Alex

second the California suggestion...

I agree, I've done the S Ridge of Torment with dps and my wife, and we found it heady, mediochre climbing on somewhat friable rock - not really worth the effort. If your target is Torment, it makes an OK route. If you are just trying to get on the traverse, might do SE Face Torment instead and just skip the S Ridge entirely.

In my experience, a single woman going climbing with a single man for the first time is always a "date" from the man's point of view. Subsequent climbing days may or may not be "dates" depending on the impression left by the first one....i.e. is she available? is she hot? is she intersted? did I look like a dork to her falling on that 5.6? And so on...

Yes. Not too terribly crevassed until maybe late in the season? I remember in June a few years ago it was just a jaunt, we unroped up after the chute all the way to Pt Success, I think.

The guidebooks treat this route extremely well, and pretty much the entire approach and route is above treeline, so you shouldn't need a whole lot more. I would recommend you don't approach Ingalls Lake over Long's Pass, though. Keep going over Ingalls Pass to Ingalls Lake, its much easier. Coming back, you'll go from Cascadian Couloir over Longs Pass.

Yeah, realize that if you run "p2" and "p3" together as seems most obvious to do in a single and quite moderate 60m lead, the next pitch from the many-slung rap station you end up at is p4, and is a short 12m to the "blind 5.8 step-around" left to the base of the headwall crack. When Tim and I tried this 2 weeks ago, we got very confused about this and ended up leading and re-leading this pitch 4 times (!!) trying to go up and right, looking for the "5.7 face climbing and thin cracks". Don't make the same mistake we did. If you've climbed 60m total from the base of the wide crack, you're at the base of p4.

As expensive as it might seem sitting in Mass, this is probably going to be your best option if you don't want a "Deliverence"-style introduction to backwoods Washington state.

If you dont go all the way to Yang Yang lakes the first day, you might climb Magic or Hurry Up, or might do the scramble route up the "backside" of Formidible. Sentinel is OK, but the rock sucks for the most part. Don't sweat it. The way down is pretty obvious. You'll be on good trail then suddenly it will end in blowdown. You'll be able to overlook the valley below. Traverse skiers left and head down through the tall timber. The trail is easy to pick up again once you are in the valley bottom. They are all nice! The established ones are great: Kool Aid Lake, Yang Yang Lakes, White Rock Lakes (fantastic!) and Itswoot Ridge.

Thanks, good effort! I've always been interested in Chimney Rock, maybe I'll find myself up there soon!

What an excellent, surreal photo!

werd

Thanks for the plug, but while I have a section called "where to climb" (http://www.mountainwerks.org/alexk/climb/placesto.htm), Jason Martin is the guy with the good compiled list of moderates (http://www.dramaticwriter.com/beginners.html). That said, BreezyD, I'll agree that a good step up from the Cleaver route is the Kautz. However, I would suggest Adams Glacier over the Kautz as a route and mountain tour you will get more out of than going up Rainier yet again. Alex

Not exactly. For those pitiful few who went to Washington Pass expecting good weather, it was a mediochre weather weekend. Sat started with rain at the Pass at around 9am. Then again at around 10:30, soaking the spires for 30 min and pretty much erasing any chance of getting up something difficult. We "tried" Serpentine Cracks and it was too damp. In the evening, a huge thunderhead developed directly over Silverstar, and must have scared the crap out of the large party camped on the plateau. We went into Winthrop for a bite, and it POURED and HAILED for a solid hour, complete with power outages, like it was the Day After Tomorrow. The Pass remained dry, but Sunday was cloudy again, only really clearing up in the late afternoon. Made for a more pleasant grind up to Burgundy Col, but a less pleasant climb wondering if we would get rubbed out by lightening later in the day.

I have a Hilti TE-6A 36v rotohammer, and I like it. Parts and good bits are expensive, however.

I don't, unless Ah, sorry, good point - yes we climbed as a party of three and thus had double 8.5s.

When we did S Face Prussik last year, we rapp'ed the N face to the snow (steep) and post-hole traversed back the the lower W ridge in rock shoes, from which you can downclimb easy 2nd and 3rd class rock and goat trails to the base of the S Face. From the summit there is a very well-established station, and from there you can pick and choose from lots of stations (good and some not so good) on the way down the face, depending on whether you are on single or double ropes. Its blocky terrain, but steep enough to want to rap all of it. I recommend double ropes.

