forrest_m

doh! i mean d'or

Erewhon – This is a serious question, not a troll. Why would you consider going on such a big serious climb with a group of people you met over the internet? So you know where I’m coming from, my three goals for any climbing expedition, in order of importance are: 1) come back alive 2) come back friends 3) come back having succeeded on the climbing objective It seems to me that the first two are wholly dependent on the quality of your partners. My experience is that technical competence, while obviously important, is the least important factor in successful trips to big ranges. None of my business, really, but I wonder why you aren’t simply planning this trip with one or two friends who you already trust and know you can get along with for a month? You might have some very good reasons, but one wouldn’t know from reading your post.

why does michael jackson like twenty eight year olds? because there's twenty of them.

dryad wrote: dryad - thank you for articulating what i've been feeling all day. i mean, i've always been aware that my personal political beliefs are more "progressive" (or whatever) than the majority, but i've sustained myself with the feeling that i was just ahead of the curve... and after last night, i realize that, no, actually, i'm moving in the opposite direction from the "average" america, and i'm starting to despair of ever having a government that represents anything approaching my values. the majority of people in this country looked at the last four years and decided they wanted more. it makes me want to cry.

If your goal is to do Luna (or anything in the n. pickets) in the shortest possible time, i think the best option is to come in via hannegan pass/perfect pass. Perfect Pass is a pretty reasonable day (ok, it's long, but in context, reasonable, mostly on trail and above timberline, 0 real bushwacking), Luna is a reasonable RT from there in a day (2 hrs PP to challenger summit, 4 hrs to Luna lake, 1 hr to luna pass, 1 hr RT to summit, 5 hours back to Challenger, 1/2 hour to PP = 11.5 hours, more or less, quite doable with day packs if you do it early enough in the season that most of the basin is snow covered), day 3 back to the car. BTW, the ridge from the false summit to the true summit is pretty easy, exposed but only 4th class.

lots of guide info here: http://www.escuelasdeescalada.com/ (part of the desnivel magazine website, but has an english option), they even have online guides to some of the not-so-great-but-accessible-by-public-transportation areas near madrid

i come in heavily on the biking side. when you're running, you tend to "push" off (builds your achilles) whereas biking, if you're maintaining a good cadence, you are "pulling" with your thigh muscle (builds your quads) which i find translates very easily to the "lifting/straightening" of your leg that hiking steep trails and slopes with a pack requires. it seems to me that hiking and running basically require totally different muscle groups whereas hiking/biking have about 80% overlap. the comments people have made about getting a workout on the flats are well taken, but i have also found that bike hills are the ideal interval training - hit it hard on the way up, drift down with no knee strain, repeat until tired... finally, i've found that biking, since is also serves as transportation, allows me to more easily work exercise into my daily routine without having to set aside as much special time for it, which is important for me (YMMV, of course)

yeah, hiking up amphitheater when i was about 12 years old is one of the things that got me interested in climbing in the first place

mike - it is possible to descend the w. ridge/gully with one rope (i've done it), but it sucks. some friends of mine did the same thing last summer, and went back the following weekend to do the south face, and sent me the following email: my understanding is that this REQUIRES a second rope i have also heard of people rapping the east ridge (including 1st ascent party), which seems like it might be reasonable with a single rope, (the steep pitches are pretty short) but this is a total speculation. would be nice, though, if your plan is the e. ridge, to leave axes & boots at the bottom!

we brought one 80-foot length of 10.5 and felt it was plenty. We simulclimbed the entire route; we only did 4 raps (40', obviously) over the steepest steps and simul-downclimbed the rest. There's so much broken and/or horizontal ground, we felt this was significantly faster than rappelling. even if this is "too much", i would definately lean towards bringing only one rope, i can't think of anywhere on that descent where a 60 meter rap would be desirable - too much chance of the rope getting hung up. YMMV

Very nice. Thanks for all the hard work. On the PDF question, I have a question for you. You've probably hashed this all out in great detail already, so feel free to ignore my comments below. Are you doing the layout directly in a web-editing program (dreamweaver, frontpage)? Or in a print-oriented layout program (indesign, quark)? Because if you were to use the latter, it would simplify the web/pdf question. Most higher end layout programs these days make it simple to export in BOTH pdf and html formats, (including linking directly to both low and high resolution images for the respective format, etc). You can then add navigation elements as required to the html pages. The extra time this takes is more than made up for by the time you save using a layout program's more sophisticated style sheets, etc. Just a thought, since it doesn't appear to me that you are doing much "web only" type stuff (flash animations, interactive or user-input driven content, etc), rather you are already basically using a print journal paradigm and just using the web for distribution.

