Alpine_Tom

Compared specifically with the shear strength of water? I don't know, as a US-educated history major, it seems intuitive that rocks embedded in a moving slab of ice are going to abrade the rock beneath it. And the water, if anything, might serve to carry more rock down underneath the ice where it could become jammed and add to the 'grinding surface.' I just can't buy the image of a river running underneath a glacier, moving back and forth methodically across the bed of the glacier, grinding down the rock below so that the glacier can settle down into it. But geez, guys, it's is spelled with an apostrophe when it's a contraction, not a possessive. They even teach that in Canadian schools, apparently, in the time they save not saluting the flag.

If the weather's good, you can hike up there in tennys and t-shirts. If the weather turns bad, you could get socked in and have to bivvy overnight on the Muir snowfield.

If you do the "non-complete" North Ridge (up the couloir) and avoid the gendarme, the NR is much more moderate, and not so much an epic. It's a long-ass approach from Longs pass, though, and a longer-ass descent down cascadia couloir. Which, unless you're extraordinarily lucky, you can't do in the dark. There's a reason there are so many bivvy spots around the summit of Stuart. Bring at least the rudiments for an unplanned bivvy -- space blanket, lightweight down coat, that sort of thing. It's an easy route to follow up, but if you haven't been up there before, you might have trouble locating the top of the cascadia couloir.

One not-strictly-legal bivvy location is the picnic area at the overlook. If you're leaving at the crack of dawn, you can toss a sleeping bag on a picnic table and get some zzzs away from the grinding semis. At the least, it's a good source of potable water.

I can't see that. I can easily see them banning climbing gear, bikes, backpacks, baby seats, strollers, etc, but no one's going to tell people not to fly with their golf clubs and skiis, and keep their job. Could be the first step to a real citizen backlash, though. But geez, what justification did they use for confiscating a climbing rope? A quickdraw looks more like a potential weapon than a rope! (Officer, stop that man! He's got a grigri! Call security!)

Wow! So much for the heavy snow year! I've never seen it that melted out.

Then, why not just ignore it, rather than pissing on people who don't meet your expectations?

If you need a cell phone for an emergency, you need a better plan. That said, the best cell service in the mountains is with an analog phone -- as long as there's still analog service. I got benighted last fall on Stuart, with my fancy Cingular phone, no digital service (wife panicked, called the sherrif, etc.) But the previous year, up on Tomihoi Peak where there was apparently no digital service available, I got decent (if scratchy) analog service. It's my understanding that if these things see any sort of digital signal, they won't use their built-in analog circuitry at all.

We got a not-great view of it from our Mixup climb last weekend. Here's the best photo I could find from what I got.

Here's a picture of Cache col. It would be an extra mile, at least, but the back side of the ridge is a pretty, grassy slope and probably wouldn't be that difficult to traverse. You could rapel down the right side of gunsite notch without much trouble; we almost did but I was too much of a cheapskate to leave a shiny new sling.

OMG! you're rapping off a non-locking biner!! belt and suspenders, man.... belt and suspenders What, only one sling?

I'd just assumed it was someone playing a joke. Pretty cool! Some pics at: http://home.comcast.net/~nagelbreit/mixup.htm

