daylward

Neither climbing nor top roped? That's an interesting perspective... Yes, both are popular places to go to practice, though I have never been and I have only a vague idea of what conditions would be like right now. Don't let naysayers like Ropegun2001 get you down, however truthful their comments may be... ;-)

The thing is, once you get a ticket, you're no longer dealing with the fee demo program, you're dealing with the US District Court. If you don't pay a federal fine, it could cause you big troubles in the future; when I got my ticket, I had the choice to pay it or fight it in court in Spokane, and according to the judge I talked with on the phone, failure to pay or appear in court could land me a warrant for arrest. So I shelled out; 'cause I didn't have time to drive to Spokane. If you can fight it in court, it'll add more weight to the resistance, but I don't think it'll do you or anyone any good to refuse to both pay or show up in court.

Yes, Clean Break is a fantastic route, good enough for me to do twice, but no it is certainly not a grade V, more like a grade III. Easily done car2car in a day in time to get back to Winthrop for dinner&beer by a reasonably experienced party. Pay attention, and you can follow the trail most of the way in; get off-trail in the wrong place, and the bushwhack can be pretty bad. I've never avoided some bushwhacking going in Silver Star Creek.

Check out the report of our trip up the face last October at: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000004.html

SUMMARY: Points: + : pro snowmobile/ORV, - : pro hiking/climbing, % : pro nothing -Snowmobilers make trash in the wilderness -Snowmobilers have a bad mentality -Snowmobiles are loud, obnoxious, destroy the wilderness experience for everyone for miles around them, and are extremely efficient at hauling great quantities of trash into the backcountry, and leaving it behind smoldering in their firepits for others to enjoy. -Snowmobilers exercise poor judgement +Snowmobilers are clean +There is a lot of vandalism and trash on hiking trails +Snowmobiles can haul lots of trash out of the backcountry +Non-snowmobilers don't know that snowmobiles don't use 10W-40 -Snowmobilers have trashed the Gold Creek sno-park with beer cans and 2-stroke oil containers -Snowmobilers don't respect wilderness areas -Snowmobilers don't know where they are (get lost easily) -Two-stroke engines are efficient only at polluting (compared to hikers and four-stroke engines) +A minority of snowmobilers are obnoxious -Snowmobilers exercise poor judgement with crevasses -Snowmobiles and ORV's adversely affect others' wilderness experience much more so than hikers +Climbers and hikers drive cars to their destinations; those that complain about ORV's are therefore hypocrites -ORV's are dangerous +Everyone has the right do use the mountains as they see fit without regard for others +Roads and logging have far more environmental impact than snowmobiles and even other ORV's +People concerned about the environment are hypocrites +Snowmobiles are fun -Snowmobiles suck +Climbers are elitist snobs -Snowmobiles cause soil compaction which is un-American +We all pay taxes, therefore we should share the land +Climbers destroy wilderness (e.g., Everest base camp) -ORV's destroy wilderness (e.g., trashed areas in Washington State) -Climbers and hikers have a more environmentally-sound wilderness ethic -Snowmobilers prefer Old Milwaukee beer +Snowmobilers prefer Old Milwaukee beer -Some jetskiers are assholes to kayakers +gregm does not advocate murder +gregm is a hypocrite for using snowmobiles despite his contempt for them %Climbers and other users of the outdoors rape our mother earth, rendering it useless for pictures -Groups that use the outdoors facilitate its preservation +Everyone is entitled to their differing views; everyone has a right to use the outdoors +Two-stroke engines have more bang for the weight than four-stroke engines +Snowmobiles are limited to a very small subset of areas anyway +Snowmobilers and climbers/hikers must support each other to ensure continued access for everyone -Jon is a mediator -tomrogers is a troller -Nolanr is a sucker +The Easton Glacier is the only one where snowmobilers are allowed, so there are plenty of other places to go to avoid them -Snowmobiles do more damage to the enivironment than hikers/climbers +Snowmobilers have a separate ORV sno-park pass and pay the same gas tax as users of improved roads -Snowmobiles suck -Dubya lets Willie's rule of no snowmobiles in Grand Teton and Yellowstone stand for now -Photography development harms the environment -Snowmobiles suck -More snowmobilers get caught in avalanches than skiers or climbers or hikers +Snowmobilers put more money into cleanup and facility improvement than hikers and climbers -Active resistance is good +Everyone should pitch in to clean up their acts, and regulation of all activities is good -ORV's cause damage to more land than mining

Wow, that sounds impressive. Did you ski up the cascade river road to get there? How far up was it open? Could you provide a more detailed trip report of your experience? Would you consider it a worthwhile objective to try in the winter? Or was it hell on earth?

Damn it Forrest, you started your own thread, I didn't even notice! Now we have two of these reports. Though mine is more detailed...