Going triad col is MUCH faster. It's about 3-4 miles shorter and 1,500' less elevation to gain (and then lose again). Think of it this way: from the standard approach, going triad col takes you in "front" of eldorado, eldo-eldo needle col takes you all the way up over the shoulder of the east ridge and around the "back" of eldorado before you even get to the col. Triad col is slightly more technical (some low fifth class rock - look for a ramp that leads up and left from the right side, i've never roped up to go up but i know people who have) and some crevasses to navigate on the far side, but i would think it's at least two hours faster than going the other way. [chestbeat]our total time on the w. ridge last summer was a bit over 15 hours car-to-car.[/chestbeat]

reporting back: we got a late start on total soul (3 o'clock rock) on saturday hoping for shade, but were in the sun until almost 5 pm! on the lower pitches, the rock was uncomfortably warm to the touch, but fortunately some high clouds took the edge off the heat. admittedly, the afternoon sun was somewhat oblique (not like the direct broiler action on dreamer), but still pretty darn warm. one other beta note, the highest bolted rap anchor shown on the topo (on the web guide), i.e. the only rap anchor not actually on the route itself, is there but hard to see. Directly below the first tree anchor is a second tree with numerous slings and rings. The bolted anchor is about 15' up and left from this tree, but it is obvious that many people don't see it and are using the tree instead. The tree appears to be plenty strong, but the bolted anchor is a better line - we had to reclimb this section after our 6 mil pull line tied itself into a knot on a bush just below the tree. re-setting the rap on the bolts was a much cleaner pull.

can someone who is familiar with d-town rock recommend some routes/walls that are mostly shady in the afternoon? i've been burned (literally) before and tomorrow is looking pretty warm. Thanks!

Having used Dan's system for a while now, I can add another data point. Bottom line is that I think it's a clever invention, and very useful for a surprisingly wide range of circumstances, though there are still a few bugs to be tinkered on before I'm completely satisfied. They are truly awesome for things like clean break, wa. pass. routes, eldorado or stuart in a day, etc.. Most of the refinements I am playing with have to do long-distance comfort, not performance. I have to admit that I was quite skeptical at first (and the first few versions definately had some issues), but I've been pretty impressed with the performance. OTOH, I definately seem to be better at "breaking" the system than Dan, we speculate because I have a more "heel dominant" style of walking as opposed to Dan's "toe dominant" style. Anyway, on to the specifics: Pros: Very light. Very compact in the pack when you put rock shoes on. Quick to change modes - a huge advantage if you are changing back and forth from one medium to another. You can take them off, clip them to your pack straps with their own straps and keep walking in, like, 5 seconds. Putting them on is almost as fast. (This would be a major problem with individually screwing on 8 spikes onto each shoe). Very nimble on snow and ice, though the technique takes a little getting used to, it's like super french technique. Urethane rubber soles are pretty grippy on slabs, wet logs and the like. Cons with the system: The biggest problem with the system is that you do most of your hiking with a "double sole." On trails, this is not much of an issue, but I find that traveling x-country, especially sidehilling, i really notice the fact that the soles are sticking to the ground, but the only think keeping my heel from sliding off the sole is a single 1/2" strap. The result was that on our pickets trip I got some pretty serious blisters on the outside of my heel, a new place for me! To be fair, these only developed on the last few miles of a 40+ mile weekend; in other trips, I've only noticed this as a minor discomfort rather than a big issue. I'm considering adding at least one more strap to spread the load out more. A second issue is that since you are higher up, with a less than 100% connection between the shoe and sole, Dan and I both seemed prone to roll our ankles once or twice a day (we both have long-standing ankle issues, which seem to be mildly exacerbated - not caused - by the system). Finally, this is minor, the tread is rather shallow due to the molding process, which makes them a little slippery on mud, though even with the soles, they are pretty good on snow. Cons with using track shoes: I wanted to separate these from Dan's invention, since obviously there are a lot of options out there. We both use cross-country shoes, which are a bit more beefy than a track spike designed for the 100 meter sprint. These lightweight shoes leak like a seive, but really, so do all lightweight hikers, and I think using G-tex or sim. socks is pretty much a necessity for any system that combines extended snow walking with tennis shoes. Overall durability doesn't seem to be a big issue, so far, since generally the shoes themselves aren't actually touching the ground. My biggest complaint is that it is hard to get a decent footbed to work in them (I have pretty high arches) because what padding there is is generally sewn into place and there isn't much volume to get anything else in there. But I'm working on it...

