nolanr

I did the walkup of the South Sister recently. The North Sis looks pretty burly from that vantage. The full traverse has to be quite daunting for someone who is more of a hiker than a climber.

Not exactly what you asked about, but I'm pretty sure I saw one along the side of a highway in the Canadian Okanogan. Can't remember exactly where, it's been close to 10 years ago. I was heading west from Nelson towards Vancouver.

Another book not entirely about climbing but relevant and interesting is "Below Another Sky" but Rick Ridgeway. He takes the daughter of a former climbing partner to the Himalaya to try to understand why her dad liked to climb there, and eventually to find the site where he died in an avalanche. Ridgeway was on the expedition when the accident occurred.

It's been years since I've been up there. The first time I definitely got into 4th and low 5th class following the ridgeline more or less after climbing up from Surprise Basin. I didn't summit. My second attempt I did summit. I'm not positive I was on the described route, but I followed the path of least resistance on a series of ledges/ramps working my way up and climbers right after ascending an easy gully above Surprise Basin. I remember much of it being closer to class 2 than 3. I was somewhat disappointed, didn't seem like such a classic to me. There was a bit of steep snow in places, needed an axe. I was attempting to do route 1 in the guide book (not Smoot, the other one), I'm guessing that was your goal. Anyway that's what I remember. Again I may have not been on the route described in the book, but it sorta seemed to jive w/ the the description.

I was just at Spider Meadow/Gap this weekend. Trail is melted out most of the way up to the Gap on either side.

I've heard many mentions of Beyond Malibu over the years, but never seen any pictures. The terrain looks more intense than I would have guessed. Nice pics.

Definitely 4th class, rope not needed if you feel comfortable w/ some exposure.

Hey, thanks for asking. Sadly I don't climb hardly at all anymore, but still ramble around in the mountains. I still lurk on this site to get info but haven't had much to post. I love Del Campo. I've ascended it various different routes, just completely making stuff up half the time, no idea if it would go or not.

Trail is mostly snow free at least until the river crossing. I didn't go any further up the trail, headed up the valley before crossing the river. Ran into snow quickly once I started heading up.

Sunrise Mine Road was driveable to the TH on Sunday (29th). Awesome picture!

Summerland from just before the White River CG. Anything around Sunrise area, numerous options, some of which can be combined into loops.

There are some fun scrambles in the Echo Rocks. One of my best days ever, although no technical climbing, was in that area. My bro and I were camped about 8 miles down the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne. We hiked back to the road, repacked a little, drove down the road a bit, then hiked in to upper Cathedral Lake. It was still early afternoon, so I headed up to the plateau above the lake. I had no idea what I was doing but ended up scrambling up the descent route for Cathedral, descended, crossed the plateau to the Echo Rocks, then scrambled up 3 of the summits (class 3 and 4, maybe a little low 5th). Finally back down to the lake w/ plenty of daylight left. One full, fun day. Went back up Cathedral the next morning w/ my bro before heading out of the Park.

Holy crap, that's melted out a lot in the last couple weeks. Is the lake partially snow free now? Nothing like grubbin' at El Caporal after a day/weekend playing in the mountains.

My bad. Like I said it's been a long time since I was there. The only time I did go the river was low and I was able to cross back and forth across it easily several times.

Haven't seen anyone else suggest it. Not sure about conditions this time of year (river might be too high), but Nooksack Cirque is a low elevation, nice ramble up a river valley. If you get to the head of the valley you are right below the north side of Shuksan w/ hanging glaciers above you and lots of avalanche debris at the base of the cliffs. Pretty cool, primal looking place. I haven't been there in years though. If I remember correctly the trail starts out thru the woods, eventually dumps you out along the river (NF Nooksack) and the trail all but disappears, you just pick your way along up the valley.