philfort

quote: Originally posted by Beck: For the family's sake, yes I hope we find them... I'm not too optimistic, Glacial creep isn't a very gentle process. Philfort, are you going to be there this weekend? yes, I will be there...

Yes, but it happened 20 years ago. There's hope the bodies may surface in this low snow year.

quote: Yeah, Famous Boulder Problems like the Stanley Headwall Ok, I admit, there is some cool stuff... it's just depressing to get a new issue, and at least half of it is devoted to bouldering, or who won sport climbing competitions, etc.... That's just the way it's seemed with the past couple of issues. But I guess that way they can sell more copies and support themselves or something. [This message has been edited by philfort (edited 09-13-2001).]

Gripped appears to be mainly a bouldering magazine, judging from the handful of issues I have :-(

Isn't Garibaldi surrounded by some even higher peaks anyway? So it wouldn't be that prominent... Hey Dru... What's this mountain: This is taken from near Tomyhoi (thats Tomyhoi on the right) looking north over the Fraser Valley and... Chilliwack? I was wondering what that prominent white peak on the left is... (maybe its what gearbot/goatboy saw)

Waited for one and a half hours at the rap station on Kangaroo Temple for a group of Mountaineers to do their rappel. We asked politely, but they wouldn't let us use their rope to zip by while they taught the students how to rappel. Then they got their ropes stuck while pulling them. One of them climbed up to retrieve the stuck rope, and we let him use our rappel line to get back down.

I attempted it from Thunder creek, up to the lake that terrible ted mentions. I don't recommend doing it that way. I think it was 9 hours and sixteen miles from car to lake (you could probably beat our time by several hours with a lighter pack, but still). Never gone over Easy Pass, but it sounds shorter.

quote: Originally posted by bobinc: I've had both diurnal and nocturnal encounters with goats. Hey, this is a family website!!

There's a little bit of snow on the way up to Daniel, on a remnant glacier (Hyas creek glacier or something) - don't think it has many crevasses. You could hike up to Echo Rock or Observation Rock on the north side of Rainier. Again just snowfields, with one or two easily avoidable crevasses on O Rock maybe. You might try some of the higher peaks around Washington/Rainy Pass - like Black Peak - that has a few snowfields. Your options are pretty slim right now unless you're willing to git on a glacier...

My beta (which you may have already gleaned off my website): A pitch or two of solid 4th and low 5th, then some nice sandy ledges, then one and a half pitches of 5.8, although the 5.8 is in chunks, not sustained. I followed it and found sections of it a bit desparate, but not too bad (but I'm not a very good rock climber - and it was friggin cold). Then we traversed right and slightly down on ledges, then we started up what might have been the final pitch, or maybe there's a little more. We weren't really sure where to go, and then a snow squall moved in, coating the slabs, so we bailed. Overall, the route doesn't seem very committing (I think it's a grade II or II+ or something?) - but then again, we didn't do the final pitch (or two?). There's definitely not 6 pitches of 5.8. Probably more like 6 pitches in all, 3 of which are 5.8. It seemed less intimidating than it sounds from the Beckey guide. If you keep on the trail, the approach to the col isn't too long (3 hours?). I found the sand and scree slope heading up to the col to be pretty sketchy though. However, I was also up there 4 or 5 years ago when I was all new at this and trying to climb silver star, when the scree was covered by a couple inches of snow, and I found it very mellow. Kind of weird. But don't believe anything I say.

ehmmic, a question about the East Ridge direct... the little tower you climb that you need to rap of off (the one just before the 5.8 crux) - the route we took up that involved 20 or 30 feet of slightly overhanging climbing on small face holds. Very pumpy - definitely seemed more than 5.8. Is there an easier way? just curious...

I've got the Evernew cookset (1.8L and 2.3L pots I think). Good handle system - no pot gripper to lose. Expensive, but worthwhile - it's all I use now. The pots are thin though, so they're mainly good for boiling water. I don't think the aluminum Blacklite's are near as light the Ti pots.

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.