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Posts posted by kmfoerster
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I will say that the toebox on the tx guides is very narrow, go figure with sportiva
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I like my La Sportiva tx guides if I need an approach shoe. Or I just use one of my eight pairs of old trail runners.
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I know of a fun ride that circumnavs White Chuck. Lots o' big cedars.
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Im going to start a petition to get Jason to publish a coffee table book.
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I think the views on the way to the NW Face are good enough to disqualify it from being a slog. Only getting to look at the snow slope you're on and volcanic moraine on the other hand...
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1 hour ago, Bronco said:
Sounds like a lot of walking for a couple pitches of ice.
Hah! I know what your gettin at, but in truth (my pics might not do it justice) for better or worse there was a good amount of low angle ice throughout the route.
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Trip: Liberty Cap - Ptarmigan Ridge
Trip Date: 07/01/2022
Trip Report:It was a Wednesday afternoon. @The Real Nick Sweeney made a post about partners for Ptarmigan Ridge, Thursday through Saturday. I had never climbed with Nick before but we've chatted a bit over the internet and his climbing resume checked out. He just got back from climbing the Cassin a month or so prior so I figured he might be into Alpine climbing. Luckily my boss and his wife's anniversary was that weekend and we had already planned to shut the company down for that Thursday and Friday. Realizing this might be the last full weekend I had left before a last minute trip back to the motherland, I shot Nick a message with a brief climbing resume and cover letter telling him I was down. We hashed out logistics that Wednesday night while packing and planned to meet at the White River TH the following morning. A quick snatch of permits and we were shortly off on the trail. Not much to say between the Trailhead and the 10k camp. Other than sections were slogs and I realized the slogging cortex of my brain has gotten weaker over the years. We found running water just before the ridge to the 10k camp and I dropped the stove down the slope while filling up. It felt like it was going to tumble forever. Luckily it stopped in some sun cupped snow. Maybe the the perfect thing to do with a new partner before hopping on a technical route with them for the first time? He had mentioned his previous outing the weekend prior was a shit show, to ease my grumbles. We got to the 10k camp and set up shop. We both heard serac fall in the middle of the night. We woke up at two and didn't hear anymore come down. We chatted about it and decided to proceed with caution. I think things like that are tough to gauge the severity of in a dark tent. We skirted the avy path wide. It was nice to see all the debris that we walked through was pretty old. Nick led the schrund pitch onto the initial slope. We mostly simul'd the route and belayed at a steep spots and at the usual "rock step". That step was for us was not rock but in fact fat ice. The entire route was either firm neve or AI2 or 3. A real calf blaster. We had spoke the night prior about what we cared to summit and we both decided just Liberty Cap. The final slog from the top of the last pitch to the summit of Liberty Cap really tested my slogging cortex. Soon enough we were up there. Paused to take a couple photos and began our long hike out. We said we'd head out until we wanted to crash but we ended up just making it out to the trailhead at a decent time. I was even able to make the 2 hour drive in the light and spend the night in my bed. Which is always a bit of trip when you're just laying there before your fall asleep thinking about where you where that morning. Thanks Nick for taking a chance on me. This was the technical route on Rainier I wanted to do the most after getting disenchanted with Liberty Ridge over the years. Now I have an interest in Curtis Ridge.
The usual photo dump. Hopefully Nick will post his blogpost here. I included some of his photos as a teaser.
Gear Notes:
60m rope, some nuts and pitons. 6 Screws (We agreed 8 would've been nice for us for longer simul blocks). Picket
Approach Notes:
White river through Saint Elmo's and beyond.-
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Trip: CCR - HWY 20 - Isolation Traverse
Trip Date: 06/26/2022
Trip Report:
Catching up on TR's, which is unusual for me. I usually get them done the following week. I'll have another after this too. Life's been busy and I'm going out of town soon back to to the mother land. Anywho, @willgovus and I did the Isolation traverse over two days, 6/25 - 6/26, on what was the hottest weekend of the year so far I think. Not Much to say other than the views were killer and the skiing was okay. Will went up Eldo to ski the face down to the Tepeh Towers. I didn't feel the need since it felt like I was just there, even though it was 2019. Time is funny. I just Sat and had a snack and aired out my boots while I watched him go up the E ridge. The rap out of the Mcallister for us was about 5m tops. The snow was sloppiest on the S facing slopes on the traverse across the Marble Creek basin. So sloppy in fact I took a slip down a runnel and rode a bunch of wet snow until it oozed to a halt. I was okay, just shook up. That wet, reactive snow was actually short lived and from there northward the next day we just had to contend with the pollen. The Ice Elation Couloir was great, after that was when the pollen started to get worse. It was just as bad as we had experienced on our 2018 Ptarmigan Traverse Ski. The snow remained sticky through the Neve and Colonial Glacier. We met with Julie on the trail down just after Pyramid lake. She had beer and snacks for us at the car while we drove back to get mine at the Eldo TH.