Climb: Mixup-East Face Date of Climb: 7/22/2006 Trip Report: Alex Mineev and I decided on this as a compromise destination. Jeff Smoot calls it an unappreciated classic, and Fred B. says it's one of the best one-day climbs from Cascade Pass. Myself, I don't think I'd ever heard of it. We left Pugetopolis at 4:30 AM, air condition running because it was still so warm. After stopping to ooh and ah over Johannesberg, we hit the trail right around 8:00. The Cascade Pass trail is long, smooth, and uninteresting, aside from the views of mountains through the trees, and we were constantly assaulted by bugs. It's a bumper crop this year. At the pass we stopped for breakfast, enjoying the breeze which kept the bugs down, and picking out mountains in the fabulous panorama. We misidentified Magic as Mixup (which is actually hidden from the pass) and after a bit, headed off to the right. The trail is surprisingly easy to follow and well established. Partly because stuff grows slowly up there, partly because mountain goats use it, and partly because it's part of the Ptarmigan ptraverse (later in the day, we saw a party of four heading up and over Cache Col.) The approach went smoothly, right up until we got to 'Gunsite Notch' where the left side approach was blocked by a fearsome moat, and the right side was almost as difficult to pass, on a steep snowbridge. We belayed this, which added a good half hour to the climb (both up, and back.) It may have been the crux of the climb, getting over that and getting up the sloppy rock-and-dirt slope above it. The other side (south) of the ridge is a gorgeous 'Sound of Music' view of grass, wildflowers and the splendid 'Central Cascade glacier.' We traversed over the back side of the gendarme, following a bit of a trail part of the way (this peak is apparently on the Mountaineers syllabus) before arriving at the gap. The route description recommends descending about 100 feet to the left and climbing from there, but Alex wanted to climb the face here at the gap. It's probably 5.5 or so, and he got up it with no problem. I came after, made a stupid move, and fell on my ass from 8' into the dirt, uninjured, and scrambled up after him. After this pitch, you go up 3rd-class ground for a ways. We contrived more challenging variations, but the blackish gneiss is pretty crappy and crumbly, and you have to assume every hold and stance is iffy. At this point, I was wondering if Smoot and Beckey had been smoking the same bowl. But then, suddenly, the rock changed from the crappy , crumbly black stuff to remarkable white, granite-looking stuff, much more firm and a lot of fun to ascend. It's like stairsteps, really (in fact, on the desent, Alex pointed out a concave area that looked like an ancient greek theater, the steps were so regular and neat.) Instead of following the route description, which sends you up to the right skyline (the n ridge?) we decided to go straight up the east face. It got progressively steeper, but the rock was just as good as ever. Finally we felt the need to rope back up, and half a rope-length (again, maybe 5.5-ish climbing) got us to the summit (after a kind of fearsome step-across.) The summit book was put up there in 1992, and was only about half filled. According to it, we were the third party of the year. It was a gorgeous summit, splendid views every direction. The descent was a matter of 3 rapels, some more downclimbing, 3 more rapels to the notch (since it's a Mountie destination, every rap station had half a dozen slings.) Another half hour or so negotiating the snow bridge on the descent, then down the snow, back to the trail, to the pass, and out. Took about 6 hours for the ascent. Very much a recommended ascent, except for the obnoxious ascent to the gap. It may be that once things melt out a bit more, more manageable alternatives will become evident. And we did scope out several possible lines to climb from below the notch, up chimneys, cracks, or plausible-looking ribs. They looked good, but we didn't get close enough to evaluate the pro potential. Gear Notes: bug spray -- constant applications essential. Crampons were appreciated, ice axe would've been handy. Approach Notes: CRR is open. Cascade pass trailhead no longer requires the odious trail pass. Trail is quite easy to follow.

When I take a camera, I put it in a bag slung over one shoulder, under my pack. That works well whether it's a SLR or a small digital. It's far more convenient than keeping it in the pack, and keeps it clean, dry, and out of danger.

One frustration I have with the various non-Beckey guides is how varied the content is. Typically they include hike-ups and 5.11 routes and glacier travel, all mixed together. The sort of person who's looking for a route like Mt. Ruth is probably not going to want to page through route descriptions of Eve Dearborn Memorial Route, and vice versa. So, What seems like it would be quite useful, at least to someone like me, would be a set of guides arranged by type of climb, rather than 'my favorite' or 'classics.' For instance, a guidebook that includes interesting rock routes -- W. Ridge Forbidden / NE RidgeTriumph / Mt Goode NE Buttress, etc. Then, a guidebook of interesting glacier/ice routes: Adams Glacier / N Ridge Baker / Liberty Ridge. Call it the "Northwest Classic" series -- Northwest Classic Rock Routes / Northwest Classic Glacier Routes / Northwest Classic Scrambles / Northwest Classic Choss Slogs... my $.02

No, ours was to the left, hidden by the arete (?) in the foreground. I didn't get a decent photo of it.

