Cascades Film

Over the past 2 months I've done about 12 slideshow events around the PNW related to the release of my new guidebook to the multipitch and alpine climbing in the Cascades. It has been great to see friends and meet new climbers everywhere from Bellingham to Beaverton and Spokane to Vancouver, BC. If you're interested in buying this book, you can get it here. At these events I've given a slideshow and then shown a film about climbing in the Stuart Range.






The subject of the film was a 24 hour alpine rock climbing marathon conceived by myself and Jens Holsten several years ago, when we realized that our 3 favorite area routes were all amazing new freeclimbs, all with roughly the same grade, and all on different mountains near our home. It would become our motivator to try and complete ascents of each of these peaks and routes in a single day from the car. The 20 miles of hiking and the necessary transitions and rappels meant that we'd have to do each route in under 4 hours. This wasn't something we were very confident in being able to do. A couple days before we set out to try it, we sat down for a beer at the brewery with local ski/bike/paddle photo and video guru Shane Wilder. Shane was moderately interested in the idea of a climbing film, but knew we'd need a lot of help. And as much as Jens and I though it would be rad to make a video, we weren't going shift the focus away from our climbing challenge by taking time or added weight required to film and pose down on our attempt, or go back and re-create stuff later. Fortunately, good friends Max Hasson and Shaun Johnson agreed to go film. Those guys did all the technical shots, achieved by climbing easier routes up the first and third mountains and fixing ropes from the summits toward where Jens and I climbed. The footage of the middle peak (Dragontail) came from distant shots that Shane managed from the trail, and our small point-and-shoot. (Dragons of Eden has spacious belay ledges). Without Shaun, Max, and Shane, this movie wouldn't have happened. It's the only film I know of that shows climbing in the Cascades. As these areas grow in popularity, let's all strive to keep them as clean and pristine as ever.

Waddington Range - Stiletto Peak, The Blade

While in the Waddington Range we'd hoped to try a new route on the South Face of Asperity, well to the right of the 2011 Elson/McClane route. However, after getting forced onto the rock on a buttress toe below the face proper, we spent 7 pitches and 7 hours in getting dead-ended on plan #2, and we did eventually reach a spot below our original destination, the South face. By this time we'd already dealt with the glacier and ice of the lower Tiedemann/Asperity Couloir in the pre-dawn hours, but a narrow snow couloir we'd have to cross was running with slush-a-lanches and big blocks. We stayed on a shaded rock ledge and watched the evening pass, deciding what to do. Not only did we think that the rock on the South Face was loose and sharp, but also quite blank. Our best options seemed to be the major fractured weaknesses, some of which ran with water. I think that a few thousand years of active glacial scouring along these steep upper couloirs had scraped the wall clean and left few open cracks or holds. Other faces which were higher on the peaks (or not exposed to such active snow/ice scouring) were more climbable. We bailed back to Sunny Knob and had an awesome rest day as the mountains continued collapsing around us.


(We had each placed bets on which bit of the ice fall was next to fall off)

The two new routes that we did climb on the trip were not particularly long (450-500m each on rock above our wandering, mostly non-technical approach via the lower Stiletto Glacier) but they did tackle two of the steepest sections of stone in the area and were done onsight and free with one point of aid. [edit: the above makes more sense if written "onsight and free, apart from one point of aid". ]
Here are a few photos:

May Climbing Magazine

Check out the May 2012 Climbing Magazine for a piece I wrote as a primer on packing for a big alpine trip!

And the video about their climb:

Food

Last summer I was doing the prep work (climbing, eating, stealth-camping at seldom-used trailheads) for an article to be published in Rock&Ice Magazine. My buddy Garrett Grove was the photographer for our project, and I got to climb  with Garrett, Scott Bennett, and several great Washington-based friends. Although we tried to diligently take some video footage during the course of some classic routes and first ascents, we ended up with was a bunch of snippets of meals being made and scarfed. I put together a video about the trip:




When I was down in Las Vegas this Spring, I met a guy named Brendan who is one of the new-generation of quasi-employed computer-related social media gurus. I have a hunch that folks of his ilk get away without doing a whole lot more work than I do (tweetering doesn't count), but somehow they get to make rad business cards with titles that probably still make their parents proud and sound good at swanky dinner parties. Brendan maintains something called "Semi-Rad" which is an infinitely likable phrase but unfortunately doesn't focus on awesome 18-wheelers. He also writes for the Adventure Journal, and after intensely studying my eating habits one day at a Mexican place in Las Vegas, he asked to interview me about my culinary philosophies.