Forrest and I went in on Saturday the 16th and did a variation on the S. Face from the Snow Creek side. It was wonderful. We stayed left of the regular S. Face route almost the entire way; the first pitch was left of the chimney described in Beckey (though clearly climbed often), it follows a hand-to-fist size crack up and left along a sort of rib then back right up a twin-cracked trough, then we strung the second (low-5th class) pitch together with the first to make exactly 60m. Our second pitch followed the regular route straight up above the tree belay, but then continued straight up instead of cutting right on the chickenheads halfway up the pitch as the regular route does. This provided us with a thin and technical finger crack in a shallow corner that had obviously been gardened but nonetheless still had a fair bit of vegetation. Strategically placed chickenheads and features allowed passage of the thinnest parts of the crack, but it was protectable by green and yellow aliens and stoppers all the way. I'd say it was solid 10b or 10c, really fun interesting moves. It ended at a large ledge; great belay. Our third pitch continued straight up from there. A steep (vertical) left-facing dihedrial with a clean thin crack (10b, again green and yellow aliens), gradually widens and comes out of the corner, turning into a splitter thin-hand crack (barely perfect for my hands, a bit thin for Forrest's), comes to a mild roof (10b) beyond which the angle eases off and it becomes a right-facing corner, wide hands in the crack eventually culminating in a #4 camelot placement and a rejoining of the regular route just below the giant chockstone. I finished leading the pitch by going up behind the chockstone and sat on top of it for a comfy belay at 55m. For our 4th pitch, we opted for the left-hand variation around the offwidth. Forrest followed wide cracks angling up and left from the chockstone, stepped left around two corners, and followed another clean 10a/b crack up a steep exposed pillar, with the crux at the top; a strenuous mantle onto an insecure knob with dubious pro, followed by a wide stem across to a wide crack protected by an old piton, to a semi-hanging belay. Our fifth pitch was short; I intended to take it all the way to the summit, but after using several essential pieces getting up to the huge ledge below the final left-facing corner and with the other essential pieces Forrest was using in the belay, and with the rope drag caused by traversing right all the way across the ledge to get to the corner, and getting 1/3 of the way up the corner and realizing I didn't have enough gear, I lowered down and belayed Forrest up to the ledge. He then led the classic final pitch to the lovely summit. We made it down in time for Mexican food in L-town. Mmm salt-fat-tasty-goodness! In summary, the left-hand variation of the S. Face is quite worthwhile if you're looking for high-quality, aesthetic climbing with slightly more technical difficulty and sustained crack climbing than the regular route. Dan [This message has been edited by daylward (edited 06-19-2001).]

Bwahahaha... went and saw this thing at the Cinerama last night with Marshall, Forrest, Tim Matsui, Kevin Kanning, Mike Burns et al. Under the influence of course. We had quite the running commentary going on. I must say, what a bunch of amateurs! So, crampons and helmets are optional on K2, eh? Seems like it was either a goat rodeo or a sappy emotional breakdown at all times. But if there's one overriding lesson I did learn, it is this: If there are more than 2 people hanging from a rope, it must be cut (where depends only on who has the knife). Any good climber would do it! But, alpinespider, maybe I was too intoxicated, but I missed the reference to Scott F. and Rob H... When was it? What did they say about them? Dan

I'm thinking of doing Triple Couloirs this weekend (Sunday). I'm worried about avalanche conditions. It's supposed to snow over there a lot tonight, but only sprinkles tomorrow and Saturday. Saturday is supposed to be windy. No word yet on the windyness of Sunday. Should be cold enough. My expectation is that it will be thin, lots of spindrift, hopefully nothing substantial built up on the face to release and pummel us. There may be wind slab on the descent. I've never been up in that area in anywhere near wintertime. The earliest I've been through there is May, doing an Enchantments traverse. If anyone here has, I'd really like to hear your opinion of especially the avalanche dangers. I am confident in my ability to survive most of the dangers up there, except for rockfall and avalanche...

I did it! I went and bought a 17" square of 1/10" thick 4130 (chrome - molly steel). I had the shape machined out, bent 'em up, brought 'em to Washington Metallurgical and had them heat treated, put D-rings on for the strap lacing, and voila, I now have a super-cool pair of crampons that fit on my rock shoes!

Would any of those mechanical or metallurgical engineers out there who also happen to be climbers, or anyone else for that matter, know what steel alloy crampons are usually made out of, and even better, where I can get some (besides buying crampons)? I'm trying to make my own crampons for a special purpose. I've got the design all figured out, even have a CAD drawing of them that can be quickly turned into a milling machine progam, and I have access to the milling machine. I've made a prototype out of aluminum, and the design seems just about perfect. All I need now is the metal. Ideally, it would be an alloy that responds well to heat treating, but doesn't get too brittle. Basically, the stronger the better, as long as it still bends before it breaks. Dan

Shield for the grivel cap? I'm not sure what that is... where can I find more information about it? -Dan

I want some goggles for sport climbing. Mostly 'cause I think they'd look cool. Kidding. Seriously, I'm looking for some goggles to use for ice/mixed/winter/high wind climbing. I have ski goggles, which I've used, but the bummer about them (at least the ones I've used) is they fog up when you're not moving so fast. I suspect the main reason they fog up is the vent on the bottom that funnels your moist breath right up into them, especially if your coat is zipped up all the way. So, I went searching on the net for some better goggles. I came across the Oakley "A Frame". Appears to be a beautiful design, with "air intakes" on the bottom of the front (just above your cheekbones), in addition to vents on the top of the lense. That way I could tape up the foam on the very bottom but still have circulation from bottom to top. Drawback: cost. $85! Plus another $30 for clear lenses (which are still 100% UVA and UVB proof). I found some customer reviews of the A Frame. 2/3 of the maybe 35 reviewers said "hands down the best goggle on the market", "totally 100% worth the price", "never fog up, just amazing", etc. 1/3 of the people said "fogs up all the time", "gets water between the lenses in wet conditions", "If water gets on the inside of the lense, it permanently distorts the lense", and so on. Any experience with these? Who is telling the truth and who is lying? For me, 2 unique factors would convince me to shell out for these goggles: superior circulation/anti-fog, and clear lenses that protect from UV (uncommon in clear goggle lenses). I'd also like to hear from anyone who has used goggles while climbing (successfully or otherwise), and any hints about preventing fogging. Thanks!

