Idaho Alpine

First Trip to the Copper Area.

2011-12-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

We took a trip up to Bull Trout and skied the North side and the SE side. Pretty good coverage for the first week of December. The picture above shows Copper. The top is pretty bare, but I hear that the snow on the other side is pretty awesome! Hike up and over and get back to me!

We skinned up and over and decided to ski one of the North side shots since it was stable and the snow was quite a bit better.

It's a fun shot that puts you out on the other side, but it's a fairly easy traverse back around. The turns were the best that I've had all year!

The turns are there if you want them and it wouldn't be a wasted trip. Get up there and get after it!!!

2011 Adopt-a-Crag

2011-10-28T16:52:00.000-06:00

We helped to clean up the Black Cliffs this past weekend. We also helped to fix some erosion issues. There was a nice turn out. The Boise Climbers Alliance did a great some of organizing the event. I hope to get out this weekend and enjoy some of our work!

Burnt River

2011-10-10T19:47:00.000-06:00

As some recovery from my Borah trip, we hit up some sweet Oregon limestone. We made the approach to the French Gulch spire. We racked up a couple of pitches before the sun warmed up a couple of hornet's nests and they wouldn't leave us alone.

We didn't climb anything harder than 5.9. Which was perfectly fine with me! We retreated down to the car and had lunch. I admired some climbs across the river on the Timewave Wall which are currently not accessible due to the river being up. This is the highest I've seen the Burnt river in October. I also spotted an apple tree chocked full of apples! I noticed this before at some of the possible miner's homesites. By the time the river is down, the apples will probably have fallen.

After lunch, we climbed two more pitches on the French Gulch slab. It has three climbs (5.8+, 10-, 5.7) on it and it's very close to the parking area. The weather started to turn cool, so we packed it in. I was very happy to have to put on a long sleeve!

A lot of the climbs out here that were put up awhile ago have SMC hangers and extremely small chains to lower off of. Felco's Demise (5.8+) on the Slab is especially sketchy. The anchors are showing some rust. Every time I rap off of it, I think that I need to upgrade them to some new hangers and chains. Then, I forget and we come out again with nothing to upgrade with! With a drill, $50 in hangers and bolts I can upgrade the Slab and give the two right climbs their own anchors. Then there wouldn't be a goofy 15 foot traverse to Felco's anchor. Going a step more, a few pressure treated boards and some concrete stakes would make a couple of staging areas on the climbs up on the spire a lot nicer for the belayer. Maybe next time! I really like Burnt River and hope that others can come out to enjoy it, too. There is enough limestone to make it a true destination. It's an easy 2 hours from Boise and makes a great day trip. The best seasons are when it's too early for the snakes and ticks, and then when gets cold enough to keep the snakes and ticks at bay. It's not that bad!

Borah "Hidden Couloir"

2011-10-03T11:15:00.000-06:00

Bob Boyles told me about a possible line on Borah and since I knew the face was in great shape from just being up there, Bob Jahn and I made plans to climb it this last weekend. We ended up adjusting our date since the weather models were showing the possibility of some precip moving in on Saturday. We decided on Friday. We left Boise on Thursday and made it to Rock Creek before it was dark. We organized and packed. We did it in a day from Rock Creek back to Rock Creek so we were pretty light on gear. It would have been fun to camp up at the upper cirque and maybe even have had a porter to haul our stuff out while we climbed up and over. But... that's not my style. I hate camping. I don't mind a bivy (if forced, not planned). I like the modern ethos of "Light and Fast". I might not always get the "Fast", but I am usually pretty "Light"! If there's a possibility of doing something car to car, I will give it a go.

The notch to the upper cirque was snow-free and a lot more different from when we were last here. We tanked up on water at the outlet. That was the last water we would see until we drank out of the Solar Shower back at the van. The slog up the lower flank was slower than I thought. It was hard to pass the "Standard" route up and move on to something we couldn't see yet. But, just like Bob Boyles said, the route appeared from around a fold in the mountain. It was sheltered and started in ice. It would be ice from the bottom of the couloir to the top of the East Ridge.

