Alpine_Tom

Okay, so maybe this is sort of a naive question. There are a lot of climbs that have gotten significantly easier since they were first done, due to improvements in pro, shoes, etc. But it seems like there is a subset of climbs that have gotten significantly HARDER since they were first done, because they've gotten to be classics, and are done by thousands of people a year, and the holds are polished. Midway is probably the most well-known example. You can see it on Der Toof as well; you get five feet off the main line and the climb gets much easier because the rock still has some texture left. And certainly the 'easy' routes on the east slab of the Marymoor rock are all a grade or two harder than when it was first put up. No doubt there are a hundred other examples at well-climbed spots like Smith or Index. Is there any sort of consensus about up-grading a climb because of overuse?

Coming in late, I second Cascade Voices; Conversations with Washington Mountaineers, by Malcom S. Bates. Exactly what you're looking for.

That's kind of my point. To me it looks like one mountain, and geologically it's one mountain. To you, it looks like three. (or four? What about Sherman Peak?) Who gets to decide? I say, decide however you want, but acknowledge that it's a subjective decision.

That's just silly. The only justification for not listing Liberty Cap as a separate mountain is because it's too hard to climb? It seems pretty obvious that pretty much anyone can tell that Mt Adams is a mountain. But is Sahali? Or Silver Star? From Boston Basin, Sahali is just a nub on the ridgeline. Colfax and Lincoln peaks are clearly NOT mountains, they're obviously subsidiary summits of Baker. They're also probably harder to summit than the main peak (Grant Peak) of Baker, but to say that they're left off because they're too darned hard is silly. If the primary motivation was to keep things easy, they'd have figured out a way to keep Mox Peak off. Any list of 100 highest, or Seven Summits, fifty state high points, is going to have an element of caprice, especially if you claim that 'my list' is the 'best list.' (It's often been suggested that climbing the second highest peak of each continent would be a good deal harder than the highest peaks.) If you want to tag this or that list, or every mountain named after a color, or every summit that you can see from I-5, or whatever, then have fun with it. But to say 'my list is right and yours is wrong' is just a moot argument. That said, this website has a much more comprehensive set of lists by category, area, etc. http://www.eskimo.com/~sfox/WAPEAKS/

Left out the brilliant summit shots:

This is a pretty interesting list. But it raises another question -- although Rainier has 13210' of prominence, no one (or very few) climb that distance. (Is the park entrance that low?) And most of the mountains on the bottom 2/3 of the list you climb much more than the amount of prominence. So, we need a list sorted by the altitude you climb. That'd put Whitehorse pretty high up on the list, I'd think.

"Any debate?" On this site? You could start a debate on whether Rainier is really a mountain! The list the Mountaineers use is called the "Bulger Top 100" An alternative list appears here: http://www.summitroutes.com/peaks.html This list leaves off, for instance, Sahali Peak, because it has less than 400' of "clean prominence."

It's my understanding http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/recreation/special/byways/mtnloop_byway.shtml that the highway is interrupted only for a couple of miles north of Barlow Pass. There's not any access that's prevented, is there? It's only that you can't make the scenic drive all the way around.

Looking at the Olympic Mtns Climbing Guide, I noticed they say that Mt. Jupiter has a 5.5 route up it called the Jupiter Cliffs. Anyone have any experience with that? Is it worth heading over to give a try?

Have a look at "Seattle Scrambles Guide." http://scrambles.wacweb.org/index.html Be aware that most of the scrambles mentioned above involve multi-hour hikes in, and long scree slogs on the descent -- especially Thompson and Black Peak. the NE buttress of Chair Peak is 'sort of' a 4th class scramble, but I wouldn't do it without a rappel rope.

Oops. My bad. Sorry. My editor's on vacation this week. That'd be a hell of a creek, though, that ran all the way from Leavenworth to Washington Pass!