Here are a couple questions I got: > A couple of questions: > > 1. How much water did you carry? and would you carry more or > less based > on that experience? We each had 1-gallon MSR water bags, and we began the approach with them half full. At the base of the route, we filled them halfway again. We were out of water at the top of the route and had to do Cascadian dry, but we were far from dehydrated. Then at Ingall's Creek (after the climb) we filled one last time. I'd say you could get by with less, especially if you're faster. Depends on your body too. But I feel we did it about right for us; two quarts wasn't too burdensome on the route, and we certainly drank it all. > 2. I've been over most of the territory except Ingalls Lake > to Goat Pass > - is the spot where you leave lower west ridge to enter the > scree pretty > obvious? About how long did it take you to get for Ingalls Lk > to the top > of Goat Pass? From Ingall's Lake to Goat Pass was about an hour and a half maybe? I can't remember exactly, but somewhere in that range. The place you decend off the north side of the lower west ridge is pretty obvious. The trail is steep and full of switchbacks up the lower portion, but then you gain a large bench that is almost flat. You descend off the north side of this bench. You should see footprints going that way. There's hardly a trail; it's kind of steep and sandy going down, but it isnt' too hard. You can easily see where goat pass is from there & scope out your line ahead of time. > > 3. We haven't been able to decide whether to commit to one day or bivy > at the base of the route. Sounds like you were very satisfied with the > one day approach. Any comments on bivying? Yes, we were very satisfied with doing it in one day. The thought of carrying bivy gear over is not appealing to me. It would be a beautiful place to camp, and many people do it, but there are plenty of other beautiful places to camp where I won't have to lug my stuff up 4000' of class 5 granite! I think if it's conceivably possible to do a route in a day, stick your neck out and do it. You'll go faster, have more fun, and be more satisfied when you get back to the car! Just my opinion.

Oops, I was corrected: Pat Timson took 11.5 hours, not 8 hours... still incredible!

BTW, if you think 19 hours is fast, keep in mind that Pat Timson and partner did the same thing in a whopping *8* hours! That would require a full-on run on all the approach and descent, basically simul-solo the route (I think they placed 1 or 2 pieces on the whole thing) with no belays... That's about 15 miles and over 8000 feet of elevation gain and loss in 8 hours. I'm amazed.