sean - your plan is feasible terrain-wise, but if you are going to do a bivy, i think camping at the triad col is better, just because it's a lot less out of your way to grab your stuff on the way down. if you're planning to do a carry-over, i guess that doesn't matter, but it would be pretty tedious to summit via the w. ridge, descend the e. ridge, hoof it all the way over to the deacon's tower (better camping than in the actual eldo-needle col), then cross right back over the terrain you had just crossed to get BACK over to the descent... i don't know what you consider easy or hard, but since you know the approach and the days are still pretty long, the route is quite doable as a car-to-car. This simplifies the logistics quite a bit! I would only recommend this if you are comfortable simulclimbing the bulk of the route. as jonthomp's TR noted, there is not very much sustained climbing on the route, but there is LOTS of low fifth class. i thought this route was a lot of fun, if a bit vegetated down low, but i was a bit surprised at how long it is - over 3,000 feet of real (if easy) climbing! Also, don't waste too much time trying to line up the guidebook description of 1st, 2nd, etc. gendarmes, there's actually a whole bunch of towers but the "crux" is really really obvious. We only rapped once, off the "last" gendarme, YMMV.

east pillar TR

i went to several of the meetings regarding the climbing management plan, and IIRC, the total number of guided days on the emmons and dc remain the same, although there is a small increase allowed on some other rarely guided routes. there is also a "no guiding zone" more or less between the nisqually and ptarmigan ridge. the increased park revenues come because with multiply guide services vying for the available slots, the concession fees will be higher.

ok, chosskid/wass, here's my rec for the perfect north cascades sampler. everything on this list is pretty popular already, so i'm not worried about whether or not you're a troll or a magazine writer in disguise: day 1: hike up to boston basin & establish camp day 2: climb w. ridge of torment and start torment-forbidden traverse. bivy halfway along. day 3: complete traverse by climbing w. ridge of forbidden. descend to camp in boston basin. day 4: cross over sharkfin col, cross boston glacier and climb n. face of buckner. cross upper horseshoe basin, hike up sahale arm and summit sahale peak. descent quien sabe glacier to camp in boston basin day 5: back up to sharkfin col and climb sharkfin tower, descend to camp and hike out.

wayne - sorry, not to derail this fascinating debate about ratings, but to answer your question about what we did in '99, i'm rather disappointed to report that i have spent 5 years thinking that we (dan aylward, marshall balick, tim matsui and i) climbed the snow couloir to the ghost-crooked thumb notch and then traversed towards challenger, when in fact it is now clear that we climbed the snow couloir to the crooked thumb-challenger notch. (the error stems from the mis-label in the previous edition of the beckey guide, an error perpetuated in my memory). this error seemed logical at the time, since as you note, the ridge is very long and has numerous sub-summits which are believable as independent summits when seen from the ridge crest. nor did we actually summit challenger on that traverse, instead we descended a couloir on the west side about 3/4 of the way along in rain and lightning. so any webbing you found south of the CT-C col belongs to someone else. the only other summit we reached on that trip was luna peak - not much payoff for hauling 90 pound packs into the area!