We simul-climbed about two pitches to start. The angle started to kick back and then we pitched out about five more pitches. The ice is THICK in the coolie and only calved some plates in a few spots. Just as I was about to run out of rope, a pull-out to a ledge would appear and offer up a nice belay spot. It was a well designed route. If I believed in God, I would say he was an ice climber.

The climbing was solid. There were only a few spots where there were bulges of steeper ice, so hence the grading (at the time/conditions) of AI3-. I had looked at Bob's route photo and was concerned about a possible rock band that looked very steep that might be blocking the route. It ended up having a sliver of ice cut through and went beautifully.

After that, we were on the "Skyledge" that goes all the way to the main route. Cool. We passed up a final pitch and arched like a sickle to the East Ridge route. We stashed the rope and started climbing.

We had to rope up for the final couloir. It was a brutal pitch! Best one of the day, in my opinion! It was a runnel of super solid ice in a vertical fissure. It ended with a M3 move over a chockstone with a small nut 10 feet down for pro. I ran out of rope and brought Bob up. I stashed the rope and we climbed the last 100 feet right to the summit. I was very pleased that there were no people up there. We started down and almost made it to the treeline and the lights went out. We cut back to Rock Creek at the knob where the main trail cuts hard left. Since it was darker than a well-diggers ass, we used all the altimeter, map, compass and watch techniques not to end up going too far into the upper drainages that go into Rock Creek. We busted out almost right at the dam. We were back at the van drinking beer and shower water and eating chips with no salsa before Midnight. We took the Stanley loop back home and stopped at the Stanley Baking Co. and had breakfast. It was a great trip. Thank you to Mr. Boyles for the inspiration to get on something different!

Idaho and Nevada Classics are in the bag!

2011-07-28T21:24:00.000-06:00

I hesitate to mention anything. But anyway, I got the book "50 Classic Ski Descents of North America" from Matt Leidecker and wanted to ski all the ones in Idaho in a year. Then it just so happened that one in Nevada was only a day away. I skied Moran in WY the year before. Then I thought, "Man, this is fun! I should try to ski as many as possible!" I was thumbing through and noticed the prologue. It said that some people will use this book as a tick list. I thought that it was a cool concept.

50 Classic Ski Descents of North America from art burrows on Vimeo.

Next year will hopefully bring some in Washington, Colorado and Wyoming. Maybe Oregon. I missed the window on Hood this year. We'll see what the snowpack does. I really would like another year like this one! I really don't know where I'll be in a year, or two, or three. I just want to take it one ski line at a time!

Devil's Bedstead (East)

2011-06-19T20:46:00.000-06:00

Devil's Bedstead (11,865')

Bob had called on Thursday and wanted to do something on Friday. I told him that I had been planning on skiing the Devil's Bedstead. He said that that would work for something to do.

The drive was less eventful than I thought it would be. Trail Creek road is in excellent condition, as was Kane Creek road. We were able to make it in to the creek fords. We parked and started in shoes from here. By the way, on the map below, I call Kane Creek a river. It's not.

All the major creek crossings are bridged. The trail is very well maintained and we encountered no major deadfall.

Eventually you start up a steep treed ridge. There is a faint trail all the way to the DBE basin. We didn't hit snow that we could skin on until around 9,000'. After that, it was a very straightforward climb.

At the top, we transitioned, ate a PB&J sandwich and started down the face.

The top was breakable crust. Then for about 100 feet it was hardpack. After all that, it turned to glorious corn! In perfect conditions, this would by far be my favorite Idaho classic descent! The choice of lines is amazing. I stayed in the center until the lower rock bands and then traversed skier's right.

The trip out was difficult due to the bottomless slush lower down. Eventually we were back at the Suby and inching out Kane Creek road. To make it a perfect day, we stopped and had a burrito at KB's!

Bench to Fishhook Ski Traverse

2011-05-29T19:59:00.000-06:00

Mark, Jared, Chris and I started at the main trailhead at around 8 a.m. and took the Bench Lakes trail. We walked in ski boots for a mile or so. There is a lot of snow left up in the Sawtooths, but the trails are choked with debris in the lower elevations where there is no snow.

We skinned past the trail to the lower Bench lake and continued onward and upward. We then booted across the narrow ridge below the Thumb.

