Wish List #3: Baffin Island.

Go ahead and add this to the list of things to do before I die. Just amazing...

Baffin Island: A Skier's Journey EP2 [Season 2] from Jordan Manley Photography on Vimeo.

Sweet Euro Powder.

This is just one reason why Europeans are killing us 'Mericans at skiing and climbing. This shiz is lift accessed!

So this is how people recreate in big cities...

Bilenky Junkyard Cross 2011 from In The Crosshairs on Vimeo.

Winter Solstice from Uncage the Soul Productions on Vimeo.

The Tooth Attempt 1 or When Levi Gets Ambitious...

 I noticed a small break in the grey weather up here in the great PNW. I had been wanting to try my hand at some winter climbing here and had some great recommendations from my friend A. Turner. The one that caught my eye was the south face of The Tooth, in the summer a Grade II, 4 pitch, 5.4. Sounds easy, right?

So I made some emails and phone calls and lined up a couple friends to join me.

This is the Tooth, mostly free of snow. The route follows the left skyline.

We spent some time approaching, but not much. One of the draws to this area is its accessibility. We parked in the upper lot of Alpental Ski Resort and I skinned while my partners snowshoed into the base of the route. The snow conditions down low were less than stellar, but improved the higher we got.

Looking down into our approach from the base of  the snow couloir below Pineapple Pass

Looking up the couloir towards the base.  Fun!

Our view of the Tooth from directly below. The route is the left skyline.

Ben and Tim. Suckers for punishment.

Leading in my ski boots

Entrance couloir

That's Rainier!

Looking up the first pitch

This is my happy face.

I wanted to climb something like this to get a feel for the winter climbing up here. It's one of the main reasons I moved to this part of the country. I'll mention a few things I learned. 

Parts of the day were awesome, some were fun, some just sucked.

I was not diligent in arranging my layers to match the changing temps and activity levels. Rookie. I sweated up a storm on the ski in, it involved a fair bit of elevation gain in a rather trashy skin track. I worked hard. I naturally soaked all my base layers, which means when I stopped to transition from skiing to climbing I was freezing cold very quickly. I had warm layers, but once that chill sets in it's hard to get back to baseline. I didn't really warm up until I was in the shower hours later.

I know my bindings suck and I'v been meaning to upgrade, but they were particularly terrible that day. When I'd switch to skinning from skiing my brakes stopped latching in the up position so that every time I moved a ski forward the brake was dragging. I was ready to scream after a very short time of this. My heel risers tended to pop too far forward and be useless. When I'm skinning and my skis bow at all the heel pins will actually catch the rear of my boot and trip me. From behind. One other tech issue was my skins needed waxed. Badly.

I like to use my ski poles for balance.That makes sense. I brought my Black Diamond poles that have mostly chewed off baskets because of my favorite dog Utah.

Don't let his good looks fool you, he will chew your ski poles!

The end result being that when I'd plant a pole to maintain a stance the whole damn pole would sink up to my wrist and I'd go sideways into the snow loudly cursing my poor little life. Note to self: spend $5 on new baskets.

I also brilliantly decided to climb in my ski boots. Now, hear me out. My ski boots are great, for skiing. I've never tried to climb in them before. I had leather boots in my truck for climbing. But I hate carrying a pair of boots in my pack when I've got a pair on my feet. I'll sum it up by saying that I have never been more terrified climbing 5.4 in my entire life. I should have just put crampons on those suckers, but I more brilliantly left those in my pack at the base of the route. Brilliant. 

On the plus side, I don't know if I've ever been more proud of leading a pitch of rock, ever. Yeah, I know, 5.4. Those ski boots forced some very creative climbing. It involved some tricky route finding to avoid ice, digging in snow to find handholds, taking off gloves, putting on gloves, freezing my fingers and then enjoying the ensuing screaming barfies. Placing a large plastic boot an a wet, icy foothold I  would never even blink at in any other circumstance and then just FREAKING OUT while committing to it. Super fun in a really messed up, ridiculous way.

Long story short we knew the weather called for rain in the afternoon, the clouds moved in, the wind started to blow and we bailed from the top of the 3rd pitch. It started snowing as we got back to the truck.

My synopsis was that the route itself is a blast. Super fun climbing in a nice, beautiful location. The snow and ice on the route made it a bit spicier, but fully manageable. It's easy to access and fairly fast to get in and out. I've made notes of all my errors and hopefully will learn from those mistakes. It was fantastic to get out and experience a new place. I even got some turns in on the way back to the truck.

 Now... what's the next route on that damn list? Oh yes, Chair Peak; see you soon...

Two Very Important Safety Videos!

