Darrington - Slab Daddy is snow-free

[Otto]

We took a look at the bottom of the Slab Daddy route on Squire Creek Wall on Friday. It is completely snow-free and ready for action!

 

We couldn't help noticing we were the first party through the fern forest at the start of the wall approach. We bashed a very nice tunnel through it, good to go. We also scraped away fallen branches, etc, from the boot-track up through the forest - it's in the best shape it's ever been.

[Pilchuck71]

Nice to meet you guys out there this weekend.

Thanks for all your work.

 

Tyson

[jshamster]

Well, you weren't the first party through there, as Dave Yount & I climbed it on Tues/Wed. Route is very dry. More so than last September. Probably best to bring water up from Squire Creek, unless you don't mind pretty stagnant puddles. Another note, there is a useless, smashed bolt on pitch six. Hanger is smashed, and bolt wiggles and rotates 360. Not hard climbing there, but that bolt needs replacing. This route is in great shape, but more folks need to climb the last couple of pitches. Still pretty dirty up there. Pitch 21 has two pieces of fixed gear right next to each other. Someones medium sized nut, and my red alien that I managed to fix last year.

 

Cheers.

Jimbo

[Otto]

Hi jshamster - I understand that you were there on Tuesday, July 6 and climbed the route. We passed through the following Friday, July 9 and saw a pristine fern field just above the creek. So, I have to conclude you use a different start up from The Beach, just after the creek crossing, to get into the forest. I'm interested in finding any braided trails in there. It seems awfully dense with brush. Do you plunge into the ferns at a big, white boulder? Like this:

[jshamster]

Yep. I've been up there three times, and have always hopped over the boulder. The initial fern field, first 30' or so, were not knocked down at all, but the rest we managed to smush pretty well. I'm surprised that you could not tell of our passage. We definitely used the trail that you, Dave & others beat in over the past few years. That brush is quite resilient between the creek and the forest! I have not run in to any other braids of trail in that area.

 

cheers

Jimbo

[Otto]

Sounds good. My bad, I was reminded by my partner that we were also there earlier in the month, on July 4th, which is when we thought there was no sign of earlier passage through the ferns.

 

What do you think of the crack pitches 19, 21 and 22? How hard have you tried to free pitch 20? Did you take any pictures? Can we expect a TR soon? Interested!

[jshamster]

I did not have a camera that day. Dave Y. took numerous pics, and maybe he will write up a TR, or just post pics.

 

Pitch 19 is great & easy; 21 & 22 are good pitches, totally out of character with the rest of the route, and still quite dirty. I had a much easier time on the upper pitches this time around as we split the climb into two days.

 

As far as 20 goes, I have tried pretty hard to free it on both lead and t.r. I felt like I came a lot closer last year. Basically, as you probably know, that groove is super water polished. Slick as snot. Still need to find a better technique than just stabbing the toe and standing up. We both worked on a couple of alternatives, but really did not come close to styling that 3 or 4 feet of groove. Topo seems pretty mislabeled, as the A0 is in the lower part of the groove, and not exiting the groove. The rest of the pitch is very straightforward, easy even.

 

cheers

jimbo

[Otto]

Thanks for your comments! It sounds like you had a great time. Not sure I agree with you about the top two pitches being dirty; they can be done without actually touching the dirt. But yeah, it's not like the white waves of granite below...

 

Good on you for doing the Daddy!

Otto

[David Yount]

Jimbo, I do remember as we were bushwhacking through those impressive ferns just after the white slab boulder, there was a section where somebody with big hard boots trampled a nice path..... certainly somebody had been up the trail before we did on July 6, 2pm.

 

On the way out the next afternoon I tried this same technique, but didn't give it enough time to widen the trail much.

 

I can't imagine many of those heavily trampled ferns were able to hydraulically right themselves, they should be down for the count.

 

The trail in the forest is new and rough and sometimes a little challenging to follow. There are 2 sections I noticed where there were 2 choices; it would be good to decide the superior track and brush it better while covering over the alternate.

 

The undercling / layback on Pitch 19 was fun, sewn up with BD #1, 2, 3, 3.5, 4 cams

 

The cracks on Pitch 21 were a treat. I also found this pitch the most open to interpretation, which I enjoy. Well, Pitch 9 was a little navigationally challenging as well.

 

Pitch 22 had a nice hard face move, with good protection.

 

Pitch 20 crux is humbling. Dihedral, very low angle, looks like 5.7 at worst. The water polish makes it absurdly low friction.

 

I will post a TR, hopefully in a week or two; plenty of photos too.

 

Dave Yount

[David Yount]

I hope the crux ultimately earns a solution that is repeatable. It is my opinion that the first (several) clean leads (and follows) will be little more than slapping at double gaston with palms wide open smearing, toes jabbed into the slick corner, palms greasing outward, rise up and slapping palms again smeaing, greasing outward.......

 

more of a race with constant movement your necessary bedfellow aided by a huge chunk of good luck.