Beartooth Highway

Yesterday I took a break from sorting and deleting photos from my hard drive and decided to follow U.S. Highway 212 from Red Lodge, Montana south into northern Wyoming. This route is also known as the Beartooth Scenic Byway or the Beartooth All-American Road, and, according to an acquaintance, Charles Kuralt put this highway on his list of the top 10 spectacular drives in America. It is also the highest elevation highway in the Northern Rockies. And, it definitely lives up to its reputation!

Looking northeast from Rock Creek Vista Point (elevation 9,190 feet) in the Custer National Forest, Montana. The highway is that ribbon of white way down in the valley.

Looking northwest from Rock Creek Vista Point. The speed limit was 25 mph along this stretch of winding switchbacks that traveled up the south side of the mountains.

The view to the north, a short distance from Rock Creek Vista.

From Rock Creek Vista, the road continued upward and into Wyoming where the peaks were viewed from across wide-open meadows.

Stopping at almost every overlook along the way, I was taken by surprise when I saw this view as the lake was not visible from the road. The wind was quite strong and several times I had to brace myself when a big gust came along.

Taken from near the summit (elevation 10,947 feet at Beartooth Pass) in Wyoming, looking towards the north. It was windy and cold, and the short walk to get this picture was quite exhilarating.

Upper Meadow Project

Winter is our favorite season here in the Laurel Highlands.

Laura and I spent a wonderful snow filled day at Upper Meadow Run in Ohiopyle State Park. It was my day to pick where I wanted to work out and Laura was my belayer. I decided to spend a little time working on the project that was bolted last year. After it was equipped I spent 2 or 3 days working on it, until the pillar fell and it went out of condition. This season I've spent one day on it about a week ago, but didn't have much success. It was like being on it for the first time again. I had to refamiliarize myself with the moves, which was a workout in itself.



Here's the route description:It begins with about 15' of ice and dry tool moves to the roof. From the roof you work horizontal about 20' while moving up about 5' clipping as many bolts as you can along the way. From there you exit out the cave onto the largest free standing ice pillar and climb it to the anchors at the trees. Sounds easy enough...



I can't remember, but it takes either 6 or 7 draws and an optional ice screw. All of the draws are now prehung, except for the first and last. Its a pretty strenuous climb (at least for me) and has yet to see an ascent. Todays session went much better than the last. I managed to link the line together in about 3 goes and felt better now knowing most of the moves. Laura did a great job keeping me moving while on the route. She was giving me the encouragement only she knows how. While resting between goes, the large falling snowflakes made for an incredible view. The landscape turned white and fresh throughout the day which was a nice contrast to what started out as a drab and overcast day. Sorry "butt" our climbing shots weren't that good since it was just the two of us today. You'll have to be amused by what we did get. Happy climbing!

checking out the view

Eyes closed flipping a tool around? Not good sending technique.

Starting out into the upside down

in the middle somewhere

Exiting and happy to be on ice...

L found these critters crawling around the ice

Laura killing time between laps

Laura standing beside the pillar that the route finishes on

Laura walking back to the car after our fun day!

The durability of ice tool picks?

This is just an observation not a condemnation of any manufacturer's gear. I have a reputation of bitching on the blog about every one's gear. This is just a reality check. Ice climbing gear breaks and bends and fails. It is also a reality check on what is acceptable and what is not. This is the kind of stuff you expect to see from differing manufactures.



When you start measuring there is alwaysgoing to be someone who comes out on top. Fact of life.



I had a chance to visit with a lot of climbers and manufactures this winter both in NA and Europe.



I have made high quality picks for my own tools and BD tools in the recent past and still make the Petzl lwt weight hammers. My real job involves working in metal every day and making a "better" pick is no doubt the most difficult project I have taken on in that arena.



This isa commentary and photo essay of what does happen to picks.



Everyone, if you climb enough,will eventually have a pick failure. I have broken tools but never broken a pick. I have how ever bent any number of them, starting with the Terrordactys.





Photo credt to: Eric Dumerac photo from Grav Sports of BD picks going back several generations and a decade or so. BD seems ot have solved that problem with a redesign of the picks last winter

('09/'10)



Then my partners started bending Grivel picks as they switched from BD tools to Grivels five years ago or so. And finally I bent the last generation Petzl picks on this trip.



That was a new one to me. But then I have never really put any effort into dry tooling either.

Come on I still have an adversion to putting good steel on rock instead of ice. Old habits die hard :)



I had heard of it happening but never thought I'd actually see it in person.



The pictures below come from Jon @ http://climbs2high.blogspot.com/ Pretty much what mine looked like though before I took a hammer to them in the tunnel on the Midi. They (Jon and crew) generally bend them by doing figure 4s off the first couple of teethwhile on full body weight upside down.I try to never to get upside down! I did the same by pulling full weight (200+#s ) on my Nomics in some knife bladecrack in the alpine.. Having a hammer is critical to straightening these guys out. But easy enough to do even in the field. Blade is never going to be the same again though. My bent ones are now straight but used only for dry tooling at road side crags

.



So it happens, failure, on some level, to all of them.



I've included some photos of the wear you can expect tosee climbingmixed.





Petzl....





Old and new BD C/Ts from Chamonix..