Route: Full North Ridge Time: 19 hours car-to-car Date: August 23, 2000 Team: Marshall Balick, Dan Aylward The full North Ridge of Mt. Stuart is a classic, grade IV alpine rock route on a huge and impressive granite peak in the Cascades. It's not too technically difficult; it has a couple pitches of 5.8 lower down and a couple 5.9's higher up on the Gendarme, but otherwise it's low class 5 and class 4. It has become quite popular due to the mountain it's on, and that it's one of the fifty classic climbs in North America. The most popular variation (described in Nelson & Potterfield's "Selected Climbs in the Cascades", vol I) is to cut up to the ridge crest from the west side via a prominent gully. This shortens the route and makes it quite feasable as an early (though probably not beginner's) alpine rock climb. The preferrable way, IMHO, is to descend all the way to the base of the ridge and start from the bottom. There are several very fun pitches in the lower half of the ridge that you miss if you do the half ridge. Marshall and I both managed to get off work on this particular Wednesday. Having done the route several years before in a day, we felt obliged to re-live the experience and hopefully better our time, so we took off from Seattle on Tuesday evening and made our way to the Esmaralda Basin/Ingalls' Pass trailhead. The various route descriptions are fairly accurate in describing the approach to Goat Pass... Start out going about 1/4 mile up from the trailhead. At that point you will reach an intersection, where you turn right onto Ingall's Way trail (instead of continuing up Esmaralda Basin). Wind up switchbacks for a mile and a half to another intersection with a trail to Long's Pass. Keep left at this intersection; you want to go to Ingall's Pass. Follow the trail over Intall's Pass, around the basin, and up to Ingall's Lake. Having left the car at 3:30, we got to the lake just as it was getting light at about 6:00. Go around the left side of the lake (involves some scrambling, the trail is invisible in places) under Ingall's Peak. A ridge joins Ingall's Peak and the West Ridge of Mt. Stuart, halfway along this ridge is Stuart Pass. Follow this ridge; we dropped down a little on the right (south) side of the ridge, following one of a number of social trails. The trails converge and regain the ridge as it begins to rise up to meet the west ridge of Stuart. The trail is clearly visible as it winds up the increasingly-scree slope. Well before you reach the toe of the west ridge, you must drop down to the left (north) from a sort of bench in the scree. Dropping down is very loose and dirty, and has snow in places until late in the season. Traverse around the basin as the loose dirt turns to large granite boulders. Follow the terrain and work your way up to Goat Pass, where amazinly enough we found goats and our first rays of sunshine! From Goat Pass, it's almost all downhill to the base of the N. Ridge. Marshall was wearing his Technica Alta TCY's and I was wearing my light Montrails. Marshall was certainly better off on the hard snow. We both had lightweight ice axes. I had to use the backwards-digger-walk technique to get down the steeper snowfields (basically in self-arrest position, I just walk down backwards, using my ice axe as a brake). From Goat Pass, you head down the first snowfield, go up over an exposed-in-late-season morraine, traverse under the Stuart Glacier (little objective hazard), and keep traversing as far right (east) as the terrain allows. It took us longer than we expected. I'd advise lightweight crampons for this section. We reached the base of the N. Ridge at about 8:00, took a rest, filled our water bags, and prepared for the first pitch. We brought a large rack, (doubles in the small pieces, single #2 and #3 camalot, nothing bigger), to allow us to simul-climb as long as possible. There are several variations to get started on the ridge. I recommend staying in the sun (meaning the left or east side of the ridge). We scrambled our way up the benches at the toe of the buttress and gradually worked our way left. The first 5.8 pitch hits you there. Look for a right-facing flaring chimney flake thing. Climb good cracks up to it. The first time we did the route, Marshall led this pitch. He could not climb it with his pack. We lost a lot of time fiddling around clipping the pack to a piece, him going up to a belay, lowering part of the rope to haul my pack, me climbing and retrieving his pack, worming my way through the unpleasant chimney, and finally getting up to him. This time, however, I led the pitch and found a way to avoid the chimney by climbing face holds off to the right. It was a little delicate and exposed-feeling, but it went easily and we didn't have to haul our packs. After the chimney, look for a large indentation (a good belay spot). From the indentation, don't be persuaded to move right, around the ridge crest. We did that the first time and ended up wasting another hour climbing some sketchy stuff to regain the route. The best line goes off to the left, beautiful hand cracks. to a ledge with trees. We began simul-climbing after the first pitch and made it halfway up the route (a notch where the half-route variation comes in, there are bivy sites here) by noon. We switched gear, but Marshall wanted me to keep leading, so I did one more pitch to the base of the gendarme by 3:00. These two middle pitches are very long, very fun, very clean, relatively easy with occasional cruxes. It is possible to bypass the gendarme by rapelling from the copius slings at it's base, down into a gully, then climbing up easy but loose slabs to the summit. But the gendarme is the best pitch! It looks intimidating, but it's not so bad. The first half of it is a wavy dihedral, with rests on top of each wave. The crack in the corner eats smallish cams. It's a dramatic clean lieback, a little strenuous, but if you place gear at the rests then blast through the rest it goes without problems. Many people split the gendarme into two pitches. We found the best way was to make it into one (possible with a 60m rope). After I led the first half, there is a good stance a the top of the pillar (top of the dihedral). I put in some pro, let down a loop of rope to Marshall to which he clipped the packs, and I hauled 'em up and left them there. I then continued to lead, climbing up and across to the right, putting a couple pieces in as directionals, and met up with the infamous offwidth. It's not so bad. I used the #3 camalot and slid it up the thing as I went, reducing rope drag from my traverse the higher I got. There are good footholds, and the crack takes fist jams. At the top of the offwidth, travers back left to a cove. Go for the upper cove, not the lower one... it's much more comfortable. Belay from the cove. Haul packs again when your partner gets to the top of the pillar. We simul-climbed to the summit from there, a short jaunt. We were on the summit by 5:00. The summit of Stuart is incredible; you're so high above everything! The descent is straighforward. Look for cairns and traverse east along the summit ridge (or just below it) and bypass the first several gullies (you want Cascadian Couloir, not Ulrich's Couloir!). If you watch for the cairns, you can't go wrong. Late in the season, there's still a snowfield at the top of Cascadian Couloir. It's good to have light crampons for this too, depending on conditions. I had to do my digger walk thing again. Marshall stayed on the boulders, which took him longer but it was fine. After that, it's just a LONG way down! As the couloir starts to curve east, cross over the mellow ridge to the right into the next gully. You can walk the whole way, but it's steep scree and sand and dust. Gradually the scree turns to meadows, then you hit Ingall's Creek and it's accompanying trail. Go up the valley for no more than 1/2 mile to where people are usually camping, then cross the creek on a large old dry log. It's pretty obvious if it's still light out. This takes you to the Long's Pass trail, which is not a particularly well-traveled trail. It seems to have several variations; some washed out, others overgrown, we were never sure which one we were supposed to take. But they all lead uphill. It was beginning to get dark at this time. Eventually, the trail starts getting steeper and switchbacking as it comes out of the trees, and the last couple hundred vertical before Long's pass is pretty steep, but you're at the pass before you know it. After that, it's just a long way down the easy, dusty, switchbacking trail to the intersection with Ingall's Way trail, then with Esmaralda Basin trail, then to the parking lot. We were at the car by 10:30, where we sacked out, as beat as we'd intended!

In case you were wondering, yes, I found the cam, sitting in the crack I'd placed it in at the top of Juno tower before witlessly walking off and leaving it there the day before.

