1930s Mystery Wall - Do you recognize it?

[PhöQ]

I tweaked the exposure to allow the background to be clearer.

[j_b]

The rock looks foliated as it tends to fracture along clean parallel planes (fracture cleavage). Also it isn't very weathered, which would also indicate some degree of metamorphism. The Tatoosh range doesn't fit the bill but the Tooth area does.

[Jens]

With that latest photo enhancement I'm going to say that I was wrong. I don't think it is the little crag mentioned, even though I'm told that climbers have been practicing on it since pre world war 2.

 

The crag I was talking about earlier on the way to the Pinnacle parking lot is actually granitic.

[obwan]

I think that maybe Dru was right on! I don't have that exact photo of those 90 degree blocks, but they look pretty familiar.

[klenke]

I really don't think it's The Tooth. But I admit I'm not 100% positive it's not.

 

Some views from The Tooth:

pano looking SE from summit

a view toward Chair Peak from the summit

(what's funny about this shot is if you reverse it the background matches up okay [but not great] with the photos in Lowell's second post)

 

There just doesn't seem to be the right terrain around The Tooth for it to be The Tooth. And, like I said, there's something different about the rock.

[Lowell_Skoog]

Here's my latest thinking:

 

 

I think the wall above faces SSW. I think so because the features are shadowed on the looker's left side all the time, even in the following pictures which look like they were taken later in the day.

 

 

I've studied the above two pictures enough to be confident that they were taken on the same wall as the first set. If we presume that the climbing wall faces SSW, then the peaks in the background (above) face NNE. That seems plausible. It looks like they may have a little autumn snow on them.

 

I think the following picture was taken at a different location altogether.

 

 

I think the climbers are at the base of a NNE facing wall. They're below a col (or wall) that is shading them from the sun that's illuminating the background. There's no heather, just rock and snow, so I think this location is higher than in the earlier pictures. If I had to guess, I'd say this might be along the base of the NE face of Pinnacle Peak or The Castle. One thing to be aware of--the Stevens Canyon road wasn't completed until 1957. I don't know whether the road extended to Reflection Lakes in the 1930s or not. So we might not expect to see it in this view.

 

I'm inclined to think that the last two pictures (below) were taken on the mystery climbing wall in the opening photos. The background skyline in the left picture is the key clue. If you could identify that peak, I think the mystery would be solved.

 

 

If these pictures are on the mystery wall, I think that there may be a walk-off route at the looker's left side of the wall. That would provide the photographer's vantage point. It would also match the angle of the heathery slope in the very first (upper-left) photo above. If the wall faces SSW, then the walk-off route would be at the NW end of it.

 

[j_b]

The close ups of the climbing could be somewhere around the W-SW face of the Tooth (a long way to go ..) but the peak and cliff band on the ridge across the drainage, i.e. to the right of the rappeler, do not match the local topography.

 

I'd say the last pair of photos are a different place altogether because the buttress in the background on the right appears to be eroding in staircase fashion (basalt flow?), which is different from what we see in the other photos.

[obwan]

A reversed photo can really mess with you. I think the tell-tale evidence will be the unique 90 degree blocks.

[Lowell_Skoog]

A group of us skied in the Tatoosh Range today. Snow conditions were poor so we had some time to just tour around. Based on today's observations, I don't think these pictures were taken near the Tatoosh Range.

 

[DirtyHarry]

 

Wherever this picture was taken I definitly don't remember reading about this belay technique in the Freedom of the Hills.

[obwan]

The more I look at these, I'm thinking Leavenworth - look at the grass at the base of the climb in the first photo. I just can't place those 90 degree cut outs. And the latter photo looks more like MRNP with those alpine trees and more elevation.

[Lowell_Skoog]

It could be the Leavenworth area, but I think the mystery wall is in an alpine setting. I think that's heather not grass in the first photo.

 

If you look closely at Post 864779, I think the pedestal that Wolf Bauer is standing on to belay in the lower-left photo of the top JPEG is the same as the pedestal below and behind his left heel in the left photo of the bottom JPEG. The background of the latter photo indicates that this is an alpine location. But where?

