layton

Climb: Nooksack Tower-North Face (Bertulis/Davis) Date of Climb: 7/24/2005 Trip Report: (i'll add photos very soon) Ivan and I climbed the North Face(North Ridge) of the Nooksack Tower the other day. Finally! This was my SIXTH time attempting something on this side of the mountain (three towers, three Price). Perserverence pays off i guess! 2000-attempt #1. Price Glacier. Lyle and I try the Price in late october. Soft snow and mangled route turn us around. 2001-attempt #2. Price Glacier. Matt and I attempt the Price Car to Car and i sprain my knee on the approach. 2002-attempt #3. Price Glacier. Necro and I attempt the Price car to car. Arrive on lateral moraine at dawn and it's alread 100million degrees out. This ends my fascination with the price. 2004-attempt #4 Nooksack Tower. Jay and I bungle the approach and the record setting heat sends us home crying 2005-attempt #5 Nooksack Tower. a certain partner of mine gets the fear just after doing 1/2 of the glacier crossing. 1st pitch only a few hundred yards away. 2005-attempt #6 Nooksack Tower. Ivan and I finally get it. The story follows... It took a certain amount of will power to head up there once again, but I had Ivan and it didn't take much convincing for him to join me in my obsession. Plus, I brought a lightweight alpine partner gun. I told him i was packing, and he'd better not bitch. Luckily the gun never was deployed. The Approach: Ivan can describe the horrors of packing in a Bellingham park. It's old hat to me, so i can't do it justice. I needed to turn the brain to "off mode" so I popped a gram of vicodan. I almost regretted this decision as I stumbled down the trail, but by the time I reached camp, I had no recolection of the hike! The approach went smoothly, concidering I had it totally and completely wired. The grueling part is the 3 miles of flat trail along the rive with not a single view. Then comes the infamous log crossing. I've seen the log move up stream over the years, as floods destroy the old logs and make new crossings. The new crossing is about 200 yards upstream now. Keep your eyes PEELED the moment the trail turns into old growth for a faint path down to the nooksack river. It should occur within moments (just after a slight rise in the trail with cut logs). Schwack down and upstream (munching Salmon Berries along the way) to the log and walk it. Don't be a pussy and hump across it or wear your crampons. It's just not cool. Now follow a faint path with some happily added new flagging tape (not much, but enought to let you know you're not totally fucked) very carefully. Take the time to stick with the trail. You wind up following the very edge of the price creek after some time. Then the trail becomes vertical dirt, and you claw and kick your way up. Try not to go charging for the ridgeline up to your left, you'll get there soon enough. After a bit you enter some mossy old talus. You should only be on this talus for a very short bit. The talus soon turns into the lateral moraine, high above Price Lake. Note: Kevin McLane's guidebook has you on the lakes edge and following its shores to the head of the lake, and then scrambling up some cliffs. DO NOT DO THIS! you will be so fucked you'll feel like the only girl at an antarctic research facility. Okay, now you follow the moraine FOREVER even though it looks like a short walk. Look for a cairn when the morain peters out just below a cliff. Root grab violently up to the top of the ridgeline. There are some pools of water on top, but i'd filter that shit. There is fresh water a bit farther (1st water since car). I forgot to mention that immediately out of the car you gotta cross a stream. Bring sandals and stash them on the other side. Back to the ridge. Follow the ridge FOREVER again, cross a narrow connecting spur, and at the last cliff, traverse aroudn the left side. Cross the stream and scramble up 3rd class mossy waterfalls to the upper ridgeline and granite bedrock. IF you keep hiking to the upper most section of ridge that connects to the glacier..as far as you can hike on rock, there is an awesome and super flat bivy spot. Note, flowing water is strangely hard to find here, but it's there. 5 hours to this point. Crossing the Glacier: I made a good call and brought my trange ice boots instead of the usuall tenis shoes and strap on poons. Thank god! The glacier is a mess, and i would never concider doign the Price Glacier route anymore. It is very broken, but more so threatend by major serac fall for the upper 1/3 of the route. Not worth the risk for such a low angled glacier slog-a-thon. Crossing to the tower is quite manageble however. Now it occured to me many many times that Ivan is roughtly three times my size and weight and coupled with the fact that we had no snow protection and I was using a childrens ice tool (the fisher price My 1st Ice Tool), that if he or I was to fall in a crevasse or slip while downclimbing at any time, we'd both probably be dead as doornails. I even made a song about this, much to Ivan's delight! McLane mentions that it's about 1/2 hour to the base of the route from the glaciers edge, and there is a good bivy ledge at the base of the 1st pitch. