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CascadeClimber

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Posts posted by CascadeClimber

  1. On 12/31/2022 at 11:08 AM, Szyjakowski said:

    -recorded in Washington Ice guidebook by Martin & Krawarik 

    Does anyone know if Alex is still around the area? I saw him a few times with Summer on the Cable Line maybe 4-5 years ago, but nothing since.

  2. 8 hours ago, JasonG said:

    “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games."

    -Ernest Hemingway

    Is there a bullfighting chapter in your book @CascadeClimber?

    I may have misremembered that quote, as I have a chapter on bullshitting. Close enough?

  3. 14 hours ago, olyclimber said:

    I'm writing the same book. Except with multiple hobbies at once, so you get an extra "Jack of All Trades, and Master of None" chapter.  Is that car blind in one eye?

    I get the write the chapter "How to Stay Married 30 Years when your Wife didn't Marry a Climber or Racer". We can co-author "I'll Sleep and Rest When I'm Dead"

    The Sprite race car has problematic under hood air flow issues: Behind the left headlight are the dual carbs. Behind the right is the oil cooler. We want lots of fresh, cool air on both. However, the only way for air to get out from under the bonnet (hood) is under the car, which we dislike a lot because it is the very opposite of the downforce that creates traction. It's like someone pulling on your leg as you try to smear up On Line at Static Point (I wonder if this gets climbed anymore with the road closed). Bonnet vents are not legal. Some racers run with both headlights open, some both closed, some right, some left. This was my first season and I ran left open. Oil temps were fine, so I'm sticking with that setup for now.

  4. 2 minutes ago, olyclimber said:

    Is it a Model T Club?

    LOL, no. Fiero club that night. We also have a three Austin Healey Sprites and a Saturn Sky. Read all about it in my forthcoming book "Mountaineering and Automobiles: How to Choose Expensive Hobbies that Ensure You'll Never be Able to Retire."
    image.png.720fe3e52c29e1b1c0403e842f52196a.png

    image.png.94d4f02cf9bbd4821ed8ea131c258fad.png

    • That's funny! 2
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  5. I have a car club meeting that night that I don't think I can skip. Too bad, would be fun to reminisce about the glory days of this site...and some of its inglorious former denizens.

    Plus I want to heat @Juan Sharp recite "Twas' the Night Spent on Jberg" live.

  6. I don't see it posted here, so here it is. The current mis-managers of the park are shutting down public access to Paradise except Sat and Sun through the winter. Overnight camping will be allowed on on Saturday nights.

    https://www.nps.gov/mora/learn/news/mount-rainier-national-park-announces-winter-2022-23-recreational-access-changes.htm

    This has me wondering if there will be a repeat of the 2006 scenario where the commercial guide services were allowed in when the public was not. Ugh.

    • Smells bad 2
  7. On 8/31/2022 at 9:52 AM, Juan Sharp said:

    We later lured Bob Davis to join

    "My Kingdom for a Cell Phone" is classic Cascades reading. I pull it out for a laugh about once a year. Bob's regard for J-berg and what he'd rather have done to him than ever go back up on is is utterly classic and, frankly, part of the allure of this mountain for me.

  8. Wow. Too bad, as that was a fun route with one tough pitch and a boatload of class 4ish type stuff. But the increasing access issues kinda sucked. When we climbed it we parked at the top of the road in the talus fan (edit to add: right where that giant boulder of death stopped), hiked up, and went at it. Then hitched back to the car from the main parking lot at Alpental.

    Where's Burdo when we need a truckload of thankless cleaning done? I heard about a Leland sighting recently...

  9. Quote

     

    On 2/4/2005 at 2:52 PM, Dru said:

    Let's not forget the Renton granite big wall!

     

    Props to Dru(l) for dredging up a 15 year old reference from the glory days. Word has it that JensK's "Sweet Granite in Renton" has yet to see an ascent. Or be seen.

  10. If you aren't on top, you aren't on top. You might have completed the technical portion of a route, but if you do a Twight and throw your stove out on the Football Field and go down, you didn't summit or complete the route.

    I think any other interpretation leads to rapid erosion of the term "summit".

    And yes, I have at least one Rainier climb where we got to the crater rim, on the Emmons side, but it was so windy we couldn't get to Columbia Crest. I do not count this as a summit.

  11. Thank you for posting. There was a lot in the write up about Helmy that I didn't know. I'd heard third-hand that Fred referred to him as the smart one for going back to Germany and having a family. Don't know if that true, maybe Megan is around and will chime in.

    Helmy, Fred, Dee, et al were real trailblazers and true adventurers in the Cascades. Having completed new routes on Johannnesberg, Formidable, and Little Tahoma, I can say that going where no one has been before, where there is no description or cairn or tat, etc. is a very different experience. And in those cases we followed an established route down. What they did in terms of first summits with far less road access...man, that's an order of magnitude more commitment.

    Cheers to them all, and thank you for blazing those trails and routes that so many have joyfully followed.

    • Like 1
  12. Godspeed and heavenly first ascents with Fred to Dee Molenaar, who has departed the Cascades at 101.

    Dee and Fred may have known more about the Cascades than everyone alive combined. I feel fortunate to have lived while they did, and was inspired by their adventures, writings, and antics.

    https://www.seattlepi.com/local/politics/article/Dee-Molenaar-RIP-at-101-and-The-Brotherhood-of-14993166.php

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  13. Wow, I cannot comprehend how long it's been since my two trips in there.

    http://www.cascadeclimber.com/beggars_can't_be_choosers.htm

    http://www.cascadeclimber.com/khusia.htm

    Like so many Washington ice areas, it's ephemeral and the desired snow cover for the approach makes for snow-covered climbs. What I most remember is coming into the upper basin and not understanding how big the routes are; there's little scale reference and many of the potential lines are 3+ pitches, though it doesn't look like that at first.

  14. On 12/20/2018 at 9:05 AM, Gaucho Argentino said:

    Looking at the first half of climbing in the first pic, on the slabs directly under the fall line of the glacier, do you think is there a way up much to the right against the wall? It seems that in there you could be out of the way of ice falling from above?

    Happy you guys made it to tell the story, rad big-balls sorta climbing...

    The rock is compact and polished; not much in the way of handholds or gear. The first half of the climbing, up into the basin, did not feel highly threatened to me; there is a lot of lower angle rock between the snouts of the glaciers and that area. The upper slab section, which we found entirely unprotectable and lies in the fall line of the right-hand glacier, might be avoidable climber's right (looking at some other photos), but you do still have to pass the fall line of that right ice cliff. Doing so on class 2 or 3 would be faster though, than the 4/5 we encountered. You'd have to cross the larger, right-hand outflow twice though, which could be an issue depending on volume. It's not a small amount of water, even in later summer.

    Almost 12 years later and I still get excited thinking about this route; having gazed up at it, studied it in photos, and dreamed about what it might be like in those upper basins for years. getting our asses handed to us the first try. Getting more and more hopeful as each successive obstacle was passed on the second try. So, so many rappels and so much downclimbing in the dark down the east ridge after getting the to summit. Shivering with one sleeping bag and a space blanket just below the CJ Col after 24 hours on the move, wondering if the predicted rain was going to soak us, and the glorious acres of blueberries we found for breakfast the next morning. There is an experience doing a new route that is entirely unlike repeating; no tat, no cairns, never looking at a route description or trying to figure out if I'm 'going the right way'. Look up, choose the way that looks like it goes, then go find out if it really does. Beautiful simplicity and true adventure.

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