Hans Travis

Hey y'all, I was participating in one of the recent AMGA courses that went up there. I think this area probably fits better with these kinds of courses and recreational parties better than guiding for the general public, but at least alerting the forest service to the increased use seems like a great idea. As word gets out that the trail into the area involves no bushwhacking its just going to take off more and more. My group was responsible for the handful of piton anchors on the northeast face of Little Sister and some updated/adjusted stations on the Green Creek Arete. No idea who put the bolts in, and I know some other AMGA courses have been going up there as well but I have a hard time imagining they would have hauled a bolt kit in.

Quarks are sold.

Clearing out some random gear. Happy to meet in Seattle, Bellingham, or anywhere in between. Will respond fastest by text at twoO6 7one5 1nine2six, let me know if you're interested or have questions! Two Petzl Quarks, one previous generation and one current generation - $240 for the pair. Only moderately used, still have original picks with plenty of life left. I have the trigrests around but just need to find them. Black Diamond Mission 45 pack - $80. Moderately used. Awesome pack but I'm adjusting my pack quiver and need something bigger for guided trips. It has a ton of space for a 45 liter pack. La Sportiva Aequilibrium LT GTX (43) - $200. Used once, don't work well with my feet. Seems like an awesome summer Cascades boot otherwise. Petzl Vasak front sections - $30 Mountain Equipment Magik shells pants (small) - $200. Never used. Marmot shell jacket (medium) - $40. Lightweight no frills rain jacket. REI Half Dome 2+ tent - $80. This has seen plenty of love but could certainly still make a good spacious backpacking or mountaineering tent. Has a hole burned in one door from a stove that could easily be patched.

Snow free besides one patch until a mile up, then consistent snow the rest of the way as of yesterday. A few strong dudes with tacoma, chains and a chainsaw could probably drive to the end with half a days work.

Its a good story to be sure. One worthy of a cc trip report dare I say.

I got this tent two years ago when I was mostly backpacking and have since transitioned to more alpine climbing where it doesn't make much sense as a shelter. I only ended up using it about five nights, so its in great condition. Its a great little tent, using two adjustable trekking poles to set up and weighing just a hair over two pounds. Perfect for fast summer backpacks in the cascades. It is a single wall design and as is typical can get some condensation in damp air, but has decent ventilation and is roomy enough for two people that your sleeping bags won't touch the sides and get wet. They run $265 new, asking for $180 OBO. I go to school in Bellingham and am from Seattle, and could meet up to an hour in any direction from either. Link to info from the Tarptent website: https://www.tarptent.com/product/motrail/

Interested in the tlt6s. Sent you a message

I had thought about doing this on and off for a while but never really got around to it. Glad to hear someone more ambitious than me came up with the idea!

This was one of the funnier TRs I've read recently. Your suffering is my entertainment, many thanks!

Lexington and Concord both seem to make more sense going north to south, as there are straightforward rap stations on their south faces. When I did it, we started with the Beckey Route, climbed routes on the two north faces, then did the chockstone route on NEWS and finished with the south arete on SEWS. What would probably be the best true traverse but also a much bigger day would be the NW face of liberty bell, the two north face routes, northwest corner on NEWS, rap the chockstone route, and finally up the southwest rib and down the soiuth arete of SEWS. You can't read the whole thing unless youre a member, but the supertopo page has some great beta. The useful stuff is about rapping off of lexington and concord which is before it gets cut off.

I always wrap the strap around my boot twice and then the extra is just enough to tuck under the boot lace. I would imagine if it is much longer than that you could trim it and melt the edge so it doesn't fray. Still plenty long if you needed to put them on larger boots or anything.

That first picture is amazing!

