forrest_m

i think g-spotter is playing the "run it through babelfish a couple of times" game. you know, you type something in, translate english-russian-portugese-english and see what comes up... i.e. via english-german-french-english: if you whom see I think of Gg-spotter am "" to play" race him babelfish a couple of times "the play which you know, you type something, you translate and what englisch-russisch-portugese-englisches comes...

no, although i recently did a climb with a friend of mine who is a dentist - not only did he brush, he flossed. the only thing i've ever used dental floss for in the mountains is for emergency sewing... before i discovered duct tape.

Thinker wrote: quote: when's the last time you used your toothbrush on a rock while mountaineering? heck, when's the last time you used a toothbrush on your teeth while mountaineering?

a nice & concise TR, CM3! by the way, the sibley creek approach is very scenic, but takes longer than the standard approach. on the standard, you can just put your nose down and grind it out; sibley creek has a lot of route finding, up and down, etc. (not that it's not worth doing, 'cause it's cool, but it's not a time saver)

way to keep on keepin' on. i usually prefer to "walk through the bivy" rather than sit there and shiver as well! we were on colchuck balanced rock on sunday, and heard the occasional "off belay" from your direction. maybe that was you?

For once, I was actually ready to go when Dan pulled into the driveway on Saturday afternoon. I’d been only too glad of the excuse to quit scraping loose paint off the guest room ceiling to clean up and pack. We made good time to Leavenworth, and were sacked out in the parking lot by 10. We got up at 4:30, and were actually moving by 5:30; by 7:20, we had rounded Colchuck Lake, passing by elaborate campsites that smelled enticingly like breakfast. I’d forgotten how spectacular the lake is, glowing turquoise as if illuminated from within. We rounded the lake and hiked a few hundred feet up the Asgaard Pass trail, then cut left across the slope, aiming for the gaps in the slide alder. We managed a pretty efficient route and broke out of the brush to scramble up the gully behind Jaberwocky Tower. At the top, we crossed a small col and dropped 100 feet into a lovely little basin. The west face rises sheer above, and the crux free climbing on the fifth pitch leading up to the huge roof looks quite close. We joked about whether it was foreshortening or just four short pitches. We finished scrambling up the gully of large blocks and sat down to gear up at 9:20. I led off the first pitch, which started with a few difficult moves off a ledge, then a ramble up a narrow ramp to a sandy ledge. The 10+ section was obvious, with a super-clean face rising off the ledge. Rattly off-fingers, the hardest moves were the first 10 feet off the ledge. Because you traverse quite a ways to the ledge, I put long slings on the first two pieces of gear. This was not very confidence inspiring – the pro was great, but I’d still hit the ground. I grunted up to a stance and finally got some ankle-saving gear in, uneasy about the flash-pump I was feeling halfway up the first pitch. Another 15 feet and it eased off; I traversed back left and ran the second pitch together with the first (only possible with our 70 meter rope). The 5.7 second pitch felt burly and sustained for the grade, something that would emerge as a pattern for the day, but I was soon at the spacious and comfortable belay on top of the pedestal. On the third pitch, we were fooled by an old piece of fixed gear; there are two possible ways to “step across” from the pedestal. The correct way is on the (climber’s) right hand side of the tower; we went left, which led to a beautiful, clean 5.8 crack up the face that reminded me of the route Bussonier at J-Tree. Unfortunately, it ended at a loose piton with an RP crack angling rightwards. Dan downclimbed 25 feet, instead, and made a delicate traverse right to the corner, then went straight up about 60 feet to a roof, running it out a long ways to prevent a follower’s nightmare. About now we realized that we were still off route, and that we needed to be in the next corner system rightwards to get up to the base of the big dihedral, so Dan did another delicate traverse out to the arete, but was stopped by rope drag before he could get into the corner; he set up a hanging belay right on the nose. Following with the pack, I was more worried about shock loading Dan’s tiny gear belay, and took tension on both traverses rather than risk a hard pendulum fall. From the belay, I climbed over Dan and set out with the gear I’d cleaned. Still another delicate traverse finally led back into the corner system we should have followed in the first place, and I quickly led up the ledges and slabs towards the corner above. I thought about belaying from lower down at a tree, but the risk of going higher paid off with an excellent flat stance right at the base of the dihedral. The 5.11 corner was my lead as well; the description states that it is straightforward but long and strenuous, so energy conservation was my mantra. The rock was flawless, white granite stained with orange and yellow lichens as if tagged by a particularly ambition urban gang. As promised, the going was reasonable but relentless. The back face of the corner was a constant taunt, since despite increasingly desperate scrutiny, it refused to yield even a single stem. There were good jams, but separated by stretches of narrow crack where laybacking was the only real option. Once past the halfway point, I knew it was a race. At each piece of gear, I’d have a brief argument with myself, “No, I won’t hang yet.” Finally, though, about 20 feet below the anchor, my willpower ran out. My hand emerged from the crack damp with some slime dripping down the back, and that, combined with a glance down at the huge exposure, was the end of my clean ascent. I slapped in a big cam and whimpered “Take!” The belay at the top of the pitch is an intimidating place. Fifteen feet below a mammoth 20 foot roof, it is a small ledge that undercuts a smooth granite bulge, making it impossible to stand without weighting the anchors. You belay with your ass hanging directly over the route, the north side of Mt. Stuart perfectly framed under the granite eyebrow beyond. I dinked around with gear, ending up with basically two complete anchors, and hauled up the packs. The bulge from the anchors to the roof goes at 5.12, but a fixed aider hangs down from the seam at the junction, and it didn’t seriously occur to us to attempt it free. After climbing the ladder, Dan was able to head across by hanging on large pieces placed under the roof. Only the first step was tenuous, and he quickly got the rhythm and disappeared leftwards into the sun, where another 15 feet of free climbing led up to a sloping stance. I followed in the same way, and Dan then headed up the clean 5.9 corner above, like the fifth pitch but with good footholds. It ends in an awkward roof that we also used a few moves of aid to move through to reach a comfortable ledge. The last serious pitch was the 5.8 chimney; the first part, a gap behind a flaring ear, was at my limit with the backpack on. I finally managed to escape to the outside arete, then up a slab above to the base of yet another flaring slot. This one was simply too narrow for me and the pack, so I left it sitting on the ledge tied to one end of my cordalette. I danced a tenuous ballet with the pack on the small ledge; pushed out by the overhang above, it was quite difficult to maneuver the pack off my back (the rack was of course over the pack straps), across my body and onto a stable stance. Once freed of the beast, with all gear transferred to my right side, I was amazed at how easily I was able to wriggle up the chimney. Maybe the pitch is 5.8 after all - without a pack. I had one final crux as I balanced on the arete above and hauled the pack up with the 6 mil cord, then it was off to the races. Above, two easy pitches of blocks and slabs led to the summit. We didn’t spend much time enjoying the view, but started the scramble down. After less than a hundred feet, we were able to change into tennis shoes. We could scree surf most of the slopes down to the basin below the route, then we picked our way more painstakingly down the approach gully. The alder slides and boulderfield seemed much longer than on the way in. We started jogging down the hills, speed walking on the flats. By the end of the trail, we were walking almost blind – good thing for us the rocks sticking up in the trail are white. It’s the roots you have to watch out for. When we stepped out into the parking lot, we estimated that ten more minutes and we would have had to break out the headlamps.