Climb: Vesper Peak-North Face Date of Climb: 7/9/2006 Trip Report: Alex Mineev and I climbed the North Face on Sunday. Beautiful weather. I was surprised to see so much snow still up there -- the tarn was almost completely frozen. The approach took longer than I'd anticipated from the basin to the base of the route; the Vesper Glacier traverse was kind of slow. We had crampons, and it would have been pretty difficult without them. view of Vesper and the upper N. Face Partial view of the N. Face from the saddle. We did the "full face" starting from below, and did about three pitches before getting up to the slabs. The rock is really unpredictable -- what looks like class 4 turns out to have a couple of surprising 5.7 moves stuck in there, but there's almost no opportunties for pro. I avoided crying on all but the scariest moves. Alex getting ready to start up the first pitch Alex enjoying very secure handholds. Up on the slab (we did the 'low angle slab' that Nelson recommends) it was a LOT of fun, once you get past the issue of virually no pro opportunites at all. There are plenty of good belay spots, but you can't tie yourself in. The climbing isn't difficult or hazardous, I'd guess no more than 5.0, but I'm used to over-protecting everything, just in case, and it's a bit disconcerting to be sitting there on a nice wide bench belaying your partner up a not-very-difficult pitch, knowing that the only thing holding you to the wall is a little wedge, or a not-very-well slung rock. We did find one old rusty 1/4" bolt and rusty hanger, bent and broken through, but we slung it, since it was the best pro we had all day. We spent a good four hours on the climb, more than I expected, going kind of slow and excavating cracks in a mostly futile effort to find one deep enough to stick something that would stay put. Alex on the upper slab If I did it again, I'd probably do the slab unroped; all a rope does is slow you down, and you probably wouldn't be able to hold a fall. Gorgeous day in the Cascades. We both want to do it again. There's always time for a relaxing bath after a stimulating climb! Gear Notes: Crampons, a few cams, rope. Lots of bugs -- bugspray is essential. Approach Notes: Trail was in good condition. Lots of snow in the basin, iffy snow at the top of the gap.

Statistics are probably meaningless in this arena... people who climb technical stuff solo are probably people who know what they're doing, and what their abilities are. There's more points of failure with roped climbing, and probably climbing roped you're going to be doing harder stuff, so you're more likely to fall on a rope than solo. Still, if you're on a route that's at your limit (which for me is about 5.7!) and someone says "hey, unrope, it's safer" you might want to consider the advice carefully.

the folks on www.photoforum.com like gimp (www.gimp.com, of course) for photo editing, supposed to have 99% of the features of Photoshop, but free. I downloaded it and played with it some, but I'm not interested enough to learn a new program.

weather forecasting is aid, isn't it? Jeff Renner did write several books about mountain weather forecasting, but they're all published by the Mountaineers, so they probably fail your high requirements.

Seems like there's enough places in the world to climb, that you don't need to subsidize a brutal military dictatorship to do it. Just my two cents.

No kidding, look what happened to the last mountaineer outing: Hah! Those aren't Mountaineers -- not a single one is wearing gaiters! They're probably Mazamas.

Hey -- why didn't I think of that? One necessity is to keep your needs modest -- if you can live out of your car, you can afford to spend a lot more time climbing. I'd think that a decent-paying trade like electrician or finish carpenter would be a good idea, then you can work jobs and take time off when opportunity calls.

NE Butt, Black Peak (mostly rock) Fisher Chimneys on Shuksan, Frostbite Ridge on Glacier Peak, Corkscrew route on Sloan, I've all done solo, and felt they weren't unreasonbly irresponsible. W. Ridge of Forbidden would probably be good too. One real problem with soloing is routefinding, as you probably know, especially the approach. Except for Sloan, I think all these are probably manageable, as I recall. Except for Glacier, which the approach got washed away, as noted above.

I'd counsel taking a spare battery, just in case. Keep in tucked away someplace warm. A big advantage of digital is being able to take lots of photos, and it'd be a drag to have to worry about having to conserve your battery. Compared to a trip to Denali, a spare battery is pretty cheap.