the first pitch anchors. We didn't realize this till later, but we effectively skipped the first pitch and climbed straight into the second pitch anchors. I had to do a kinda awkward traverse down low, but it wasn't bad. So if you want to find the true start, go directly left from the tree to find the first bolts. I went straight up from the tree and then jogged left after 20-25m. The whole route is dry except for the very easy final pitch, which is still climbable. You'll just get your rope a bit wet. The third pitch has some nasty flakes, that will catch your rope on the rappel--move over to the West Buttress route and rap the last two pitches there if you want to ensure an uneventful descent. Approach time was between 1.5-2 hours. Descent from the base of the route was about 1.5 hours. Still not bad even with the extra mile on the road. If someone wants to do some community service, bring a chainsaw...probably wouldn't take more than an hour--the time it would take to hike that section there and back. Was a beautiful day. The setting on Exfoliation Dome is definitely more dramatic than 3 O'Clock Rock.