dbb

That 4+ around the corner from ICY BC is a great climb. It is easy to top rope as well, just walk around on the left side trail to nice tree anchors above.

Looked like today there was a continous snow ribbon than traveled all the way down to the top of the "gully" pitch. Probably 2 feet of loose unconsolidated powder though! Still isn't much snow on the E face and I bet the N face isn't in due to the lack of melt freeze. Though anyone know the condition of the standard gully route now?

Along those lines that Lowell mentioned, there is an excellent technique for rapelling with chopped ropes. This may be a little off topic, but then again, as long as were talking about ropes... The idea is to use a small loop tied in the rappell sling that is smaller than the knott joining the two ropes (or knott in middle of a single rope). You thread the rope through the hole regularly, and rapell on the single strand that is held up by the knott jammed against the small loop. When you're down, you simply pull on the other line that has impeding knotts in it from being chopped and tied together. The advantage of this system is that you can do full length rappells, 25 meter or 50 depending on what ropes you have, without "passing" a knott on rappell. This would have worked beautifully for some friends of mine who were a party of 3 with one 50m rope that was cut *twice* on one side. They did 18 rappels down the SE ridge of Fisher, each passing a knott on every rappell. Needless to say, it took a while. Also, I would recoment double ropes for colin. They are much more versatile than twins because you can use them seperately for not so technical climbs and leave all the extra weight of a single at home.

never go back until you get totally soaked and then freeze because your sitting in a little sack instead of a heat-keeping tent!

What: Buckhorn Mountain - W Ridge This is a good easy scramble in a beautiful alpine setting. Approach to Marmot pass from the Tubelcain mine trail. After 3 miles the trail forks in murky swamps, take the right forks eventually leading out into an open medow. Switchbacks lead up the hill and along to Marmot pass where there are good campsites on small snow patches. From here traverse the ridge leading towards bucknhorn. The climbing is generally third class on loose-ish rock. the climb takes about an hour, and you can simply retrace the ridge back to camp when you're done! For a nice loop hike you can continue down the other side of Marmot pass and hike out 10 miles to the road. This involves car shuttling but is worth it for the scenery. [This message has been edited by dbb (edited 12-06-2000).]

What: "A Day at the Office" WI3+ Where: Blackcomb "Backcountry" Over the new year last year we found that lilloet had zero formed ice. Scrounging for what to do, we figured that A Day at the Office in the Blackcomb backcountry would probably be in due to its higher elevation. It was! The climb is a little hard to spot. Ski down the Blackcomb glacier with a $15 backcountry pass and continue down the trail that leads you back to the main slopes. You will follow this for longer than you think, but soon after passing an intersecting gully, there will be a small clearing on the left. Ski past it and then look back left over your shoulder and ah ha! There it is! The obvious pillar is about a half pitch of vertical-ish ice and can be very thick, very nice. There is also a WI3 climb to the left of this that starts off on a short steep pillar for about 30 feet, then angles right up past some caves to a 60 degree thin ice exit. There are good tree anchors above both climbs and it looks possible to walk around on the right to setup topropes.

What: The Brothers - SE Gully #2 Who: Dave, Emily, Benji, Natalie When: May1997 Follow the Lena Lake trail until about 0.5 miles past the lake. Turn off on obvious trail and hike next three miles up into the Valley of Silent Men. After about 3.6 miles there are several campsites around the creek. Follow the left fork of the creek uphill until a large snowpatch is reached. Route #2 in the olympics guidebook climbs the rocky cliffs next to the waterfall until the SE spur is reached. This route involves some exposed class 4, and perhaps some short sections of class 5 depending on the particular line. A rope should most probably be carried for this section because it was found to be wet. (The standard route continues past the snowpatch through the woods along side the west branch of the creek. ) Start up the rock on the left, skirting to the edge of the large moat. Working up through trees and then easier open rock until a bench is reached next to the waterfall. Climb around right to a higher ledge, and then up a short low-fifth wet section to easier low angled rock. Above, angle left of wet headwall and into trees with snow cover. This places you on the "Lunch Counter" of the standard route. Follow the 25-30 degree gully above to a col at its head. Just down from the crest on the S side, there is a crack in the cliff that allows for easy scrambling up to the summit. Expect 4-6 hours up from campsites along river to here. Descend the standard route with excellent glissades until a climbers path leads you back to campsites. If you bring a rope, a few medium sized chocks will protect any climbed you need to do. Best in early season before the snow of the standard gully melts out.