They are US men's size 8.5. I got them for my trip to Patagonia, but they were too small, so I ordered another pair one size up, which are perfect, so now I need to sell the 8.5's. (I wear 9.5 street shoes and usually get size 8 rock shoes, but I wanted to be able to wear socks in them without cutting off circulation) Highlights: -100% synthetic -Based on the 5.10 Ascent -Insulated with Thinsulate -Fully integrated GoreTex gaiter -Surprising sensitivity and performance; I can climb almost as hard in them as I can with my Scarpa Turbos. -Completely brand spankin' new; box & all Suggested uses: -Any rock route (Cascades or elswhere) that has snow on it and/or cold temperatures -Super light & fast - works well with Stubai universal binding crampons (aluminum or steel), so you can do snow or ice approaches in them! No more hauling boots up the route! For your convenience, I've located them at Feathered Friends. Talk to any employee there and try 'em on! [This message has been edited by daylward (edited 10-04-2000).]

Among the people I've informed about this site, there has been some concern about this causing more people to go into the mountains, thereby compromising the wilderness experience for the rest of us. I do think there's a chance this might happen on occasion, but I can only imagine it happening very rarely. The scenario would have to involve someone who fits into one of the following categories: a) Someone generally interested in the mountains but with no specific plans to go do something b) Someone who does have plans to go to the mountains but only do something popular & crowded (like Der Tigerhorn) because they don't know any better In addition, they would have to be persuaded to do something (in the case of a)), or to change their plans (in the case of b)), by something they read on this site. Possible. However, I would argue that this could only happen if they were inclined to "do something" or "change their plans" in the first place. If we can assume that to be the case, this site becomes merely a tool these people use to do something they already want to do. And if it weren't for this site, there are plenty of other tools out there they could use instead (guidebooks, the Mountaineers, etc.). In short, this site has the potential to make it easier for those who already participate in mountain activities, but I believe it will exert very little pressure for more people to participate; people must have the desire to begin with, and that being the case, they'll get out there anyway whether this site exists or not. The other concern is about guidebooks. If this site becomes popular enough, and if enough people post trip reports, there may be enough information to do a trip without a guidebook; i.e., just based on information found in trip reports. I think it's still valuable to have guidebooks; lots of research has gone into their creation, and things like route topos and pictures are invaluable. I also think it's important to support those who write the guidebooks; they're the pillars of the climbing community. So, if you haven't already, go out and get your copy of Nelson & Potterfield's "Selected Climbs in the Cascades" (vol I and II), Fred Beckey's "Cascade Alpine Guides" (vol I, II, and III), Bryan Burdo's "North Cascades Rock", and any other book that comes out that has information you're interested in. Those are the staples, this site will be the (hopefully substantial) supplement.

Trip date: 10-01-00 car-to-car, 18 hours from Cascade Pass trailhead (3 am to 9 pm) Team: Forrest Murphy, Dan Aylward This climb was everything you'd expect from a late-season attempt of an ice-covered north face in the Cascades. We lucked out on the weather; though rain was predicted for later in the day, we managed to avoid being hit by a single drop. We slept in my car, set the alarm for 2:30, and were hiking by about 3. We ground our way up the 3 miles and 35 switchbacks to Cascade Pass, then up Sahale Arm. We summited Sahale at about 7:00, timing the sunrise just about perfectly. Neither of us had ever been to the very summit of Sahale, which isn't a big accomplishment, but it is discouraging to look at what you have to do to get to the Boston Glacier from there... basically, the only option is to traverse the choss-laden southeast face of Boston Peak on various ledge systems. It actually looks quite improbable from Sahale, but it goes. There was one snow gully in the middle that we had to don our crampons for and pull out our ice tools. After getting to the Boston glacier, Buckner is farther away than it looks, but the travel was easy. The crevasses were very visible and we managed to wind our way around them without difficulty. The middle of the N. face of Buckner has a wide ice couloir that actually seems to be a glacier down it (the route in question). About halfway up, the route had significant seracs and bergschrunds. However, to the left of the main couloir, there was a steep snowfield, separated from the main couloir by a band of fairly good rock. We decided on bypassing the seracs by crossing the rock band (trivial), then rocking up the snowfield. The top of the snowfield provided an easy exit onto the main couloir above the seracs. The route then goes straight up, winds through some rock outcroppings (some objective hazard, I was pummeled by small gravel at one point). We place 3 ice screws, two of which were fairly ineffectual in the firm-but-not-water-ice snow. The third was actually placed in the small amount of water ice that we found and was quite solid. The route trends to the left after the rock outcroppings, onto a wider and lower-angle snowfield, then trends back to the right to the summit, which was upon us before we knew it (1:00 pm). The descent was more problematic. Most of the snowfields in Horseshoe Basin (off the south side of the mountain) were greatly deminished due to late season conditions, so we could do very little glassading and were instead relegated to the scree. We worked our way down and west (toward Sahale Arm), connecting snowfields and gradually losing elevation. We crossed several streams, and were very pleased when the scree turned to heather. We thought about going up to sahale arm again, but there were some steep slabs with waterfalls and ice chunks that looked precarious... the closer we got, the worse it looked. Apparently early in the season this is doable, making the return trip much easier. We were forced down into the depths of Horseshoe basin. The bottom of the basin is surrounded by steep cliff bands with many waterfalls and lots of brush. We had a hard time seeing where or if there was a way down. We followed the largest stream down as far as we felt safe, and looked down and saw there was a trail leading to a mine on the west side of the basin... if we could only get there... We looked to the left and thought there might be some lower angle sections. We angled back up to the northwest, more towards the center of the upper basin, then followed an animal trail towards the lower angle sections. What ensued was about 800 feet of class 4 downclimbing among slide alder and rose bushes. Unpleasant, but it went. Once we got to the trail things went much more smoothly, but we were disheartened nonethless by the prospect of being a full 8 miles from the car... We had to turn on our headlamps at Cascade Pass, and made it back to the car by 9:00. It was a very sleepy drive back to Seattle. Dan [This message has been edited by daylward (edited 06-28-2001).]

