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Justin is a far better writer than I am A Message from Necronomicon: TR - I'm Frosty for Prosti-Tots I'm no hardman, but I've done some stuff, and this is by far THE BEST alpine climb I've done in twelve years of climbing. When Darin sent me John Scurlock's picture of the face, I pretty much creamed my jeans. The line looked CLASSIC. Awesome colouir splitting a huge face. Unclimbed in winter. FUCK YEAH!!! But you can't see into the gully in the picture, the top looked bleak, and you can't scope the route until you get to the base, after climbing around the entire mountain. Would it go? Act 1: Snow wallow on skis. Everyting I hate about climbing, except for the views and the friends. Exhaustion, equipment failure, deep snow, and we didn't even SEE the route. I especially enjoyed being repeatedly assaulted by my pack on the descent, re-learning how to ski in leather boots. Build speed/try to slow down/lose balance/crash/turtle/pack off/skis off/skis on/pack on/ repeat ad neaseum. Fun? Act 2: This is why I climb. Wake up screaming at 3 a.m. after nightmare of being chased by demonic forces in a cramped earthen basement while covered in painful insect bites. Fun? The alarm went off at 3:15. Dropping down from the Chair Col in the dark over steep snow. "Could we climb back up this shit?" Controlled plummet past hidden bergschrund. Fat man's misery busting through breakable crust. "How's it look Darin?" "Looks like a blank wall." Fuck. Look to the East and the Sun begins to touch the sky. "How's it look Darin?" "There's a gully!!!...I think it's gonna go!!!" And it did. The normally mild Darin at the crux mixed chimney with iced-up over-hanging chockstone and failing snow mushrooms: "Fuck. I think I fucked myself. Fuck. FUCK. I don't think it will go. We're fucked. Fuck. FUCK! FUCK!!!!" Then: "YEAH! FUCK YEAH!!! OH MY FUCKING GOD! FUCK YEAH!!!!! IT'S FUCKING AWESOME!!!" And it was. Pitch after pitch of INCREBIBLE climbing. Ice, neve, snow, mixed. Simul-climbing on narrow ice runnels through tight chimneys. Always challenging, never desperate. Spin drift avalanches, try and wait them out, balanced on front points, pack pulling you down, but they don't stop. You could wait forever, so fuck it and climb through. One swing styrofoam. Good ice, shitty ice, good snow, shitty snow, good rock, shitty rock. Past the point of no return conversation with self: "Will it go? Will I die here?" Yes and no. A reprieve in the Sun then the hidden gully past the cornice and to the summit. We did it. The route, the summit, the friends, the views...gifts from the Gods. "IV WI3 5.8R Mixed, 1600'." TOTAL FUCKING CLASSIC!!! We gave the route a secret name and went home. This is why I climb. Later, bitches. See you in the hills. -J

Climb: White Chuck - East Face Couloir Date of Climb: 2/27/2005 Trip Report: Look at the pics then read Justins post "A Message from Necronomicon:" a little further down the page. It's far better than my slop In the beginning of February, when Dave Brannon and I were finishing up the Northeast Ridge, it became readily apparent that the east face of White Chuck was big, steep and split by a very deep coulior. With a little help from John Scurlock I managed to get an excellent photo of the east face. Ummmm....that looks good. Gene Pires, Justin Thibault and I climbed the route on our second attempt on February 27th. First climbed in September 1970 by Ron Miller and Ben Guydelkon, it had all the making of an un-classic. The CAG admonishes, "best climbed in late summer when dry", "scare protection" and "hard hat recommended". In a veil of ice and neve we figured it might be a very good climb. On the first attempt too much new snow and too little time turned us around before we even saw the face. Though the weather had become unseasonably warm we returned over the weekend to try again. On Saturday morning Justin managed to coax his truck up to 3100’ on FSR 2435. From there we slogged up logging roads and a scenic wooded ridge reaching the basin below the south side of the peak in the late afternoon. At around 5000’ temps in the shade hovered around forty degrees. But north-facing slopes still held fine powder snow giving me some sweet turns, and us hope for decent conditions in the shady couloir. Justin and I passed out in the sun while Gene summoned the energy to pack down part of the approach for the following morning. Just before sunset John Scurlock made a serious of terrifyingly fast and tight circles around the peak in his yellow rocket plane. Sunday we left camp at 4 AM and traversed up to a “chair-like” pinnacle on the southeast ridge of the peak. We dropped down a very steep ramp to the base of the face and began a long, miserable traverse through breakable crust. At first the route appeared to start with a blank rock wall. As we ascended the debris cone at its base a beautiful ice-choked chimney appeared, leading up to the left. Starting up the first pitch Ultimately the climb was far better than we could have imagined. With occasional simu-climbing we broke the climb into seven long pitches, the last ending forty feet from the summit. Two pitches in the middle consisted of steep neve. The other five were primarily beautiful runnels of water ice sometimes no more than 1’ wide. While a majority of the climbing was WI3 or easier the second pitch had a difficult crux of vertical and rotten snow covering thinly iced chockstones with hard-fought protection that felt pretty serious. All photos by Justin Thibault. Below the long, beautiful runnel of pitch 3 Leading off for the summit Descending the Northwest Ridge One of the boyz below P6 We topped out maybe eight hours after starting the climb and took a long rest before beginning the exposed and tedious descent back to camp. Justin, Gene and I all felt that this route was quite classic and deserving of repeats. During a normal snow year there would likely be more wallowing, less ice and a big cornice to surmount at the top. We thought a fair rating in current conditions was WI3 mixed 5.8 R. Gear Notes: Plenty of screws Pickets Pins - KB to Baby Angle small rack to 2.5”