Almost to the Thumb!

The snow was very nice all the way to the lake. Excellent turns were enjoyed by all! At the lake we transitioned back to skins and started a traverse to meet up with the top of the Gun Barrel couloir.

Turns down from the Thumb

En route to the top of The Gun Barrel

In no time we were sitting at the top of The Gun Barrel eating lunch. We were all very surprised by the weather. There were clouds threatening us all day, but none ever encroached our blue sky. I was the lucky one to drop into the couloir first. The top third was glorious. The middle third was filled with chunder from the walls. The lower third was once again glorious.

The Gun Barrel

The fun was over and the work began. We skied as far as we could down the Fishhook. We were where the trail began when we transitioned to boots. The "trail" was about as easy to follow as ant tracks across the sidewalk. As three of us wandered into a swamp, Mark walked over to the trail. Once on the trail, we made really good time. We were back to the trailhead before 6 p.m. I hate to sound cliche', but it was truly another great day in the Alpine!

McGown N. Couloir (April 30th)

2011-05-29T18:15:00.000-06:00

Jared, Chris, Bob and I skied this beauty on McGown. Snow conditions on the way up were perfect. We were all dreaming of the turns on the way down. But alas, the sun touched our line and dashed the hope of excellent snow. No worries. It was still nice.

Since we had four people we ran a peloton up and it was nice to not get too worked booting up. It was good to save some energy for the skin out on the flat road back to the van.

The Sickle.

2011-04-25T20:24:00.000-06:00

Skied the Sickle Couloir off of the shoulder of Horstmann on Saturday. Great weather all day. It was a long slog due to the road still being buried. It was worth it.

It's a classic steep line that I am glad to have been able to do this year. Some friends slogged into it last week and nailed it and so I was lucky to have inside information that it was good to go! Thanks!

There's a few more classics on the list this year. As my friend Bob says, "It's better to be lucky than good!" I hope he's right!

Terminal Cancer Couloir

2011-03-30T11:22:00.000-06:00

After watching the weather for the last two weeks, I decided that yesterday would be the best opportunity to go down to the Ruby mountains and ski the TC couloir. I have never been in the Rubies. There seems to be a lot of motorized recreation. In fact, we were the only backcountry skiers NOT using a helicopter.

Here is the trailhead. There are so many coolies to explore here that if I lived here, my car would be here a lot!

The approach to this classic line is less than 15 minutes from the car. It's on the buttress to the lookers right.

The depth of the snow made for a brutal booter, but awesome descent.

The view from the road is deceptive. The line appears very steep, but is not more than 35 degrees and is very consistent. I was pleased. The other funny expectation I had was that it was going to end in a dramatic saddle, kinda like most Sawtooth coolies. You get to the top and there is another MUCH larger mountain RIGHT behind it.

Bob wanted me to take a picture of him crossing the creek. Most people don't want a camera around when crossing a water feature in ski boots. I obliged, but he never fell in as per our agreement.

We did it as a day-trip. It made for a long day, but I think it was worth it to ski the line in good condition. I highly recommend it. I will even go down there with you... if you drive.

More Bull Trout Point

2011-03-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

The conditions allowed us to ski some of the North side of Bull Trout on Saturday. Excellent snow.

Bull Trout Point

2011-02-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

Greg and I had planned on climbing an ice flow that I noticed was in 10 days ago. The only problem is that it was warm AND had rained since then. The icicle had fallen and the beautiful blue ice below was now foamy white. So much for ice climbing. Luckily, we were going to have to skin back into the ice, so we had all of our touring gear. We decided that since we were only 20 minutes from Copper that we may as well go skiing.

Once at the pull-out I told Greg that maybe instead of going to cliche' Copper, we should go to the Bull Trout Point ridge. He didn't take too much convincing!

The skin in is easy once past the thicker trees on the lower slope. The snow just got better and better the higher we got. We didn't go all the way to the true summit. We stopped at the first false summit and skied the face you can see from the road.

We skinned back up and skied the ridge to the bottom. The snow on the lower ridge turned to corn. It was almost a surprise to have such great snow conditions.

