Alex

those cornice shots are nice

:battlecage:

Trip: Mountaineers Creek - Various Date: 2/4/2007 Trip Report: Drawn by the recent reports and great pic, Scott and I visited Mountaineers Creek on Sunday. We left Seattle at 5:30am and were gearing up in the Icicle just a short time later. Heh. The approach is mellow up the road, then down the beaten donkey trail to the ice. Thanks to Eric, Jason, Jeff, and co. we were able to locate lots of the recently reported climbs. At the trailhead, I discovered one of my crampons was missing a bail. Ah well, Scotts new Bionics would just have to serve both of us today. Our warm up started just left of "Nametag on Helmet", a really great pillar in a corner just out of sight. This might be "The Ten Essentials", I don't know, it had a thin move at the top before the trees, and red sling on one of the trees. Fun! Scott lead a nice line just left of that, stemming between two pillars lower down. Great moderate. Next, we explored rightwards. A party had gottten on "Shorts Over Polypro", and it looked classic and fun! They were TR-ing the thin pillar just to its right, too, with direct finish up the rock! Stellar mixed! But my eye was drawn to the route just left of "Shorts..", and I geared up with some rock pro for a go. I climbed some technical ice to a rest at the roof, then tenuous rock moves including a desperately needed handjam, to a secure but awkward chimney exit. Some snow leads to trees, or you can just traverse right a little to the tree on top of "Shorts...". Classic! Dial "M" For Mountie. WI3 M4, 30m. Stubbies, cams from 1-3 inches, 1 long KB or an LA. To wind down the day we explored rightwards again. Scott started up a nice flow, but things went rapidly downhill. First he dropped a screw, then dropped a tool from higher up. I lowered him and completed the lead, but not before dropping a draw. At the top, because the lead was around 40m, I decided to toss the crampons down to Scott. I took one off and hucked it.....straight into a tree branch 50 feet off the ground, and 20 feet out from the wall. Holy crap!! It was Scotts brand-spanking-new Bionic, so I spent the next 20 minutes throwing large snowballs and ice chunks at the tree branch, and eventually with several hits was able to shake the crampon free! Talk about Gumb-o-rama!! The route is WI2+, but considerably more difficult if you happen to drop all your gear like us. Not yet named. Here is an overview pic of the lower drainage: A: "The Ten Essentials" WI3 M2, really nice pillar, classic! B: "Nametag on Helmet" WI3, classic! C: "Dial 'M' For Mountie" WI3 M4, classic! D: "Shorts Over PolyPro" WI3+, classic! There's alot more to climb here, and the area receives little sun and the ice was dry. Have fun!!

"My little darling." Hahahaha

Is that like, when women get coated with "beer lense"?

In really fortunate years, like this year, that shorter stuff forms up. But most years the canyon is too dry. If you see something compelling, go do it! Its all just fun anyway, right?

give it a couple weeks

I've been working with it and testing it for a year and a half now. In the beginning, it was not a fun product. Its decent now. Its hardware intensive, though, so I would echo the above advice: if you're getting a new machine, get Vista, otherwise stick with XP on older hardware

Silverstar really is the ideal ski route. This is a long route and hoofing it on snowshoes, especially with no added benefit to those snowshoes on the significant amount of downhill terrain you'll do on the way out, really doesnt make sense in the winter, even with two days. Given the choice of Silverstar on snowshoes or just about anything else, I'd take just about anything else. Colchuck/Enchantments on snowshoes, Ice Cliff Glacier w/ snowshoes come to mind as much better alternatives - less road overall getting in there, more "snowshoe-friendly" terrain (tight trees, narrow trail) in general.

Good winter route sure. Its non-technical, easy terrain that should have some good skiing on the way down. The approach is off highway 20 up through trees at first, then break out of the trees after some uphill into valley bottom, then path of least resistance to summit. In the Spring and Summer its an easy day trip (on skis). In winter you might camp at the gate, or probably up the approach a few hours where you first break out of the trees and there is some flatness. If you are not on skis I would strongly recommend you wait until summer time.

