The North Cascades: An Onsight, A Bail, and an Alpine Adventure

It was early August in DC, and most of the city was enjoying vacation. For the unfortunate few who were left without an escape plan, life oozed by like molasses. Our aggressive training schedule for the upcoming October trip to Yosemite had me psyched to climb, but I was bored of Seneca quartz and New River sandstone. I felt like I was missing something in my climbing. It had been too long since I last felt the exhilaration and uncertainty of casting off on an adventure climb. Call it serendipity, or perhaps just blind luck, but in the midst of these feelings, my buddy Spencer e-mailed me and asked if I'd like to meet him in the North Cascades for some alpine climbing. When I read his e-mail, I knew immediately what I had been lacking: I needed to fill up on some mountains. I accepted his invitation, and within a couple of days plans were laid to meet in the Cascades in two weeks.

With little time to plan, we immediately began spit balling. We e-mailed back and forth, sharing links from Mountain Project to climbs that looked like they might possess the right combination of challenge, adventure, and access. We only had five days, so we knew we wouldn't be able to trudge too far into the wilds. Plus, I wanted to maximize the Yosemite training potential of this trip, which meant that pure rock routes would be the flavor du jour. That ruled out some of the big boys of the range. But not to worry; this was the Cascades, after all. There were still plenty of climbs that fit our narrow selection criteria.

Liberty Bell Group.
Photo from Mountain Project.

With our hopes and dreams for this trip laid out, it soon became clear that the routes in Washington Pass were good candidates. More specifically, the Liberty Bell group had a number of clean rock spires that appeared to possess the right combination of good rock, challenging climbing, and access.

The Liberty Bell group, which includes five granite spires, is tucked neatly into a hairpin turn in the North Cascades Highway. Conveniently, this meant that the approach would be trivial by Cascades standards. We decided that these routes would be a good starting point to get a feel for the rock and the range as a whole.

The Long Story of The Prow

As we promised, what follows is an after-action report from our Memorial Day weekend trip to New Hampshire. In an earlier post, I shared one of our goals for the trip. We also had another goal, which was to onsight the VMC Direct Direct in a quick push. In short, I guess you could say we failed to accomplish either goal. We did not onsight the Prow and we didn’t even get on the VMC DD. However, I was proud of our efforts, and we did succeed in several unspoken goals: get back safe, learn something, and have fun.

We arrived in Manchester late Thursday night and picked up our rental car. We settled for your run-of-the-mill midsize sedan, but I really think we should have shelled out the cash for a little extra American muscle—something boss, like a Camaro or a Charger. You see, we had no intention of showing up at the base of Cathedral Ledge as boring old Dan and Alex from Washington, DC. An historic and badass line like The Prow would require historic and badass new identities. This particular weekend, we’d be climbing as Burt Reynolds and Tom Selleck.

American badasses.

Thirty One

I thought we'd try 31 pitches in a day at Seneca for my 31st birthday, then get home in time to enjoy steak and wine for dinner.

What is it about this stage of life that makes me want to inaugurate my years with cute feats of athleticism?  Must I prove something?  Am I satirizing the impulse that I should prove something?  Either way, it's good fun.

Plus, a day of moderate routes has been on my mind for a long time.  We spend so much time pushing the frontiers of our ability that we seldom revel in the hills we've captured.  This would be a chance to enjoy the freedoms of vertical movement we've worked so hard to earn.

"To be home for dinner at 7pm, we need to hit the road by 4pm.  Assume 2 pitches per hour, up and down--that's 15+ hours of climbing, and we'll need to start by midnight."  The calculus was steeped in optimism, but it offered a glimpse of what we were dealing with.

I should note that Seneca is not your typical crag.  It's not a simple junction of vertical and horizontal with a park-like atmosphere, like something out of a Seurat painting.  It's not the Gunks or the New River Gorge.  Seneca is an MC Esher with ledges, ramps, and walls that connect in baffling ways.  These would be 31 rope lengths in a three dimensional labyrinth.  Who knew how this would go?

We armed ourselves with home-made black bean tacos and a trove of addictive cookies baked by Laura,  waded through the Friday rush hour, and exited the highway by the three giant white crosses, two oversized american flags, and municipal water tank--all arranged upon the hill like a still-life representation of the lands were we about to enter.

The steering wheel of Alex's Subaru tugged to the right.  I knew the tires were near bald from seasons of pushing them north, south, west...maybe this was just a warning.

"It's flat."

We pulled to the side of the road, swapped the tire by the light of a kind WV officer who'd come to investigate our hazards, and continued on our way listening to the whine of the front differential compensating for the doughnut.  Our adventure had officially begun.

We could see headlamp beams draped across the distant wall as we pulled into the lot around 11pm.  We met their owners as we silently marched up the darkened stair cases in the woods, and exchanged a few words.  They had their adventure--finally coming to a happy and welcome close, triumphant over stuck ropes and the uncertainty of darkness--and we had ours, just now emerging from belligerent daydream to the conflicting sensations of reality.

