ptownclimber Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 (edited) Trip: Illumination Rock - not sure Date: 6/1/2008 Trip Report: Jport's excellent route map: Jport, Ray-on-tray and I had a stellar day on illumination rock. It rained over night in Portland, and we were dragging ass in the morning...drizzle, overcast, etc. I was hungover (surprise visit from an out of town friend) and still getting over the cold. Ray was not terribly motivated and talking about bailing. Jport was his normal, chill, non-chalant self. We had bounced around quite a few potential plans for the weekend and settled on this one, gear was packed...so we rallied. The regular bagel and Chai from Mountain Mocha seemed to help...and by the time we got to the parking lot, sunshine and blue skies were breaking through. The tops of the clouds are so much nicer to look at than the undersides. We didn't leave the parking lot until 9:15 - in retrospect two or three...or six hours earlier might have been better. I also could have used another layer. Ray was nice enough to loan me his shell - thanks, dude. We had great conditions for skinning and made pretty good time. We scoped things out as we approached - no real beta other than looking at summitpost and cc. The route we settled on took the right side of the large ampitheater (full of snow right now). The first pitch started with an interesting mantel move...then really fun stemming and cracks on mostly good rock. It continued for a full rope length - mostly moderate climbing, trying to avoid water, snow, gravel and choss. Ray led the second pitch - which turned out to be the big balls pitch. The first section was fun climbing in a quality dihedral. The second section was sketchy, run-out face climbing on manky rock - Ray stepped on to a snow block...an indication of how bad the rock was. There were good features and the climbing would have been pretty straightforward if the rock was solid...but it was really hard to trust hands or feet on this crap. This led up to a point above a small snow saddle (kicking steps in rock shoes is always fun) which Jport led - the window pitch up to a cool knife edge ridge. Words and pictures can't describe the view from under the truck sized chockstone. Looking over at the Reid...we were glad we didn't head over there as it didn't look as nice as it did 2 months ago. Every pitch used up a full rope length. All day we had great position, it was peaceful, not too windy...it felt like we had the mountain to ourselves in spite of the hoards. The fourth pitch took us back down along the ridge back to the rap route for the main route (left of the ampitheater) - mostly easy but the last bit was pretty sketch (chossy and exposed) and hard to communicate with the position and rope drag. My throat was still bothering me so that made communication that much harder. The rappel was mostly straightforward (turns out jport and I have matching ropes, distinguishable only by age), but it was cold and the last little bit was downclimbing (postholing) in soft snow in rock shoes. Jport and Ray were smart enough to wear their ski socks. About this time the clouds lifted and vis went to shit. The snow had hardened up again (it was after 6:00) so the skiing was pretty rough most of the way down. It seemed like it would have been pretty sweet had we skied down around noon when we got on the rock. Car to car in 10.5 hours Thanks guys for a great outing. Gear Notes: -obligatory parking lot R.N.M. "...your recipe darlin', is so tasty..." -the power of positive thinking (if you bring the shade hat, you will need it -tomato, cheese and avocado sandwich -alpine rack; tri-cams and more cordelette would have been nice Approach Notes: 9 consecutive months of skiing...3 more to go. Edited June 3, 2008 by ptownclimber Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivan Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptownclimber Posted June 3, 2008 Author Share Posted June 3, 2008 First pitch: Jport follows through the crux of the second pitch - stylishly in schoeller 'knickers': Looking down at the mank section of the second pitch - the last good rock is the block in the middle of the photo: Top of the second pitch: Snow saddle in the 3rd pitch...and you can almost make out where one of the steps blew a little: Rest of Ray's pic's: Approach: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jport Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 Nice TR PTown! I'd call our route the "Southeast Buttress"... seems appropriate, eh? Here are my photos: http://flickr.com/photos/11863105@N04/sets/72157605418058259/detail/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winter Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 nice work gents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptownclimber Posted June 3, 2008 Author Share Posted June 3, 2008 Dude, excellent photos, as usual. Nice route map! Yeah, SE buttress it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayne Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 It may be the listed already as the East Ridge of the South Chamber? Yes it is a quality route. and it is a very exciting winter route! Nice job guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jport Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 Ahhh... the Power of Positive Thinking! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan_forester Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 nice haberdashery! oh, nice job braving the choss, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingsMM Posted June 11, 2008 Share Posted June 11, 2008 (edited) looks like a sweet route!!! Edited June 11, 2008 by KingsMM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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