What: Entiat Icefall on Mt. Maude Who: Dave, Mike, Len When: August 1999 Len and the Icefall. The Entiat Icefall is a challenging route with true alpine style. Approach Icy Lakes via the Phelps and Leroy Creek trails (unmarked but there), and camp below the South Ridge route at bivi ledges. You can also approach from the Entiat river, but that is much longer. Cross talus slopes above Icy Lake to reach the notch that allows access to the Entiat Glacier. Rope up and descend to find a short crossing through abalition zone on the receding glacier. This crossing is a bit trickier than Beckey's picture shows. Skirt below the rock spurr and head up towards the Icefall. Working rightward under the main headwall, continue through big crevasses with short vertical steps. Above are gentiler 35 degree ice slopes to the base of the rock. It is usually not possible to climb directly to the E ridge notch because of massive overhanging 'schrunds at the head of the glacier. Generally aim for the middle "hill" of about three dips and hills on the right side of the glacier, about mid-face of what you can see. Mike Mixon leads off onto the rock. There are several ramps to start off with on this 900 foot portion of 4th and low 5th class rock. Pick the line of least resistance leading slightly toward the ridge crest. The rock is generally crumbly, and protection is scarce. There is an interesting step-across at the top of the Yoder couloir, but up high on the ridge it is mostly 3rd class. The upper sections can actually be step kicking in early season, but the best time to climb for ice in the icefall is August-later season. Finally a short walk leads to the heavily carin'd summit. Give 5 to 7.5 hours to here from the camps above Icy Lakes. Descending the South ridge took 30 minutes max! Great glissades on the way down as well. Recomended gear for late season climbs would be a one 1/2 rope, four ice screws, and a small rock rack of about 8-10 pieces to one inch. Some small cams will fit where nothing else exists too. Bring two tools, or one regular axe and a second tool. [This message has been edited by dbb (edited 12-06-2000).]

I've been using the Salomon Super Mountain 9's for a few years now, and I love em. They do steep ice well with rigid crampons or hinged. Have great welts for step ins too. I was sold on them because they are about the most comfortable leather boot I've ever tried on. Break in time is pretty much nil because all you need to do is lace them loose for hiking so you slide around a bit, and tie them tight when you're climbing. I've had a lot of success in not getting blisters in these boots (and others, for that matter) by loosly lacing the upper part. It doesn't make sense to try and flex a relatively unflexable sole, so why try? You can Nikwax the leather and make them nice and waterproof, and the rubber rands are nice for crack climbing. So far, the toe box hasn't been "smooshed" like I've seen the La Sportiva boots do after a few years. This is probably due to the fact that the soles are based on a hard plastic sole. Dave

From what mike said above: These read more like resumes. I think you scared off people that might say their favorite rock climb is 5.4 Sabre on Castle or "the chute" on Mt Si. Nonetheless, I completely understand your point of view. If I could lead the Boving route with a safety margin it might possibly be my favorite too. I would like to know what people think makes climbs "Classics." Obviously there must be some quality climbing for a route to become classic, but often a "Classic" route is a hard route. Do you think these became classics because those who overcame them (most climbers being in the .10 range) saw it as a high challenge? Or is it that a truly nice .10 splitter hand crack is just plain better than a .7 hand crack. I realize that there are many complicated and not so complicated variables that make a climb "classic," but what do people think about this aspect of it? Dave

Actually, it was not so wreckless. We had carried up a rope just in case someone fell in, but upon seeing the best ski aspects, it was obvious that the rope was just extra weight. The crevasses were obvious and no bridges were left to "hide" any. Also, I wouldn't exactly say that we were in an ignorant bliss about the dangers of skiing the glacier. Just following the logical uncrevassed-first-track lines. [This message has been edited by dbb (edited 12-03-2000).]

when does Verticle limit open? I watched the trailers, and I don't know if I can watch that stupid arrest scene again!