Here is a message (and trip report) my climbing partner Forrest wrote to Jim Nelson after we heeded his suggestion to make the second ascent of the N. Face of Colonial Peak. ------------------------------- Unfortunately for us, we did not heed your advice about hard snow conditions - the snow was hard in the trees and in the valley bottom, but as soon as we hit the snow slopes above the first rock band, we were postholing on every snowfield all the way up. Minimum of 4-5 kicks per step. We kept thinking it would get better, and it wasn't particularly slide prone, but it was very slow and tiring. Where there was ice, however, it was generally solid. Your description states 6-10 hours. I can only barely imagine anyone getting up the route in 10 hours from the road in perfect conditions, much 6. Twight and Bebie took 5 hours on hard snow from the upper basin (you could easily bivy as high as 5000-5500 feet) - and anyone who could get from the car to that point in less than 4 hours should be winning gold medals in the Olympics and not climbing mountains. Even in perfect conditions, its 3500 vertical feet and a circuitous route which includes bushwacking. I would say that 10 hours would be the absolute minimum, even if you soloed the lower ice. I think in good conditions, we could have done it a single continuous 14-15 hour push, and we're reasonably fast climbers. With a half-bivy and the crappy conditions we had, we took almost 31 hours from the car to the summit. If we were super fit we could have shaved some hours, and saved some more by not getting tired out by spending so much time ascending in tough conditions; but with the conditions last weekend, I don't think we could have cut that much off. Approach Parking: There is no plowed pullout, we excavated a ramp in the plow-wall at colonial creek campground and drove up off the highway. This took about 45 minutes with shovels and ice axes. If there is no new snow, there is a slow-vehicle lane just east of Colonial Creek where some skiers parked the same weekend, but I don't know what would have happened if they had had to plow. I guess a lot of years there is no snow here at all and you can park in the campground, which is officially open all year, though not plowed out. Approach: From about 50 feet south/east of the Bridge over Colonial Creek, head steeply up the slope, staying to the left of the sidehill that drops into the creek bed. After about 800 feet, after passing some small cliff bands, begin a gradual traverse parallel to the creek, breaking out of the trees at the base of the open slopes at around 2700 feet. Route: In between the valley bottom and the base of actual steep face is a long snowy basin and a band of cliffs at valley level. There are many ways through this cliff band. From the head of the valley, a gully that leads sharply left accesses the snow fields without ice; there are several gully systems that break the cliff bands in the middle, most of which look climbable. You could choose from WI 2 to WI 5, and if you wanted to, you could climb as many as 4 or 5 pitches, but you could also get up to low angled ground in 2 pitches or less in many spots. To us, the most appealing route up to the mid-valley snow slopes was an obvious narrow, rock lined gully snakes through the snowslopes to the upper basin. Unfortunately, it ended in a not-quite-touched-down ice pillar, so we did a short pitch up some rock and cornices on the right side, then traversed sideways into the gully. This was fun, 20 degree alpine ice and hard snow with occasional "cruxes" of 35 degs. This gully fades out into snow slopes after a few hundred feet. Three features form the primary landmarks on the face: an overhanging cascade of ice in the middle of the lower face, and two ice pillars, one directly above the other. These features were connected by a complex series of steep snowfields. We soloed snow up to 50 degrees to the base of the curtain. We bypassed this on the left, encountering snow of various depths, sometimes shallow, sometimes deep. We belayed one 20 foot section of mixed snow and rock, then made a long rightwards traverse back on snow up to 60 deg. to the base of the first pillar. The pillar is about 80 feet tall, consistently 80 degrees mixed alpine and water ice and quite sustained. We encountered relatively thin ice, especially at the bottom. Rock belay below and 15' left possible, but craftiness required. We placed one knifeblade here which we left fixed. Connect snowfields to the second pillar. 100' long, WI 3 or 3+, solid blue water ice. Traverse leftwards 400 feet to the base of a short (40') moderate-mixed chimney which leads up to another short snowfield. Many possibilities; we crossed leftwards over a fin into a gully, which led directly upwards for 300 feet of real-deal mixed climbing. I have no idea what to rate it, but it felt like climbing 5.10. Weave around the cornices at the top (some scary floundering inevitable) to reach the ridgeline. (We traversed right under one cornice until we could turn it by throwing a leg over and climbing it cowboy-style.) Follow the ridgeline another 30 feet of very tricky mixed climbing to pop out onto the exact summit. Descent: Rather than a "col" between Colonial and Pyramid, there is more of a high plateau formed by Pinnacle, Pyramid, Colonial and Paul Bunyon's Stump. This plateau is closed off from the lower basin by a terminal moraine. To reach the lower basin without rapelling, it is necessary to traverse the edge of this basin (or follow the top of the moraine)(or do a descending traverse along the slope facing the Colonial Creek basin) all the way around (northwest) to below Pyramid Peak, then descend avalanche slopes to the valley floor. As far as we could tell, there is no more direct route that would not require several rappels. This is pretty easy to scope out from the basin on the way up, but would be very hard to see in bad weather and is not visible from above. From here down is the more descriptive account, read only if you're interested... Colonial Peak, North Face (Watusi Rodeo) 2/12-1/23, 2000 After getting out of town pretty late Friday night, and the usual stops for gas, groceries, etc, we pulled up to the Colonial Creek campground around 10:30. Since there is no plowed pullout for several miles, we spend 45 minutes with shovels digging a ramp into the hard-packed snow so we could drive the car up and off the highway. It was beautifully clear, windless and cold, so we slept out next to the car. Though I was already sleepy, I slept poorly, continually woken up by vaguely menacing dreams. We got up at 4:15, but weren't ready to move until 5:30. We hiked up the road to Colonial Creek and prepared to head into the woods when I remembered that we hadn't packed the rope. It was still in Dan's ropebag, buried under our sleeping stuff. Dan went back to get it, and we headed into the brush on the northwest side of the creek. 