forrest_m

“should” is a pretty strong word, it’s necro’s challenge, he can set the dates however he wants. I was just pointing out that given those constraints, graybeard might be the toughest, but for logistical rather than technical reasons.

given the required time frame, I think graybeard might be the hardest tick on Necro’s list. the other two have good road access all winter, but GB poses a serious logistical challenge, unless you happen to own a snowmobile. isn’t it more in the eastern euro tradition to have a prize for the first ascent or repeat of some coveted route? the “last great problem”? not criticizing, just curious, does it really help your motivation to publicly declare your tick list, many months in advance? I’ve always kind of felt the opposite, that talking too much about a challenging route before you get up on it is kind of bad karma or something. I always feel like I ought to keep my mouth shut until I have something to talk about... (again, I don't mean this as a flame, more self-analysis)

Just bringing it to the top – we leave Friday, so maybe I’ll just answer my own question…

assuming that you're talkin' about the west side descent... from the summit, maybe 2-3 hours to get through the technical part of the descent. it's pretty straight forward but has some exposure. we only had to do 2 single rope raps. another 2-3 hours down the trail. depending on how tired you are. that side of the mountain is very dry! fill your water bottles with snow on the summit if you can (there's often a remnant cornice you can quarry), 'cause there ain't a drop until you get down to the road. once on your bike, it's maybe an hour (under normal circumstances, see below) to the highway, another hour back up the road and 45 minutes or so back up the dirt road to your car. the dirt road portions do not get much traffic, at least not as far up as you are leaving your bike. down lower, maybe, but i wouldn't rely on it, you might be waiting a long time. funny story, we came down on a very very hot afternoon, so we stripped down to our underwear for the bike ride out. in addition, we were wearing our climbing helmets, with the rope, rack, etc. tied clumsily to the bike racks. looking like a couple of freaks, we came around the corner to find a canadian army truck blocking the road. two female soldiers in camoflauge are leaning up against the truck, smoking. they were blocking the road to traffic while the army did artillery practice. they obviously thought we were a few cans short of a six pack and wouldn't even talk to us. so we sat there in our underwear (while they decided whether or not to shoot us?) for almost an hour before they opened up the road and let us go on...

If you’re just backpacking, I’d say (mostly) screw the freeze dried and carry some real food, or at least more real. I took some european friends backpacking last summer and I couldn’t believe how light my pack was without climbing gear… so I promptly loaded it back up with good eats and booze. I wanted to make it a memorable experience for them, since they’d never been more than a mile from the road in their whole lives. I recommend: 1) Tasty –Bite meals (indian food dishes in foil retort packs, you put the unopened package in boiling water, open and eat, make some instant rice to go with it and eat with pita bread or naan), 2) Cook pasta with some real veggies, then for a sauce squeeze in a whole tube of that salmon pate-in-a-toothpaste tube you can get at Bavarian Meats (across from the Pike Place Market) or Trader Joes and stir until it’s a creamy sauce. 3) Cook pasta with some real veggies, then for a sauce bring real homemade or storebought pesto, make sure you pack it in a very tightly sealing container like a small threaded bottle or it will end up in your pack. Throw some sun-dried tomatoes in with the pasta water, they will rehydrate and be very tasty. 4) Those semi-dried Bear Creek soups you can get at the supermarket with some sausage or something in it. I particularly like the “potato cheddar” flavor. Bring some real bread. 5) Make couscous, but substitute 1/3 grated parmesan cheese, cook like normal, and add canned chicken, curry powder and some diced green onions. This one is actually pretty darn light, I carry it a lot on climbing trips, but it’s tasty and filling also.

Canal side, left-most wall. There’s a big layback rail that’s easy; now try using the parallel feature to the left… texture only for feet. Pretty airy at the top. Other classics: the Gong Show (opposite side of the same wall, go around the huge block in the center using anything you want but not touching the huge block with your feet. With every revolution, do some pullups on the block as you pass under it. Repeat until you fall off.), the two-handed dyno on the left side of the huge roof. Plus the cracks 3” deep, abrasive lined cracks that don’t kill you make you stronger.

Courtenay – We were in there over fourth of july, so obviously I have no idea about currrent conditions, but we spent some time studying the route and it looks to be very straightforward routefinding. You get plenty of time to study the face while descending from the Dome/Chickamin col. A few thoughts: 1) you should be prepared for it to be a hard snow climb of the same length and angle instead of an ice climb. We did the N. Face of Buckner (about the same elevation) in October a few years ago and were only able to place one ice screw into solid ice, everything else was kind of slushy. If all you have are ice screws, then you may not be able to protect much of the route; on the other hand it may be all solid ice and you can sew it up. No way to tell without going there, but just a thought. 2) be prepared to spend a fair amount of time getting down the upper chickamin glacier, it’s not really extreme, but it is steepish and broken up and since you are descending it without benefit of a view from below, it can be tricky to figure out how to avoid the holes 3) there were several trip reports around the end of june/start of july (look for Dome & Gunsight) dealing with the huge avalanche debris/tree blowdowns that took out a good portion of the trail below itswoot peak, maybe worth looking up. 4) nelson suggests camping up basically on the summit of dome peak. These are really spectacular, but if the weather looks sketchy or you feel lazy, you can also camp down on the Dome Glacier, about 40 minutes before the dome-chickimin col. Doesn’t add too much to the morning before the climb, and it’s that much less far that you have to carry your big pack. 5) check out the huge natural arch/window on the west ridge of dome peak (right above you as you approach the D-C col) wow! Have a great time, it’s a neat area.