JRW – I think that was us (see poltergeist pinnacle TR), which group were you? As for ghost peak, we had some nomenclature problems stemming from our ’99 trip into the range. The old version of the beckey guide has crooked thumb mis-labelled, so we had gone that whole trip with some misconceptions about what was what… then when we changed plan mid-trip last weekend, we misremembered* that what we were climbing was Ghost, and put that in the climber’s register when we signed out. When we got home and studied the photos, we realized that the face we climbed didn’t have an independent name and was in fact a sub-peak of Challenger. As for the footwear, we were wearing track spikes (for the glacier) with a homemade outsole that straps underneath for the trail. The system works as a lightweight crampon-equivalent that is also very compact when you stick the setup into your pack for the rock climbing. Dan is the mastermind of this invention, he’s got it pretty refined. He was quite disappointed that not a single person on the trail commented on them! *it is my belief that the word “misremembered” will be seen by history as GWB’s greatest legacy as president

not so terrifying for me with a top rope! an impressive lead to watch for sure. josh, we did see the two parties (4 & 2 people respectively) as well as 2 camped in the basin below perfect pass and 4 more who turned back after getting a look at the impasse... i'll bet there were more people in the n. pickets last w/e than the entire rest of the year combined! to be honest, i didn't think the rock was that bad on the ridge crest, although it was way better on the face. very loose in some places, of course, but fairly solid wherever it was steep. as for the approach, i think you're right, if the little beaver trail was in good shape, that might be the easiest way... easy ridge has just enough obstacles (unmaintained trail, the impasse) and enough up and down to be kind of a pain, but this was our third time on it, so we figured it would be fastest for us.

