dberdinka

Bump, bump. Anyone?

Hey Gene. Araya (3 next week) will still crash out in the Sherpani but she's really starting to outgrow the thing. I've found carrying her on my shoulders really isn't all that less comfortable.

Sweet! Less dirtbags and their annoying techno music. On further thought, there's no incentive now for groups larger than two to occupy a single campsite. A group of six will pay as much for 3 campsites as for 1. Less people in the campground which is great if you got one! Better have your favorite, hidden bivi site sorted out.

Top-shelf alpinists grid bolt Everest for pleasure of the unwashed (but quite wealthy) masses. "The fixing of a number of bolts at this spot isn't "murdering the impossible" but a sensible act that will without a doubt save lives of Sherpas, Western climbers and guides alike." - Kenton Cool Notice that Willie Benegas is bare-handed and in polypro while the group behind him is in full down suits. Whats up with that?

Black Diamond makes a really nice keychain carabiner called The Micron. It's metal with a stiff wire gate and the large is about the same size as the latest micro biners. $2.60 canadian at MEC. I'd love to see half-a-dozen of these independantly pull tested.

that is incredibly lame.

Looking to climb some of those sweet 5.9 to 5.10 finger and hand cracks at The Bend on Sunday, May 17th. I'm visiting family in the Ashford area, so if you're coming from the west side I could meet in Morton around 8:30 am or if your coming from the east side I could meet at the crag around 10 am. Can climb to 5:30 pm or so. PM me here or e-mail at dberdinka AT gmail DOT com

Just found the following image in the gallery. Speak up Pete!~

Whats up with this route? The only info I found online was Colin Haley recounting watching Eric Gratz (sp?) take a 70' whipper on the first pitch and nearly deck. Beckey says "the first 5 pitches are 5.10 on excellent glacier-polished granite" Anyone done it? Give me some beta! D

The last line of the wiki entry is awesome considering the fundamentalism of his 6 tenants "He died of a thousand foot fall in October 1913 while making a solo attempt of the north face of the Mandlwand." It seems that everyone does a bit of soloing at some point. It's fortunate that only infrequently do people fall off. Hope he has a speedy and full recovery. Ankle breaks can be a real bitch to heal properly.

Sorry Matt, Owen seems to be having a fulfilling marriage these days and I haven't suffered thruogh an abduction experience in about 10 years. Whom or whatever was taking me seems to have moved on......

Trip: Utah - Desert Towers Date: 4/24/2009 Trip Report: I was fortunate to recently spend four days climbing a handful of desert towers in the general vicinity of Moab, Utah. We managed a fair bit of climbing, a whole lot of driving and even a little bit of sleeping. By the time we were headed home it felt like four weeks had passed. It couldn't have been better. Hanging out on the White Rim, Canyonlands NP I use to go to the desert a lot. For a little while there is was the center of my universe and then..suddenly more than five years went by without a single trip. That sure as hell wasn't the plan! WTF happened!? Well I'm pretty sure these two little snowflakes have something to do with it...... Northwest Forest Monkeys Ah! But regardless, no regrets, apparently I'm not dead yet as it turns out I can still hoist my flabby ass up some pretty inspiring piles of rock. Leaving from work on a Thursday afternoon I enjoyed the somewhat luxurious perk of flying directly out of Bellingham arriving in Denver late that night. My buddy Owen, who has ropegunned me up many an adventure, picked me up and after a few hours sleep we hit the road. Day 1 After cruising along I-70 for five or six hours we made the wise choice of driving straight by the Fisher Towers and instead climbed Lighthouse Tower by a 3 pitch 5.10- called Lonely Vigil. The first two pitches (both 10-) offer fun well protected climbing. The real excitment occurs on the final 20' pitch of 5.8. The summit block overhangs on all sides. From the last set of anchors you crank up the overhang on nice jugs with no protection then reach up onto the flat, rotten summit grabbing whatever lump of loose, broken crap you can and mantel up! No problems, no summit anchors! Time to blindly downclimb the committing mantle. Good times! Dolomite & Lighthouse Towers Trying to unmantel on Lighthouse Tower Day 2 The next day we climbed Standing Rock in Canyonlands National Park. We did this as daytrip from outside the park which was really not a very good idea. Getting there requires driving about 35 miles along the White Rim Road. This takes a very, very long time. Something like four hours from Moab. It's good to drive slow for obvious reasons. Though if your going to spend most of your day driving I couldn't think of a better place to do it. Driving the White Rim Road Block Tower & Islet in the Sky in the background Monument Basin is a special place. It is remote and the silence that exists there is beautiful. From the rim you fix a rope and rap into the basin. There are literally hundreds of towers forming the walls of the basin each one top heavy with a cap of the white rim rock. They seem like massive sentinels quietly watching over you. In the center of the basin is Standing Rock, the most perfect tower I have ever seen. The amazing Standing Rock This thing sees lots of ascents by the Kor Route, a three or four pitch 5.10+ C0 (or 5.11+). The rock is surprising clean and solid and the protection is always excellent. I led the first pitch, Owen led the second, the second absolutely crushed me, Owen led the third. Thanks Owen. Pitch one of the Kor Route Starting the Pitch two traverse Owen about to be crushed by Standing Rock Day 3 After driving all the way out of the park to get more gas we turned around and drove to the other side of the White Rim Road (it's a loop) to climb the famous Primrose Dihedrals Route on Moses Tower. One guidebook calls it the best route in the desert, another calls it the best route in North America. So maybe thats a stretch but it certainly must be one of the best routes. Go do it! The incomparable Moses Tower If you are of strong constitution the climb goes free at 5.11+. If your like me you can climb it at mid 5.10 by doing a variation start that avoids the first short crux pitch and by aiding a short bolt ladder along an overhanging OW called The Ear. This route is just amazing. Longer than most tower routes with sustained 5.10 crack climbing on perfect rock. Bring lots of #0.75 and #3 Camalots as the cracks seem to be off fingers or wide hands. Starting up Pitch four of Primrose Dihedrals Finishing up Pitch four of Primrose Dihedrals Day 4 Being somewhat whipped, on the last day we decided to climb Ottos Route on Independance Tower in Colorado National Monument. This is a popular (very popular!) 5 pitch 5.9 route originally climbed in 1911 by a crazy german guy who carved steps and pounded iron pipes into huge drilled holes to build a via-ferrata to the summit. Arriving at the base on a Monday morning there were already two parties racking up. So instead we rambled off across the desert where I stepped on a cactus (OUCH!) on our way to Fastdraw Tower. After climbing a perfect handcrack we bailed at the base of a 5.8 chimney due to a lack of wide gear or possibly bigger balls (the fact someone had removed several drilled angles from the pitch didn't help) Fastdraw Tower Returning to Ottos Route we found it slightly less crowded and managed to tag the summit. This was a bit anticlimatic as this might possibly be the worst trade route in the desert with sandy rock and completely uninspiring climbing, interesting that it appears to be the most popular route as well. Independance Tower