10 minutes later, Dan realized that he had left his second ice tool at the car. Back to the road. By the time we were ready the third time, it was 6:30 and just getting light. We figured that if we realized that we'd forgotten a third thing, it was a sign to go home early. It actually worked to our advantage, though, because on second thought, we really wanted to be on the other side of the creek. We headed up steeply for about 800 feet through mostly open woods. Snow covered most of the brush, and was firm enough to generally support your weight without breaking through, except when it wasn't and you would break through into the air gap beside a log or under a bush. After gaining most of the altitude on the slope perpendicular to the road, we struck a long, mostly level traverse into the open basin, breaking out into the trees about two hours out of the car. A more avalanche-ridden valley I have never seen, the valley bottom filled with piles of avalanche debris that had been torn and worn away by other avalanches starting further up the valley. But the snow in the valley bottom was firm - we thought that might mean good, hard snow up high. After all, the higher you go, the colder it is, right? A line of cliffs rings the valley on the Colonial side, broken by a number of gullies. Only the ones at the farthest ends of the valley lead through to the upper slopes without technical ground. Frozen floes guard other gullies, enough that the basin could be a reasonable ice-cragging location in waterfall-deprived Washington. We punted - the most appealing route up to the mid-valley snow slopes was a narrow, rock lined gully that unfortunately ended in a not-quite-touched-down ice pillar, so we did a short pitch up some rock and cornices, then traversed sideways into the gully. This was fun, 20 degree alpine ice with occasional "cruxes" of 35 degs. After a few hundred feet, we were forced out of the gully onto the snow slopes and the work really began. Despite our hopes, the snow was soft. It didn't seem particularly slide prone - in fact we never saw any avalanche activity - but the going was slow, requiring 4 or 5 kicks for every step. So we slowly worked our way up towards the steep part of the north face proper. The bushwack approach from the highway to the open basin gains about 1500 feet. The cliff bands eat up perhaps 400 feet. The headwall itself is no more than 2000 feet tall, depending on where you start counting. Since the summit is 7800 feet, That leaves another 2500 feet of moderate angled snow that separates the steep slopes above from the basin below. Those 2500 feet killed our time. It was both slow and tiring, and in fact, the experience was extended onto the face itself. Hours crept by as we crept up steepening gullies and snowfields. We finally put the rope on around 5800 feet. Three prominent features are mentioned in the AAJ account of the climb and form the primary landmarks of the face: an overhanging cascade of ice in the middle of the lower face, and two ice pillars. The second pillar glowed blue even from the valley bottom, but the first pillar glinted a dull brown, foreboding thin ice. These features were connected by a complex series of steep snowfields. Above the second pillar was the least clear portion of the route. In Becky's guide, it is described as a "short mixed chimney, or a spectacular but scary pitch directly below the summit." Bypassing the ice curtain on the left, as had Twight & Co, the snowfields changed from the gullies we had been soloing to rock slabs covered (sometimes deeply, sometimes shallowly) with snow. So we tied in to pass a sketchy section, then continued simulclimbing back right and upwards towards the first ice pillar. We arrived at the base just at dark, having taken just one rest long enough to sit down in 12 hours. But we were less than halfway up the face. We were climbing very slowly - the first ascent party sent the entire wall from the upper basin in five hours. We had hoped to summit in 14 or 15 hours from the car, but given the snow conditions, that was not a possibility. We needed a break, so we flattened out a small snow ledge under an overhang, put on all our clothes, and hunkered down. We made hot milk, hot couscous and tried to sleep, with a predictable lack of success. Around midnight, we had had about as much "rest" as we could handle and started to stir. We melted snow and stared out into the night. Frequent spindrift avalanches poured over our overhang. It was snowing lightly and verging on whiteout conditions. I belayed Dan over to the base of the pillar, and we spent some time getting in a bomber anchor, a continual problem in the crappy rock of the north face. I have to say, psyching up to lead that pitch was the hardest part of the climb for me. My headlamp wasn't strong enough to see the top, so I wasn't sure how long it would be, but you could clearly see rock just below the surface in many spots. It wasn't vertical, perhaps 80 degrees, but it was constant - no low-angle bulges to place gear from. Add to that that it was 2 in the morning, snowing and in the middle of an alpine face, 80 feet of WI4 was