I just looked in the Beckey guide and it just has the southwest route

Hi everyone! I'm 18 and just started at Western in B-ham, and I don't have much in the way of experienced partners up here. This is pretty long and haphazard, so, TLDR it would be amazing if someone were willing to mentor me on winter and alpine climbing, and maybe drag me on a few adventures. I'll give a little background to my climbing and outdoor experience up to the present. I also want to say that where I am is really the result of an insane amount of good luck and amazing opportunity that has been presented to me, and in no way mean to spray about what I have done. I have never really written down the progression of my climbing, so here it is, as well as where I want to go next. I started out doing weekly classes at Vertical World Seattle when I was 5, and kept it mostly at that for the next 10 years. I started going on yearly week long trips down to Smith Rock with the gym in middle school, and thats where I got really hooked. Thats when I knew I wanted to be a climber, and also where I found a deep love for the big, beautiful, awe inspiring landscapes of mountains and deserts. By the time I was 15, the trips to Smith were the absolute highlight of my year, I had watched most of the climbing videos I could find on youtube, and started spending a two or three days a week in the gym, and that summer got hired as an instructor at VW. That same summer, on a trip to Mazama, my long time instructor taught us the basics of gear placement, and the following fall I convinced my parents to drive me and a friend to the crag a couple times, armed with a set of TCUs and a set of nuts that my dad had bought and then used once to climb the Tooth. The next summer marked my first trips to Index and Leavenworth, getting rides from the parents of the only kid at the gym I'd met who seemed to be as psyched on placing gear as I was. We started with stuff like Classic Crack in Leavy and Aries and the GNS at Index, and just worked up through 8s, 9s, and low 10s. Early in the summer I knocked off the Tooth, which was the first time I used an ice axe, and then later climbed Outer Space. Right from the beginning, climbing was about more than just the act of moving over rock, it was about being in the mountains and interacting with the landscape in a way that not many people get to, and climbing things that inspire me. That fall I took my first real whip onto gear off the top of Slow Children. At this point, I was climbing V8 boulder and mid 12s on lead at VW, but took it slow working through the grades at Index without much expectations, and just slowly learned and fell in love with the style of Index. Another year of mostly hitching rides with the same friend, and he started to get more busy, but I also finally got my driver's license. I had finally done a bit of harder sport climbing and bouldering outside, as well as continued to build my technique on Index slab. My send of Iron Horse was when a lot just clicked together, and I really started feeling like I had managed to achieve some degree of mastery, and got a lot more confident about trying harder and harder climbs on the sharp end. Moving over rock had never flowed so easily, and had never felt so good. Last fall I started climbing with a lot more partners, and ever since then I have fallen more and more in love with the climbing community as a whole, and getting to share awesome experiences with amazing people. The last year I've managed to climb something like 95 days outside, and plenty more in the gym, and I've spent a total of about 50 days at Index up to this point. So, I am at a point in my climbing where I have gotten very comfortable on technical rock and enjoy all of the disciplines a lot, but big, awe inspiring mountains have always drawn me in a different way than climbing rock does. I will always love climbing on rock, but I want to expand my horizons and continue learning and pushing myself towards harder, more distant summits. I see stories and pictures and videos of the alpine side of the Cascades, the Canadian Rockies, the Alaska ranges, Patagonia, and elsewhere, and boy oh boy do I just want to go be in those mountains. I kind of decided recently that a long term life goal of mine is to climb the Cassin Ridge, whether thats in two years or 20. But I've got a lot of learning to do and experience to gain before that. My experience in the alpine has been mostly on rock climbs like the East Ridge of Forbidden, Acid Baby on Aasgard Sentinel, the full Liberty Traverse at Washington Pass, and Thin Red Line on Liberty Bell. I have quite a bit of hiking and backpacking experience including some 25+ mile days. I have done a few mellower snow climbs, the Cascadian Couloir and the South Spur on Adams, along with soke approaches involving a bit of snow. And I've been skiing for long enough to have decent cold weather layering knowledge and to know how awesome snow covered mountains look. So there you have it. I am always beyond stoked to go be in the mountains, and taking things more alpine seems like the next step. Up until here, I have figured a lot of things out on my own, but avalanches, bad weather, cravasses, and moving quickly through all the terrain that alpine and winter climbing will throw at you are things that I certainly have no intent to jump into without someone to show me the way. I would love to go out ice climbing and tackle some winter objectives with someone that knows what they are doing. I can generally take care of myself, I learn fast, and can carry my own weight, so let me know if you want to drag some fresh meat along for some adventurous winter sufferfests or big alpine objectives. I know a lot of you on here have a wealth of knowledge, experience, and stories you could pass on, and it would mean the world to me if any of you were willing to do that. If you have made it this far, thanks for reading and I hope to see you out there! - Tavish