Trip: Silver Star Peak - Date: 5/6/2007 Trip Report: Alex Mineev and I headed up there to see what it was like. I've heard that crossing the Icycle is the crux of the climb, but there were half a dozen logs to chose from. There's plenty of snow; we never did find the trail that Nelson talks about, but we slogged up the right side of Burgundy creek until it became obvious we needed to contour more to the right, to head for the col. Left the car around 8:15, got to the col around noon, summited around 2:00, and back to the car around 6:00. The snow's deep and snowshoes were essential. We may have been the first to slog up the Burgundy Creek route this year, but we saw at least ten skiiers descending from the summit, and out the Silver Star Creek route. Man, what gorgeous granite up there on the wine spires! The weather was kind of socked in, so photography wasn't great, but I posted a few here: http://home.comcast.net/~tbreit/ssp.htm Alex brought his high-tech digital Pentax does-it-all SLR, so maybe he'll post some more. Great burgers at Buffalo Run. Gear Notes: snowshoes, ice axes. Approach Notes: Easy to cross the creek. Short approach.

Why doesn't cascadeclimbers.com have a spy satellite with a webcam on it? That way we could just point and click, and not have to bother with the forest service. Whatever happened to the puppy cam -- couldn't you repurpose it, Jon?

I tried Cannon Mt. North Couloir about this time last year, and had problems with figuring out when to get off the mail trail. Eventually I figured it out, but it didn't really seem like worth the trouble. It was quite pretty, but much more of a snow hike than a climb.

We had to settle for Dave Uberuaga in place of you. So, where's your TR?

Would it be worthwhile to drag a bicycle up there to bike up the road and stash it in the trees? Or is it all snowed in? (Not quite sure what "80%" means)

There was some discussion of this in the Willi Unsoeld book that came out a couple years ago. At the time I thought it was a too "cloak-and-dagger" to be completely accurate, but perhaps not.

KCTS (channel 9) is having a segment this coming Thursday at 7:00 on Connects about restoring MRNP after the floods and washouts last year. They are hoping to have Mike Gautier on, but he's been out of the country climbing. If he gets back in time, he'll be on there.

What a relief. I'd hate to think of those damned dogs and their inconsiderate owners interfering with the snowmobiles. http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/recreation/winter/documents/snomobilesnoparkmap_001.pdf

Yes, but we haven't seen *ANY* bypass surgery, and no amputations on the summit. Now *THAT'S* a record to aspire to!

I'm down there for a conference, and THIS time I figure I need to actually climb. Anyone (1) going to be down there and want to partner for 5.easy (5.6-5.9 ) stuff or (2) know about a similar resource in Vegas for hooking up with climbing partners? I haven't bought the tix yet, so I could even stay through Monday if that would clinch the deal. email me at tbreit-at-comcast.net.

Well gosh, why else would you want to climb?

Yea! Unless one is cragging, bringing a cell phone or having evening plans puts a damper on the day. It makes you not focus on where you are. Yeah, well, I've had to hurry home after an outing at times myself. But to wait to you're at the trailhead to announce that you're going to have to turn around in a couple of hours, well, to me that's just hostile. If he'd said something earlier, I could have driven my own car and at least gotten a decent workout.

Boy, some of these stories sure make it hard to feel sorry for yourself! A few years ago, I was invited along on a climb by a friend of the guy who introduced me to climbing. My friend couldn't go, but gave me this guy's phone #, etc. Jim, I think his name was. So I drove up there early one Saturday morning, up to Burlington. Half an hour later, his buddy Dave shows up, and another half an hour after that, we head out in Jim's family minivan, to climb... Church Mountain. I'd never been up there, so I didn't know much about it (technically, it's on a par with Mt. Si without the haystack, but much prettier.) Fabulous views, but I forgot my camera in my car. About the time we get to the trailhead around noon, Dave mentions that he has to be back in Seattle for a business dinner at 6:00 PM. We hiked up the hour or so through the trees, and half an hour in the open field, which is snowfilled because it's mid-March. I try to push for a steep snow climb up to what looks like the summit, to at least get a little drama out of the day, but they aren't having any of that, and before long, we have to turn around to get Dave home in time to get cleaned up for his law firm dinner. Well over six hours in the car, round trip, three hours hiking in the snow... As they say, live and learn.

The dog in question was a rescued stray, and I always suspected he was part coyote (long legs, bushy tail, very canny) and that may be why he didn't seem to have a problem. He had very good eyesight, and that's part of why I worried and asked a couple different vets about it. Since snowblindness is basically a sunburn of the retina, it does seem like it ought to happen to dogs as well as people.