I saw these videos during my RIC. It really changed the way I look at quickdraws for sport climbing and the application of dyneema vs. nylon. There's a lot more info at the DMM website and I'll include some links at the bottom.

http://dmmclimbing.com/knowledge/carabiners-and-potential-rope-damage/

This one really make me look at what I'm anchoring in with and how:

http://dmmclimbing.com/knowledge/how-to-break-nylon-dyneema-slings/

Knowledge is the key to safety! Pass it on to your friends!

RIC Part Deux, The End.

Well, I'm back in Seattle after the completion of the Rock Instructor course. It was a phenomenal class. The weather got cold and rainy/snowy the last couple days, so we ditched the bivy spot and descended on Solveig's house. Many thanks for the place to sleep, you may have saved my life! You at least saved yourself  from hearing me whine...

We did some short roping practice on a sunny, windy day near asterick pass. The next day it snowed so we escaped to the Bend Rock Gym for some heated rescue practice and technique. I love this techy stuff and thoroughly enjoyed the day. That pretty much wrapped up the course, and here's some pics to round it out:

Practicing rescue skills indoors while it snows outside

Top Rope Belay

Transfers into a lower. Sick!

The above rope systems are super effecient and streamlined, however it can be quite tricky to wrap your head around everything that's going on at the anchor and at your harness. Practice is imperative!

That's a nice clean anchor

Short Rope Primer

It was the day before it snowed. Hence the puffy's.

Many thanks for Dale and Tom for a great class! Many thanks to Paul and RMI for subsidizing the course and encouraging every one to sign up! And many thanks to my co workers at RMI for making the whole course so damn fun!

This is fully insane and beautiful.

AMGA Rock Instructor Course, Smith Rocks, Oregon

I've spent the last six days at Smith Rock State Park near Bend Oregon participating in an AMGA Rock Instructor Course. This is course is the first in a succession of courses with the goal of full international certification. It's a very cool, long, expensive process that is quite difficult. Somehow we've been blessed with fantastic weather, despite some ominous forecasts. We've been spending our time with two instructors; Dale Remsburg, Technical Director of the AMGA and Tom Hargis, one of the owners of Exum Mountain Guides in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. These guys are phenomenal!

Looking up at Zebra Zion, what an awesome route!

Tom climbing up to Katie's belay

The zoo that is Smith Rock on a sunny weekend day

This place lends itself to pictures

On Belay?

The man, the legend, Tom Hargis

Post climb chillin'

What a pretty helmet

I may need a shower

Today was a classroom day, lots of presentations on various aspects of guiding. It was perfect, cuz the weather was sub-par. Tomorrow we head back out for short rope instruction, then a day of rescue training. That'll about wrap up the course. Hopefully I'll get into the next course next year!

Amga.com

gravityguide.com

exumguides.com

A Lil' Bit of Running, and a Sicky Ski Vid

Haven't been doing much lately. I've been running, climbing at the Seattle Bouldering Project, and doing some weight training in their weight room. I'm planning some adventures. I figure if I plan enough of them, one of them is bound to happen.

If anyone heads to Seattle soon, I highly recommend the Seattle Bouldering Project. It is one of the most laid back gyms I've ever been to. It's large and well designed, and whoever picks their playlist is a genius!

Ok, ok, here's the video:

And this one:

I'm heading up to Mt.Rainier this weekend and maybe some skiing will go down. Fingers crossed!

Late October in Leavenworth, Wa.

Headed over to Leavenworth, Washington a couple days ago and this is the tops of the mountains. Looking a bit wintery. 

We met up in Bellevue at 5 am and started driving, we wanted to climb a long route and have plenty of time. Turns out our efforts were in vain. Did you know it gets light later in the day in winter? Especially when it's cloudy? Aside from the light, it was cold. A whopping 24 degrees when we stepped out of the car.

Ben wishing for a bigger coat.

Looking up at the Condor Buttress

We went for a climb called Condorphamine Addiction 7 pitches 5.10b sport. We picked it because if the sun was gonna shine, we would get some. It never really did. The loooong hike up warmed us up, though!

This is cold rock

Ben

This is roughly 4 pitches up, and my hands were finally not frozen. Just in time for the 5.10b pitches. We were climbing in all our layers, puffy coats, soft shells. We tried climbing in gloves, but I'm not good enough.

I would have taken more pics, but I couldn't feel my hands.

Looking down from the top of pitch 5

Skiable?

Winter Climbing?

We finished up and headed into Leavenworth for coffee to get warm again. All in all a beautiful and cold day of WA climbing. As an aside, if you drive from Seattle to Leavenworth stop in the small town of Sultan and hit the Bakery. I ate one of the most delicious breakfast sandwiches I've ever eaten. Consider yourself enlightened.

Castleton Tower, Finally!

I was in Utah for a few days, so I met up with my climbing partner and all around general pal, Eric, to go redeem myself on this iconic tower. The first time I tried ended up being such a clustercuss of morale, core shots and general stupidity that I didn't get very far. So I was hoping for a better try this time.

