Kyle_Flick

I remember it as a great route that eased up a little after the first two pitches. Steph, props to your memorable sibling one day ascent. DNB of Bear is on the radar after a close up view of it from Mt. Redoubt on our Chilliwack slam last week.

Your persistence finally paid off. Nice write up!

I've descended the NW Buttress after climbing Razorback Ridge. If your're coming from the summit, you'll have a couple raps down the west ridge, before you can scramble to the top of the NW Buttress. We had a couple of raps on the upper part of the NW Buttress and lotsa downclimbing before touching the snow on the glacier. At least from Razorback Ridge it made for a good descent and allowed us to do the climb in a day.

Icicle Canyon does have some routes in condition besides Hubba, namely: Pearly Gates and 1st pitch of Candlestein (Careno) Left.

...so where did you park? We used to park at the East Tunnel Portal, but no longer. It seems the nearest public parking is the nordic center. PM me if it's a secret.

Great job Tom and John! Sorry I couldn't join you for our unfinished business. Next time....

Thanks John. It's a climb, as you know, that I've wanted to do for awhile, and with strong climbing partners as Chris Martin and John Plotz you can't go wrong. For clarification, we got on the glacier lower than from the North Ridge notch that you've described in your TRs. Eric and Kevin's ramp from the lower ridge is a better approach and involves little to no raps and no moat issues. I don't suppose those crampons belonged to you or Craig?

Several of us locals comprised the ground crew to climb up Backbone last Wed. to retrieve the young man's body. Fortunately, the Snohomish Co. helicopter and mt. rescue crew that included Oyvind were able to successfully long line him out of there before we arrived at the base of the Fin. Since the young man was wearing hiking boots and was new to climbing, we surmised that he probably hiked up the backside from Aasgard Pass. It was icy above the Fin where he might have down climbed from the summit and slipped.

My recollection is there are flakes that you climb on the face to the left of the dirty dihedral. It is a run-out climb that could use some cleaning and retro-bolting.

If you fold the rope in half, you then can use your 6mm prusiks to climb doubled over rope in the event you fall into a crevasse. Otherwise the prusiks won't bite into a single strand of 8.1 mm.

About 2 months ago while at Sunshine Wall, I let a stranger borrow my Vantage guidebook to get oriented, but they neglected to return it to me. If you locate it, please return it. Thanks.

The snow is great! You should join us Sat. for a ski/easy climb above 8-mile Lake.

Kurt, the road is still gated and will likely remain gated for several more weeks. Last Sat. there were only patches of bare road within the 1st mile, otherwise it was all snow covered.

Last I looked the ice never formed up on SCW this winter.

Telemarker and I were out skiing in the backcountry the weekend before on the north side of Mt. Stuart in low to moderate avy conditions as reported in NWAC and still experienced an avalanche. So my advice is before heading out into the backcountry, make sure your Will and life insurance are all in place. S@#t happens, and we aren't yet ready to sit out our days on the couch eating bon bons. You've heard the old adage before: The more you're out there, the greater are your chances of getting caught in an avalanche.

One of the more entertaining threads we've had on this board in long time.

I agree with most of the above suggestions, except Graybeard's North Face is a high risk intro to steep climbing...unless you wanted to lose the gf. Has she already climbed Triple Couloirs on Dragontail? With a strong mixed leader, she'd enjoy Dragontail's NE Couloir. Anything on Colchuck should be fun for her.

That's funny...and true.

The first pitch combines two chimneys and felt harder than 5.7 (more like 5.8) to me. The cruxes of the climb, in my opinion, are: The long pitch above Snafflehound ledge and the last short pitch to the summit which go at 5.9; although the crack of the lower 20' of that last pitch is off hands and feels more like 5.10(a).

Trip: Prusik and High Priest - South Face--Beckey, West Face of High Priest Date: 9/23/2011 Trip Report: Adam Vognild, Tom Janisch and I enjoyed a couple days in the Enchantments for what we thought might be the close of the summer alpine season up there. It was the second time up the Beckey route of the South Face of Prusik for me and the one I prefer vs. the Burgner-Stanley route which seems to have more than its share of injuries, especially on the somewhat run-out last pitch. We enjoyed the line to the top with all it's variety--chimneys and clean 5.9 crack climbing. We finished early enough to even top rope the last pitch of the Burgner-Stanley route before rapping and heading to camp at Temple Lake. The next day with cloudy skies, wind and a touch of precip, we hiked up to the base of the High Priest and eventually found our way up the west face. It was a fun 3 pitch route that probably should be rated 5.4 (vs. 4th class as described in Beckey's alpine guide book)that deposits you on a summit that probably has the best view of the lower Enchantment Lakes of all the Temple Ridge peaks. Highly recommended. Gear Notes: Medium rack up to 4" for Prusik. Tiny alpine rack for High Priest. Need a rope for the rappels off both peaks. Approach Notes: Snow free up Aasgard Pass and out Snow Creek.

