dberdinka

Climbed this route Sunday 7/19 and just wanted to give a non-Sol thumbs up. If Sols photos don't make it obvious, this route is absolutely stellar. Definitely one of the best rockclimbs in the range. The 5.11 cruxes are delicate affairs but they are surrounded by plenty of sustained meaty 5.10 crack climbing. Gear is excellent throughout. Lacking Aliens I still managed to sew the hell out of the last pitch with TCUs and BD Micronuts. Sols rack recommendation worked fine for us. On the first pitch save some small cams (blue & yellow TCUs) for the belay. We quickly downclimbed the start of the west ridge (easy 4th class) rather than get tangled up with the three rope teams that were climbing it.

4.5 * 60 / 15 = 18 minutes a pitch. Wow. Thats amazing. Given that building and breaking down anchors as well as reorganizing gear takes a couple minutes you guys must have been averaging what? 6 minutes each per pitch? Incredible, almost hard to believe. Awesome looking line.

ran into a guy Saturday (6/18/09) morning who was hiking out after freeing the Tempest Wall. 12c. Lineup starts to the right, no shoving please.

When a 5.12 climber puts up a 5.10 pitch that max's them out I bet the world ends up with one more route doomed to obscurity. Unfortunate, considering the accessible location and how quality some of that climbing looks. You should go back and throw in a few bolts to make it sane or let someone else. Just a thought...

Found It http://www.bolt-products.com/SustainableBolting.htm More equipment for you to collect!

I am very confused....how is it you have alpenglow on the barely-headlampless descent followed by full sunshine while drinking beer at the creek? Is that breakfast?

Trade you for those Outtabounds?? Sorry I never called back. I'm a flake these days!

Apparently in their freetime they were putting up sport routes in 1910 as well. Anyone know where this route is? I haven't seen it???

I like my BDs a lot more than the brass offsets for granite. Don't find much use (if any) for the smallest sizes though. Maybe get a 3,4,5 and 6. (even the 3 sees minimal use)

That brings back long forgotten memories. That peak was my first solo ascent ever when I think I was 15 years old. Where have the years gone....?

Looks freaking beautiful though!

I swear somewhere on this website http://www.bolt-products.com/Glue-inBoltDesign.htm these guys talk about drilling out old 3/8" bolts using a $70 12mm diamond tipped drill bit, a powerful drill and a 5-gallon sprayer of water. Something like 5 minutes a bolt? Sounds like a real pain in the ass. Reading that webpage will waste your entire day

This picture strikes me as being a damn near perfect compostion between the mist, the consistent greyness of the granite, the little yellow flowers and the well positioned climber with bright colors. Nice job. I see a full page spread in the next Patagonia Catalog or whomever made the windbreaker.

So one guys heli'd off Terror and another is sitting up there now for 2 days presumably waiting to be rescued? I hope the weather clears soon. The hospital is rigged with Wifi, maybe Trent can get a laptop in the hospital and post a TR. Best wishes for healing up quick! To many people falling off mountains lately.

Isn't that Mike Layton?

Copy pasted the following from NWHikers. Little more detail on the numerous rescues that seem to have occured over the weekend.

25 was a guess, so nice list Blake. Add N Rib of Slesse, Early Morning Spire and....hell maybe that's it. EDIT Genes right. Add Nesakwatch Spire-Dairyland and Cathedral-SE Buttress. No one climbs Castle and the Mythic Wall is cragging (as is Snow Creek) and don't sell your self short Gene. The PNW criteria was simply that I was interested in how many climbers there are around here (basically B'ham to Portland) not how many Iowans like to climb the N Ridge of Stuart. As for 5.9 or harder I figured that's probably where a dedicated technical climber who's focused on the mountains ends up. Obviously if you set the bar to include The Tooth, The Beckey Route and Ingalls Peak you could probably triple the count any given year but I would think that includes a lot of people who might kind of quickly enter and exit technical climbing.

Excluding the responses that called me a fool, the average estimate is 688. Figure... average group size of 2.25 annual routes per climber of 2 decent weekends 16 >=5.9 routes anyone actually does 25 avg parties per weekend per route = 688 / 2.25 * 2 / 16 /25 = 1.5 parties per route per weekend Which sounds about right. Thanks hivemind. Please continue discussion by picking apart my variable assumptions...

Just saw the $300,000 price tag for the Lower Town Wall and it got me thinking how interesting it would be to know how many distinct climbing-users there are at Index in a given year.......which leads me back to a parlour game type question I've asked friends. How many PNW climbers are out doing say..5.9 or harder alpine rock routes in the Cascades any given year? It's impossible to know but the range of results I've heard is huge. Some people tend to think it's an elite few while others think half the population of Washington is out there climbing the south face of Prusik, Backbone Ridge, etc. Sorry to exclude boulders, craggers, scramblers etc. Those would be interesting questions as well. What do you think?

Those in the know probably aren't telling (I'm not one of them). Peter Doorish alone has supposedly put up literally 100's of climbs now in the Nightmare and Knitting Needles and he ain't sharing.

Which lead me to the TR.....

Just saw this TR. What an amazing looking experience! Whats up with the broken arm though?

Dude, that is frickin beautiful (THE MAP!). What tools did you use to do that? Illustrator? along with some GIS stuff? Tell me, I like it.

Fern, post up a TR of Serpentine. That is a cool looking route that I've never heard anything about other than whats in the original Cascade Classics guide.

Hell yeah! I was just looking at a scurlock photo ?yesterday? And was thinking that someone was going to climb that line sooner than later. Wayne and Steph the king and queen of the Pickets!