The fact that you wear women's thong underwear is well known. Do worry we're laughing with you....

TR: We carried our gear around and had a nice day in the hills....

climbed in 1979 by John Menenno solo. Yes it's in green CAG.

John Scurlocks been very busy. Prepare to be completely overwhelmed. Central Cascades

That was the route we were originally planning on climbing. It wasn't good.... Here's a pic attached. Yeah, looks like shit

Post 'em here, that woman is a hottie!

And a great cheer was hear throughout the village upon the return of ASSMONKEY!!

Straight out of Chamonix! Looks sweet!

I've got the same friggin question..... does anyone who posts on the website actually climb? About a week ago when the forecast for the weekend still looked crappy I made plans to bail on work last Thursday and try something. Of course all we did was slog up logging roads for...for.ever! Got home late Thursday night to a perfect forecast to worked to head back out again Climbing at Erie in shorts on Saturday and skiing pow-pow on Sunday plus several bottles of wine eased the pain of being a miserable failure. So whats up? Someone had to get out.....

Learning to solo-aid as a method to go for help for an injured climbing partner is probably not the best idea particularly if you are relatively new to climbing. Your partners injured, you've probably lowered him back down to the ledge. You got a rope and full rack, what do you do? Easy answer is get help in a manner that doesn't result in you being injured as well. Solo-aiding is a technique that is ripe with potential fuck-ups. Rappel, solo out or wait for help. On another topic, there are plenty of incredible and worthy alpine climbs that don't require the ability to lead 5.10. Any ridge on Forbidden, the NE Buttress of Goode. The list goes on and on.

Unfortunately that route hasn't formed up this year like it did last. Attached photo was taken Thursday from logging roads around WC. Maybe of lack of snow to even melt and form up? Who knows.

Anything in direct sunlight (SE to SW facing slopes) is compacted and wet. You could posthole in it easily. Anything that is slight north facing is dreamy powder (killer skiing) Logging Roads are a bitch, wet powder with a lite crust on top. The only thing you have for good alpine climbing right now is good weather. Howeverb its WARM at elevation and I think it takes good weather+cold temps+good snow conditions (i.e. compact) to make for reasonable climbing conditions.

12+ inches of unconsolidated wet snow with an icy crust put a limit on what fun could be achieved today. T-shirt weather above 4000'. The views however weren't all that bad.

The weather isn't going to get any nicer.....

I third this opinion. I knocked a good softball sized block of the topout just breathing on it.

Yes they do. It may take a while, like a couple years, but at some point they'll come aknocking. At least they did for me.

Whatever you do don't tangle his ropes You've been warned....

Nice work. Views from that area are incredible. What kind of rig did it take to get to 3300' on the road, 4wd or 2wd? Thanks. DB

In this day and age we should be glad they have the funds and willingness to fix it at all.

So I'm looking to buy a pair of lightweight (<< 1lb) waterproof-breathable pants for alpine climbing. I want then to be waterproof, more importantly I want them to be breathable. They'll probably spend most of their time in the pack but once they're on they're not coming off and it's clammy enough down there already. Every company seems to make at least three different styles of said pant. In the $150 range they're made of Gore Pac-Lite or Gore XCR. Around $80 or so each company has their own special laminate. Mtn Harware has Conduit, Montbell has Versalite, Marmot has Precip, etc. So I'm looking for informed (and uninformed) opinions on how breathable these various fabrics are, i.e. I once had a Precip coat and it was the clammyest least breathable POS I ever owned. So...spray away!....whatcha got? hate it or love it? Thanks Darin

Amazing lack of snow, looks more like September than January. Looking forward to rest of the story!

That rock looks like ass, but then so does Mox Peak...

1) E Face of E Mox 2) The Diamond on Bear