"Because it's there."

[thør]

Dude, I spent like two years being jealous of you. Take your hits for a change.

Hey........I'm spoilt.......

 

[Peregrinator]

Hey........I'm spoilt.......

So true. I wish I could move tomorrow to a place that has as much to offer as Anchorage. I'm only now starting to see the real possibilities here.

 

[thør]

So true. I wish I could move tomorrow to a place that has as much to offer as Anchorage. I'm only now starting to see the real possibilities here.

School really screws fun up.......

so does work.....and my summer is going to suck.....

 

[Peregrinator]

School really screws fun up.......

so does work.....and my summer is going to suck.....

Hehe...mine's not. At least the first month or so. I have to blow shit up to keep Oregon safe for most of August, but July is as free as a bird right now. Then there's a three week vacation with Lady P that's looking more and more like an adventure-sports gala.

 

[thør]

Hehe...mine's not. At least the first month or so. I have to blow shit up to keep Oregon safe for most of August, but July is as free as a bird right now. Then there's a three week vacation with Lady P that's looking more and more like an adventure-sports gala.

Fuck you!

and I mean that with a huge amount of jealousy..........

I am headed South for a few weeks, but it's more family stuff and road touring.....Then back to the grind..........

 

[Peregrinator]

Fuck you!

and I mean that with a huge amount of jealousy..........

I am headed South for a few weeks, but it's more family stuff and road touring.....Then back to the grind..........

You can suck it, after all your posts about skiing while I was looking at rain here. I just put a buzz in her soon-to-be-asleep ear about possibly British Columbia and a side trip to Banf...

 

[thør]

You can suck it, after all your posts about skiing while I was looking at rain here. I just put a buzz in her soon-to-be-asleep ear about possibly British Columbia and a side trip to Banf...

Nice trip........

There's still skiing here, but i've got fucking responsibilities.........

 

[Peregrinator]

Nice trip........

There's still skiing here, but i've got fucking responsibilities.........

Don't they just suck ass? God I wish I were twenty again.

 

[thør]

Don't they just suck ass? God I wish I were twenty again.

ditto........

 

[Peregrinator]

ditto........

Missed this, sorry.

I see kids doing stuff that we thought was way out there a few years ago. Leading 5.10 has become the mark of a "real" climber, though when I was learning the craft it was the precinct of the elites. Amazing.

 

[thør]

Missed this, sorry.

I see kids doing stuff that we thought was way out there a few years ago. Leading 5.10 has become the mark of a "real" climber, though when I was learning the craft it was the precinct of the elites. Amazing.

I see kids doing whitewater that i'd never attempt.....they have no room for error or a swim.......personally, i like being able to go home after every outing......or plan the next trip.....***** doesn't suck so much that i need to risk death to feel alive......

 

[Peregrinator]

I see kids doing whitewater that i'd never attempt.....they have no room for error or a swim.......personally, i like being able to go home after every outing......or plan the next trip.....***** doesn't suck so much that i need to risk death to feel alive......

It's amazing what they do on a daily basis.

I'm off to bed, to dream of mountains and water and stuff. Have a good one.

 

[thør]

It's amazing what they do on a daily basis.

I'm off to bed, to dream of mountains and water and stuff. Have a good one.

good dreams........alpenglow and a lee camp.......

 

[Peregrinator]

Planning a trip...Lady P and I have three weeks to play this fall, so we cast about hither and yon and had ideas ranging from a simple three weeks out at Smith Rock here in Oregon to trekking for three weeks in Bhutan. Very different and widespread choices. We finally settled on the idea of doing stuff here in the NW that we may not get back to if/when we move East again, which will happen eventually. So we're taking a week to kayak in the San Juan Islands and two weeks to climb and scramble in the Bugaboos in British Columbia.

