philfort

Hey Stefan, Did you get a look at the snow/ice face to the climber's LEFT of the NE buttress? I forget what Beckey calls it, but its pretty much adjacent to the NE buttress, in a sort of gully, and it leads to the ridge between the main and east summits. Did it look any good? Wow, that guy with the footlocker sounds like a total nut case! [This message has been edited by philfort (edited 08-28-2001).]

Nothing hardcore, just a mellow (if physically demanding) day on the std route on Sloan Peak. We were going to do the north ridge, but we were too tired, and it looked chossy. Anyone ever done the north ridge? Beckey's description is the opposite side of the ridge as where he has the route drawn (with a question mark). The Sloan glacier is pretty spectacular for a little one.

Beckey lists some routes on "ice aprons" on the north sides of Fernow and Copper Peak. They sound cool, but it's a long ways in...

The Teanaway road is still blocked by snow at the Beverly Creek campground. Try contacting the Cle Elum ranger station: http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/wenatchee/recreate/reports.html

quote: Originally posted by bobinc: I agree on Garfield, although now there seems to be something resembling regular maintenance on the middle portion of the approach (thus threatening a B1 rating) and an embarrassing number of bolts on the gully (even two full anchors less than 75' apart on the upper slab -- anyone know about why this was done?) I would give it a BW3 (constant use of hands required, some blood loss) - although there is a faint path through much of it. In terms of the "horizontal" travel, it wasn't very difficult bushwhacking (it ain't valley-bottom devils club or alder, just steep pine bushes, huckleberries and salal). But the rock climbing was often a vertical bushwhack, at least the route we took. We did notice some "trail maintenance": cut limbs along the key ledge. That was weird. Who would do that? Maybe someone is guiding the route :-) We only saw two pairs of bolts in the gully. The second set was probably 150' below the other. Maybe we just missed the middle pair because we had 2 ropes? Or maybe - got forbid - they've been chopped!? [This message has been edited by philfort (edited 08-23-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by lambone: Yeah, we heard a monster rip through there while heading up to Forbidden in the late afternoon. Sounded like an earthquake! Remember Phil? You was there too... Yeah, I saw it spill over - the debris went almost to the bottom of the couloir. quote: Originally posted by lambone: So both you guys say that you wouldn't do the NE But. again, but was it worth doing once? Would it be a good first "vertical bushwack" route, or should I warm up on something like Mt. Index first? Suggested course in "vertical bushwhacking": VB-101: Mt Garfield VB-201: Index, N peak VB-301: J-berg, NE butt

Is it possible to stay to the climber's left of the couloir and avoid danger from the Sill glacier? Seems like the couloir might be a nice late season ice climb (although it already looks more broken up this year, than it did last october).

quote: Originally posted by Dan Larson: A light bulb just went on in my head . It was probably just a screw that was loose...

quote: Originally posted by highclimb: that glacier makes it so complicated!...grrrr maybe you should move to California!

Here's what it's like: 45 degrees for a short bit, then gets easier. In this particular case, I kicked steps with my plastics (no crampons), and my friend, who just had leather hikers, used them as footsteps. In climbing back up the snow (after we bailed), he fixed our one pair of crampons to his boots. You may be ok with stiff boots and no crampons. But doing it again, I would probably take light leather hikers and put those aluminum stubai crampons on them - that's a rockin' combo.

The rock is definitely not granite. Some kind of volcanic rock I think (although definitely more solid than what you'd generally think of volcanic rock as being). But it's very compact. When there are cracks, it's usually because something is loose. Doorish mentioned for one of those hard-core climbs that the rock was solid with good pro - hard to imagine though, because there don't seem to be any cracks on the big slabs.

