PaulB Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 Climb: Hope-Cruel Pools Date of Climb: 1/9/2005 Trip Report: WCI1 describes Cruel Pools as a three pitch Grade 3. Turns out its a whole lot more! From the parking area, easy cramponing up the frozen drainage led to a couple short steps which were easily soloed to the base of a narrow, ice choked gully, where we broke out the ropes and started our adventure. Wes Maedel leading P1 Gary Shorthouse leading P2 Wes seconding P4 Jordop seconding P4 Rapelling from highpoint on P7 (could be P8, I lost track) I'd give this pitch a 3+/4-, but we didn't top out as the last 10 feet were a very thin shell of ice over a gushing torrent of water. My attempt to surpass this resulted in a gaping hole in the shell and I had no desire to take a bath so I threw in a belay and brought the others up. It looked like there might even be another pitch above this one. This is a fantastic moderate route with pretty much continuous climbing and only one "slog" pitch. All in all it made for a great outing. Four of us climbing in two teams were about 9 hours car-to-car. If we'd known it was going to be an all day affair we would have climbed the lower pitches faster, but we thought it was only going to take us a couple of hours. Gear Notes: Double ropes, slings/cord for rap anchors, headlamp Approach Notes: Follow WCI directions to parking area, start hiking up obvious drainage. The Swiss Chalet motel in Hope is our recommended accomodation! Quote
cicleclimb Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 AWESOME! Makes me want to make the long drive up from Oregon again for the long weekend. Quote
Fromage Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 Nice photos. I did this climb the day before you did. We topped out on the last pitch (and there was STILL more ice above...). The trick that worked for us was to traverse left at the base of the hollow tube and climb the final pillar up the thick, solid left side. Very fun route. Quote
dberdinka Posted January 10, 2005 Posted January 10, 2005 Looks like another great moderate! I predict crowding next weekend...... Climbed Mousetrap yesterday. 7 pitch WI 3+. Fun, asthetic climbing, the last steep pitch is a beauty. Lots of traffic in the last week and sounds like it will be good to go for another week still. We couldn't figure out where the walk-off was so we rapped the route via v-threads. Hope is highly worth a visit right now if you haven't been. Quote
Steddy Posted January 13, 2005 Posted January 13, 2005 maybe not so crowded? today's report - gushing at the bottom (it's a creek, after all) and punched through the creek bed approaching. Quote
BobKoen Posted January 18, 2005 Posted January 18, 2005 My memory has deteriorated to the point where I am now fully qualified to hide my own Easter eggs, so I couldn't figure out exactly what Darren and I climbed in relation to the pictures that PaulB has posted. So I went back on Sunday with Graham Rowbotham to do this climb again and sort things out. Darren and I stopped at the top of Paul's P2, so we must have climbed the narrow gully at the bottom in 2 pitches. Why didn't we go any higher? Dunno. You can't see more ice from the top of that pitch, so we must have incorrectly assumed that we were done. Too bad, but good for PaulB and party. Graham and I then continued on to the top of the upper pitch that Paul and party climbed. The pool had iced over so we got up into the creekbed above, but it looked like it would be a long walk before finding another bit of significant ice, and we were out of time, so we came down. But who knows, I was wrong before. I have these observations about this climb: - It is very scenic. - There is no view of the highway or noise from the road. - There are 3 main pitches. Pauls P2 (grade 3, 1/2 pitch), P4 (grade 2, 3/4 pitch), and the top pitch. - The top pitch goes at grade 3 on the right, 3+ up the middle, and 4- on the left, in the conditions that we found it. - There are quite a few other short and moderate steps that some will solo and some will belay. - The route safely supports several parties due to the walking between pitches. - It makes for a great day out on moderate ice. Quote
Don_Serl Posted January 19, 2005 Posted January 19, 2005 My memory has deteriorated to the point where I am now fully qualified to hide my own Easter eggs welcome bob. nice style for your first post! cheers, Quote
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