neither of these is 5.12. do they still count? kite flying blind, second pitch, at index. exemplifies the "it looked totally improbable but somehow it's possible". second choice: pure palm, in the gorge at smith. i'm a sucker for stemming problems.

DFA wrote: quote: You might try asking him if you really want to knowoh what would the fun of that be? it would imply more than a casual, ironic sort of interest quote: made the discovery via a clue that would be fairly obvious to most of DFA's PDX acquaintancessee, this is just what i'm talkin' about. some day you'll post something like "so i was workin on ______ and i blew three clips in a row" and it will just so happen that someone else here was hanging out at the base and remembers it... i've seen it happen a thousand times.

i don't know, doc, your identity may be secret for now... but sooner or later you'll slip up, someone will put two and two together... we'll get you yet!

It's fun. Often empty while crowds are on the W. Ridge. No scary snow couloir to get to the base. The crux is down low, getting around the two gendarmes. It's been too long to remember which side we went around, but I believe we more or less followed the description in the Nelson guide. The rest is pretty mellow. There was a long thread about the East Ledges descent a few weeks ago, look around I'm sure you'll find it.

i dropped my helmet near the top of an alpine climb a few weeks ago and did the last few pitches bare headed. i felt naked. really.

hey nice job - there's something very cool about just out and out covering a lot of ground, isn't there?

likewise... i had a tent fly got shredded, and i had some material. i had rainy pass give me a price to make a new fly using the old one as a pattern... and it was going to cost considerably more than a whole new tent. yikes! i mean, yeah, they know how to sew and i don't, so they can charge what they like, but it was so obviously illogically high, i'd rather have them just flat out say "we're not interested..."

my opinion (and it’s obvious from this thread that people seem to vary a lot in how the deal with this stuff) is that taking safe falls in the gym will improve your ability to “go for it” on bolted sport climbs, and not much else. You will learn to fall confidently on gear that you knew beforehand was guaranteed to be good. My experience with trad climbing is that once you get past the ultra-novice feeling of invincibility (if you ever had it), the only thing that works is step-by-step, a little at a time, earning your stripes, gradually putting the miles in, you get the drift. And recovering from a shakiness-inspiring event is more of the same. For me, the generalized feeling of doom you get standing at the base of a big alpine route is in a completely different category than the fear-of-gear shakes, mostly because it really just fear of the unknown. Except for climbs that are really well within my limits, I’ve never really gotten over the pre-climb jitters, I’ve just gotten used to it. You just keep moving and pretty soon, the quickest way back to “safety” is over the top, not going down… Sometimes the feeling of doom goes away after I have my morning bowel movement.

I don’t know that I’d go quite as far as endorsing Terminal G’s suggestion, but I agree that this business of “visualize success, don’t visualize the splat you’re going to make” didn’t work for me at all. It was just the reverse, I had to force myself to learn to think about everything that could go wrong and gain some measure of control by trying to address every concern I could think of. This resulted in a lot of 3-piece equalized gear placements for a while, but I eventually worked through it. This “engineering” approach really helped me figure out what I was afraid of (didn’t trust gear) and forced me to address it, while at the same time allowing me to compartmentalize that fear into manageable pieces. I don’t think it’s that useful to place a #3 camalot on a steep wall and jump on it – at least for me, my brain doesn’t accept that that experience is transferable to a yellow alien, etc. I don’t think you can talk your fear into going away, you have to learn to put limits around it, to stick it in a box, so that your specific fear doesn’t become generalized panic.

shaky – I got pretty shaky at one point, not because of a fall I took, but because of one I caught. My partner took about a 60 footer after zippering several pieces. It was the last good piece before the belay. I was haunted by this image of both of us being stripped off the side of the mountain. I not only lost faith in the ability of pro to hold a fall, but I doubted the whole system. I was determined to get back on the horse, though, so I kept climbing. I actually got up some pretty hard stuff in this period because I would NOT weight gear, no matter what. If everything was straightforward, I was fine, but when I ran into a cerebral section, I was terrified. What helped me eventually get over it was to learn how to not startle myself with the fear. What I mean is that I got into trouble because I would pretend not to be afraid until I got to a sticky spot and then suddenly the fear would hit me all at once. So I got into the habit of doing an analysis before every move, starting at the ground, of the entire system. “What happens if I come off here?” I slowly learned to compartmentalize: now I’m thinking about the system, I’m either satisfied or I fix the problem, add another piece, whatever. OK, now I’m making moves, concentrating wholly on climbing. Back and forth. I find I still revert to this on heady leads (“ok, forrest, think about the moves, not the gear”), but for a long time, it didn’t work for me unless I did it for the whole pitch. Kind of like bounce testing aid gear – if you do it every time, it adds a lot of security, but doesn’t really help your head if you start in the middle of a sketchy section. I also did a lot of Dru’s treatment – long easy routes with friends.