The climber took a leader fall of 60' on the northside (approx. 500' below the summit) of the west ridge. He was flown out by Snohomish Co. helicopter yesterday to Central WA Hospital where he's receiving treatment for broken bones in his shoulders and lacerations to his head and leg.

You guys are fast. Very helpful info. It's a shame to pass on summiting Sherpa, but after climbing nearly 3000' of rock already who cares? Besides your way avoids a bivy.

I'm glad our tracks helped. Since we left tracks all over the upper part of the mountain trying to find a way up, I'm surprised you were able to locate the right ones to the summit. Nice work.

Not much faster, but more direct (via Lake Stuart). If you don't have a second car at the Teanaway, you'll traverse over/around Sherpa Peak and come down the Argonaut-Sherpa Col to Mountaineers Creek. More interesting, but time consumming.

Trip: Alpine Lakes - Bears Breast & Summit Chief -enchainment attempt Date: 8/15/2011 Trip Report: Four of us headed from Salmon La Sac 15 miles to Lake Ivanhoe and Dutch Miller Gap on Sunday August 14 with a forecast of 60% chance of rain that never materialized. We entertained high hopes of a week's worth peak bagging via a north to south enchainment to include Bears Breast, Summit Chief, Overcoat and Chimney Rock. The reality of the terrain served up a healthy dose of humble pie. On day two, three of us climbed over 2000' of supposed 3rd class (reality: loose 4th and low 5th class scrambling) to the summit block of Bears Breast. Here we clustered the route finding and turned back 200' from the summit. We did eventually locate the route, but it looked runout and sketchy for pro. Purportedly it only goes at 5.6, but if the scrambling below was any indication (it barely warranted a footnote in Beckey's guide), we were a tad unnerved. We spent several hours downclimbing and did two raps before we could relax and do some sight seeing. We took a side trip and visited some beautiful tarns that we spotted from high on the route. The area around Lake Ivanhoe is very steep walled and cliffy; so we were fortunate to locate a cairned gully to Dutch Miller Gap and catch the trail back to camp at the lake. The next day (day 3) we broke camp, and hiked cross country from below the outlet of the lake. With the aid of vegetable belays we attained the crest of the ridge that wound to the south. Climbing up the ridge allowed us to drop off at about 5300' to the basin east of Summit Chief. We traversed south below the summits of Summit Chief and ultimately set up camp at 6000', about 1000' below the main peak. We had deluded ourselves that the next day (day 4) we could cross a ridge above us, run over to Overcoat Peak,return and knock off Summit Chief and back to our high camp--all in an easy day. But we should have known better. From the vantage of Tank Lakes to the west, where we had camped a couple years before, and a cursory view of the topo map, all would have revealed that at the ridge that we crossed at 7000' we would encounter an unsavory 900' chasm to the 6120+' pass below. In fact a whole hanging valley that dropped off to the east put the kabash on any plans of an enchainment. We set our sights on salvaging the trip by trying at least to summit one peak before pulling the plug and heading home. But even that was proving difficult. After several false starts and as a last ditch effort, we located the route on the west side of the upper most ridge (vs. Beckey's description of the north side) and reached the top of Summit Chief. We were beginning to think we were going to denounce our trip--"The Cirque of the Lowlying Unclimbables". Sorry no pix to supplement this TR as my climbing buddies had the cameras and haven't sent me any of their photos yet. Gear Notes: Rope, small rack, crampons, ice ax Approach Notes: From Bears Breast, one gets a good view of the proper ridge to climb to traverse into the basin above Summit Chief Lake. Descent from Summit Chief Lake to the Pacific Crest Trail is straightforward. If you want to take a "shortcut" to Pete Lake, head north on the PCT and drop off the steep forested slope to Escondido Lake. Catch the trail from the outlet to Pete Lake.