lancegranite Posted April 29, 2004 Posted April 29, 2004 Anybody ever repeat this amazing link up? Sure sounds like fun... Quote
Dru Posted April 29, 2004 Posted April 29, 2004 Enchantments -Stuart to Prussik CAJ 1985 or 1986 I believe Quote
Fejas Posted April 29, 2004 Posted April 29, 2004 reverse thet hay and give a today! but maybe one must say good day!!! Quote
Bug Posted April 29, 2004 Posted April 29, 2004 You have to start by free soloing the full north ridge of Stuart. Count me out. Quote
matt_warfield Posted April 29, 2004 Posted April 29, 2004 Yes, there is some more interesting trivia on this mammoth day, which involved a free solo of N. Ridge of Stuart, including the Gendarme finish, and other peaks on the traverse over to Prusik, which he also climbed. There were rumors that Peter had an encounter with the law due to his midnight start and a spate of vehicle breakins at trailheads. Â I was in Bishop CA climbing at Owen's Gorge in March and ran into Peter, out guiding that day. I asked him about that big day. His client asked what we were referring to and Peter humbly mentioned a little hiking and climbing trip in Washington! Â Anyway, he didn't have a ride to the trailhead that "day" (sometime around midnight) and so was starting the trip by hiking up the road from camp at Icicle Creek to the trailhead, which adds several miles and more than 1,000' of elevation. So here he is hoofing it up the road in the middle of the night and along comes a Larry the Tool rentacop who was patrolling parking areas and who thought Peter was a nefarious character out to vandalize vehicles in the middle of the night. He pulled a gun on Peter, who needed 10-15 minutes of fast talking to extract himself from what proved to be probably his closest brush with injury or death of the day so he could get to the trailhead and move ahead on a colossal day of solo alpine climbing. Â He is also very friendly and engaging, a pleasure to watch climb, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the routes at Owen's which he freely shared. Another high point: watching Peter toprope a 5.7 sport climb, complete with quickdraws, after his client led it. Glad I got that gem on film! Â Anyways, here's to a legendary and inspirational climber: Quote
ken4ord Posted April 29, 2004 Posted April 29, 2004 Didn't he tag "Outer Space" on the way out? Â Â Anybody, is this really true, Outer Space after all that other climbing? Man and I thought adding Prussik was sick and unnecessary, but to tack on OS too, the dude is a machine. I'll be happy if I can pull off doing Stuart to Dragontail in a day, some day. Quote
lancegranite Posted April 29, 2004 Author Posted April 29, 2004 I heard he had time to watch the Super bowl aftewards....my himself! Quote
colt45 Posted April 29, 2004 Posted April 29, 2004 Anybody, is this really true, Outer Space after all that other climbing? Man and I thought adding Prussik was sick and unnecessary, but to tack on OS too, the dude is a machine. I'll be happy if I can pull off doing Stuart to Dragontail in a day, some day. Â I would be more surprised if he DIDN'T tack on OS. Â I was recently flipping through Alex Huber's photo book, which includes a chapter by Peter Croft. Croft mentions that one of the several times that he free-soloed Astroman, he followed it up--the same day, right afterwards--by free-soloing the Rostrum, the Nabisco Wall, Outer Limits, and Red Zinger! Someone who solos at this grade probably would not get too tired from tacking on a 5-pitch 5.9 (which probably took less than 30 minutes to climb). Quote
matt_warfield Posted April 29, 2004 Posted April 29, 2004 (edited) Yes C45, but what distinguishes the Enchantments traverse, the Evolution traverse, and others of the ilk is not the difficulty of the climbing, which is quite moderate for Croft, but the sheer mileage and vertical, much in technical terrain. At some point, despite moderate climbing, everybody runs out of juice or light or both. Except for Dan - maybe. Edited April 29, 2004 by matt_warfield Quote