Gear Notes:
Skis
Approach Notes:
Eldorado TH, out Pyramid Lake-
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6 hours ago, dberdinka said:
A supreme trundle
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Awesome! Its a really fun trip on great rock. I agree on the blue blazes on the climbers trail. Probably a good idea to get a trail more beat in to avoid having a more impactful spider web trail network, but by now they're not necessary (interesting word choice) I don't think.
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Thanks! Great resource.
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Awesome Jason! I needed these summer scenes on this rainy spring day. Hope your thumb heals up fast!
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Awesome! Love that route.
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I took it as he has the bell bottom blues not too much length
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Could hem the bottom of the leg in a bit on and existing seam and seal the new seam with seam grip and or tenacious tape.
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Thats a great response, thanks. While I certainly don’t view it as a beginner skill, I would admit that I don’t practice it regularly and have only had to do it a few times. I’ve never been in a formal mountaineering educational organization. How often is self arrest practiced on a slope steep enough that you would likely want two axes or tools? In the context of nols, mountaineers, etc. My point wasn’t necessarily that self arrest techniques don’t work, it was that they aren’t maybe as viable as slope angle increases or if you take a fall from a steeper section onto the slope. Think of a skier tomahawking.
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And no my first response was not judgement at all either. Maybe more so trying to explain to Norman the character of the route in the likely conditions it was in and giving my feedback on the specific question as to if I would solo it or not.
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Perhaps I got too far into the nuts n' bolts of the route character that has been the regular as of recent years in early season. No matter what, anything we say here as to what had happened will be speculation. I think getting knocked off balance is by falling rock etc. is very likely when the route is in rotten condition. I witnessed some that wasn't far out of the line of fire.
11 hours ago, JeffreyW said:A fall from one of the two ice pitches would be relatively easy to arrest a fall. I teach students on arresting a fall on snow. I would classify the angle of snow in these couloirs relatively moderate self-arrest terrain (not the easiest, but not a difficult place to stop a fall). As a very experienced Mountaineer, I assume Dr. Thurmer was an expert at self-arrest technique on snow.
With all due respect man (seriously), I think what you're saying here is bonkers. Suppose someone just went for it on bad conditions at the cruxes. They are now going to fall in a way thats not conducive to self arrest. No the couloirs themselves are not crazy steep, but to say self arrest in them is relatively easy seems crazy to me. Maybe a little slip in the couloirs themselves would allow a proper self arrest. But a tumbling fall from blowing a move or a hold giving or getting hit with debris at one of the cruxes or hell even in the couloirs? I sincerely doubt it and I'm not sure that has anything to do with anyones risk tolerances. Maybe more so its that arresting a fall is not as easy as people would like to think on slopes steeper than what maybe people might glissade down. Especially on firm snow.
I had a feeling that the question asked by Norman was going to lead to a bit of an irrelevant tangent. Truthfully I'm a bit bummed on that. I do find value in this discussion on how people rationalize when its okay to solo. I think there are few things in alpine climbing that gets taught to us that in reality shake out to being mostly lip service. I think that self arrest techniques are included in that and lose effectiveness as the slope angle increases. I don't think that just because a route is in prime conditions to solo all the sudden falling is no big deal. Deaths happen on "easy" terrain by experienced people all the time.
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This is all very sad and sobering. My condolences to Rick's family and friends.
6 hours ago, Norman_Clyde said:I was never motivated to climb Triple Couloirs even in my most aggressive period. Questions for this forum: how many people would solo this route without protection? I only climbed with Rick the one time, but we talked about climbing fairly often, and I am fairly certain he was not the guy to set up a solo self belay. I conclude he was climbing a WI3+, fall-and-you-die route unroped. No one was there to witness the event, and Rick can’t tell us, but a lot of my coworkers and friends have questions and I’m interested in your responses. Thanks.
I personally can't imagine soloing this in all but the best conditions, i.e. alot of firm snow and good ice. Perhaps conditions similar to what that face had in April of 2015 and 2017. Even then I would likely opt for a partner and a running belay. A friend and I climbed it in late March of 2019 and the section through the hidden and second couloir, or runnels and runnels bypass, and the section connecting the second and third couloir were pretty thin, insecure, and at times fairly scary. We ended up using the runnels bypass because the runnels proper proved too thin for us. Mostly involving dry tooling on slab or somewhat rotten rock covered by unconsolidated snow. I also remember because of the condition of the snow and what little ice there is that protection was less than ideal. I don't think I'd be able to reverse any of the moves through those sections safely if I would have had to. Judging by the time of the year being similar and looking at recent photos of the face I''d imagine the route was in very similar conditions. I think your conclusions on the route are spot on. Any fall unroped would lead to a very long slide and fall. I don't think theres any feature along the route that would cut a fall short. I hope this clears up some of the questions and I am very sorry for your loss.
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If you dated this tr to sometime in late May I'd absolutely believe it.
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Nice work! Quite the roll you're on.
[TR] 20th Anniversary Enchantments Madness - Enchantment, Little Annapurna, Cannon (100/100 Smoot), McClellan, Edward's Plateau 10/07/2022
in Alpine Lakes
Posted
Congrats to the two of you and excellent photos as always Jason!