Climb: Poltergeist Pinnacle (Mt. Challenger)-East Face (New Route) Date of Climb: 7/4/2004 Trip Report: Summary On July 3, Dan Aylward and I hiked to Perfect Pass via Hannegan Pass/Easy Ridge. On the 4th, we traversed around Challenger Arm and climbed a new route on the east face of Poltergeist Pinnacle, one of the most prominent sub-summits on the ridge between Mt. Challenger and Crooked Thumb. We belayed 3 x 60m pitches (5.9+R/X, 5.8, 5.8) and then simulclimbed ~800 feet (up to 5.7 but mostly low 5th). From the summit, we traversed the ridge crest north to the summit of Mt. Challenger (1.5 hours, mid-5th) and descended the standard route back to Perfect Pass (12.5 hours round trip). Hiked out on the 5th. The Long Story Is a grudge match resolved if you have a successful trip but still don’t climb your original objective? Does it even count as a grudge match if you never actually started the route in the first place? And what is the best approach to the North Pickets, anyways? None of these questions were resolved during our trip. In 1999, we had hiked into Luna Cirque with 10 days worth of food. Unfortunately, the day after we established ourselves at camp on the rock thumb below “Waiting Tower,” it started to rain and didn’t let up until the day we had to hike out. Typical. During breaks in the weather, we scoped out a promising line on Swiss Peak. We had even reconned the approach through the icefalls. But year after year, weather, family obligations and other factors have prevented a return trip. Finally, we penciled this trip into the calendar almost a year in advance. Our plan to climb a new route on Swiss Peak in three days round trip didn’t allow a lot of room for delays, but they built up anyways. I think the people who investigate airplane crashes call this the “cascade of failure.” The ranger station in Glacier doesn’t open until 8 and only issues backcountry permits in person, so we weren’t hiking on Saturday morning until 10. The hike went fairly smoothly until fog enveloped us just beyond the Imperfect Impasse, with the result that we hiked up the wrong snow finger and had to descend 800’ before turning back uphill to Perfect Pass. We were quite tired by the time we finally pitched camp at 10 pm; between dinner, water and snaffle-proofing, it was 11:30 before we were horizontal. This was the death knell for our planned alpine start the next morning. In fact, it was 8:00 before we set out across the Challenger Glacier, following two parties who had gotten up at a more typical hour. After turning the corner of Challenger Arm, we began a long descending traverse across Luna Cirque. We were following what we could remember of our route from five years ago, but it’s never easy finding the best route down a convex slope of crevasses and seracs. At 11 a.m., we reached a dead end in an icefall. No way to get to Swiss peak without going back up and around, at least another hour lost. We were already much later than planned; the build up of delays had caught up to us. Time for plan B. Along the ridge crest from Mt. Challenger to Crooked Thumb, one spire is particularly distinctive because of a huge shield feature at the base that is streaked by hundreds of dykes that crisscross the face like bolts of lightning. A line on this face would have been our second objective back in 1999 had everything gone according to plan. In keeping with the theme of Ghost and Phantom Peaks, we dubbed this Poltergeist Pinnacle. In addition to the intriguing shield at the base, this face boasts very featured, clean and solid rock. A steep face borders the shield on the left and arches above it to mid-height on the face; above, the angle leans back in a wide trough bordered by jagged buttresses on each side. Poltergeist Pinnacle from below Having given up on our first objective, we picked the second on aesthetics: ignoring easier cracks to the left which would have required a long traverse up higher, we gained the rock just left of the shield. We stepped across the moat below a crisp dihedral. Twenty feet above the snow, Dan left the security of the corner – which blanked out 80 feet higher - and tiptoed rightward across parallel dykes for 40 feet to the very edge of the face. Wild face climbing past an overlap led to more featured climbing along the edge. Dan’s lead was quite bold; the only reason he wasn’t risking a groundfall for the entire first half of the pitch was because the moat was easily a full ropelength deep. Cracks at mid-height finally offered some relief. I’ve never climbed a pitch like this in the mountains, all smearing between dykes, intrusions and shallow depressions, like Lover’s Leap with snow in the background (and no bolts). The pitch ended at an excellent belay alcove 55 meters above the snow. The second pitch was much more straightforward, a full 60 meters up a clean and easily protected corner system with a small roof at mid-height. A third full ropelength pitch traversed left after 10 meters, around two corners, to reach a weakness that breaks through to the top of the steep lower face. Somewhat tricky, but not a mind-bender like the first pitch. From an ample ledge, two long pitches of simulclimbing led to the ridge crest. We started in the wide trough in the center of the face, then moved right onto a sharp buttress crest to find more solid rock and less snow. The rock finally changed from solid granite to standard Pickets funk about 100 meters below the summit, but by then the angle had kicked way back and the only trouble we had was a 20 meter section of snow climbing in our rock shoes. We thought about trying to descend directly to the west, but finally decided that the easiest way down was to go up. We turned north and began simulclimbing towards the summit of Mt. Challenger, which we reached in about an hour and a half. This was generally pretty moderate, and the rock reasonable, though we certainly made no attempt at a true crest traverse. We were interested in speed over purity, and cut below the endless gendarmes wherever possible, including the final tower on Challenger’s main summit which we passed on the west side. We did loop back up the standard route to the true summit (who can resist all those fixed pins?) which we tagged at about 7:45 pm; following the well-trodden track across the glacier, we were back in camp in just over an hour. Traversing towards challenger, looking south The hike out on Monday took a bit under 10 hours, memorable only for the blisters. Swiss Peak may have to wait another five years for those memories to fade a bit, but it already feels like unfinished business. So I guess we did answer that question about the grudge match after all. Approach Notes: It is approximately 16 miles from the Hannegan Pass TH to Perfect Pass via Easy Ridge, with ~7,000 vertical feet of elevation gain. It is an additional 3 miles of glacier travel, with ~1,500 vertical feet of elevation gain to the base of the route. The route gains about 1,500 vertical feet to the summit of Poltergeist Pinnacle and another 300’ of net gain to the summit of Challenger (with lots of up and down). Finally, the return hike from Perfect Pass involves abound 3,500’ of elevation gain.

another descent option: from the bolts below the summit, rap at an angle climber's right. one 60 m rap gets you to some lower angle terrain on the ridge crest. downclimb the 5.2 terrain on the ridge crest for just about one 60 m ropelength to some trees. a 60 m rap down VERY steep terrain gets you down to some great cracks about 50 feet above the snow. we fixed a knot to rap off the final bit; there's lots of options in to arrange some sort of anchor but don't count on finding anything fixed. the advantage of these shenanegans is that the final rap drops you exactly on the start of the route where you left your shoes and ice axe and so avoids all the rock shoe snow climbing. i was able to put my shoes on while still hanging off the rap line instead of balancing on the lip of the moat!

comparing colchuck bal. rock to jabberwocky tower is kinda like your elizabeth hurley/present-day-liz-taylor comparison (in the stuart TR)... w. face of CBR is one of the best "rock climbs in an alpine setting" around, as good as s. face prusik IMHO. on the liz taylor thing, am i the only one who grew up thinking of her as the ultimate shriveled up old hollywood bat only to be SHOCKED when i started watching old movies and realized what an incredible babe the young liz taylor was?