dberdinka

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!

sweet! So much granite in the world. Did the chockstone fall out of nesakwatch notch? Or am I missing somthing?

People keep telling me that. Give us the cliffnotes.

Mock Leading vs the go-for-it approach would in fact be a superior method for teaching a child to lead climb. Wearing a helmet is definitively a safer approach as well. Regardless the whole post seems just sort of off. Particularly this picture...Who's belaying? Whos taking the picture. Why in the hell would you spray about your child taking what appears to be a fairly dangerous (looks like she almost got flipped by the rope) fall? Strange.

I've enjoyed his post, always interesting and informative, and frequently wondered who he was. What an unfathomably horrible and random accident. Best wishes curt to a fast and full recovery. Hope you get back to climbing and spraying in the near future. Darin Berdinka

Climbed there for a day a couple falls ago (Oct 07?). Good stuff! The Other Side of the Tracks was highly reminisent of Condormoraphine Addiction in Leavenworth. Similar grade, length and style of climbing. Seemed like it should become quite popular. Trophy Wife was another excellent pitch sitting all by it's lonesome surrounded by thick matts of moss. This route will need some serious traffic to prevent it from disappearing back into the green. Well worth doing. The little spring at the base of the cliff was also really cool. Nice place. Definitely worth a visit. These guys put in some serious effort cleaning that stuff up. Darin

Mommy? Why does daddy keep falling down?

cool avi but f%$ked up video. Is that a bunch of still images someone fired off in quick succession?

Definitely reserve a campsite. It's a long drive to show up with no place to camp. Sites 54 and 55 are really nice (54 is best) and right at King on the Throne which has a bunch of fun routes from 5.9 to 5.11-. Walk across the street to Batwing, the best 5.8 in the world. Heres the link to the reservation site http://idahostateparks.reserveamerica.com/camping/City_Of_Rocks_Nr/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=ID&parkId=315044&topTabIndex=CampingSpot

Having seen them tear through Schreibers Meadows sans snow I really doubt some esoteric thing called a regulation is going to stop them.

Getting all the shit together to do it right has resulted in just an endless dribble of $$$$$......

Damn. Way to get after it! I would never have thought that to be in condition this time of year. You should post more TRs!

I recently acquired an old rotary hammer and a box of Hilti Stainless Steel KB3 wedge anchors. These anchors require 20 ft-lbs of torque at installation. In an effort to learn how to place these things correctly, last night I went to the local hardware store and rented a CALIBRATED torque wrench and purchased a handful of cheap 3/8” wedge anchors (50 cents vs ~$2.50 for the KB3). Then I drilled a dozen plus holes in a dog-size granite boulder in my backyard and started placing bolts using a ratcheting box-end wrench that about 6 or 7 inches long. After the first bolt or two I was able to consistently get > 20 ft-lbs and < 25 ft-lbs of torque on each bolt. For me (no one would describe me as strong) this essentially meant cranking down on the nut as hard as I could using one hand without putting my body weight into it. After burning through the cheapo wedge anchors I placed two of the KB3. These anchors snugged up much faster than the generics but I still was reaching the proper torque. Then I attempted to snap all the bolts off by over-torqueing. The generics snapped easily, generally at anywhere from 40 – 50 ft/lbs of torque. The Hilti anchors were far stronger. After exceeding the 75 ft-lbs of torque the torque wrench maxed out at, I continued to crank on them with a breaker bar. The rock fractured across the bolt holes before I was able to snap off the anchors! Note that both holes were probably within 6 inches of the edge of the rock, and the rock was starting to look like swiss cheese from all the holes I drilled. The conclusions I drew are 1) With a little practice it is easy to apply the appropriate amount of torque (20 ft-lbs) to a 3/8” wedge anchor using a small (6”-8”) box end wrench. For me that meant tightening it down as hard as I could using a single hand/arm without leaning into it. 2) Using the small (6”-8”) box end wrench it would be next to impossible to over-torque a quality 3/8” wedge anchor unless you're superman. See billcoes comments above. Not so for the cheapos from the hardware store bin! 3) The KB3 exerts a tremendous amount of pressure on the rock surrounding it. Only place in very solid rock well away from edges and fractures (ok so that’s obvious, but listening to the boulder sllooowwlly crack in half certainly reinforced the idea) This little project cost me about $20 for the rental and the bolts I placed. The knowledge gained seemed well worth the time and effort.

I've been told mid-June (no firm date) by a ranger in Glacier.