I mean who else doesn't stare longingly at pictures of mountains when its raining and there's nothing else to do..? Anyways, I've been staring at pictures of Whitehorse, and it seems like it could have a ton of room for long rock routes, and even if the rock is total crap, longer harder winter routes than the standard ones on the west, southwest, and east faces of it. There are some pretty proud looking lines, and the view you get of it from a long stretch of I5 is nothing short of inspiring. The approach to the south and east faces looks like no joke, but that doesn't usually seem to stop the harder few out there. Anyone know of a history of harder climbing on Whitehorse? Or what the rock up there is like?

Alright guys and girls, I have two and a half weeks before I get stuck in a shoebox sized dorm room for the rest of the year, and I want to try to make the most of that. So, I have lots of gear, lots of stoke, a million wishlist destinations for an epic climbing roadtrip, and lots of gas money. But what I dont have is a car or a partner. I enjoy easy, relaxed alpine romps to projecting 5.12 trad and sport, and everything in between. I've got from this Friday (the 7th) until Wednesday the 19th, which could mean 13 epic days of adventures and good times, wherever we decide the winds will take us. Is anyone down? Alternatively, if you are driving from the Seattle area down to Smith or Bend any time in the next week or so and have an extra seat, I'd happily pay a big chunk of the gas money in exchange for a ride.

I'll take all three of them. Ill PM you a phone number.

Dang, no responses on the fastest Bulger C2C. That would make for some cool friendly competition.

@bedellympian I was bored on a hot day and hiked up to the base with a big zoom lens, and there were no remnants of any kind that I could see. It is fairly solid looking granite though, besides the huge scar.

For location reference, that's the Index General Store in the second picture.

Nobody has said anything about Vesper! Vesper Peak is without a doubt my favorite hike in the Cascades, and it blows my mind how little known it is compared to a lot of other hikes (not that I'm complaining). It is fairly short considering how high you get (7.5 miles round trip), and the hike has very distinct sections so it is really just never boring. And man, it is so beautiful! Only a mile and a half from the trailhead you are already in a huge, beautiful alpine basin. There is about 400 feet of ridiculously solid and just pure fun granite slab scrambling to the top, and there is a gorgeous campsite right before you start the scramble if you wanted to do it as an overnight. You could probably keep this as low as class 2 if you really tried, but it is such solid, amazing rock that I was zigzagging all over little knob studded low fifth class steps just to make things fun. It is shorter than anything I would do as an overnight, but its really not to be missed.

A friend dropped a women's Tiva sandal between Cosho Camp and Junction Camp on the Fisher Creek trail (between Easy Pass and Thunder Creek in the North) Cascades. Turquoise and pink retro pattern on the straps. We were backpacking but saw some people on their way in to Logan so I thought I'd post here.

It will definitely be really hot. Night bouldering would probably be the way to go if you want to send anything. Highs easily in the 80s and 90s, and generally a few degrees cooler if you go further up the Icicle. I was there two weekends ago and was greasing off of all the V3s I could find in humid 75-80 degree weather, which was a slap in the face after sending V8s all winter... It is definitely more climbable if the weather is hot but dry which is more likely but it can get pretty humid sometimes too. Leavenworth Mountain Sports is where people rent pads from, and I think its pretty affordable.

Start world war three, end it with nuclear holocaust, no more crowding on the trails, and no more government that funds military instead of conservation! Seems flawless

Seriously, the shit we could do if we dropped a few less bombs...