She's handling the kayak planning, so it falls to me to plan a trip to a range I've never been to, which is pretty damn remote, and to look into what routes we can handle and what gear we need and such stuff. Here are some pics of the place:

http://www.climbing.com/news/hotflashes/Bugaboos-SouthHowser.jpg


http://www.lightweb.com/images/BugaboosFromBugabooCreek-2-400.jpg


http://sightly.net/peter/best/.thumb_bugaboos-panorama.jpg

 

[thør]

Planning a trip...

Sounds like a great trip!

 

[Peregrinator]

Sounds like a great trip!

I can't wait. The incredible thing about the Bugaboos is that they have tons of easy and moderate (and I mean actually moderate, not 5.11 moderate like the fucking magazines talk about) routes. Almost every spire has a Class 4 or easy 5.something route to the summit. We can climb a different spire every day there, and my god, it's just gorgeous, solid, consolidated granite.

 

[thør]

I can't wait. The incredible thing about the Bugaboos is that they have tons of easy and moderate (and I mean actually moderate, not 5.11 moderate like the fucking magazines talk about) routes. Almost every spire has a Class 4 or easy 5.something route to the summit. We can climb a different spire every day there, and my god, it's just gorgeous, solid, consolidated granite.

I'm in Reno right now.......solid granite is 40 minutes away.

 

[IPeregrinator]

I'm in Reno right now.......solid granite is 40 minutes away.

*cries*


I miss climbing on good granite. I wanna go home.

 

[thør]

Lost on Denali......

I hope they are found......

from the ADN.....

"Clear weather helped searchers take a closer look at Mount McKinley on Monday, but it didn't clear up the mystery of two climbers overdue since Thursday.

A high-altitude helicopter made its first extensive search Monday morning amid blue skies and mild winds, and a mountaineering park ranger aboard spotted the remains of a tent camp at 17,000 feet.

"This was our first sighting of it, and it does appear to be fresh, from this season," said Maureen McLaughlin, spokeswoman for the National Park Service. "We don't know of any other climbing teams that have been there, so that suggests the team made it through many of the hazards below -- but we can never be 100 percent sure of that."

Neither the Lama helicopter nor a fixed-wing Conquest 2 that searched the mountain three times Monday saw any other sign of the Japanese climbers, who are attempting to reach McKinley's 20,320-foot summit via the difficult Cassin Ridge route.

McLaughlin said spotters also saw footprints going up the mountain above the abandoned tent camp, but at least some of them were made by a different team of Japanese climbers.

Three men who took the Slovak Direct route to the summit -- a route that merges with the Cassin Ridge route at about 16,400 feet -- told rangers they saw the tent camp on May 17. If the camp at 17,000 feet belonged to the missing men, that means they made it up the daunting, nearly vertical rock climb called the Japanese Coulier, which goes from about 12,200 feet to 13,000 feet.

The three climbers who took the Slovak route have returned from their climb and are awaiting news of the overdue climbers. All five climbed part of the easier West Buttress route together earlier this month to acclimate themselves to high altitudes. Then one group headed off on the Slovak Route and the others took the Cassin Ridge route.

The search will continue today, provided the weather stays good, McLaughlin said. Prior to Monday, high winds and poor visibility limited search efforts to fixed-wing aircraft.

McLaughlin said each climber pays a $200 fee to the park service. Some of the money is used to educate climbers about the mountain, and some helps pay for ranger support on the mountain. The Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., pays for searches and rescues in national parks, she said.

The Lama was used a second time Monday when it attempted to evacuate a climber being treated for frostbite at the 14,200-foot camp on the West Buttress. The helicopter turned back amid increasing clouds, and the climber remained on the mountain."

 

[Gunner70]

Speaking of Denali, when I was stationed at Ft Richardson, I always thought that mountain as a killer. What little Mt climbing we military dudes did gave me a health respect for all the rotten rock the freeze/thaw cycle did to Alaskan rock. Pitons just did not hold too well with the old military stuff we had. Does the new 21st century stuff work much better??

 

[Peregrinator]

I hope they are found......

from the ADN.....

"Clear weather helped searchers take a closer look at Mount McKinley on Monday, but it didn't clear up the mystery of two climbers overdue since Thursday.