Route: South Buttress of Cutthroat Peak Who: Dave Burdick and Marcus Collins When: July 1999 The South Buttress of Cutthroat has a wonderful alpine rock feel. So Much so that I went back after it two weeks after being snowed off. The first 6 pitches are class 3/4 with a series of 5th class steps up to about 5.6. Follow the SECOND sort-of hidden gully up to the ridge crest. If you take the first one you must rappell and downclimb some exposed 5.6 to get on-route. Once you exit the snow finger, climb gully in one full pitch to ridge crest. Follow buttress up and slightly right on the path of least resistance. The Third pitch should follow an unprotectable gully with a few small trees. Then climb up a vertical step and up through trees to a ledge. From the rightermost crack on the ledge, follow a short step up, then easier ground for two pitches. It is sensible (fast) to do running belays up to this point. Over a funky block move on a ledge starts the first continous 5.6/5.7 pitch. Here is where Becky's description seems to make absolutly no sense. But don't despair, follow these flakes up to a somewhat squeze chimney with trees in it. From there there are two options. Either climb up chimneys to good belay spot at top and then climb leftward onto little seam in vertical slab. This involves a very airy and scantaly protectable 5.8 move up to a ledge. The other option is to take a sandy and seemingly unprotectable class 4 gully up to the same point, and traversse leftward into another gully. This leads to Beckey's "open chimney." It looks easy, but is fairly hard and perhaps only three places for pro in the entire pitch. Another option, so I've heard, is to take the crack on the ridge to the right. The chimney is easily 5.7/5.8 and the crack is about 5.5. This puts you on the sandy false summit. Go to the notch at the North end and do the "Tarzan Leap" onto the block. Then go up the face in front of you on big awkward face moves. It's easier than it looks! The short offwidth at the top of the route. Continue towards the summit up a slab to the base of the short 5.8 off-width (a no. 4 camalot gives a toprope, but we slung a wedged block lower down). Enjoyable moves with great exposure leads to the summit. Grade III, Class 5.8. We rapped the route with a single rope. Combined downclimbing and rapps allowed us to do only 13 single rope rappels down to the snow finger.