Does anyone have any recent knowledge of the condition of the Bush River road (near Golden, B.C.)? I’ve heard third hand that it is driveable to the end with a standard-clearance 2WD car, can anyone confirm or deny? Any other approach beta for the north side of Columbia? Thanks in advance.

me too if the direct link doesn't work, go to bivouac.com, log in (or register if you aren't already), then go to what's new, and look down under new photo essays. it's the one called "Climbers on Taseko Mountain" i just thought it was kind of funny to see a picture of myself taken 3 years ago posted so recently!

I drew a big crack on top of my helmet with a non-UIAA approved sharpie, it wore off after a few years and the helmet survived quite a few knocks. Since I just dropped the thing down the east face of liberty bell last weekend, I guess it was kind of prophetic... but in the least bad possible way. oh, thank god, i've graduated from chief wanker to chronic gumbie. [ 08-07-2002, 05:26 PM: Message edited by: forrest_m ]

http://bivouac.com/PhotoPg.asp?PhotoId=2227 I'm the middle dot... I reckon' you have to be a bivouac.com member for this to work.

stupid double post... [ 08-07-2002, 05:18 PM: Message edited by: forrest_m ]

also look at this one: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000412 starts out as a TR about bear mt. but quickly becomes a comparison of the relative merits of that route vs. ne butt of slesse

A friend of mine was walking by one of the lower crags at exit 38 and saw two very young guys working a route. The guy on the ground was useing a gri-gri, of course. About the third bolt, he gets a worried expression on his face and yells up to his partner "Are you in a good place?" "Why?" replied the climber with sudden panic. A pause. "Dooood. You're the hand." (for anyone not familiar, the gri-gri has some of those cute petzl icons on the side to show you which direction to feed the rope through. One is a climber, the other a hand)