Arcteryx Acto MX Hoody Review

9 years ago I stood in a Philadelphia art gallery next to my professor, gazing at a blank white canvas with a $7000 price tag.  I was pissed.
"This isn't art!" I told my professor. "Who's going to pay $7000 for a blank canvas?"  It wasn't completely blank.  The artist had painted it white.
"Ah, but what is art if not something that evokes an emotional response?  Look how flustered you are."

I thought it would be easy to write a critique for what was, effectively, a blank canvas.  Yet, I learned, if I was going to pass the assignment, I'd have to offer my definition of art--my paradigm for what it should and shouldn't be--and show why I thought this was a poor specimen.

You would think reviewing climbing gear would be an easier, more concrete task, but you still have to reveal your calculus of psychology, environment, hopes, and dreams to qualify your opinion.  Otherwise you're like this guy, who reviewed the Arcteryx Acto MX Hoody on the Backcountry.com website:

"I had the chance to try this jacket on recently and I found it to be an amazing piece of equipment that I can't live without. You can rock it on it's own or use it for layering. It is super versatile and extremely technical. Perfect for any outdoor enthusiast. The liner is a fleece grid that can let heat out while wearing it alone or keep heat in if you are layering. Use this for anything you do in the snow. Not to mention it has a lifetime warranty. Awesome!"

His basis of review is from trying it on?

Anyway.  I have been interested in the Acto MX Hoody since Jason Kruk's "Acto PSA" (found via ColdThistle) piqued my interest in the jacket.  Then I got it for Christmas and have barely taken it off.  Here's my take:

NRG - Area 51- Replicant

Alex and I returned to the New River Gorge last weekend, this time attached to a crew of five experienced and talented climbers from the DC area.  We arrived at the crag, Area 51, Saturday morning, and proceeded to dispatch more hard climbs than I've witnessed being climbed in such a short period.  The company both daunted and inspired me.

There was one climb I thought stood above the rest.  It was a perfect dihedral perched upon a massive overhang--a line called Replicant.  The route caught Andre's eye too, and he went for it without delay.  Past a thin and crumbly start, large whipper potential at the roof, and well into the smooth corner and tips crack crux, Andre took a fall.  Undetterred, he finished the line, rested, then quickly red pointed.

The leftward traverse to gain the hanging corner looked dicey. Your last protection is well behind, and below you, and the thirty foot ride would have you swinging backwards, uncomfortably close to the rock.  But having watched Andre, and ruminating on it, I thought I just might be able to piece it together.

I climbed in a state of total focus, and stole every possible stance where I could regain strength.  Safely beyond the roof, I entered the crux dihedral, but I couldn't get my finger tips to dig into the pencil-width crack.  I edged on that damning feedback loop where you pull harder on the muscles that are losing feeling, but then eased my grip, and transferred weight to my feet.  The stream of blood in my forearms trickled back to life.  I'd have but a moment once my forearms recovered to finish the section before my toes gave out.  I leaned to the right on my finger tips, stepped up, and smeared hard on the left wall with my right foot, then the left.  Jamming my right shoulder into the wall, I stabilized, removed both hands from the crack, reset them higher, and pulled to a bridged stance.  Gradually the crack opened to accept more of my hand.  Gradually it dawned on me that I would pull this off.  What a great feeling.

Here's a photosynth with the photos I took of Andre's on-sight go.  It captures the first half of the climb up to the roof.


 

Summit of Campanile Eslevano, Frey, Argentina '08

A friend showed me Photosynth this weekend.  It stitches photos into a 3 dimensional collage.  This is a test with some shots I took on a trip four years ago.  It's from the summit of Campanile Eslevano in the Frey climbing area, which is just outside of Bariloche.  We'd just climbed a spectacular 5 pitch 5.10 called Imaginate.

This One's For the Bobcat

I found myself more centered last weekend at the New River Gorge than I was on my prior outing.  I was rested, and not so thirsting for beer as I am sometimes at the end of the week.  I felt simply glad to climb--not overly eager, and fretting over details.  This would be a good weekend.

Saturday morning at Endless Wall, Alex won our customary rock flip and started us on Discombobulated.  Apart from fingery holds at the second and third bolt, the difficulties were punctuated enough for the route to serve as a decent warm up.

Next came Aesthetica.  I was pleased with my flow, and lack of hesitation on the aesthetic long moves, but it wasn't enough to win the onsight.  I took a fall at the crux.  Then, high stepping to a two-finger pocket, I skipped the big hueco out left, and climbed the second half to the chains.  Alex flashed the route.

Winning the second rock flip, for Mig Squadron, Alex racked and hiked the starting layback flake to a good stance preceding a blank traverse.  He inspected the diminutive holds, committed, toes smedging on glints in the sandstone, but ultimately fell in a slight pendulum.  Second try, he negotiated the thin part to an awkward stance, high stepped, and gained a moderate dihedral to the finish.  Informed by Alex's ascent, I cruised the route.  How great to cruise 11a on gear.  The training must be working.