Current BD from last year on Mt. Bradley http://huntingtonsouthface.blogspot.com/





Old and new BD Aermet off the Cassin







The two used picks above were new 2 short Chamonix mixed climbs earlier. Granite and a foot of new snow is like taking a grinder to a set of picks...any pick. No file used on these two and "good" by some of the standards I saw in Europe as "usable picks". Set is compared to a new Cascade Petzl pick in this picture . Trust me...picks in that condition really suck on ice. And now I ama beginning to understand why no one wants to bring a file on route. Why bother?

A well worn Nomic with an old QuarkQuad pickinstalled. Theolder 4mm Quark Quad mixed picks have some distinct advantages on alpinemixed ground.



The wear on C/T (top)and BD Aermet (bottom) from one trip up the Cassin. New picks in profile under the used picks.

If you happen to have some good pictures of well worn dry tool picks send them along and I'll post them in this thread with what ever credit you'd like tosee along with them.

Redefining "Shoe Tree"

Wednesday, October 13th - - Several times in southern Oregon I saw trees like this one - out in the middle of nowhere, miles from any town, with shoes strung through some branches and dangling from others. This “Shoe Tree” happened to be situated near a pull out so I could safely stop. It was about 50 miles east of Fallon, Nevada along U.S. 50 midway between the junctions of Nevada highways 361 and 372. Proclaimed on billboards in Austin and Eureka - the only towns in the 250-mile stretch of U.S. 50 between Fallon and Ely - as “the loneliest highway in America.”

The significance of it all? I haven't got a clue... but it sure is lotsa shoes! And, aside from the two towns, it was the most interesting thing along the way...

Blue Skies and Sunshine!

Tuesday morning (August 17th) I left Sue and Fred at the campground in Seward under cloudy, overcast skies and drizzling rain. They will be going to Haines, about 900 miles away, with a short visit to Juneau and Skagway before heading back through Canada to the Lower 48.

We had hoped to pay a visit to Exit Glacier but, due to all of the rain, the road to the glacier was closed on the day we arrived in Seward. It is one of the few glaciers in Alaska that is accessible by road and you can walk a short trail from the parking area up to the face of the glacier. That is, you can if the road is open! On Sunday (the 15th) they were evacuating everyone from the area.

I spent most of Tuesday at the Library getting blog posts written and scheduled and reading a few other blogs. I did take several walks around Seward in between the downpours. It was rather nice walking in a drizzling rain but a chill would set in and I'd head back to the Library! I also stopped in at Kenai Fjords Visitor Center to see if the road to Exit Glacier was open, it wasn't. That night I stayed at the Forest View Campground again. About 8 o'clock I noticed that patches of blue were peeking through the clouds.

Wednesday morning I awoke to sunshine and blue skies!! The road to Exit Glacier was only a few miles from the campground so I drove on out. There are several pullouts where you get a nice view of the glacier.

Exit Glacier. So close, yet so far away.

Two miles from the glacier the road was barricaded and a Ranger was directing traffic to the nearby trail parking lot. She said that there had been a tremendous amount of rain the past month over the glacier. It had gotten over 12 inches of rain on each of two different days! The glacier deposits silt in the river and as water comes down it carves new channels to get through that silt.

A new channel had been made and it was undercutting the road. Water was still flowing over the road so they could not determine the extent of the damage yet.

I could have walked the two miles to the parking lot and then another half mile to the face of the glacier. However, I would have had to ford the water streaming over the road and there was no guarantee that I'd actually be able to get to its face. I was happy that I had at least been able to view it, albeit from a distance, and decided to continue on my journey.

Later that afternoon I stopped at Bird Creek Campground in Chugach State Park along Turnagain Arm about 25 miles south of Anchorage. It is nice, for a primitive campground (pit toilets and no water). There were quite a few fishermen getting their lines wet at Bird Creek, which flows into Turnagain Arm.

The Alaska Railroad runs between the highway and Turnagain Arm.
The sunset Wednesday night was incredible. Clouds had moved in and the sun was having a great time in lighting them up!

To the Southeast.
And the Southwest.
And the West.
Fantastic!

Still Climbing

So as many of you might have noticed our updates have been kind of few and far between lately. We've had some pretty hard times this summer and this site has felt the effects of tired rangers. We as a group definitely want to extend our thanks to everyone that has supported our program and what we do here at Rainier throughout this summer. Your positive support is greatly appreciated!



As we enter the backside of August, a time when climbers start to shy away from Rainier for many reasons, we just want to say that Rangers are still up there climbing, staffing high camps, training (still) with some new and very exciting rescue techniques and pretty much around to serve you for a while still. The standard routes are holding up great right now, with the DC staying as direct as it can for late August and the Emmons holding solid all the way up the Winthrop. Many of the non standard routes such as Mowich Face and Edmunds Headwall, to name a couple, seem to be in really good shape up high still, access over the bergschrunds seem to be the major cruxes. The weather looks good for a late summer adventure, so come on out and get some!

Over the San Juan Mountains

Wednesday, May 11th - - After a little stop in Alamosa, about 25 miles southwest of the Great Sand Dunes, I continued west on U.S. 160/285.





I was somewhat alarmed at what I saw down the road after leaving Alamosa. I did get into some rain and, at the higher elevations, some snow. But it wasn't really all that bad. The temperature was 49 degrees with a fairly strong wind. By the time I got to the summit at Wolf Creek Pass, (elevation 10,685 feet) the temperature had dropped to 25 degrees. It warmed back up once over the mountains.





On the way up to the summit at Wolf Creek Pass.



On the other side of the San Juan Mountains.



Love this! A nice shot purely by chance! It helps when you roll down the window and the sun comes out for a second.