Syncronicity - log is washed out?

[mwalker]

climbed at marble canyon on tuesday the 18th. nice weather and nice ice. the guy tr-ing the right side of the last (4th) pitch of icy-bc said it was pretty thin and was close to grade 6 by his estimates. we quit after the 3rd pitch. lower deeping wall was a little chopped out, upper part of it didn't take great protection.

we tried to find the approach to syncronicity on wednesday the 19th but never found the log crossing the river. the traveling conditions are attrocious - thick crust that crunches your shins as you break through it - so we gave up and went to carls-burg instead. Has anyone been up there, to syncronicity, this year? We decended from the road at some flagging tap, at where we figured the guide said we should, but with no luck.

 

Carls-burg - same bad snow there too. did it in 2 pitches - neither of which i lead. 1st pitch was grade 4 climbing with not great pro. 2nd pitch was a little wet but pro was good.

[Doug_Hutchinson]

I do not know the current status of the log. It is hard to find the first time and at night, and hard to describe how to locate. It is slightly (100 yards?) upstream of the approach gully to the climb which is directly below the ice.

 

Question - does anyone know the orgins of the log? It seems too perfect and appears to be the largest tree around that could have been felled by/for us climbers. If that climb isn't already classic enough, that log crossing makes it even better.

[dbb]

ride 'em cowboy!

 

[jmace]

your not allowed to park across from the log anyways so you can just walk in from the bridge parking spot on the right side of the river

[Choada_Boy]

The log is nice coming back, though it seems easier to approach from the bottom of the hill, guaranteed to find the climb first try.

 

As far as the log's origins: I think Don planted the tree as a wee lad, then felled it across the river when he deemed the time was right.

[Don_Serl]

here's a sketch map of the location of the tree. drop straight down the scree from the start of the outside of the bend. the tree is upstream just a tad once u beat thru the forest to the creek. as jmace mentioned, cars have been ticketed and nearly towed when they were parked partway up the hill, so best is to park down the bottom - it's only 1km to walk.

 

i used to think the north bank approach from the bridge was easier (u cld walk some on ice at the edge of the creek, and there was an ancient road beside the creek for a ways), but since the big slide i hear the debris-field is unpleasant. still, the tree crossing is not casual!

 

 

cheers,

Edited December 22, 2007 by Don_Serl

[Don_Serl]

As far as the log's origins: I think Don planted the tree as a wee lad, then felled it across the river when he deemed the time was right.

 

I wish.

 

the photo of the log is impressive, eh? imagine the flood that deposited that thing! you can see the trim-line on the creek bank, so obviously that's the high water mark. maybe drew cld make a guess at how many times the average freshet volume that would be, and how frequently the river would peak that high?

 

cheers,

[G-spotter]

I think ice jams had something to do with it. Ice jam flood magnitudes are notoriously hard to predict.

I'm actually going to a workshop about that in january!

[Alex]

The log is gone. Bring waders or someone break a trail on the opposite side. The crust sucks

[Stemalot]

how was the climb?