I've climbed at Tahquitz once. Idylwild is cool town. Even the 5.3s were eye-opening. Sandbag old school ratings for sure. I would suggest you be conservative in your choice for your first route there, but otherwise its a great place!!

I used to be a fan of pickets until I went out and tested that stuff in a controlled setting (a couple steep slopes at the side of the Ski Bowl ski area). I tried creating anchors using each that "I judged" would be a good anchor, and had some surprising results. These days, I do not carry pickets at all, I only carry flukes. Why? 1) Pickets in neve driven in vertically don't hold shit. Try it sometime. They arent even body-weight in many cases. 2) Pickets as a T-slot anchor seem to hold poorly, and ripped out a bunch when I tested (I ran downhill for 30 feet and "shock-loaded" my test anchors) despite my burying them really deep and being meticulous about their placement after the first few failures. 3) The flukes held much better. They didnt fail. They are easy to place with just a little practice, in all but hard snow. 4) T-slot's can be created in a pinch using skis, ski poles, ice axe. I thought that if I really wanted a T-slot anchor, I could use these too. In fact, the only time I lower into crevasses willingly now is off a T-slot made from skis. My conclusion was that the flukes were more reliable in soft-medium snow, more of the time. For me, placing a good picket in soft snow was so hard in practice (watching them fail time and time again) it didnt warrant carrying them anymore. Flukes are actually easier to carry on a harness than a picket, too. I think carrying them on a pack defeats the purpose: in a crevasse fall or steep terrain you want access to the anchor immediately, you certainly are not going to want to have to take off a pack to put in an anchor. Just .02

That was a great TR! Great pics too!

actually, its 15.15, you're a real badass!!1

With the news that there are already fires in BC, around Rainier and near Omak, and remembering the way the Cdn Rockies and even areas of the Cascades got shut down due to the large fires there last summer, I am starting to alter my "typical" planning for the tick list to get on the alpine projects perhaps a little earlier this year. Seems like with the dry and hot weather, and rapidly dwindling snowpack, conditions will be prime for fires this season in general. Good luck to the fire crews this season. Hope you let the ones burn that you can let burn, though (particulates counteract global warming) !

Re 3) If you are leaving Sat afternoon, there is still a really good probability you can reach your high camp Sat night, unless you are a slug. Consider it will be light until after 9pm. Its not THAT far from Paradise over the Nisqually and up the other side to approach the Kautz. Otherwise, I would just come up Sunday...less food and fuel to carry...you would be taking an entire day going from "somewhere on the Nisqually" to high camp on Sunday, which is really around a 3-4 hour endevour. Unless you really want to just hang around all day. My suggestion to you would be that you and your partner train and be as cardiovascularly fit as possible for your trip - it will make you much faster on Sat, which will enable you get to high camp Sat night, get up with 6 hours sleep at 3am, climb fast and more comfortably Sunday, come back down, recover, and head out without being exhausted. Just a thought..

Probably about 4 hours to do the shuttle, all told.

if you are not disuaded by the crowds on s side of hood on a nice weekend, you should have no problem with the crowds on the DC. the DC is a bump up in technical difficulty from the std routes on the mountains you mention, however. Alex

you could conceivably hike out Agnes Creek. From White Rock lakes it looks nasty in the initial valley bottom, but you could skirt alot of the initial part by staying in the scree and talus below the Dome and Chinkamin glaciers. I believe there is an unmaintained "trail" that comes part of the way up that valley, and is sometimes used to approach Blue Glacier and Gunsight. Consult Beckey's, but I would expect a fair amount of bushwacking down Agnes Creek in reality, since the area is so unfrequented from the East. To be honest, Bachelor Creek is an easy (though somewhat boring) way out from the area, going downhill. It doesnt take overly long, perhaps half a day from Itswoot Ridge camp. I think you could conceivably go from White Rock Lakes all the way out before dark. A week is a long time! We did it in 3.5 days, and it was fine.