i think it's worst to come back to work on monday without having gotten out at all but instead wasted a gorgeous weekend straightening out a plumbing emergency in your house. not that anything like this would ever happen to me.

http://www.4gifts4all.com/britney_spears/britney_spears_gifts.html

I read in one of their catalogs once that it refers to north faces in general, something about how due to their aspect, freeze-thaw over the eons has caused north faces (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) to generally be the steepest and most difficult side of any mountain. obviously there are exceptions, but they went on to list an impressive number of examples, mostly in the alps.

The north ridge is pretty easy (it’s the standard descent from the north side routes), but it has some pretty loose and unpleasant sections and some exposure. On the plus side, the bivy on that plateau at the base is one of the most beautiful places to camp in the southern cascades: sunset with rainier and st. helens right there. I’d say that your first plan is actually a good one. The mazama glacier gives you the opportunity to look into a few big holes without actually presenting much difficulty and lets you avoid the south ridge crowds for at least a good part of the way. Actually, except for the weekend crowds, the south ridge itself can actually be pretty nice if you catch it before all the snow melts off, but I imagine by this time of year it’s probably a lot of scree and such. IIRC, the trailhead for the Mazama is on the Yakima Indian reservation? If it is, remember that there’s some additional permit or fee you need to deal with.

Zee – Check your knickers. I think you might find an unnecessary twist. I was suggesting to MattP that he try to see the route from the perspective of someone without his extensive experience – as a beginner, the route was, in fact, full of surprises and marvels. "I didn't ask for your opinion"... gimme a break. Try rereading your original post. In fact, you specifically ask for opinions. If skin is really this thin, perhaps you should avoid posting in public forums? [ 08-16-2002, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: forrest_m ]

Mostly straight up and trending slightly (climber's) left, it's bushwacky scrambling for maximum 200 vert. feet before you break out into open boulderfields. Essentially you want to traverse the west/south face of the ridge (which is a series of open basins) until below the appropriate pass. It can be a bit tricky to figure out where you are. i posted this photo before, it's taken from washington monument ridge to the east, arrow points to the base of the e. ridge of cindarella

Mr. N - I'm not sure how you would approach from Baker Lake, it seems like it would be a long hike. Most of the dirt roads that head up from that road are also logging roads owned by the same company, so you would still need permission and/or a key to drive in from that side. On the positive side, the logging co. (crown pacific, i think) is really easy to deal with. The guard shack in Hamilton is open until 10 pm, so you can check in and get a key (if necessary) the night before. i think it opens at 7 am, as well. When we did Cindarella, we went in that way. The major issue is that the gate up high (about 5 miles before the end of the road) is periodically closed for elk migration. When we went in, the gate was physically open but had a sign saying no entry. We drove in anyway (bad), but didn't see anyone and got out before we got locked in. That was in late september, so this early it may not be elk season yet. Even if you had to park at that gate, if you had a mountain bike, it would be a pretty casual ride up to the end of the road. The other trick part is finding the route. From the end of the road, there is a faint trail up through the trees for a while, then you have to cross a drainage and scramble/bushwack into a rocky basin. From there, you have to traverse and cross over TWO more ridges before climbing to the ridge, crossing the col, and dropping down to the base of the ridge. The route itself is very straightforward - just follow the easiest way. We did it in 2 simulclimbing pitches. Fun and solid; once you get on the ridge, it is all low fifth class on solid rock - no BS 4th class or sandy gullies to deal with.

the year is 1984 and the 13-year old forrest_m is tying into a rope for his first seattle mountaineers basic experience climb. it's a bit hard to move with so many slings, pulleys, prussiks and other gear draped willy-nilly over his helmeted head. he feels very grown up to be spending the whole weekend with these grown-up people. after a tedious but short hike up the night before, the group had camped (on snow!) at a very scenic spot, with views of real glaciers and seracs. now, at 3 am, and the domes of snow ahead seem very large in the uncertain light of headlamps. 4 hours later, the party emerges onto the false summit, having climbed the mazama glacier without serious incident. but there was excitement - oh yes. stepping over *real crevasses* that you couldn't see the bottom of. traversing left, then right along the lip of another series of cracks (big enough to swallow a car). forrest_m has felt the sun on his face while hundreds of miles of eastern washington desert remains in darkness. another hour or so, and the summit. with all their gear, the party of mountaineers is clearly of a different breed than the long line of non-climber's we share the summit with - we climbed a glacier to get here. later, at the dusty trailhead, the trip leader distributes ice cold beers to celebrate the successful trip. under-aged forrest_m is included. mountaineers can be cool, too.