Alex

The ropes are twins ("ice floss"), one should be clipping both strands. The approach up the road is 6-7 miles, but the snowshoe approach to Split Rock is shorter, maybe more like 3 or 4.

This is what the ski is like: Who's that gaper in the pic? Whats up with the rubber band holding his glasses on??

Ice tools are not meant to be 2 points of contact on the surface, only 1: the pick. Sounds like she needs to work on her technique and balance a little bit on the low-angled stuff. But, TBH, if she isnt climbing anything remotely steep, the pinky rests are a dubious addition anyway.

I've seldom placed more than 8 screws per pitch, but thats because I seldom carry more than 11 screws total. The beauty of ice climbing is that if you run out of screws you can usually throw in a belay pretty much anywhere. "Pitch" becomes even more arbitrary than in rock climbing.

Nice. Yeah Champagne is a great route for sure! For those folks just getting into leading ice and looking for a (rare in WA!) moderate lead, the second pitch of Champagne makes for a great intro lead. The alders are actually not that bad and the climbing is surprisingly fun!

The ski in is mellow for the 3.5 miles of the road, the first half of the trail to Mountaineers creek crossing, and then kind of suck up to the Lake. Its up to you to decide if the suck factor on skis is worth the time and pain they save skiing out the road on the way out(not that much time in the grand scheme of things). At the head of the lake, in a small clump of trees is a real nice sheltered site, just below the route. The ice sections would be as awkward as any WI3 that you might climb with skis on your back. Its certainly been done before. I climbed it in April. We found decent snow, snow covered rock, and no ice. NEB couloir on colchuck is similar in many ways.

We were really disappointed to see pick marks heading up the column when we got to the base at first light. "That looks great! .... Holy crap, someone climbed it!!" We were contemplating the second ascent anyway because it looked so fine, but it took us til 2:30 in the afternoon to spot your bail screw. Up until then we had thought it had been climbed complete and so we were focussed on other things while we had daylight. Its a good line. The overhanging thin line in the corner with the mineral staining looks awesome, too! There is so much ice in there right now, its just great! Jeff will post a TR later with some pics.

I have to agree with drew on this one, Chessler Books pretty much has the specialty market locked up in mountaineering literature. As for maps unless you carry the full complement and can compete with Metzgers and REI, I think you'll be hard pressed. Opening a coffee shop in Seattle with some mountaineering literature on the shelves isnt really going to be enough of a differentiator either, IMO. The only "coffee shop" that really ever made a mark on the map around here was Still Life, and its gone now. If you go forward one objective should be to find the right location: Seattle might not really be it if you want to cater to climbers specifically. I think a model of success is kind of like the Mazama store...where they sell everything (at high prices), but have the market locked up anyway

Its WI4, the upper tier is quite steep in spots. Polar Circus is harder, but its also rated WI5. I would suggest crossing the river in low enough water. You have to come up with the boat yourself, when we climbed it we borrowed a 3-person rubber raft from a friend. Crossing at the lake adds a number of hours to the approach and decent.

From my own experience... Its been around more than 20 years now. Before, people (in the Rockies at least) rapped off conduit. Sure, I've even done that once or twice, but in those cases the ice is damn thin, you are desperate, and you make 2 or 3 Vthreads instead of 1. double fish or euro-death. a properly drilled vthread in good ice is much stronger than an ice screw. So for TR-ing you could *easily* TR off two equalized v-threads in good ice, just as you would 2 or 3 screws. I was apprehensive the first time I rapped off a single vthread, which was heading down weeping wall....lots of exposure...to another hanging belay....but single threads are fine if the ice is good, and its your own cord you are leaving. cord degrades rapidly, so dont trust a single anchor if you didnt drill it yourself. That said, there are ALOT of vthreads that become established on Rockies trade routes that can last for several months of continuous use.

thanks for the pics, very scenic option 11 was logan? i thought you had already skied that

That pic of Source Lake Line is the fattest I've seen it.

"I'm hoping for easy leading or toproping." I think Fugs Falls out at Vantage is your best bet, its got a reasonable drive, a pretty short snow-free approach, and walk-arounds to set up TRs if you dont feel like leading. Otherwise I would recommend driving to Blue and Park Lakes with 2 60m ropes and go TR Champagne or Children of the Sun or something, there are some options that will keep you busy for an entire day very close to the road with no wallowing through knee-deep pow.

"I'm curious who else here makes climbing videos?" I try "Some challenges I faced included... sitting on rappel in my painful harness while filming (need a better harness)" Yeah it can be painful in a normal climbing harness. Unfortunately I sold my Cadillac big wall rig a while ago "figuring out if I should stay in a fixed location, or try to move around the climber.... which might interrupt their climbing. I'm thinking multiple cameramen are probably needed for quality footage and filming a single climb in a single shot, or else having the climbers do the route multiple times for different shot angles" I've also shot Mizuki and Jens recently, and experimented then with multiple ascents of the same route. I am starting to believe that the prime ingredients for good stokage are a combination of compelling climbing, attractive surroundings, multiple angles, and action. Action: I think the single most compelling ingredient is real action...i.e. falls or near falls or some other something..something both climbers and non-climbers can recognize as dangerous/thrilling/interesting. Watching people simply walk up an 12D, smoothly efficiently and without struggle, is not AS interesting as watching someone take flight time on an 11A. Compelling climbing: something that you wont see everyday. Alpine routes come to mind. Hard ice climbing, mixed climbing. Significant wall ascnets (appropriately condensed). BASE jumps from the top once your up. Attractive surroundings: the day I shot at Jens and Mizuki at Vantage it was overcast, and it really becomes an issue through the video as it progresses and everything is just a grey day out in the desert. Especially for us sun-starved 206ers, sunny shots add value. Mountains in the background add value. Etc... Multiple Angles: with a single cameraman this means people have to climb and re-climb the same route, which you then edit together later. With multiple cameramen it might enable your subjects to throw themselves at something harder, where only 1 "burn" might be doable.

One year when Jason, myself, Gene and Zulinke went in, Zulinke decided to leave the floatation behind at the end of the 609 road. He must have burned 2x the number of calories as the rest of us! If the path is kicked in (rare, but it happens) then its not terrible. But this year with all the fresh snow we are getting weekly, it's def recommended to take snowshoes at the least. If you are *on foot*, with snowshoes (not skis), I highly recommend taking the second approach discussed in the book: the one that takes you direct from Tieton River road to the Split Rock, not the snowmobile/ski run/groomed trails approach up from Milk Creek. It's very direct and basically 1.5-2 miles of X-C travel with snowshoes, compared to the 6+ miles one way by road. Once you've done that approach once and know the area better, it will be very efficient in the future.

Gotta bring snowshoes or skis for the final hike through the boulderfields!

the miss nevada thing? yes def not work safe

He has, but I just got my wisdom teeth out this morning so I am out for the weekend unfortunately

"Has anyone had problems with the heel post on the Classics?" Nope.

" the snow in the couloirs was bottomless fluff. " Where's Ross!?!

Current Status: Web site is up.

Current Status: Web site is currently up, but it was moved to a different box and so dynamic content pages are not being served due to a config issue. Should be resolved shortly, so check back.

Glad to hear he is OK!!

bummer, thanks for the update

gene, you better enjoy those trips bud, time grows short and we grow old