 Order every component as though this will be THE final item, prompting the employee to include more of it than normal. For example, say to them, “… and then, just a bunch of the Fajita-style chicken.” (a free upgrade that includes peppers and onions). Once they add a greater-than-normal amount of said ingredient, repeat again and again.

Brendan's full story - Adventure Journal 

Alpine Blissing

Early this summer, Allison, myself, and friend Scott Bennett organized a week-long "Alpine-Stravaganza" up in Rocky Mountain National Park. After 6 miles of beautiful hiking, we found ourselves in the Glacier Gorge cirque, surrounded by alpine rock climbs, elk, a huge array of food, perma-dry bivy caves, scrabble games, and a tug-of-war contest known as "hunker down". We did a little climbing as well, and Graham Zimmerman made a movie!

Fall Road Trip: Glacier Gorge

What is a First Ascent?

In the good old days before the interwebs ruined climbing and everything had been sent, pre-grizzled hardpersons climbed peaks nobody had ever stood atop. Those were first ascents. A little later, people climbed the same peaks via completely different terrain, maybe via more difficult, enjoyable, aesthetic, or seasonally-dependent condtions. They went to the summit as well. Those, also, were first ascents. But in the days of infinite variations, stopping at the end of "technical difficulties" 1/2way up the mountains, and failed attempts retroactively labeled as new climbs on features that might not really have summits, what is a first ascent?

The Secret to Sending?

Despite what the Beastie Boys say, I think it takes plenty of sleep, and some creative snack skills.

Towers Round II

Success on the Castle Valley linkup!



12 Hours
5 Towers
2 Stoked Climbers
1 Giant Sandwich!

• Rack - 70m 9.2mm rope / 1x#4, 3x#3, 1x#2, 2x#.75-1, 1xFinger Cams
• Routes (in order of appearance) - Fine Jade / North Face / Honeymoon Chimney / Jah Man / Value of Audacity

How did that rappel work???

In our case, the "Damaged Rope" was the short side of the rope, plus various gear tied on. We rappeled on just the "ok rope".

Red Rock Retrospective

I spent about 2 weeks in Red Rock Nevada during this Spring, enjoying the gracious hospitality of my friends Julie and Viren Perumal, and climbing obscure routes in the park with some friends and photographer Garrett Grove.

Check out our article in the November 2010 issue or Rock&Ice Magazine, or read an extended rough draft below. And see some shots at the bottom of the page for an upcoming article we hope to do as well.

AstroDog

My friend Scott made a great little video about our climb of Astro Dog, the first time we'd been to the South Rim of the Gunnison River Canyon.

Wet Weirdness

One of the oddest things I've ever seen in the mountains.

Solstice Day 4.1

I went back to Rocky Mountain Nat. Park this week with Scott Bennett, intent on trying to cram even more climbing into a car-to-car outing. We planned to climb 5 spires in two different valleys. Here's my amateur attempt at a video of our day.






Tower Day from Blake Herrington on Vimeo.


Nuts and Bolts:

1x 70m 9.7mm rope
2x approach shoes
1x light axe and aluminum pons (did not need)
1x set wires
1.5x set cams to #3
1x long sleeve, wind shirt, and toque
~15 hours round trip
Zowie is an adventure

Red Rock Renaissance

Las Vegas sucks...

Take all the worst stereotypes of modern America, the homogenous suburbia, waste of non-existent resources, and glorification of consumption, and you paint an accurate picture of the city's foundation. Luckily for the climbers and adventurers out there, 20 minutes from the strip you can trade in poker chips and neon lights for varnished sandstone and deep canyon sunsets.

