icmtns Posted January 28, 2011 Posted January 28, 2011 Trip: Tatoosh - Lover's Lane with alt end, NR of Pinnacle, Castle Date: 1/27/2011 Trip Report: Needing a warm-up after a slow January, Geoff and I did a peak bagging trifecta and climbed Lane, Pinnacle and The Castle on Jan 26/27. We watched beautiful clouds on Rainier during our climbs: Lane Peak: Lover's with alternate ending. We thought our route more aesthetic and direct then the Zipper finish. After the rap into the zipper, about 50 meters up the zipper, there is a weakness in the cliff on the right. It's at an obvious Y in the zipper. We took this route. The route crosses a 30ft cliff then cuts around a corner and up a 60 degree neve section. After which the route travels to a tree to sling. At this point the route goes directly up, intersecting the summit ridge. Snow in Lover's was well consolidated after the initial step. Our Route: Somewhere in Lover's before the chockstone The summit ridge: (we came up on the left) The next morning we headed over to Pinnacle and climbed the North Ridge. Last year the route shut us down because of very deep wallowing in snow. It's a great route with exposure, A spicy mixed climbing pitch and snow gullies. It took us about 2 hours to complete the route. Fred Beckey calls this route "Somewhat Treacherous and Steep". After the snow gullies and first snow ridge, the ridge was about 5.6 and protected with pins and a cam, Geoff had to clear off crust on sugar snow to find foot holds and pro, but fun climbing, about 60 meters. One more full pitch after that with a few loose 5.6 moves. Geoff led the mixed pitches. Our Route on NR of Pinnacle: Second snow gully-the conditions in both gullies and first ridge were easy climbing Spicy mixed pitch NR of Pinnacle is a fantastic ridge route, with easy access. Then we headed over to the Castle and climbed it via the SW instead of the snow slog up the SE. It was a fun variation with steep snow slope and rock climbing. However, chossy rock prevails. Trifecta! The summit of the Castle After our day, we took a nap in our tent then packed up and headed back to home in plenty of time for Happy Hour Gear Notes: Pickets, Pins, small rack Approach Notes: Nice and Easy. Great snow for glissading Quote
wayne Posted January 28, 2011 Posted January 28, 2011 Wow, you guys pegged the plan puzzle. the temps werent warm? The inversion had us worried. Quote
icmtns Posted January 29, 2011 Author Posted January 29, 2011 Maybe the wind on Wed night and Thursday helped us out with cooling off the snow on Thursday and a clear starry night too. Great 2 days for climbing. Almost T-shirt weather...Warm, but good snow conditions. Quote
Lucky Larry Posted January 29, 2011 Posted January 29, 2011 Maybe the wind on Wed night and Thursday helped us out with cooling off the snow on Thursday and a clear starry night too. Great 2 days for climbing. Almost T-shirt weather...Warm, but good snow conditions. Great photos and TR. Here's some info regarding wind. Wind can interfere with nighttime radiative freezing. In calm weather, radiative heat loss from the snow surface cools the thin layer of air just above the snow surface, and this contributes to freezing. Wind disturbs this process by carrying this cool layer away from the surface and circulating in warmer air. Quote
bucketz Posted January 29, 2011 Posted January 29, 2011 a little softer and that shit makes for a decent warm up run for raindawg! Quote
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