We cut through the trees and were on flat ground. Somebody had pulled a BIG sled down Bull Trout road with snowshoes. What a cool place to spend a few days in the winter. Lucky people.

Happy Birthday Greg! Hope you had a good one!

Ice.

2011-01-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

From yesterday. Splitter day. I love Idaho.

The Warrior's Way Falling Clinic

2011-01-23T23:42:00.000-07:00

Copper 1/2/11

2011-01-02T21:39:00.000-07:00

Another great day up on Copper. The snow up there has been great so far this season. I skied with Chris, John, John, and Dylan. Everyone had a great time. We were thinking about skiing the shoulder chute so we dropped a cornice into it using my cornice cutter tool with Chris giving me a belay. It was about a 500 pounder and the slope didn't move. The cornice broke up and ran down to the bottom.

We skied the face on the way back down to John and crew. Wind blown, ice and then some nice snow. The lower shoulder was very nice on the way out.

I would write more, but I am two glasses into a bottle of Sageland Cabernet Sauvignon and I just took a melatonin. I hope everyone got out and had a great weekend!

Xmas Eve Dawn Patrol

2010-12-24T13:06:00.000-07:00

Splattski and I have a tradition of skiing on Christmas Eve. We usually try to get out early and be back in town before the liquor store closes. I love to dawn patrol and be back before noon. Today we skied Freeman and had reasonably good snow conditions. Good enough to take two laps on the lower half!

The moon was out, but not enough to see without a headlamp. It was cold as we geared up to start skinning up.

After about 45 minutes the sun came up and revealed a wee bit of alpenglow. John is surveying the potential lines on the way down.

This picture could be from last year's Xmas Eve trip! I guess it IS better to be lucky than good!

Turns in the shade and trees were great. Boot-grabby zipper crust was present elsewhere. It's supposed to be warmer, so we'll see what happens to the conditions.

Here's to another great year! I hope the 1.3 people that read my ramblings have a great Christmas!

Cornice Cutter

2010-12-23T22:12:00.001-07:00

After my trip up to Copper on Tuesday and seeing the fledgling cornices hanging over my favorite lines, I remembered my old Rutschblock cord. I had made it out of 2mm cord and knotted very small nuts in the center. It was about 19 feet. Just long enough to cut a Rutschblock. G3 also makes the G3 Rutschblock Cord, which is a wire version. Neither are long enough to safely cut a cornice.

I had found a very cool product last year called the Backcountry Bomb. It's a device specifically made to cut cornices. I decided to make my own. Here's how:

First you will need to head down to Lowe's or Home Depot or similar. Pick up 41 feet of 1/16 uncoated wire, one bag of 1/16 swage/stopper fittings (there's X2 per bag), and two 1/2 X 1/2 PVC Tees.

Then gather the following complex tools; hammer, blunt chisel (or screwdriver you don't like), pliers, duct tape.

Feed the wire into the stopper and then put on the swage. Fit it so it makes it around the 1/2 pipe of the tee. Have about 1/4 inch of wire sticking out from the bottom of the swage.

Crimp it with the pliers to hold it in place while you get your swage tool. If you don't have a swage tool, a blunt chisel or old regular screwdriver will work.

Crimp the swage with the chisel or swage tool.

Butt the stopper up to the wire and flatten it with the hammer. The swage should have nice, neat indentations on both sides. Repeat with the other end of the wire.

Feed the loop up through the bottom of the Tee and out one side, then looped over the other. The stopper should catch the edge when pulled from the bottom. This helps give it more strength instead of just pulling on the loop. This is how the cutter will look when you actually use it. Grasp it like you are starting a lawnmower.

Now paint the handles a nice manly color so the cornice knows you mean business. Also it should be bright and not white since you may drop one in the snow. Duh! Push a loop through the side and poke it through the bottom and then into the other handle's bottom and out the side. Place the Tee's together and start winding the wire around as see below. DO NOT wind it like you used to wind extension cords when you were a kid and your Dad yelled at you. Instead, turn the Tee's (actually, now an H) end for end and feed the wire on. It will wind up and deploy a lot easier if you always do it that way.