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong! It took us 2.5 hours to cross the glacer to the 1st pitch. Much sketchyness was had and most of the details are now lost in the alpinist amnesia that occurs when put under the gun. I can say that there is shit for bivy sites at the base, and we spent a good hour trundling rocks to make two sloping, SUPER EXPOSED (CHRIST ALMIGHTY!!!!), coffins...er bivy spots. My ledge was right at the base of a loose rock gully that kept spilling down onto my head. I had to find some large rocks to make a barrier. I wasn't too pleased after the climb to return to my spot and find it slightly re-buried. I didn't sleep so good. Ivan had similar issues. Every time he or i went to visit each other's coffin, or go to the "kitchen", or our 3rd world bathroom, we'd send down a shower of rocks onto our respective bivies. Fucking awesome. THE CLIMB: Since we did the glacier crossing already, we didn't get up till 6am. That's when the sun hits the route, so it was nice to be warmed outta bed, having laid awake in cold fear all night long. We dicked around and finally got our asses on route at around 7:30am. A respectable time to start, vs the inhuman early hours of pre-dawn. The 1st pitch was just like the instruction manual said, and strenous 5.8 chimney and jam crack. Easy to find and start up. We did a few pitches and then I took off simul-climbing, until i got bored and had to poop. Ivan got the next stretch and took us to the base of the upper headwall. I took a different way than the users manual stated. The manual wasn't too verbose on where to go, and we tried to follow a natural line without peaking the dial of the contrive-o-meter. We follwed the ridge to around the right side of the peak, and I did a vertical and sometimes overhanging face to jam crack. I slung a block, and laughed my ass off when Ivan cleaned it not by undoing the sling, but simply picking up the block (easily) and pulling off the sling. Bomber! Ivan was almost crushed several times by rope-induced rockfall on several of the leads. Sometimes there was no gear for a hundred feet, sometimes there was. Interesting rock. Better be careful!! We topped out after 6.5 hours of climbing, and read the summit register. I recognized a few friends on the list, and some names i've heard of before. It was cool. The DESCENT! : We had the looming lurking overshadowing fear the whole entire trip of the dreaded descent. "Takes as long as the climb" we heard....and we heard corerct! Thankfully there's a shitload of tat all over the beckey route (which btw looked like one of the shittiest routes i've ever seen), but that didn't stop the ropes from tangling on every low andled talus covered rope chopping partner axing rappell. We did about 7 full double rope raps until we got the the super dreaded enterance couloir that was bordered on all sides by deep moats, shitloads of crevasss, and a big looming wants to eat you bergshrund. We both we thinking how the fuck are we gonna downclimb this steep snow with yawning crevasses everywhere? It took a lot out of us to get by this section, and we had to leave some gear to rap past some major sphincter pinching sections. Long long long way to fall. We had to unrope and free solo across some icy snow onto a gravel ledge for one last rap. I went down 1st only to have the rope end (with stretch) just a few feet from the bottom, just above the major bergshrund! Ivan was too far up to yell instructions to, so I said "fuck it", put in a "bomber" cam, and hung off it after yelling for Ivan to come on down! Ivan was not too pleased with me, or my anchor, or my idea for him to just jump across the moat and bershrund. I finally convinced him and he lept to non-safety on the other side. I quickly joined him. It was a scary traverse below the mountain back to our not-so-much-fun bivy spot. We ate a cold dinner and went to bed with worried smiles. Waking up at 8:30 was the only consolation about having to downclimb that goddamned glacier one more time. I don't really want to remember this bit, so i'll skip it. I was on 4 different types of drugs by the car, and 5 in the car. Pain and worry free, we sailed the car back to Bellingham Ivan can go into more detail on this, the cliff jumping water bouldering, alchohol binging party that night with 3 ericks at once, my run in with the crack dealers (more than one), etc etc etc etc. Good times, but glad they are over. I alread miss this beautiful place, i feel almost a part of it now, having spent some much freakin' time there. Sooooo beautiful!!! Gear Notes: rack of cams, a pin or two, poons, a tool (or two), two ropes...basic stuff. Approach Notes: bring a bike if you're not worried about being caught or pissing hikers off. we didn't, but it would've been nice on the 1st 3 miles of actual trail.