Castle Peak NE Buttress or Herrington-Hirst Route It's in the Kearney Book but I don't think anyone ever goes back there, even Don Serl hasn't been there!

You locs need to be spending your time scrubbing and retro-ing that shit. Clean up that stellar looking 3-pitch crack route on Easter Tower while you're at it.

Curt is right about the Northeast Face of Redoubt. That is one of the mega classics of the range. Sort of the snow & ice equivalent to the rock of Goode's NE Ridge. Absolutely stunning wilderness and scenery. Getting off of Nooksack ~16 raps with route finding difficulty, plenty of sketchy anchors, a few hanging stations and multiple bergshrund crossing. It's the real deal and a lot more memorable than the climb up. Try and avoid tossing your crampons down the moat when you first reach the top of the ice couloir.

For all the harr-umping going on this in in fact the real deal. An actual pandemic, the first to occur in 40 years. Easily trasmitted from human to human, lots of people are going to get it. The question is mortality rates, mixed news there, but it's appearing to be not as severe as first reports indicated. Reagrdless, hold on, when people start dieing in your community (and they will)people are going to freak the fuck out.

Five is hard. There is far to much climbing diversity in the Cascades. Here’s my list of technical climbs that are relatively moderate in nature (<= 5.10) that offer absolutely classic climbing without to many headaches. Cathedral Peak - SE Buttress Pitch after pitch of stellar crack climbing in an idyllic setting Gunsight - East Face The best rock in the range in a remote and beautiful location Goode - Northeast Buttress Classic North Cascades mountaineering adventure Slesse - North Rib 25 sustained pitches of high quality rock on a classic peak. It's really, really big! Colfax Peak - Cosley/Houston Aesthetic technical ice route that actually forms most years. Runner ups would be Nooksack Tower – Bertulis Route Chianti Spire – Rebel Yell Mount Olympus – Blue Glacier Mount Challenger – Challenger Glacier Early Morning Spire – whatever the IV 5.9 is called

If you put the guidebooks down, get off the crapper and actually go climbing on one of those 300 sunny days a year I'm sure you will find something to satisfy your needs. Try Loose Ends at Lumpy Ridge. It's reminisent of L-town with about x100 the density of climbs. If that doesn't do it for you the hypoxia must be affecting your brain. Petit Grepon and Notchtop don't suck either.

maybe the nwhikers can come to the picnic for a full on CC.com vs NWhikers.net brawl.

I DO! I DO! A) They should climb more mountains and post more interesting TRs so I can watch everyone's panties fill up with hot sauce cause this shit is too funny. B) They should also learn to ski next winter because slowshoeing is ghey among other things. C) "Layback" is a very disturbed individual with far to much of his self-image wrapped up in his online interactions. D) Based on their TR can anyone point out a single steep, sun-facing slope they were on that was not wind-scoured? (See related avi forecast) oh...and E) 99.9% of us would be way to lazy or unfit to ever get past the washout in july much less in april. So big congrats for crushing a huge approach. What is youth for if not pushing the barriers now and again?

Dukes of Ballet is well worth doing as well. With a bit of A0 on the first pitch (yarding and standing on bolts) it goes at mid-10 I recall and is 4 pitches long with a mix of crack and face climbing.

Recently Gene and I climbed several other routes up there that were cleaned up last year. Beta Here Weekday Warrior and P1 of Potatoe Chip Flake are nice meaty Leavenworth 5.9 cracks. P1 of Hot Shot is steep and well protected with a cool stem to jug finish. The Original Route looks sustained and intimidating. Definitely worth a visit. You could spend a couple full days in the Duty Dome/Warrior Wall Area now and climb nothing but 5.9, 5.10a and 5.10b pitches.

I've seen it backed up to Skykomish before. We left L-town at 3:30 yesterday hoping to beat the mess and still got stuck before Goldbar. Suckage.

The LTW on private land all this time? Amazing! I had always thought it was all owned by the state parks system. Unfortunately the one thing you really can do is respect any No Trespassing signs should they reappear until this issue is settled. **Total Conjecture** As posted elsewhere quarrying stopped when the railine was moved closer to the cliff in the 1960's. While climbers might be against quarrying I'd bet the railroad is even more against it for good reason. I think the railroad generally gets what it wants particularly when it comes to major railine across the Cascades.

Rope Gone Suit is size Large. I'm 5' 11" and 170lbs and in the lower-to-mid range of it's size. Would definitely fit bigger folks, smaller folks not so much.