I spent the last week in Red Rock National Conservation area, including getting to climb for a day and a half in between teaching classes and doing some photography rigging. It was my third trip to Red Rock, and I was more inspired than ever to head up some of the seldom-trod climbs on hidden walls. Both personal days featured perfect rock, and good friends (Kurt and Alasdair, AAI guides from Washington state). And during Red Rock's peak season, the height of Spring Break and the Red Rock Rendezvous, we didn't encounter a single other climber. I don't mean on our routes either. I mean not a single other climber at the entire walls on which we climbed.



Bellingham-ster Garrett Grove and I are returning to Red Rock in late April to climb, photograph, and research some of the area's best obscure routes. Look for an eventual article in Rock & Ice.

Alaska Part 6 - The Epic Escape

Jason crafted a movie about our trip.


And as Paul Harvey says: "Now, the rest of the story."


We needed a break.



Following our week of amazingly warm and calm weather, plus 3 new alpine rock climbs, Jason I and experienced a few grey, colder, and wetter days. What the heck happened to all the mountains? Lost in a fog...


Hanging out in the cooking shelter


Coastal Helicopters had dropped us off with a radio, and we called in for a weather report... what a luxury!


The bad news came back, it appeared that more storms were on the way, with little chance for clearing. Rather than pay the $370 for a 25 minute flight back to civilization, we decided to save some money and work a little harder, planning on skiing and hiking back out to Juneau.

Packing up the junkshow


Jason signals that the field goal was good!



The veteran Alaskan hardmen can evidently manage this trek out in one day (snow conditions depending) but we packed up, threw our stale tortillas in the moat, and set out at noon, planning on 2 days down to the trail head where we would try and hitch a ride to town.





Navigating the upper glacier in a whiteout was slow and stressful. The snow gulley we had planned to descend had entirely melted out, leaving us with several hundred feet of steep slabs that were running with water. Rappel down this... yummy!




Here you can see the rock band which we rappelled after the gulley had melted.


I had loaded up my pack with more weight than I had ever carried, it was probably half my bodyweight. The 200' waterfall rappel just served to soak our clothes and both 60m ropes, increasing the poundage of our bags. I skied for a few miles in my climbing boots, but needed crampons to climb down one of the several small icefalls.






By the end of the first day I had taken me skis on and off about 5 times and we hoped to have made it half way out.



The second day was all walking, as the dry and fractured glacier did not allow for skiing at all. With an even heavier pack, my pace wasn't much faster than that of the glacier we walked down.
How can you quickly cross miles of this?


Jason gets his crevasse jump perfected


After feeling like a pinball bouncing back and forth across a see of frozen waves, Jason and I finally reached the moraine on the afternoon of the 2nd day.


---------------------------------



From here, we hoped to find a trail, but glacial recession in recent years has created a confusing network of alder-covered 4th class terrain where one could previously reach the trail from the snow. After encountering swarms of Alaska's state bird (AKA Mosquito) and thrashing up several hundred feet of slide alder (wearing a 70lb pack and skis tied to the top) we realized that we'd gone too high, and dispiritingly turned around, eventually finding the end of the 3 mile 'West Glacier Trail'.



Even this maintained trail featured too many low-hanging limbs to keep skis on my pack, so I carried them in my arms for the final hour of hiking. Thoroughly thrashed, a Juneau local took pity on us and gave us a ride back to town, where we promptly headed down to the docks, for dinner and a beer at Juneau's best pizza parlor.

In retrospect, the epic ski/climb/rappel/hike/schwack back to civilization was a good test, and we both felt like we'd truly earned a little of the fantastic weather and perfect stone which the Towers had held for us.


This amazing experience would have been impossible without my friend and climbing partner Jason Nelson, the hospitality and help of Ryan Johnson in Juneau, the American Alpine Club's grants for young climbers, and equipment from Outdoor Research, Cilogear Backpacks, Trango, and LaraBar. You guys and gals are awesome!