Thanks for the beta Matt. We did the route on Saturday, and we did indeed do a lot of aid. It was a pretty full day, even without my bonehead move (see below). In the end, we couldn’t quite decide whether to approach this as a free-with-a-little-aid climb or as a full-on aid route. We didn’t want to commit to something that would be too hard/poorly protected to french free, but also wanted to carry as little gear as possible. So of course, we weren’t really ideally equipped for either. Basic summary: my feeling is that you would have to be a very solid 5.11+ climber to do much of the business part of the route free. Regardless of the difficulty of the climbing (the rock is excellent and pretty featured), the gear is often long stretches of small brass nuts, sometimes very tricky to place. Offset aliens were nice. The route doesn’t see a lot of traffic and some crack gardening was required to get the gear in. Bottom line, we basically aided pitches 5-8. All the aid was clean and pretty reasonable; beware the fixed pins, as we were able to finger-clean two of the ones we found. One nice thing is that you can pretty easily bail off the route: all the belays to the top of pitch 7 are fixed, with at least 1 new 3/8 inch bolt per anchor. The topo in Beckey is pretty accurate, though some of the fixed pins have been replaced with bolts. After wanking with gear at my house, we drove up to the pass Friday night. Saturday morning came too soon; unseasonably cold temperatures (36 degrees when we woke up) made it hard to get a super-early start, but we were climbing by 7:30. The first four pitches are pretty straightforward. Pitch 3 & 4 could be run together with a single rope, and they use different size gear. At the top of P3 in the Beckey topo, it shows a dogleg to the right; someone has added a second bolt that allows you to continue free straight up and left to the base of the P4 chimney, but this is a pretty hard move (mid 11). The fifth pitch starts out from under a big roof up a ramp to the left. Good pro and handholds die out as you pull into a small corner, then I aided up the thin seam (climbing seemed like it might go but it would be very hard to place gear while free climbing here), past a fixed bashie thing. The crack peters out and there is about 10 feet of mandatory free climbing that made me pretty glad I was wearing rock shoes and not wall boots. Horizontal pulls get you to a pretty good stance (10+), where you can get some more gear in and in a few more moves you reach a nice new bolt. Another couple of hard moves above the bolt get you into another crack system, which gets easier as you pull into the corner above. (11a free from bolt to anchors) This is the last comfy belay for a while, at least there is a small pedestal where you can stand instead of hanging from the anchors. The topo says 140 ft, but really only about 90. P6 heads right around another small roof with some fixed gear. The topo said A3, but we found it to be easier than the aid on the 5th and 7th pitch. By now, we were fully in aid mode and had abandoned any ideas about doing much free climbing. Once you get into the aiding mindset, it’s pretty hard to break out of, and we didn’t feel too good about taking falls on the consistently small gear/flexing old fixed knifeblades. The Cascade Ceilings at the top of the pitch have lots of good cracks and features, but rope drag prevented Hal from doing many continuous free moves here either. From the hanging belay on the slab, p7 starts out with a very awkward rightward traverse down to a tree then up the crack. This would be a scary free lead without preplacing gear. The belay is another hanger, below another large roof. Pitch 8 was pretty easy aid, with a lot of fixed gear, before the angle eased off and we could free up through blocky terrain to a gravelly terrace. We moved up quickly to M&M ledge, a short 5.7 traverse up and left, then I ran the next two pitches together. Really fun climbing up a very clean ramp and dihedral – it would almost be worth doing the barber pole route just for this upper section. Hal followed with the pack and then headed up the next blocky section. At this point, I did one of the dumbest things I’ve done in the mountains, a mistake that turned an ordinary long day into a mini-epic. Dusk was falling fast as Hal led, and the overcast sky and occasional spits of rain made me really want to hurry, so put my headlamp onto my helmet as I belayed. Just as I put my helmet on, but before I had a chance to fasten the strap, Hal started pulling slack out hard, so I let go of my hat to pull rope through, then – DUH – looked up to see if he needed more. There was the sound of plastic impacting rock, and I looked over my shoulder just in time to see my helmet take one hard bounce off the block I was sitting on and then out into the abyss. Loosing my helmet was bad enough, although from here to the top was mostly ridge travel, but loosing the headlamp was a major bad. The sky was overcast and there was no moon. By the time I got to the next belay, it was fully dark. We loaded the jumars on the rope before I left the belay, then I ran up the next pitches at full speed, trying to get past the slab portion before the rain kicked in. Hal jugged in the dark, only becoming aware of gear to clean when the upper jumar was blocked by the carabiner. The last 300 feet of easy ground took a long, long time: I climbed 30 feet with the headlamp, clipped into something, then belayed Hal up with the pack, directing the beam of the lamp at his feet. Fortunately, we both had the descent pretty wired, although coming down the scree gully was a pain. It was the same drill, I would go 20 feet, then turn to light up the path for Hal to follow. We finally got down to the trail, and were very grateful that it is such a highway. We dragged our tired asses back to the car at 3:30, about 23 hours after we had gotten up.

Michael, I'm pretty sure they made it up. (Was one of them a recently-transplanted californian now working as a guide in bellingham? We chatted for a minute but I didn't get his name). We were just summitting when I saw their headlamps arriving at their truck, around 11:30.

