mvs

A few pics: crossin' the glace: ridge clambering:

tee hee! Well anyway, you don't enter the National Park boundary until at least a mile up the real trail, so the two miles of road walking are outside of the park. There is a little monument on the side of the trail.

Yes, nice talking to you and Ben, Off-White! The bivy was awesome. I had talked my partner into leaving his bivy sack at home ("no way it's gonna rain, man"), but at 4 am what do you know? I covered his down bag with our shell jackets and hoped for the best. Thankfully, the rain stopped, and the clouds stayed high until the descent. We saw the bike tire tracks on the road - that seems a pretty smart way to go. I was surprised at the work the approach required. We also made a mistake on the way in, crossing the outlet stream of the third lake rather than the second. This gave us a great unprotected bit of 5.5 moss climbing above the lake. Should have actually read the route description! Tim, we did it in two days. The bivy on the ridge allowed us to climb quickly and return (1.5 hours to summit, 40 minutes lounging, 2 hours down) . We took it easy on the hike out, reaching the car at 6 pm. Now we get to be like Kearney and say "You haven't done Triumph yet?" There is some memorable climbing on solid rock. The steeper and blanker it looks, the better it is with little solid ledges. That North Rib sounds hardcore! We were looking across at it, impressed by the great length.

Alex, you may need to upgrade? Visit their web site for a new version. I have the National Geographic TOPO! software and it works very well for me. This Maptech thing sounds cool though. On the 3d approaches, do they draw the brush in Goodell Creek?

We had a great time on this over the weekend. Really nice climb, beautiful surrounding valleys, and IMAX Picket scenery with helpful narration by James Earl Jones. Only people we saw were parties leaving Saturday evening. There is a dripping snowbank at the ridge bivy, though it won't last long! --Michael

Matthes was definitely great! We followed the whole crest from south to north. Nice long day, but we were back in time for dinner at the Tioga Pass Lodge (try the steak mmm).

Hey Texaswall, you are from my hometown! SHSU!!

Definitely. Despite the unplanned bivouac (right next to camp doh!) it was a classic climbing experience for us. Wait a minute...unplanned bivouac _is_ the classic climbing experience for us! What's great is to climb some other peaks like Cutthroat, Mesahchie, Black, etc. and get a nice look at the line. From a distance, it's nothing but stellar. For sverdina:

oh yeah the "5.8" move wasn't at the summit but where the buttress became defined and steeper for a while. I was prolly just freaked in the mist.

Tee hee! I remember that...

aww, say it ain't so chucK!

Good tr, made me think (ow!) I'll go out on a limb and say you crossed your own line on this one by climbing through the rockfall. Don't agonize about your family - they could lose you even if you were being guided up the DC. Satisfy your own sense of good style and you'll be able to keep soloing the alpine routes with pride in your achievement.

If I did it again, I think I'd carry over. Our summit day was very long, and we made it back to the vicinity of camp (the one flat spot in the basin) well after dark. We scrambled up and down buttresses and in brush for a few hours before giving up. The rain wasn't pleasant. When light came, we realized we were sitting 5 minutes walk from our camp! We simuled all but 2 pitches, and still ran out of daylight. Moral -> Make sure you see your camp before the light fails... Congradulations on a good trip - it's a monster hike and climb!

Right on! Did you hike over or come back to your camp via Storm King col?

I think I did the 26 pitch 5.6 ( chest beat here ) (wait there are a bunch of of those!). I love the Dolomites!

that was a great read, thanks for sharing! A non-existant man in a red sweater helped me down to the Lower Saddle on our one-day climb of the Exum. Oddly, a similar imaginary figure helped my partner.

I have my manservant carry me from place to place to keep them slim.

Who hoo! Thank'ee. I'd be happy to do that... As for the gear loop question, I use the left one for my belay device, and nothing for the right one. I store a cleaning tool on a biner just hooked around the waist strap in the back. Everything else goes on the rack. An easy price to pay for such a light harness.

I went down to Pro Mtn Sports, bought the Eolo about a month ago. Since then I used it on N Ridge Baker, cragging at Index, Bear Creek Spire (5.8, in sierras). I wish I had bought a size smaller (leg loops are cinched all the way down). But overall, it's great - really compact. I can hang comfortably in it for a while. My other harness is a Black Diamond Bod. Very comfortable, but you have to use a carabiner to hold it together. If I don't care about weight/compactness, I'd use it.

Erik it was great to run into you down there. We did Daff Dome West Crack and some of the Stately Pleasure Dome climbs after we talked to you. Fairview (the 50 classic route), Matthes Crest, Cathedral and Eichorn were some other awesome climbs.

Finally climbed Godzilla this morning. It was a great climb! Really entertaining to come back and read this old thread, now I know what people are talking about with the pointy flake, the burly lieback, the finger-crack exit moves. My favorite part was the crack climbing above the lieback, where you come to a small roof and reach awesome holds on the ledge up and right. Can't wait to go back and do this GM linkup stuff...

I stand corrected

I would never claim to have such "triumph of the will"...

thanks all, looking forward to more fun this summer!

Look what we found outside , it's just too sweet!