This is a bad policy when it comes to land access issues.

will add

The numerical systems certainly are not synchronized. The M-system is a stand-alone rating system, just like the V-system for bouldering. (V11 is not 5.11 climbing either.) To give you some perspective, M3 is around 5.7 or 5.8-ish climbing, M5 gets into solid 5.10 climbing, and M11 is around 5.13 climbing. The hardest mixed routes in the world currently are around M12 or (claimed) M13. Like most things ice climbing, it actually depends on how much ice in on those particular routes. At the Rap Wall, a little bit of ice on the rock makes the routes significantly easier than if they are pure dry-tooling. The easiest line up there is around M6+ to M7-... which is to say easy enough for a solid 5.10/5.11 or WI5 climber to muscle up without too much difficulty. Actually, even though he's poking fun at you, I agree with him. Don't let numbers rule you or scare you. You should get on these things and try them if they interest you, don't worry about the numbers too much. Bring a bail biner and leave the leashes on the ground.

Guru is up on the left side of the Rap Wall, and yes, is M9. The line you are looking at is Ghost Dog, and is M11 I believe.

would you ppl stop putting up all the FAs?? I can't keep up dammit

Its humor. But I never had a life in the first place.

Man, that's just terrible! Next thing you know you'll be remodelling, and having kids. You're life is over

that looks freakin' stellar!

I think Roger told me M11, but TBH I'd have to go back and rifle through my emails. It hardly matters, my redpoint will have to wait until I loose like 80 pounds, or grow balls, or something..

yes, yes, and yes...though 200+ yards seems short?...Flow Reversal is kind of like halfway between bryant buttress and source lake line, up and to the left of the obvious approach gully to chair from source lake. Its really easy to see in the early season, but once snow arrives its a bit hard to pick out of the background noise and harder to approach in deep snow.

In heavy snow years like this one the Alpental stuff (which tends to be short anyway) gets pretty buried. Head east, young ice Jedi.

Thats Bryant Buttress. The bolted route is a mixed route that Roger Strong et al are working on. If you hike further uphill climbers left of the wall, you get to the Rap Wall in another 10 minutes. Incidentally, another poster posted a pic earlier this year that they said was "Bryant Buttress". I forget what thread it was, it was the same one with a post of Source Lake Line. That pic was not actually Bryant Buttress, it was actually a picture of Flow Reversal in "fat and buried" conditions.

Good job. You climbed the first pitch of "Second on the Left" (probably the FA, no less). At time of first writing and in the years since I had never seen that first pitch form even remotely as well as it is this year, so to my knowledge it was still unclimbed before this weekend. It might have been climbed perhaps once before by the Hagins, but not to my knowledge. That route's upper pitch very commonly forms only half way down the cliff; armed with that knowledge I dry-tool TR'ed the upper pitch off a two bolt anchor I drilled during the Summer of 2005 with the intent of seeing if the first 30m would go safely with natural pro to the spot where the ice commonly forms to, or if it needed bolts. After a few tries, we discovered that it would protect naturally well enough, but we also discovered the rock was really rotten and a few death blocks in the corner were poised to launch, and decided that the only real safe time to climb it would be when it was completely iced over. Like this year. But I am not in shape to lead that thing now. After all that we realized how truly long the first pitch is: its a rope streacher! The scale of the place is decieving. It was one hell of a lot of work lugging in drill and batteries and ice climbing gear in July, even with the shorter drive. Anyway, thats a long winded way of saying that I agree that "Climb a short, low angle flow to a steep pillar above." was wrong. I now know better! Ah well.

Didnt you have trouble finding it...in the summer?

I've only ever done day trips to Strobach, always going from Seattle. My drive time from the door to parking is usually around 2.5 hours. Sometimes in early season you can easily drive to the end of the 609 road (but not this year) and hike in with not much snow on the ground. In these cases front door in Issaquah to rope up is around 3.5 hours. Which compares to stuff like Banks Lake from Seattle. In heavy snow years my approach time with snowmobile and snowshoes is 45 min to rope up. With skis longer, but it gets done routinely. Whatever your mode of approach, you need to not be lazy and be heading up towards the ice from your car while its still dark. Climb all day. Head down in the dark. To this day I don't understand the bellyaching. This area and its approaches have been known about for 9-10 years now and detailed approach and beta published in the guidebook since 2003. The fact that people still feel anxious about going in there is pretty weird, its like being anxious about going into Colchuck Lake. Climbing at Strobach is not about bumper belay easy access ice climbing. Its about solitude, FAs, a concentration of steep ice routes, and the beauty of the area. I've been in there probably more than 12 times now, and have always had a good time. Yes, there are going to be times when you spend most of the day getting acquainted with the area - sounds like your friend who took 8 hours hit Murphy's Law. We've all done that. Take the knowledge and make the next trip a success.