Route: SE Ridge of Mt. Fisher Who: Dave, Phil, Doug, Brian When: July 2000 Fisher Peak's SE ridge rising out of the mist. It began as a project when Phil and I spotted this awesome looking ridge from HW 20 back in May on our way out to Liberty Bell. "I think it's only like 5.4," he said. After some research in Beckey and through BOELPS, that seemed to pretty much be the case. It was a long rock ridge with a only a moderate technical grade. Supposidly it is only a Alpine grade II, but seeing as the route, from toe of ridge to summit, is longer than 1,500 feet of technical climbing, I figured it would be more like a III. The boealps group that I contacted had done most of the route 10 years ago and had a total epic. "36 hours day, cut ropes, broken arm." There is no trail into the basin under Fisher, so you must cross Granite creek on a log and work your way up a river valley in the forrest. These were pretty much open forrest, and so we all moved really quickly. After finding a few game trails and some cool trails through the two slide paths that beckey mentions, we broke out into the basin below the ridge. We grabbed some lunch and marvelled at such an unknown landscape that very rarely saw people. From here we proceeded in out worst-possible-bush-route out onto the snow left covering the creek leading to the basin under the ridge. I say this because it is way easier to break out into the open medows and rock scree/snow before heading up hill. We really had to battle to get out of the Trees that Beckey recomends staying in. Some camping spots can be found on a rock perch enar the decent gully, though they are uncomfortable. Best to bring a shovel for an early season snow ledge. The route begins on the South side of the ridge toe at a steep wall. After a regular pitch of steep climbing the grade eased off and we ran many ropelengths up into the large basin next to the ridge. From here we climbed up some steep, loosening rock up to the ridge crest. The weather seemed to be coming in and getting worse, but we descided to run up another "pitch" anyways. not to get too committed, but a pitch usually consisted of 4-5 ropelegths! So up we climbed through the fog onto the crux of the route. The obvious steepening of the ridge forms a path at about 5.7 where you climb up a chimney/flare, traverse 10 right and repeat about 4 or 5 times. Bypassing the overhanging rock by continuing right, you eventially hit the crest where there is a good belay tree. From here the route matches Beckey's description: 3rd and 4th class with the ocasional low to mid 5th steps. We continued this until we caught up with doug and brian, at that point I took back the lead and we continued to traverse the very narrow and extremely exposed ridge. At some points were were walking on a 6 inch wide ledge of loose-ish rock with major drops on both sides. Very cool! We started climbing up and down these little pinnacles on the ridge, the downclimbing usually being very loose. On one downclimb, my pack caught a textbook sized rock and slammed it down onto my right hand's pinky. It smashed it good, which I later found out was a small fracture that has left me in a splint for 3 weeks. But no time to stop and splint in the middle of a climb, so on we went, reaching the SE summit soon there after. It had been 5 hours from the base of the ridge to this point. The SE summit is one of those stupendously exposed pinnacles where the only feasable way down to the notch is to down climb an airy ridge to some old rap slings on the South side. From here we were able to make a single rope rapp down a very loose overhanging chimney into a deep notch. This is a way committing rapp because you don't really have any way out of the notch except up the route. All other exits are steep loose gullies that lead onto the S face. Brian had followed the poorly protected ridge downclimb, and the look on his face said it all... fear! Out of the notch is a 20 ft. section of 5.7/8 where the pro is a little sketch, and the moves are really off balance on loose rock. Still, enjoyable climbing up a half rope lead us to easier ground. Phil and I continued up and after about another 500 feet of cool 4th class climbing on way solid white granite we arrived on top at about 1 pm. Hurt and tired (pinky pain) I tossed the rack down and pulled out the food. Phil was soon on top, and we were all then admiring the inside of the cloud we were in. The descent sucks. 6-800 feet of super loose and dirty 4th class gullies lead down to a moat rapp onto the snow finger in the decent gully. These gullies may be full of snow in May (as Beckey describes), but they sure weren't in July! Overall the route is very Cascade Alpine and an asthedic looking line. I would rate it 5.8 Grade III. [This message has been edited by dbb (edited 11-28-2000).]

Route: North Face of Chair Peak Who: Dave Burdick and Chris Turchin Date: Mid-February 2000 The North Face of Chair peak is probably the last place in the backcountry that you'll have a lonely mountain to yourself on a sunny Saturday. But none the less, Chris Turchin and I left the upper Alpental Parking lot at about 6:00 am to try and be the first. As usual, no such luck. One party was just leaving when we pulled up, and one camped in the basin by source lake! Not detered, we hiked the usual few miles and about 2000 feet up to the basin under Chair. Begining under the cloud deck is always nice because if you can't see where you want to be, you don't want to get there so bad. This was one of those days. When we arrived at the Ridge just before the NE Buttress we were 2nd in line for the face. The winds were very high, but now that we were above the sea of clouds, it didn't make much difference. We roped up on the maybe leeward side of the ridge, but it seemed as though the wind was coming from everywhere! Chris and I set off towards the face with too much crap (gear) hanging off of us. The snow was very stable which is a must on this route due to the very steep and avalanche prone slopes that need to be crossed. Chris descided to lead the 1st pitch, and went up to look at a varriation to the left of the standard route. I thought it looked sketchy, and it was! So we climbed up to the nice fixed anchor just to the right of the first ice pitch. Chris Lead off of the belay and quickly dispatched the 70-80 degree pitch. He only stopped climbing when the spindrift hurricanes turned everything into a frigid whiteout! As I climbed up to Chris I noticed that his only belay was his two shafts and a nasty old ring angle probably pounded into dirt. However, I was satisfied by the belay when he told me about the party ahead of us who made an anchor off of two ice screws placed in the mushy snow. whoa! So I lead off on a long 50 degree pitch of mixed ice and snow that gave decent ice screw protection. We ran the 60 meter rope out, started simu-climbing and climbed until I ran out of slings at a large tree belay. Chris lead the next pitch that skirts a left facing wall and was mostly snow with a few short ice sections. This pitch leads up to the cornice where there are two options. Either walk through the small moat around to the west side of the mountain, and climb easy slopes up and right to the summit, OR. For those who want to give the route a bit a of challenge, from the cornice belay go right on 5.5 ish rock up to the top of a small ridge. Turn left and climb the last bits to the summit. Tunnel left under the cornice to the summit! The last bit looks sketchy, but it's all there! A few pitons are useful for this way, specifically a thicker bugaboo and a regular lost arrow. The summit was cold and windy, but the views were awesome. As with many days this winter, you can see everywhere. Views of Baker, Glacier, Stewart and Rainier were great. After eating our first food of the day (about 1pm) we started down for our first set of rappell anchors. Descend from the summit to the left, and cross the top of a gully to a patch of trees. Find slings and rapp into a South facing gully. Descend it to the notch where a HUGE fixed anchor is setup for the rapp into the East facing gully/chimney (standard route). You only need one rope to rapp this route because you can easily down climb most or all of the gully.