colt45 Posted April 29, 2004 Posted April 29, 2004 "Except for Dan - maybe" Â Anyway, you make a good point. Anybody know the stats on the traverse--distance covered, peaks, how long it took, etc? Quote
matt_warfield Posted April 29, 2004 Posted April 29, 2004 Well, I have no references in front of me, but I'll take a shot: the trail alone from Stuart TH to Snow Lake TH is about 19 miles. Considering the spur to Stuart and all the zigzaggin' and shite, it's gotta be 25+ miles. The elevation gain from Icicle Creek to Stuart summit is more than 7,000' so including Colchuck, Dragontail, and Prusik's ups 'n' downs has to add up to at least 12,000' of gain. A worthy effort considering a bunch of it is off trail and, well, climbing. And by the time you pull the great granite on the N. Ridge of Stuart (Peter raved about the quality of that route) and end up on Prusik, well you're going to feel like Outer Space just gets a on the way to a Quote
lancegranite Posted April 30, 2004 Author Posted April 30, 2004 He climbed the full north ridge of Stuart? The rest of the peaks were just ridge traversing? Quote
matt_warfield Posted April 30, 2004 Posted April 30, 2004 I know he did the upper North Ridge, including the 5.9 Gendarme direct finish, and would be surprised if he didn't also do the lower North Ridge. And there is a lot of ridge traversing in between, but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't do the S. Face of Prusik instead of the W. Ridge as a finale. Anybody have a reference with details? Quote
thelawgoddess Posted April 30, 2004 Posted April 30, 2004 i was skiing with an older couple last week and when they discovered i was moving to squamish for the summer to rock climb they said oh, we have a friend who climbs. they were wondering if maybe i knew him since i'd done a little bit of climbing up here. they said his name was croft. my mouth about dropped open as i said "peter?" and they just looked at me like - oh you do know him. i had to explain to them that i didn't know him at all, but that just about anybody who climbs knows *of* him in some way or another. they were pretty surprised. seems he's fairly low key about his accomplishments. Quote
matt_warfield Posted April 30, 2004 Posted April 30, 2004 Well, he is very unassuming. Now I wish I had queried him more about the traverse rather than just ask about the brush with the "law" (re: my earlier post). Quote
ryland_moore Posted April 30, 2004 Posted April 30, 2004 Doing that all in a day is amazing enough, but has anyone done all these peaks in a single trip? Start with complete north ridge and then dragontail and colchuck, Prussik, and then what about extending that to the rest of the peaks by Prussik? Then hit snow creek wall on the way out. Probably more likely a 3-4 day trip for me but that would be an awesome traverse! Anyone done it? Quote
ken4ord Posted May 1, 2004 Posted May 1, 2004 The rest of the peaks were just ridge traversing? Â Well I know Shepra and Argonaut have techincal climbing to get up and down them so those are not just ridge traversing. Colchuck and Dragontail can be easily scrambled/hiked. Prusik is a technical climb. Quote
jordop Posted May 1, 2004 Posted May 1, 2004 Awright, from the 86 CAJ. I guess I'm the only one here who has it . . . Â North ridge of Stuart w. gendarme to Sherpa, Argonaut's west ridge, Colchuk & Dragontail via walk ups, west ridge of Prussik Quote
ken4ord Posted May 1, 2004 Posted May 1, 2004 Yo Jordop, did it say if he went up and out of 8 mile or did the loop up 8 mile and out snow creek? Quote
Chriznitch Posted September 29, 2004 Posted September 29, 2004 I was reading "Ways to the Sky" last night, and there's a small section on this: To paraphrase... Croft went from the Stuart TH w/ only a banana & 1 litre of water. Climbed the NR of Stuart, Sherpa, Argonaut, & Colchuk. Grabbed a fig bar that Greg Foweraker stashed for him. Then Dragontail, Little Annapurna. Had extra daylight, so he then did the south face of Prussik. A couple weeks later was the Waddington traverse w/ Foweraker & Serl! Quote
pms Posted September 29, 2004 Posted September 29, 2004 and that he started on foot from Eightmile CG. Quote
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