A high-altitude helicopter made its first extensive search Monday morning amid blue skies and mild winds, and a mountaineering park ranger aboard spotted the remains of a tent camp at 17,000 feet.

"This was our first sighting of it, and it does appear to be fresh, from this season," said Maureen McLaughlin, spokeswoman for the National Park Service. "We don't know of any other climbing teams that have been there, so that suggests the team made it through many of the hazards below -- but we can never be 100 percent sure of that."

Neither the Lama helicopter nor a fixed-wing Conquest 2 that searched the mountain three times Monday saw any other sign of the Japanese climbers, who are attempting to reach McKinley's 20,320-foot summit via the difficult Cassin Ridge route.

McLaughlin said spotters also saw footprints going up the mountain above the abandoned tent camp, but at least some of them were made by a different team of Japanese climbers.

Three men who took the Slovak Direct route to the summit -- a route that merges with the Cassin Ridge route at about 16,400 feet -- told rangers they saw the tent camp on May 17. If the camp at 17,000 feet belonged to the missing men, that means they made it up the daunting, nearly vertical rock climb called the Japanese Coulier, which goes from about 12,200 feet to 13,000 feet.

The three climbers who took the Slovak route have returned from their climb and are awaiting news of the overdue climbers. All five climbed part of the easier West Buttress route together earlier this month to acclimate themselves to high altitudes. Then one group headed off on the Slovak Route and the others took the Cassin Ridge route.

The search will continue today, provided the weather stays good, McLaughlin said. Prior to Monday, high winds and poor visibility limited search efforts to fixed-wing aircraft.

McLaughlin said each climber pays a $200 fee to the park service. Some of the money is used to educate climbers about the mountain, and some helps pay for ranger support on the mountain. The Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., pays for searches and rescues in national parks, she said.

The Lama was used a second time Monday when it attempted to evacuate a climber being treated for frostbite at the 14,200-foot camp on the West Buttress. The helicopter turned back amid increasing clouds, and the climber remained on the mountain."

Shit, shit, shit. I always hate to hear stories like this. I hope they're okay, though it's been an awfully long time to spend on the Cassin.

Speaking of Denali, when I was stationed at Ft Richardson, I always thought that mountain as a killer. What little Mt climbing we military dudes did gave me a health respect for all the rotten rock the freeze/thaw cycle did to Alaskan rock. Pitons just did not hold too well with the old military stuff we had. Does the new 21st century stuff work much better??

Gear improves steadily, but judgment is always the crucial factor. On a climb like the Cassin, the technical rock bit is below where these guys camped, so they should have been able to hike it from there. Whatever gear they were using, and I'm sure it was state-of-the-art, was evidently sufficient.

Also, it bears mention that where you were climbing may have been much more friable than on the Cassin...it's surprising how different the rock can be just a few meters to your left or right. Alaskan granite doesn't have an especially bad rep for being chossy; there are places that are far more universally shitty. What makes Denali a killer, as you rightly thought, is the weather, not so much the rock quality. The vast majority of folks who attempt it never touch rock. It's all snow and ice. But even on a relatively easy route like I attempted, the West Buttress, the weather can suddenly and completely destroy you. A 3=foot dump of new snow coupled with 70-mph winds is enough to pin anyone down, and if you add arctic temperatures into the mix, it gets seriously nasty.

 

[thør]

Shit, shit, shit. I always hate to hear stories like this. I hope they're okay, though it's been an awfully long time to spend on the Cassin.

No real news.......I fear the worst....

"National Park Service rangers resumed their search Tuesday for two overdue Japanese climbers who were attempting to reach the summit of Mount McKinley up the challenging Cassin Ridge.

Flying aboard a fixed-wing aircraft under clear blue skies, the searchers took advantage of a second straight day of calm weather to retrace the route and photograph the mountain, park service spokeswoman Maureen McLaughlin said.

The climbers have been identified as Tatsuro Yamada, 27, and Yuto Inoue, 24.

High-resolution images can detect fine details in the snow, including footprints, that someone in a plane using a spotting scope might not see, McLaughlin said.