Matt Anderson wrote “I own no offsets” That’s kind of funny, ‘cause I don’t own any Lowe balls… We actually had a double set of small aliens and offsets, which was probably overkill. One full set including the offsets sure was nice, however, with maybe doubles in the 0 and 1 sizes. We got good use out of both straight sided and offset brass nuts. Probably safe enough a fall without that piece, nonentheless, a long ride. I would agree that there is always some bomber gear on each pitch, but it’s liberally spaced, i.e. you would take a long fall, but the route is pretty steep and clean and you wouldn’t deck… Regarding pitch 5 - I'd be very curious to hear what Forrest used, I had a decent alien far below me and placed a couple of crappy loweballs. I tried to place micro nuts, but they kept yanking out. I couldn't see the placements b/c I was placing from a balancy lieback. I got a couple of good pieces in just as you turn the roof (just off the belay). Then the crack gets very small and shallow. I got a decent 0 alien and a blue-black offset, but both required a lot of fiddling to get them into the sweet spot. Same with the nuts – there are decent places, but it’s a matter of millimeters to find the sweet spot. I’m blown away that you did that free, I started out trying but quickly realized it was out of my league. P 6 & 7 had a lot more stemming and seemed like you could hang out and place better gear. Matt, I have a question for you: on the 12a pitch, how did you work the beginning? Did you move the belay from the bolts below the slab down to the tree? If I was freeing it, I think I would want to load up the crack down by the tree (where it’s really good) with solid gear, but with a belay from the fixed station, that would be a rope drag nightmare. (Aiding I was able to swallow the runout and not place anything until I got high enough to not have too much drag).

I bought a pair of Salomon Super Guide 9 boots from Climzalot. I think he got them cheap but the wrong size. He brought them down from B-ham for me to try on. They fit me perfectly. I gave him money. We were both happy. It took us a couple of weeks of email to set up a time to meet, but the face-to-face meeting adds a lot of confidence to the used-gear-buying process. [ 08-05-2002, 01:45 PM: Message edited by: forrest_m ]

Anyone done it? I’m wondering how sustained the aid sections are, i.e. do we treat this like a ‘lil big wall or is it more of a long free route with a few aid sections? (Yeah, I know, it goes free at 12.something with cruxes protected by small brass nuts. So we won’t be doing that.) TIA.

Tex – Well, you may be right. I first heard of the tibloc thing on rec.climbing, and someone was crediting Hans Florine with showing them the technique, but who knows if that’s really true. But it was a record-setting long thread, and I couldn’t bring myself to read the whole thing. There’s a good summary here: http://www.tradgirl.com/climbing_faq/advanced_2.htm#tibloc_simul

so, lambone, is your fiancee still psyched to to "easy alpine climbs" in the rockies for your honeymoon? i'm always paranoid that if i get my wife involved in an epic i'll never get her out of the city again...

at least i'm a "chief"...

Another way of saying the same thing: we did only 2 raps, thought it looked good, and started traversing. We didn't die, but it was scary, slabby, dirty mid-5th traversing. Yuck.

Matt – only one way to avoid this in the future: leave the cel phone at home… seriously, I’m glad to hear that you’re (all) ok and apparently no worse for wear. These things happen. We all make questionable decisions from time to time, but usually the weather stays fine and we get away with it. For what it’s worth, I think miscommunications with the rescue folks are common. If they waited to have all the info, it would be too late for the people who really were in a desperate situation, so their tendency is to “mobilize first, ask questions later.”

my understanding of the tibloc thing is that it is a technique developed by the "in a day" yosemite crowd, many of whom are simulclimbing on 5.10 and harder terrain, and that it works best on very steep routes. i've always thought that for most alpine terrain, it would be a recipie for snarls and tangles because of the broken terrain, changes in direction, would keep the rope from feeding properly. i've never done it, but it's in my "maybe i'll use this technique someday" file... norman, while i agree that simulclimbing may not be right for everyone or every situation, my experience has been that it is widely applicable and usually faster (for me) than either standard belays or soloing. i'm comfortable simuling at a much higher level than i am soloing (even if i could do it w/o a rope, i'd spend a lot of time moving up and down, etc). simulclimbing is much faster than belayed climbing because you are both moving at the same time AND because for a given number of vertical feet, you have fewer "changeovers" where neither one of you is moving.

le corbusier was one of the great modern architects. he designed "le modulor" as a guide to proportions, based on the golden section. but the result was this ridiculous high-ape-index dude instead. so either: this is an illustration of what happens when you let "logic" overcome common sense or proof that climbers are the perfectly proportioned humans. you have to respect anyone who give themselves a silly name and make it stick. (le corbusier means "the crow;” his mom named him eduord jenneret) [ 07-30-2002, 05:53 PM: Message edited by: forrest_m ]