not exactly what I was in the mood for. I placed a screw standing at the base that hit rock less than halfway in. It's a sickening feeling, because not only is it not all the way in, but unless you're lucky, you have to back it out half a turn to get the eye pointing downwards. I've read that if you can get all the threads in the ice, it's better to clip the eye than to tie it off short because the strength of the threads resisting pulling out is more important than the absolute shear strength of the screw itself. Whatever, either way its scary. Ten feet up I tried again, solid rock after 2 inches. Already too high up to easily climb down, so up again. Finally a solid screw at 25 feet. Whew. Climbing by headlamp is odd, because with a helmet and pack you can't direct the beam of your headlamp more than 10 feet above you. The climbing was good, plastic water ice, and by meandering from left to right on the 15 foot wide flow, you could generally avoid vertical ice. That is until the top, where a short vertical section was the only feasible option in between hollow pockets on one side and black rock visible just below the surface on the other. In the end, I placed six screws, the most ever on a pitch - but only two of them were worth anything I accidentally put in a final one just below the top because I couldn't see that I was just below the top. I was glad to have it, though, pulling off the face. The sketchiest move on the pitch was as the angle eased, from one tool placement it went from solid water ice to bottomless sugar snow. Well enough, as the angle was only 55 degrees, but trying to get my solidly-placed lower tool out, with front points in below on ice and the other tool wallowing in loose crystals was a little terrifying. I ran the rest of the rope out up snow to where some rocks emerged from the sidewall. After Dan came up, we continued on, simulclimbing up more gullies. Somehow, I managed to make my memory of the face match the terrain, and we navigated by the shortest possible route to the base of the second pillar. Again, the soft snow slowed us way down and it was fully light by the time we reached the second pillar. It looked a lot more mellow, steep sections broken by large bulges and lower angled sections. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as it appeared. True, there were lower angle sections, but since the first was larger than it appeared, the average angle was actually greater than it appeared from below, and the steep portions were steeper. But in its favor, it was solid, thick, fat ice and none of the steep sections was more than 20 feet before there was a lower angle bulge. Dan led it, his hardest ever ice lead at WI 3 or 3+, not too shabby at 7400 feet on an only-climbed-once north face. From the top, a long sideways traverse leftwards on very steep (60 degrees?) snow put us directly below the summit, which we reached in one long simulclimbing pitch. This was the coolest climbing on the face, continually hard, occasionally desperate, no-holds barred, mixed climbing. The most treacherous part was the constantly changing snow - sometimes it would be hard enough to sink a tool into and hang completely, other times it was loose and too unconsolidated to support any body weight at all. Rock moves, drytooling, it wal all legal on that pitch. At one point, you had to traverse under a small cornice on a subsidiary ridgelet. The problem was, there was only about three feet of snow below it, above the abyss. So you had to duck-traverse sideways and down, bumping the underside of the cornice with your helmet and pack, hoping it wasn't going to drop onto your head. The last few feet to the ridgeline were some of the hardest, gymnastic mixed moves on rock and completely untrustworthy cornices of bottomless sugar snow. Just like in the movies, literally as we stepped onto the summit, the clouds dissolved, revealing amazing views of seldom seen peaks like Snowfield and Paul Bunyon's Stump and the hidden Neve Glacier. It was 1:00. The descent was straightforward. Skis would have been nice as we slogged down beautiful slopes of shin-to-thigh deep powder. Everything suddenly seemed different. We were off the face, it was sunny and beautiful. We were warm, tired but no longer scared. Above 5000 feet, it had snowed more than 6 inches while we were on the route. Fortunately, it was snowing onto relatively low-avalanche-danger snowpack. Even so, we set off a few soft windslabs, although they were only the top 6 inches and so soft that they would stop running after about 30 feet. The descent takes you all the way around the basin under Pyramid peak (to avoid those cliff bands), then forces you to pick your way down 1000 feet of hard frozen avalanche debris. We slogged down the woods, tired and sore, arriving at the car at around 5. Dan performed a heroic feat of driving home without falling asleep; I tried to stay awake to keep up conversation, but I couldn't. The joy of sacking out in a warm bed? Indescribable.

I have long, in fact, ever since I first became aware of the web as an entity, thought that there should be a web page where everyone in the region could post their trip reports for all to see for all eternity (or at least most of eternity). That way I could not only brag about my amazing feats (yeah right), but I could see a more-or-less complete history of attempts on a particular route before I attempt it myself! Wouldn't that be cool? I don't know if this page will live up to my farsighted dreams, but I'm going to do my best to contribute, and I hope everyone else does too. Eventually it would be nice to see this not in just a message format, but in a sort of indexed-climbers-journal format, organized by region. Maybe the moderators could yank out all trip reports from this message board and organize them in this way? Anyway, for the time being, we can make due with threads. If you have any insights or ideas on this, reply to this thread ("Trip Reports In General"). Ok, so now off I go to start writing trip reports... Dan