"It's been helpful, both in terms of detecting things and not detecting things -- because then we can be more confident that we've thoroughly searched certain areas and we can focus on others," she said.

Yamada and Inoue are two of five Japanese climbers who camped together on the popular West Buttress route to get acclimated in early May, then split into two teams that approached the 20,320-foot summit by way of the icy south face.

Three of the men followed the Slovak Direct route to the summit, which they reached 10 days ago. The missing men -- who haven't been seen since May 9 -- were attempting to climb the mountain via the Japanese Couloir variation of the Cassin Ridge.

They began their climb from the northwest fork of the Kahiltna Glacier, possibly as early as May 10, and were expected to return no later than May 22, according to the park service.

High winds and blowing snow that raked the mountain earlier this month have made the search more difficult, McLaughlin said.

"There are areas where footprints may have been, but we'll never see them because of the snow conditions," she said.

Also Tuesday on Mount McKinley, a climber from the Czech Republic who froze his hands was airlifted by a high-altitude Lama helicopter from 14,000 feet to the 7,000-foot base camp. He was flown from there by plane to a hospital in Anchorage.

Zdenek Soldan, 44, was the fifth person evacuated from McKinley due to injuries since the climbing season began in late April.

Climbers in Denali National Park pay a $200 registration fee that covers part of the cost of potential rescues.

As of Friday, 1,156 people had registered to climb Mount McKinley this year. The climbing season ends in early July."

 

[Peregrinator]

No real news.......I fear the worst....

Yeah...me too. 20 days is a long, long time on Denali. I wonder if we'll ever know what happened to them at this point, unless someone else stumbles across them while climbing the Cassin.

 

[thør]

Yeah...me too. 20 days is a long, long time on Denali. I wonder if we'll ever know what happened to them at this point, unless someone else stumbles across them while climbing the Cassin.

Stumbles is the appropriate verb.......

 

[Peregrinator]

Stumbles is the appropriate verb.......

Word. I'd love to do it someday, but I think that's reserved for another lifetime. I just googled the beta. (Since this is as much an educational thread as anything else, "beta" is the word used by climbers for the details of a route; how hard, which way to go, in some cases what the individual moves are.)

Denali - Cassin Ridge Alaska Grade 5, 5.8, AI 4 - Alaska, USA.

Avg time to climb route: 3-7 days
Approach time: 8-15 hours
Descent time: 1-2 days
Number of pitches: 40
Height of route: 8,000'




Overview

The Cassin is the quintessential technical climb of the Alaska Range. It is an elegant line that perfectly splits the enormous south face of the biggest mountain on the continent and is one of the most sought after climbs in the world. Many consider it a trade-route of the range, but judging by the actual number of ascents it has seen, it is still a modern testpiece and a lasting tribute to the visionary first ascensionists. The actual climbing is not that difficult by present technical standards. But the complete package of a long and dangerous approach, 8,000 feet of sustained climbing, high altitude, arctic cold and storms, and difficult retreat make this route a serious endeavor. The quality of the climbing is absolutely classic. Bradford Washburn wrote that the route had “unequivocally excellent climbing from start to finish.” Both the rock and the ice on this exceptional route are superb.

5.8 describes the rock climbing difficulties encountered. That's considered fairly mellow. Any reasonably fit person can make a 5.8 move or two just above the ground, but put it at 17,000 feet in arctic weather, and carrying a heavy pack, and suddenly it becomes tremendously difficult. AI 4 means "Alaska Ice" 4, which is one notch below the hardest grade. Again, not horrendous, but the same conditions apply. That 3-7 days means that a very fit and skilled team of elite climbers could conceivably pull it off in 3 days, and a reasonably competent team would take a week.

Here's a pic of the route:

http://www.supertopo.com/photos/0/15/123031_23845_L.jpg

And one from the side from when I was there. I believe the Cassin is the righthand skyline of the mountain, behind the happy looking group of climbers.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v649/Peregrinator/008.jpg