Eric drove down to my house in Price and we got up the next morning to head south to Castle Valley. We had a weather forecast of Partly Sunny, and ended up driving in the rain all the way to Moab. We told ourselves the whole way that the rain would clear up the closer we got. It fully did not. So we got some coffee and headed back to my house, 'cuz there is a hot tub there.

Day Two dawned much better, something like this:

So we jumped in the car and drove to Moab and here's some more pictures:

Looking up the first pitch. The dudes in front of us are hauling BASE jumping gear, and yes, one of them jumped.

This is the view from the sitting stance in the couple of pictures above.

Myself and Eric getting ready to rap after a perfect sunset. And yes, we did hike down in the dark, and yes, we brought headlamps.

The BASE jumper was amazing and as soon as I figure out how to upload and edit videos I'll post up a clip of the jumper. Amazing.

The route we climbed, Kor-Ingalls, was pretty fun and aesthetic. The climbing was wierd and sustained chimney climbing. Definitely not something I'm used to, but I'll try it again eventually. Right after all my skin grows back.

As a personal update, I have moved base from Utah to Seattle WA. After experience the amazingness of the NW mountains and proximity to the ocean again I'm hooked. So if you're looking for me I'll be skiing or climbing in the Cascades or kayaking through some islands somewhere.

I know a guy in SLC who build these little camera helicopters in his basement. He does commercials and advertising stuff. Very cool




Heli Test #1 from Mutiny Bikes on Vimeo.

Ropes and Crampons DO mix!

I found this article on the Alpine Club of Canada website. Counter-intuitive and very interesting.

DAMAGE FROM STEPPING ON YOUR ROPE

Several years ago the German Alpine Club investigated the damage to ropes caused by stepping on them with boots. They concluded that a rope could not be noticably damaged by such action. However, they did not do away with German tradition - the guilty party still has to pay for a beer. Similar tests were performed using crampons.

Boot test:

A 90° angel iron was used as the edge and a multifall rope (minimum number of nine falls) draped over the edge. A person weighing 80 kg stepped on the rope and rolled three time back and forth with full body weight. This process was repeated 13 times at a spacing of 1.5 cm. The rope then underwent the UIAA drop test. The damaged area was placed at the orifice, the carabiner edge of the test apparatus. In another test the damaged area was placed in the free length of the rope. In both instances the number of falls held was still nine.

While one cannot say that stepping on the rope did not cause damage, one can say that it is negligible.

Crampon test:

This test was more difficult to execute. An 80 kg person stepped on the rope with new crampons, which rested on a stone surface and twisted the foot. While the rope cross section deformed, the crampon point was not able to penetrate the rope. In order to be more certain, the crampon point was hammered into the rope until the point could be felt on the other side. The mantle fibes were then removed with a hard pointy tool until the tip of the crampon was visible (see figure). This was again done 13 times at a spacing of 1.5 cm. The test results were the same as above - the rope still held nine falls.

With regular crampon use and no obious damage to the mantle, there is no need to retire a rope, if a climber steps on it with a crampon. Keep in mind that these tests are done on a rock base. Stepping on a rope in snow can well be ignored. In almost every instance, the rope rolls sideways and because of the soft base, there cannot be any penetration.

Some ice climbers sharpen the points of their crampons like a knife, much sharper than when they are purchased. The test was repeated with such a crampon point, which not only had a very sharp point but also sharp edges like a knife. This point penetrated the rope with the same ease as a pointed, sharp knife. The result: the rope held only four falls. While this is of some concern, a rope is still unlikely to be cut over a rock edge after such damage occurs. Furthermore, the damaged area has to be over such an edge, an unlikely event. Again it is questionable whether this damage could be reproduced when stepping on the rope in snow.

The conclusion is that damage to a rope by stepping on it has been clearly exaggerated, even with crampons.

First Time at Smith Rocks!

I recently spent about 4 days climbing in Smith Rocks State Park in Oregon, near Bend. We bailed down here from the North Cascades after some particularly dubious looking weather (see previous post). We had bluebird days and warm weather. We met up with Lauren and Sapna and had a great time showing Sapna some basic climbing skills. Lauren is an ace climber. Nuff said.

Mmm. Coffee with the beautiful Ms. Jackson

This little route is called 5 Gallon Buckets. Nice and easy and a great route for beginners.

We watched the group in front of us totally fall apart on this little 2 pitch route. We waited for them to finish and cruised it. Fun climbing, great gear. Spiderman 5.7

This is the 5.7 roof. Way easier than it looks.

We are fully ready for dinner.

This is from a 5 pitch sport route called Wherever I May Roam 5.9. It's well bolted, lots of exposed face climbing and great belay stations. Definitely worth a climb if you're in the neighbor hood.

Smith was pretty hard for me to climb, as I tend to gravitate toward crack climbing and don't have a lot of face/sport experience. It took a couple days to learn how to move better over the rock but it was great overall.