same thing happened to me lane and becca last year on Mctech. inches from death. scary.

The whole climb was like a waking dream. I've been climbing in the sisters and living off and on in Bellingham for years and have always dreamed of a multipitch climb on olivine...and one only 30 miles from the 'Ham. I think it's truly fortunate that we were the ones to finally finally find the mythical bellingham "big wall". This climb is a MUST DO! Thanks for a great 1st climb toghether darin!!!! The area where the climb is located is totally unlike any place i've EVER been. Emerge from the jungle into the alpine arena of something like the Sierra! A total desolate dry redrock playground split by a clear blue stream originating from a high alpine glacier. Totally prisine wilderness and beautiful peaks. Oh My God! What a totally happy happy place and good time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! p.s. don't fret the approach. Blueberries every time the approach makes you feel sad. Did I mention that this climb is one of the most surreal experiences you'll ever have in the mountains? A Bellingham "Big Wall"??? I never would'a guessed in a million years. How fun fun fun amazing awesome happy goodtimes climb can you get? I'll spend my whole life trying to top this happy adventure. Thank you Darin for being my awesome partner!!! This experience will most definately stand out.

looks like your mom's panis folds

too bad i took those photos in a drug induced hallucination! they're actually photos of my cheesy pernium

i heard it's really steep and a rock dropped from the top wouldn't hit until the ground!!??? gosh, that'd be neat. maybe it'd be steep like this:

i said physically...like they would actually leave the country.

i wish most of oregon, idaho, and southern washington would physically seced? from the union making the drive to other climbing areas way less boring.

too bad, i thought it was cool. fuck the leavenworthless locals.

I got this forewarded from Mr. Limage in Vegas. thanks Mark. Dear Red States: We're ticked off at the way you've treated California, and we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California. To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. You get "intelligent design" and alligators. We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share. Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. Since our high school sex ed is based on science and acknowledges human nature, we get high rates of teens going off to college. Since most of your school districts insist abstinence until marriage is the only legitimate curriculum, you get higher rates of STD's and a bunch of teenage single moms. Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire. With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners), 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, the University of California, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you. Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties. By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico. Sincerely, Author Unknown in New California<<

questing for the mythical bellingham big wall. i have returned. der toofel hast getfallen.

that happens to be Necro's backyard. i'm spotting/snickering from above. I call it the "secret garden" where i go when i'm feeling blue and need some space to clear my head.

that is the one of the world's most retarded bolts! someone should chop it. the world's dumbest bolt is at the end of the last pitch of springbok arete on a flat summit after 16 boltless, and sometimes gearless belays. i wonder if the filmmakers for "K2" put that there for filming.

but it probably doesn't really exist

or maybe something like this?

I hear it looks something like this

Anyone ever hear the story of the mythical big wall just outside of bellingham?

thanks for the extracurricular activity input, however, i don't plan on actually spending any time at holden. if i get back early i plan on sitting at the dock and waiting. now when to go....???

jimeny crickets! i love this website. instant information. thank you for the quick response. i think my partner and i would feel safe and secure holding hands and praying to our lord.

what college? where!

anyone know how to avoid the 11 mile walk and get a ride? becky states there's a shuttle, while the Holden Village website says there's not. hmmm. thanks fer da help

no, he's just a cunning linguist

oh....we see him show up more than you may know

agreed