Squamish Season

Three days is not enough time in Squamish. With the correct tour guides, it's barely enough time to get a good look around.

Rachel and I had a civilized start to the Angel's Crest on the Chief. The tree climb start quickly returned me to childhood memories of monkey business.

The totem pole kept us on track... all smiles. The smiles faded quickly as we navigated treed ledges and steep fixed lines to the base of High Planes Drifter. Squamish served it up all right.

Do all the young men solo for the correct reasons in Canada as they do in the U.S.?

Non-climbing highlights of the trip include: explaining to Phillipe what Putin is (frenchfries and gravy); the Cowboy/girl and Indian party at the Sqauamish Mountain Festival; and getting back into the United States of American without being searched!

Salud to all the Monkeys in Squamish SENDING!

High and Dry

Don't look directly at IT...
Keebler Needle's always watching

SALUD!
Steven Timothy Dittman

Nimbus Pitch 1
Wheeee!

Launching Nimbus Pitch 2

Splitteron, CA

'Bama Hills
"The Poormans J-Tree"

Definitely watch out for this guy...

The Eastern Sierra may be the greatest rock destination on Planet Earth; pick the season, pick the location, then get yer crush on!
Season: Summer (When its hot, go higher)
Destination: Whitney Portal

Its hot, hi in the hundos, as I cruise the Neil Mobile southward through the searing desert sagebursh on HWY 395 with AC at 9am. Soundtrack is Pink Floyd's "Animals", face melting guitar solos and sharp commentary on humanities social downfall; its LOUD! Im psyched to meet Tim Dittman and explore The Portal's white hot granite.

Day one finds us on Nimbus, an excellent three pitch climb emphasizing slab footwork and stellar crackage. As we begin to notice, slab is quite common here, after climbing 'Tanager' another awkward leaning tight hands crack with exfoliant granito smearing my calves were screaming lactic acid barfies. Call it a day...to The Portal Store for nourishment!

Next, we couldn't pass up Bony Fingers, possibly the most classic route around. Seriously, finger cracks don't get any splitterton. Check out those Diorite knobs!!! A whale of a tale....

Thanks for the photos Timmy; I'm getting a smaller camera for climbing, stay tuned.

Friendlies From Leavenworth to the Tetons

Jens and Max on the perfect ledge below ROTC crack on the recently opened Midnight Rock.

Ty and Matt sicking me on the Gallatin Canyon's best cracks.

Family Life in the Tetons

Mountain Corn putting the high hemoglobin count to good use in Teton Canyon.

Grand times!

Neil recently started work on the East Side of the Sierra. However, he was able to lead all but two pitches of the Nose before committing to the grind.

The drive down from Washington was augmented with good company and climbing in Montana. The Yellowstone Ecosystem serves it up. The top of the food chain is not humans down here...

New Route "Vegetarian Couloir"

After a day of snow followed by a day to clean off the snow, Raphael and I set our sights on a route named Bacon and Eggs. Upon correspondence with Eammon, we realized that we climbed a route just right of the aforementioned. The name for the possible new line, "Vegetarian Couloir." The appeal of this route is it's proximity to Kahiltna, BC. We completed our mission in 9 hours camp to camp.

The route enters the mixed looking right facing corner to gain the East Ridge of Begguya.

Begguya.

We enjoyed a classic Alaskan style top out. The unconsolidated snow provided good "swimming" as Raph put it and definately increased the pucker factor and the overall commitment of the route.

Raph on the East Ridge of Begguya (aka Mt. Hunter), known to the natives as Denali's son. Huntington West Face is in the background reminding us of unfinished business.

Check out Raph's blog

Looking down the weakness.

Raphael contemplates the best way around the corniced ridge

Looking toward BC with first light on Sultana, which is Athabaskan for Denali's Wife (Mount Foraker). Sultana is North Americas 6th highest mountain at 17, 400ft.

Ice from the Triassic Period warmed us up for the main event.

The clock starts when one crosses the schrund.

The Moonflower Buttress is the obvious striated granite wall in the center. The Mini-Moonflower climbs the tower just to the left, and the Mini-Mini-Moonflower (aka Bacon and Eggs) is just a little further left.

Rock climbing close to Kahiltna BC. Sam reaches for a chalk bag that doesn't exist.

The Columbian-American Expedition to Little Switzerland was a total success! Andres and I stocked up on calories in Talkeetna, Alaska for a few days before flying onto the Pika Glaciear. We were on the super-chill program.

The hot daytime temperatures and low elevation forced us to adopt the night schedule. Most days we slept in and left camp around 1700. The freezing started just before mid-night or day-end as it should be called in Alaska near the solstice.

The Pika glacier joins the lower Kahiltna glacier around 5,000ft. Water pools in the depressions of the glacier. A reminder of what awaits at the bottom of some crevasses...

Andres shows us how to schralp, Columbian style.

When the snow clears off the face of the North Pillar, there will be good climbing...

Many projects await the adventurous.

The North Pillar of the Crown Jewel is illuminated on the left.

Cumbre ca. midnight... The beauty of 63 degrees North Latitude.

Andres walks the final ridge to the summit of the Throne after simul-soloing

III 5.8 Lost Marsupial.

Peering over the edge with the Royal Tower on the right. The ridge just left of the central cooler weakness is IV 5.10a.

Mixing things up a bit...

We practiced the art of boots into rock shoes on snow!

