fleblebleb Posted May 8, 2003 Posted May 8, 2003 Early April, Triple Couloirs ShiningWhiteKnuckles and I decide it's time to finally go climbing after months of talking about it. We set out for Triple Couloirs. The road is closed but we sleep next to the car at the gate. We wake up at 2 am. It's 50 degrees. When we reach the trailhead it's 45 degrees. It's freakishly warm. We don't want to be up there in this kind of weather - turn around, salvage a work day in Seattle. Fuck this. Mid April, Triple Couloirs Knuckles and I drive halfway up Eight Mile road, sleep next to the car. It pours all night. Knuckles sleeps in a puddle. We don't even talk about getting up there. Drive back home, salvage a work day in Seattle. Fuck this. Late April, Triple Couloirs Knuckles has had enough of the car-to-car/car bivi thing. He calls me, wants to go couch-to-couch from Seattle. I vehemently disagree. Sounds like a horrible idea. Everybody and their dog has been doing the route lately. I badly want to climb it. Three hours after Knuckles called me I call him back. We're on. Knuckles picks me up at 1 am at my place. We are PSYCHED! Finally the weather isn't going to screw us. His car has a massive boil-over just east of Issaquah. State patrol, tow truck, Seattle. It's a blown head gasket or cracked engine block or some such thing. No climbing and now Knuckles doesn't have a car anymore. Fuck this. May 7, Triple Couloirs I pick Knuckles up a little after 1 am, after 2 hours sleep. We park at the trailhead, hike up to and across the frozen lake, everything is frozen solid and conditions are great. We start climbing just before 7 am. Stubborn birds get worm. Took us too long to make it to the cc.com bbq though. I almost (?) fell asleep at the wheel driving back. Haven't been this beat for a long time. What a day! Quote
JoshK Posted May 8, 2003 Posted May 8, 2003 The conditions will be fine. THe weather hasn't changed a damn bit in the past 3 weeks. Quote
darkstar Posted May 8, 2003 Posted May 8, 2003 blah blah blah spray spray spray blah Tha's all great and all, but how about an actual TR on the route conditions, some info others could actually use? All we know is not to hit up your buddy for any rides. Quote
fleblebleb Posted May 8, 2003 Author Posted May 8, 2003 JoshK said: The conditions will be fine. THe weather hasn't changed a damn bit in the past 3 weeks. Precisely. It's all frozen solid up there, just like it has been through umpteen other thoroughly trip-reported trips in April. Info is, nothing has changed. Send me a PM if you want to ask something specific - unless you're darkstar, in which case I'll just lie to you. Quote
klenke Posted May 8, 2003 Posted May 8, 2003 The "crux" part as of 4/26. It probably still looks about like this. Would you concur, flebleblebble? Quote
Tod Posted May 8, 2003 Posted May 8, 2003 And I thought I had it bad the year that we had the record snowfall. Nice job on the persistence! Almost a lesson in futility. The year of the record snowfall (98-99) a buddy of mine and I when up to TC in March (or April?) with overnight gear. A pain in the with that much snow, particularly crossing the bridges. The next morning a storm came in so we decided to bail and come back in better weather. Since we figured we’d be back in the next week and we didn’t want to double carry our climbing gear we stashed it in a nearby tree well. Every week we were packed and ready to do the route but as we all know it never stopped snowing. It wasn’t until 2 months later that the snow stopped falling and we were able to go up, get our gear and actually do the route… People kept teasing us for leaving our gear up there, we were just hoping we could still find it after all the snow that had fallen. Quote
dalius Posted May 8, 2003 Posted May 8, 2003 glad to hear you finally got it in the bag, stebbi. solid work. Quote
Stefan Posted May 8, 2003 Posted May 8, 2003 I believe Gaston Rebuffet(sp?) a french climber said this about climbing: "You will never regret an early start." Sleeping at trailheads is a waste. I would rather sleep in my own bed and get an early start on driving. Good job. Quote
wayne Posted May 8, 2003 Posted May 8, 2003 Jeez, you finnally did it , and you took 3 less days on it than I did. I am such a wuss. Quote
fleblebleb Posted May 9, 2003 Author Posted May 9, 2003 klenke said: The "crux" part as of 4/26. It probably still looks about like this. Would you concur, flebleblebble? Yeah, identical as far as I can tell. I'll get my photos back early next week, post some. Stefan, but how do you manage to get any sleep? I'm lucky if I can fall asleep at 10 pm. I'm more used to midnight. That doesn't work out too well if the plan is to be on the highway by 1 am... We didn't have to park in Leavenworth Wayne. Quote
nolanr Posted May 9, 2003 Posted May 9, 2003 A lot of times I hardly sleep the night before a climb, whether I'm at home, at the trailhead, whatever, so it doesn't make much difference. Lack of sleep doesn't seem to affect physical performance during the day. I think it would rapidly catch up w/ you somewhere on a 2 day or longer outing. Quote
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