 

[fern]

the 7 pics in the collage, and the next two of the blonde fellow rappelling are all on the same crag. There are many rock features that line up.

 

All the pictures are of the same 2 guys wearing the same clothes (check hat, knickers, hair colour, socks etc.), so stands to reason they were all taken on the same day at a single location.

[obwan]

All these observations are starting to add up. Wasn't MRNP a pretty frequented area in the 30's era, as there were not good roads to anywhere else.

[PhöQ]

Prob most in the same place, I marked a block that is present in alot of the photos. Other shots are perhaps above or below this block.

 

 

[Tod]

This is a pretty interesting mystery. =)

 

Sorry to mark up such great pictures, but I thought this might help confirm the two profile images are from the same location.

 

The following images are definitely from the same wall. I've marked all the similar spots that correlate to each other.

 

This area sure looks a lot like the Stuart/Enchantment area.

 

[obwan]

And the mystery saga continues - good idea about the Stuart range. Their methods are pretty scary, especially using the rope drag over the horns for protection on those traverses.

[j_b]

Rock bollard belays were standard technique before pins. I use them often to protect moves on semi technical ground when running belays or while short roping.

[Valhallas]

I haven't got anything to add other than to say that I'm really enjoying this alpine mystery, if I can call it that, and will be reading this thread keenly to learn the ultimate conclusion. Nice systematic work by all.

[Lowell_Skoog]

New theory!

 

I completed my catalog of the O.P. Dickert collection for the Mountaineers Archives. The catalog pages are here:

 

http://www.mountaineers.org/history/notes/coll/dickert-op-photos-2009-1.html

http://www.mountaineers.org/history/notes/coll/dickert-op-papers-2009-2.html

 

I sent a note to several people who are in the Mountaineers or have an interest in NW mountaineering history. One has been working with Wolf Bauer on his memoirs. She writes:

 

Wolf has copies of two of the montage shots, and I asked him where they were taken just 2 weeks ago. He says he thinks it's Lundin. Can't prove it by me, Who's got their Peak Pins?

 

Now, even though the pictures were taken over 70 years ago and Wolf Bauer is celebrating his 97th birthday this month, he is a sharp guy, so I give his recollection a lot of weight.

 

I fired up TOPO! to look at the topography. Here's a diagram:

 

 

This looks very plausible and interesting. (Lundin has a reputation for better than average rock.) My theory is that the mystery wall is not the south face of Lundin. Instead, it could be a short wall on the east side of the approach gully (marked by the red arrow in the diagram inset above). The yellow arrow shows the possible camera angle for the photos below. The background peaks would be Red Mountain and the 5720+ foot bump ESE of Red Mountain.

 

 

This location has all the right elements: accessibility, topography, and rock quality. The question is whether the wall is actually there. It's hard to know from the topo map and it's been many years since I climbed Lundin. But it seems worth a look.

 

[Jens]

My second gut reaction was that they could be on one of two towers that are next to the east and south faces of the tooth (above Great Scott Bowl for you skiers). I also think that the picture with the climbers crouching under the overhang is a seperate location.

[klenke]

I'm not sold just yet, Lowell.

Here is a photo of Red from Lundin. Does it look like the background peak in the old pictures?

 

Here is a photo of Lundin from Guye. This would show your possible rock wall on the subsummit in the middle of the photograph.

 

What's intriguing is this shot of Red from Guye which shows a left skyline profile of Red that is a reasonable facsimile of the two old pictures in the post above.

 

Here is a good (large) photo of Lundin from the direction of Red. Is our mystery wall shown here?

[Lowell_Skoog]

Dang Paul! You're making this hard!

 

From your pictures, it looks like it might be difficult to duplicate the sight lines that I envisioned. But I haven't given up yet either. The mystery wall might be higher or lower on Lundin than I speculated.

 

Or maybe it is located elsewhere in Commonwealth Basin. When I interviewed Wolf Bauer for this story, he said they made field trips to Little Si, McClellans Butte, and Commonwealth Basin during the original Mountaineers climbing course.

 

[Mal_Con]

How about this one.

[max]

 

just for shits...