layton

anyone have an idea of how to figure out how many calories one spends climbing and approaching? Is there something that would give you so many cal/mile and so many cal/feet. What about the climbing? Or is there an equation for just so many cal/exertion*time. That would seem a better way! Just curious! I've always wondered how many cal. I've burned on long days of climbing and approaching.

Climbing railed on R.J. Secor's 1st edition of his Sierras guidebook, but it seems a good idea to only print the good stuff.

Sounds like a BLAST! Nice work Boyz

That Azure lake photo came out very strange. Here's another try...

Looking down into Azure Lake. One of the most amazing views I've seen. Those waterfalls drop down literally thousands of feet, some free falling (look closely) for an amazing distance. From the Azure Lake Col Camp,above Terror Basin. Eric approaching the North Face of Inspiration Peak Fog clearing (finally) to show the N.Buttress of East McMillian Spire that Peter and Rolf climbed. Eric on the North Face (Russian Route) of Inspiration. CAn you spot the line? We were a little worried about route finding as you can see. We lucked out and made all the right choices. Looking down near the top of the climb after doing the hard chimney pitch. "Hey Mike!!!!," Eric yelled down to me, "The Russians have been here!!!" Evidence of the communist invasion of 1977. Mr. Ablakov's invention that american spy Jeff Lowe copied to catch up during the heated Cold North Facing Cascade Climbs War of the late 70's. This thing was placed when I was 4 months old! It is still in great shape. The whole climb could'a been done with these fuckers and some nuts. Pretty cool!

I'm impressed that Rangers actually climbed something, not to mention something challenging! I thought only Yosemite and Teton rangers climbed?

No, another Eric. It would be a 30 hour day trip.

It was easy with Eric on the rack.

Climb: Inspiration Peak-North Face -2nd Ascent Date of Climb: 7/31/2004 Trip Report: Eric (aka Lunger) and I climbed the North Face of Inspiration this weekend to beat the heat. Nelson descibes it in his book (under the W.ridge section) as, "extreme," and, terrifiying," and "unrepeated" so that sounded like a nice climb to do. It is a 1500 face of Gneiss with some granite sprinked in the mix. It didn't have much mixed rock and ice like the 1st ascent, just some neve mantling onto two tools on the fiist pitch. So Eric, Pete (specialed), and Rolf (Rat) and I decided to all go up as a group and climb some north facing stuff. These guys are a riot and had my kinda sense o' humor. Couldn't think of a better, funnier, surlier, cantankerous, excellent climber, group of guys to spend some serious suffer-time with. It was almost a re-creation of the 1977 russian team with Betolius when they all went in and did NF inspiration. Standing on the top with Eric, I realized that this route hadn't been done in 27 years. It was climbed when I was 4 months old! The hike in was pretty chill, except in the sun where I sweat out every ounce of water and salt. Steam and powder came out when I had to pee. We camped at the col above Azure Lake (awesome view into the lake!). I was wide awake at 2am, an hour before the alarm. I guess the other guys were too concidering I was the only pussy to bring a sleeping bag. I did, however, have my "yellow hardman pad" that I see in all the photos. We hiked the ridge to the notch right of Little Mac spire and did a double rope rap (total pussies) into the steep snow, downclimbed a shit-ton, did another rap (good idea this time), and the downclimbed a shit-ton more. Lots of hard ice. I had two tools (pussy), but the guys only had one (pussies). We got worried when the clouds in the socked in lower valleys rose from the sun-rise and totally fogged out the downclimbing. Luckily the fog burned off by the base of the N.Face of McMillian. Rolf and Pete make it quickly to their route, the N.Buttress of East McMillian or the N.F. of East McMillian (not sure which one, they are almost the same damn route). Eric and I headed over to our route. The "2nd approach" to the actual climb took 5 hours of hard work. Eric and I pieced together a route on a face with no obvious line. We knew we were on the right track when we found an Ablokov Cam (Jeff Lowe stole this idea for his tri-cam) which was just a sawed off wedge of a fly wheel with a sling (worked great). Kudos to Eric for keeping a cool lead head on his pitches. I don't know if I spoke aloud or kept it to myself, but I'm pretty sure I whimpered a few times on my leads (total pussy). We then rappel the south face with our lead rope and a 60m 6mm tag line. Yes, shit got f&%^cced on the raps and it was terrifyingly steep. We made all our own rap stations with one super sphincter pinching rap off a slung chockpebble (a chockstone about the size of a dime). After much annoyance we were on the upper glacier. Then we did some gut churning downclimbing and did another rap off my ice tool leash (one of the raps was off Eric's nut tool keeper-cord). Then we dropped down a lot, traversed the slabs of terror basin, climbed below the s.faces of McMillian spires to the ridge and followed it to our tent. The descent took 7 hours. If the fog came back earlier (it fogged over every night) we would've had to shiver bivy like the Russians did on their 1st asent. All told it was a 19 hour day of constant movement and constant concentration. We were never out of control that day, however, and I was totally confident in Eric as my 1st climb with him. Rolf and Peter were "asleep" when we got to the camp. They had fun on their climb, but I don't think they were totally impressed with their route. They bootied a lot of gear (Kearney's?) Our route kicked ass. I'll rate it 5.fun and a Pabst Blue Ribbon for quality. It was a full on alpine mix. Eric took a cocktail of drugs to help him sleep and we drank a lot of whiskey. The next day we lounged about camp and hiked out in the blazing beautiful sun. Pictures to come, and I don't know if Pete'll post a TR of their climb, but I think Rolf should because he was WAY into sharing his feelings and shit. Gear Notes: 2 ropes russian ablakov cams galoshes worthless aluminum crampons with .25" frontpoints and tennis shoes 3 ice tools in total. Approach Notes: prepare to suffer. ugly scenery

PETE DOORISH PETE DOORISH PETE DOORISH!!!!!

p.s. Thanks for calling me on that, however. feel free to dish it, i can take it.

also, there are shit-tons of tr's pre-the TR index. someone get going on dat pronto. whip. whip.

hey, it would make a sweet via feretta! just trying to show how much faster it is w/one rope and simul-rapelling and it's one hell of a hump with a full pack, i'd much rather enjoy the scenery vs. sweating and hurting. sorry for the beta and sarcasm, next time I'll write something a lot less interesting. I'd have a long fall if I were an ego maniac when I found out how much faster some folks are and what better climbers most people are. I mean, who's egotisical about how fast they rapell? gimme a break. I thought we were friends lambone? although I'm pretty sure slaphappy can't stand me so i've heard thru the grapevine.

car to car is the way to go on this baby.

someone better bring their flute and ring of fire

?

bring 10 ropes and make it a via feretta

only took us 1.5 hours

polish bob may give it a try this w/e

you have to downclimb a bunch, there are no rap stations on large sections. if you simul-rap then 1 rope is WAY faster! What a pain in the ass pulling two ropes would be on this, and carrying the weight of one would suck on such fast ez terrain. You don't just zip from rap to rap, so you'll have to coil two twisty ropes multiple times. I will always be in favor of one rope even if it doubles the amount of raps you have to do.

I will be refering to the mountain as "go fuck yourself peak" from now on.

yes please

follow the razor backed ridge down and it'll cliff out. on the far left side of that face of that cliff (see 3rd photo) you see a sweet 5.8 crack that stiffens quickly. The mountain is in profile if that helps. The descent is a very easy walk off 40 minutes. At the top go climbers right down heather for a while until you get to a patch of trees and a scree gulley. Scree surf down.

got one.