(Photo courtesy Mountain Film)

After another great trip to the Black Canyon with Kim Havell, I've been resting and enjoying Telluride's Mountain Film Festival, a incredible four-day event combining adventure and environmental issues.The Sender film boys were in town showing some of their latest; 'Alone on the Wall' made my palms sweat as I watched Honnold re-enact free solos of Moonlight Buttress and Half Dome, awesome footage! This film won the festival's Charlie Fowler Award. 'Man vs Eiger' (AKA Fly or Die) documented Dean's quest to Free-BASE Deep Blue Sea on the Eiger North Face; this guy is a true scientist, experiencing the world in highly acute mental states. On the enviro front, I really enjoyed "I Am", a film documenting a Hollywood producer's journey to shun the false material world and find true meaning in this confusing world. Mountain Film leaves you feeling disturbed and also inspired to change what you can.

http://www.senderfilms.com/
http://www.iamthemovie.net/
http://www.mountainfilm.org/

Check out Kim Havell's site for the Black Canyon Trip Report
www.havelltravels.com/2010/05/tr-black-canyon-classic-days/

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

The Painted Wall is CO's biggest wall

(furthest left in the photo)

Looking toward some of the Black Canyon classic walls

Jim Turner scoping the Black Canyon

The long routes and remote settings of the Black Canyon makes the place feel like alpine climbing; there are many adventures waiting for the intrepid here. I teamed up with Jim Turner, a Black climber for my first time last week.

After a casual mid-day alpine start we got it together and hiked down the SOB gully to climb Comic Relief (III 5.10 300m), a classic moderate offering. I was feeling insecure on the balancy, weird crack crux after my spring in the Creek, but as the climbing continued I began to relax and ease into the unique rock and movements of the Canyon.

White-throated Swifts swooped within inches as I sat on the belay ledges, contemplating the vast, deep canyon walls swirled with Pegmatite and dark Gneiss. The snow-fed river rages on a thousand feet below; its amazing to consider the pre-dam (1937) runoff levels reaching 6 times the fury! ( at 6000 cfs)

The next morning showed clear skies as we started down the Cruise Gully with the mega-classic Scenic Cruise (V 5.10+ 600m) on the agenda. As it was Jim's third time on the route, I recieved a quick debrief of the upcoming pitch before setting out on my leads, super handy! Just as the sun began to bake our brains at 10am, the clouds rolled in to save the day! The reality of over a thousand feet of exposure set in as I took the sharp end high on the route's big traverse pitch; a techy face sequence was cause for pause, thankfully the original bolt has been replaced by a fatty Metolious!! We topped the Canyon rim around 5pm for a time of 9 hours on this beautiful route. The climbing on the Scenic Cruise is always exciting for leader and the follower, every pitch is classic, and the movement very cerebral with great cracks and wild edging.

The Black Canyon has a powerful allure and a history of training some of America's best climbers. In the late 70's Earl Wiggins soloed the second ascent of The Scenic Cruise in 90 mintues with no chalkbag!!

Dulces para los ojos (eye candy)

On Friday, May 21, 2010 at 0200 I woke up to multiple alarms and walked down stairs to the freshly made pre-programmed coffee. What would Alpinism be without caffeine?? 20 minutes later I am in Jen’s kitchen imbibing more of the stimulant. How many times have I driven to this trail-head in the dark?

An hour after leaving the car, Jens, Dan, and I turned off our headlamps and look ed at the North Face of Mount Stuart. We all had the same thoughts, “there is a lot of snow on the face and not much ice, powder on slabs.” The large objective was quickly and unanimously ruled out.

It is a good idea to have a small, medium, and large objective when alpine climbing. This way, one can tailor the climbing objective to the weather and conditions. In the clearing below Mount Stuart, we decided to check out our medium objective, the Cotter-Bebie to Serpentine Ridge on Dragontail Peak.

I strongly recommend climbing with the locals whenever possible. Insider beta is often crucial to timing and matching inspiration to proper objectives. In our case, Jens had been keeping a critical eye on the North Faces and ventured out the week before to climb the Triple Direct. Therefore, we were able to correlate the undulation freezing elevation (read: freeze+thaw=ice) and recent weather to determine the location where the highest likely-hood for good mixed climbing would be.

Some M6 above good rock gear...

“If there are any prohibited items in your bag I will have to call the police,” said the Transportation Safety Officer at Sea-Tac International Airport. I quickly ran though the contents in my mind; off-belay knife, ice axes, ice screws, crampons, lots of sunscreen, mate gord and bombilla... all of which are “prohibited”, or look like something that should be. My hypocampus sent signals to release fight or flight response hormones in my adrenal glands. The airport immediately felt hot and I began to perspire as my heart rate increased as well as my breaths per minute.

“Have you ever flown before?” Asked the Officer as he pulled out the TheraCane. “Yeah, my friend suggested I take this bag a la carte and I was planning on checking it...”

When I returned to the Alaska Airline representative to check the bag in question I realized that my boarding pass was Missing In Action. The rep. couldn’t re-print the pass because the flight was leaving in 15 min. I ran back to the TSA people. They wouldn’t let me pass the initial screening to find my boarding pass without a boarding pass. (It is interesting how these negative feedback loops are built into the MATRIX). Ran back to AA rep. AA rep. and I run to TSA gate. Conversing. TSA Supervisor looked for my boarding pass because we are not allowed to pass initial security check-point. Still couldn’t find pass. Ran back to AA desk with nice AA rep named Melanie. SYSTEM OVER-RIDE Finally printed new boarding pass and called ahead to gate to not close doors w/o me. Ran to gate C14. “JOEL!” Yelled the flight attendent. “Yeah.” Just in time.

The gogoinflight internet above the Contiguous United Staters of America (and an hour North of Seattle into BC) gave me a taste of the future, but not enough to get anything accomplished. The remainder of the flight was spent editing photos and recounting our recent adventures.

El tiempo es perfecto in Anchorage...

Joel