Ice Cliff Glacier to Girth Pillar

A few weeks ago I climbed the Girth Pillar with Braden. It was the most committing climb that I have done in the mountains to date. We encountered everything from steep snow and ice to iced up 5.11 cracks. It was a climb that I wont forget any time soon. I would say that this is a route that shouldn't be underestimated. We found the climbing to be pretty darn hard especially given the mixed conditions. I imagine that it would be easier if the route was totally dry. The only problem is that the ice cliff isn't as safe. I read about some people rapping in from the North Ridge, but I don't know anything about that beta. Here are a some pictures from the climb.

Our morning visitors

The girth pillar goes up just to the right of the rock scar above the ice fall

Braden heading up to the left of the ice fall

Heading towards the girth pillar above the bruschrund

Braden following one of the "approach" pitches

Looking up the first hard crack pitch.

A few pitches up the headwall you have the option to go left into the rock scar at a white sling or to go straight up the crack. Go STRIGHT UP. If you go left you get this unprotected OW. Nice lead Braden.

Looking down the OW

Braden getting closer to the top

The view from the top of the route

The summit was oh so close. We opted to pass given that it was getting dark.

Looking down the final snow field

Colchuck - almost

This winter Priscilla and I were able to take advantage of a couple day weather window and head off into the mountains to try and climb Colchuck peak via the Colchuck glacier. On the first day we hiked four miles up the closed road and then the rest of the way to Colchuck lake. We were really excited to not sleep in a bed, too much of that lately, and enjoy some fresh air. After a good night sleep we got up early and climbed a little ways past the col between Colchuck and Dragontail. We turned around because of unconsolidated sugar snow and lack of experience with that kind of climbing. I definitely have a lot to learn about winter climbing. Oh well. It will be there for a while. Here are a few pics.

Priscilla happy to be in the tent

Coming up from the lake

Looking up towards the col

Priscilla wearing all her layers

Looking down towards Colchuck

W. Face of Colchuck Balanced rock

 This summer I climbed the West Face of Colchuck Balanced rock with Don in 18hrs car to car. I think it has the best rock climb I've ever done in the mountains. There is already a ton of beta out there on this climb so I'll keep the report short and let the pictures do the talking. 

 

Goats down at the bivy

The first pitch

Looking up the beautiful 11a corner.

Looking down the money corner pitch. I was just able to onsight this beautiful pitch

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Looking up the "crux" pitch. 5.10 to a 11+ roof exit.

Looking up the final chimney pitch. I was able to onsight this bad boy, which came as quite a surprise after all of the trip reports that I'd read before hand. It was hard, but no harder than the rest of the climb. Please don't avoid this climb because of this pitch. It is actually really fun and has good gear.

Acid Baby!

Earlier this summer I climbed Acid Baby with Chris Wheeler. This climb wasn't really on my radar, but I kept hearing about its epic status and decided to check it out. Once I looked at a topo I knew that I was in for an adventure. It didn't disappoint. It is sustained, the pitches are long and it has some quality climbing.We followed the topo for the most part except for breaking the first pitch into two. We topped out right as it got dark and instead of scrambling to the top we went down the gulley. It didn't look like you could scramble to the top, but apparantly you can. There are fixed stations all the way down, but if I had to guess I would say that the scramble is probably better. Overall, this is a great route and a must do for anyone who wants a sustained 5.10 alpine route.

Chris at the base. It is roughly three quarters of the way up Aasgard pass on the left.

Looking up the route. You can see the first 5.10+ corner in the middle of the picture.

The 10+ corner. Beautiful.

Chris following up higher on the corner pitch

Looking up the second 10+ pitch. Sorry about the finger, but this was the only picture I had of the corner.

The view of Dragontail

Chris following pitch 5

Higher up on pitch 5 with some good exposure

The last bit before the summit. Very cool!

The Pickets

Miles and I just spent four days in the Southern Pickets. Here's the breakdown by day.

Day 1
Do the 500o something foot approach via Goodell creek in nine hours and pass out.

Miles on the approach
We went up W. McMillan on the first day and then up the left side of Inspiration and down the right on our second day.

Day 2

Climb the West Ridge of West McMillan Spire. The climbing wasn't technical, but it was still fun to spend some time in crampons and climb up some steep snow. After a short nap on the summit we made it back to camp by mid-day and spent the rest of the day lounging around camp on the rocks.

Miles enjoying the snow on W. McMillan
Getting to the top of the snow section
Scrambling to the summit

Lounging around camp

Day 3

Climb the West Ridge of Inspiration Peak and descend down the East Ridge. The climb up the W. Ridge went off without a hitch, but the descent down the E. Ridge was much more of an ordeal than we anticipated. Our climbing Bible said that we should descend down the E. Ridge and I assumed that there would be rap anchors all over the place, but that wasn't the case. We ended up having to leave stuff for four anchors and doing a bunch of sketchy down climbing to get to the glacier. All in all it took us 14.5 hours to do the climb, despite the fact that we reached the summit in only 5 hours.

The Terror glacier
Gaining the gully on Inspiration
Part way up inspiration with Terror glacier in the background
Traversing across the summit ridge
Down climbing the East Ridge
Making the final rappel onto the glacier
Looking back up what we rappelled and downclimbed

Day 4

Hike out in significantly less time than it took to go in.

As always check out Miles website for some of his pics.