Here is just a short plug for my own web page where I write up trips and stick up pictures. Most reports, obviously, deal with the Cascades and usually just moderately technical climbs. There are also some online slideshows, one to J Tree, and other goodies like weather links, fall force calculator, etc stuffed in there. check it out and let me know what you think! Dave dbb@u.washington.edu

There was about one inch of wet ice on a falls ~4000 ft on the N side baker trail, and another flow higher up ~5,500 feet that was almost in condition, though only 10 feet high. Might be indicitive of the level of freezing at that elevation though. One difference is the good looking flow was freezing out of a direct snow pack melt. I think in most places there isn't sufficient snowfield melt to form thick climbs. dave

OR makes a good bivi that they call their "winter sack". Made of dryloft it is super light and breathable, though not totally waterproof. But hey, if it's raining or snowing that hard, you're going to get wet anyways. I agree though with tent idea. A friend and I have been using his Marmot single wall for most iffy weather situations this summer and it was a heck of a lot warmer than the old cramped bivi sack. If you're wondering where to put your money (which will probably be a lot of it), get a nice single wall tent (~4 lbs w/o vestibule) and make yourself a superlight sack our of dryloft or coated nylon for those sunny summer climbs. Dave

Per the wilson Headwall ski decent, While down climbing its upper half in a whiteout two years ago, the upper "break" in the rock band just below 13K is pretty steep, 60 degrees at least. The only other problem I could see with it is getting over the 'schrund at the bottom of the face.