Mt Garfield - 8/19 Loren (CascadeClimber) and I climbed the standard route on Mt. Garfield yesterday. Wow, what a day! It took us over 16 hours car-to-car ... and that is one steep mountain. The routefinding wasn't all that hard (there's lots of flagging tape), but it was definitely a physical challenge, with lots of very sketchy sections, and strenuous climbing. We made what we thought was good time to the "glade saddle" before the "key ledge" (3 hours). At that point you've done two thirds of the vertical ascent. However, it took another 5 hours to make it up the #2 gully, and to the summit. The gully starts off with enjoyable solid scrambling, but gets steeper. We veered off the right side part way up, and got in some truly desperate "cascadian" climbing - definitely 5th class. We were cursing ourselves for getting off route, but it may haved turned out better, because the gully itself had some absolutely heinous-looking sections! The slabs are mossy and crackless, with loose blocks - it looked like hell to climb and protect. The "steep heather and easy rock" from the col to the summit, was not, and required still more belayed climbing. I think we belayed 7 pitches in all on the ascent. The 4th class on Garfield is definitely "Beckey 4th". We were the second party to climb it this year - the first one climbed it only a week earlier. The last entry in the summit register before that was from 1998 or 99 (maybe some pages went missing?). In general, in the 80's and 90's, there seemed to be about 4 parties a year that summited on average. Looking around from the summit, you are impressed at how steep a mountain this is. Huge sweeps of steep slabs everywhere. Pete Doorish had two ascents listed in there from several years ago, within a week of each other. One was Grade IV, 5.10, 23 pitches, the other Grade V, 5.10, 20 pitches (SE ridge?). Then he had written "I think I've had enough of Garfield for a while now!" Beckey says the descent takes 4 hours. It took us 7.5 hours. We made 8 rappels in all, most double-rope. Someone has installed two sets of rappel bolts in the #2 gully. Thank you!! Without those bolts, the options for rappel anchors are quite poor. We had a few route-finding difficulties on the descent, when it got pitch black (made it back to the car @ 11:06pm) Summary: it is a continuously steep climb, "unrelenting", lots of exposed steep brush (a serious arm workout hauling yourself up on plant limbs), some very loose sections with serious rockfall potential (Loren let loose some big ones, scraped his leg up pretty bad), some solid fun climbing, no water above the slabs near the bottom, and above all, an adventure.

Fit your sharp things like axes and crampons in your bag, and cover their tips with socks or tape or cardboard so they don't poke holes in things. Clothing: bring stuff that's good in the rain. It won't be Minnesota cold, but it could be just cold enough to snow in the mountains.

quote: Originally posted by stevenkalinowsk: Nelson and Pottersfield's book says to take a quick look down the gully on the other side so that you know which gully to ascend. We interpreted this as meaning that it would be easy to get confused and climb up the wrong gully. I doubt this could happen. Good luck. agreed.. I think if you tried to keep traversing past the gully, you would run into 5th class terrain pretty quick. FWIW, we avoided the nasty-looking gully, and headed back up to the ridge just before it on more solid, blocky terrain. [This message has been edited by philfort (edited 08-20-2001).]

Went in by swamp creek - quite brushy even in winter/spring. I think it took 6 hours to Snowy Lakes. To get to Hardy, you could probably veer off earlier and cross over methow pass - sounds like your way would be quicker though.

Wow, good job! This is a picture from near Snowy Lakes - that's Mt Hardy in the clouds in the background. Is the dark buttress the thing you climbed? That face looked like it had some nice winter gully lines on it too.

Bouldering in Boston Basin:

fishstick, you must not have read the whole thread... North Twin Sister != GLACIER - SNOW

quote: Originally posted by Neri: Emphasis on GLACIER – SNOW fella’z Ruth = GLACIER - SNOW Pyramid/Snowfield = GLACIER - SNOW Eldorado = GLACIER - SNOW

-Ruth mtn -Snowfield/Pyramid pk -Eldorado pk

Climb it at night.

Cool. I'm really curious Jerry, why do you always post in capital letters? I'm sure you know that's interpreted as shouting.

Dru again doing his relentless work for BC Tourism....

Hiked up around Cascade Pass on Sunday. The flies below treeline were ridiculous. I think the worst I've ever experienced in the Cascades. As soon as you stopped, 50 flies would descend on you. I almost bailed a hundred yards from the parking lot. Even hiking at an almost running pace, they were constantly landing on you. Above the trees, where there was a breeze, it was much better. Is it like this everywhere in the cascades now? I'm afraid to do any overnight trips because of these flies....

don't know what ropegun's problem is.... I've only been to the Coleman. It's a great place to practise, but gets crowded in fall. Get there early in the day to find a good wall. Here are some pictures: http://students.washington.edu/dbb/baker.html (I'd advertize my own website, but the link seems to be down now) That being said, it may be a little warm there right now. I've only been in September/October, with cooler temps. You could probably find some safe place to play around though. But I bet you'll hear the glacier groaning and creaking a lot in these warm temps - a little scary!