October 7-8, 2000 Phil and I were looking for a good cascade late season ice climb. We decided on the NE Face of Eldorado instead of driving the long hours up to Canada. After self-registering at the ranger station, we pulled into the parking lot far up the road. A great, and somewhat popular bivi spot for people coming up to Eldorado and Boston Basin, meant this parking lot was a little less than quiet that night. Due to the worsening weather, we had decided to try and climb the NE Face in a day, camping up high. We started at daylight because neither of us having been on this approach before. Due to stories of hard core strait up trails, we were a little intimidated. Finding the path and log across the river was easy and soon we were walking along the well beaten climber's path snaking up through the old forest. We didn't think that it was brutal at all. In fact, we thought it was a walk in the park compared to the bushwhacking we had been doing lately! So up we went, making good time on the first 2,000 feet to the first boulder field. Pretty obvious boulder hopping from here lead to a much larger and longer boulder field that paralleled a long cliffy ridge. Sometimes following cairns, mostly not, we worked our way up and along the solid granite boulders until it ended at small and beautiful waterfalls. At this point, because of the abundance of water, you could probably do this climb with one water bottle (2 pounds). From these waterfalls the trail began again and led up into beautiful heather meadows. We continued up the meadows, eventually climbing some nice granite slabs to a pass overlooking the massive Eldorado Glacier. At this point, our elevation was around 6,100 feet. Roughly 4,000 above the parking lot, and we weren't nearly there yet! The summit was still almost 3,000 feet above and our face happened to be on the other side of the mountain. After a quick descent of a 4th class slab, we were hiking up the talus, and then the toe of the glacier. The glacier at this point is pretty benign so we decided to just hike up with crampons on and no rope. I was a bit disappointed at this because the rope was in my pack. After passing up many nice, flat, wind-protected campsites around 7,100 feet, we settled in at around 7,400 feet at a very windy and cold glacial pass. (I won't say whose idea it was to camp so high!) This appeared to be high enough to set up camp for the night, so we took a rest and emptied our packs into the nearby rocks. It was 12:00 pm. In 5.5 hours we had come up 5,200 feet. Our legs began to cramp as we rested for the upcoming climb. After a luxurious hour and a half rest, we were off from the windy-crevasse camp. It was a bit warm out, but hey, it was a beautiful day and we had the entire mountain to ourselves. As we contoured onto the Inspiration Glacier, which Makes up the NE side of Eldorado, we encountered some monstrous crevasses. One in particular was easily 80 feet wide, and spanned almost the entire glacier. Going far to the N to detour this one, we were already spying routes out onto the NE Face looming above. The face its self is relatively short, maybe only 600 feet from the berschrund at the bottom, to the summit. However, several impressive crevasses and icefalls scar the face and make it a worthy challenge. Somewhat to our dismay, there was about 3 inches of soft snow on top of the otherwise rock hard glacier ice. That's what you get in October I guess. So we headed for the most obvious weaknesses in the overhanging walls of the schrund at the bottom of the face. We climbed into the schrund on sketchy fallen blocks, and I set in a belay to bring Phil up. We ended up taking a steep rising traverse, and then a short ice mantle leading to a 60 degree slope out onto the NE Face. Phil followed up quickly and soon we were climbing up frozen snow, only a handful of ropelengths below the infamous knife edge summit ridge. The face was not very steep, mostly 40 degree snow and ice, with sections to 45 degrees. The face is about 600 feet long. Near the top of the face, we detoured over to check out the NW Coulior mentioned in Nelson's new guide. It looked thin, dirty, but doable! Have to give this one a try someday. The knife edged ridge up to the true summit was pretty spectacular, as there were no steps and the sun was setting. The descent, and thus the standard East ridge route was pretty trivial. A little steep snow, but nothing too bad, and in less than an hour, we found ourselves back at the windy glacier camp. It was now about 6:30, an hour before sunset, and just shy of 12 hours from the car. The night was long, about 13 hours, and a little uncomfortable due to the wind flapping the tent all night, but at least it was warm. Had we brought our bivi sacs we would have both been freezing, miserable and cold. As clouds rolled in on Sunday we quickly packed up and headed down. On the way down through all the steep trails and boulder fields, we learned why people had described this trail as "brutal". It took almost as much effort to go down as it did up! Overall a pretty easy climb with spectacular views. Link this one up with the NW Couloir for a full weekend and your thighs will burn all week long.

Observation Rock, a satellite peak on Rainier at the base of ptarmigan ridge has a very nice late season ice route on it. In fact the entire surrounding area holds many short steep bare ice climbs. We set out at dawn from the Mowich lake trailhead and returned by around 5pm, a great day trip with awesome views to say the least. Follow the trail up into Spray Park and then veer right (south) off the trail into old moraines and scree. Head for the obvious snow fingers coming down from the North face. These snow fields run for about 1,000 feet of low angled snow/ice up to a scree bench at the base of the true climbing. From here you can climb many differing lines of varying steepness on the 400 foot wide face. Our route began on the right side, climbing a short step to 50 degrees of bare ice, and then relaxing to 45 degrees on frozen snow/ice. At mid-face, two pitches or so, the face steepens to 50-55 degrees and becomes bare of snow again. Two more very solid ice pitches follow, up to 60 degrees near the top. The face lets out onto a flat basin below the summit where you have two options. First, you could climb up the scree/snow finish to the North face, or contour around and ascend the West ridge on scree/snow. The other option is to bypass the summit and head left (east) to a col. and easily descend the NE side of the mountain. We chose the west ridge ascent because it gave some beautiful close up views of the Mowich face and ptarmigan ridge routes on Rainier. There is also excellent skiing in this area, so if you can bare to huff the skis up there… We climbed in mid October and there was about 5 inches of fresh powder. The area is probably very wintery now, and probably all but the upper face is covered in snow. September-October is the best time of year to get bare ice conditions in this area. The overall elevation gain is over 4000 feet, but worth the effort. Beware the "descending" trail down from Mowich Lake, it’s a pain to come back up at the end of the day!