It is about the size of a sandwich and weighs in at around 7 ounces. If I wasn't sure that I was going to encounter cornices, I would rather pack another turkey sandwich. If you are going to encounter cornices that you want to cut to test a slope you want to ski and you absolutely KNOW there's nobody below you, it's worth the weight.

The easiest way to use it is to probe the shit out of the top to make sure you aren't where it will fracture just by standing around.

Then use a keychain carabiner to clip a loop (minus the handle) to your probe's top loop and sling it around the cornice from a distance. It's probably not a bad idea to rope up, either. Once around the cornice, start sawing. Two people works well, but one is fine and the other person can manage the belay (if used). Drop the cornice and observe what the slope does. If you drop a 900 pound cornice down a chute and nothing happens, it's pretty safe to say that you can ski it! Just don't get cut-happy and scour chutes of their snowpack before they can stabilize.

I'm coming for you buddy!

Copper

2010-12-21T20:48:00.000-07:00

Today was my first time on Copper for this year. What a day to do it! Excellent snow was down on the lower flanks. Bob and I skinned to the summit and skied down the face, but the snow was less that great. Still great, just slightly less great than the lower flanks.

The cornices are big, but not as big as I've seen them. It still seems to unstable to hit any of the shots off the back.

After we got down off the summit, we met up with Joel and Charlie and made a couple laps on the lower flanks.

I didn't take many pictures. I was too excited by the great snow!

Dynafit mount and test run.

2010-12-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

Skiing is up at Sunset. Great snow this weekend up there. It was the place to be and we met quite a few people up there. Plenty of pow for all!

New Book...

2010-12-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

I love to read! Tim Ferriss had written a book called "The Four-Hour Workweek" and I liked it a lot. I was not surprised he followed it up with another book about a nonconventional approach to a conventional method. He is a fitness freak and basically made himself a guinea pig for some wild experiments! Here is his new book:

People may scoff and he has his critics, but a lot of what he has done in the realm of "body hacking" is backed by proof. I don't mind working hard, but I don't like wasting my time! Check the book out. You won't be disappointed!

Sorry to throw a promotional up on here, but I am stoked about this book! I promise I will be skiing the backcountry this weekend and not reading!

Sunset Peak

2010-12-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

Toured up to the lookout at Sunset. It's great snow up there. Almost worth the long skin up there. Might not be there tomorrow with the rain that's supposed to be coming. Damn!

Freeman Peak looking pretty bare!

Pilot's looking pretty bare, too!

Totally cool Ore Smasher!

John is standing on the dam that powered the Ore Smasher. He's taking a picture of me taking a picture of him taking a picture of me.

Terrain selection is great up at Sunset.

Very good tour!

Butterfield/9701

2010-12-05T09:43:00.001-07:00

I have been wanting to explore some more of Idaho's lesser skied Backcountry. I use older guidebooks since it seems that people in the past were a little more into exploring and did some really cool traverses in the 70's that I love to read about.

I decided to head over to the Smoky Mountains north of SV. I picked up Chris very late after I forgot to set my alarm. We started about an hour and a half later than I wanted. It worked out pretty well and we got to the pull-out north of Baker Creek road at around 9 a.m. As we were getting our skis out, Chris Lundy and Simon Trautman pulled up behind us. We were going to have fun and they were going to go work.

We set out first and broke trail up to the bottom of the ridge and then Chris and Simon took over. We enjoyed our government sponsored skin track up to about 8200'. The Avy forecasters stopped to dig a pit and we continued on up to Elk Flats (8632). We continued to skin up the NE ridge. Chris and Simon caught up with us and broke the rest of the way to the summit. Chris R. started not feeling very well and waited below in a safe spot while I continued on to the summit. They skied down to the SE and I skied back down the east ridge to the nice open shots above Elk Flats. Turns from the top were NICE! Very deep for the time of the year. I wasn't expecting such great snow.

The open slopes above Elk Flats are only about 300'-400' of descent. But they are sweet. In the video below, I am the small speck enjoying December 4th knee deep powder!

Chris wasn't feeling well at all so we made one run and skied back out. I misjudged our traverse trajectory because of an awesome face that needed to be skied. Unfortunately, this put us at the top of the old clear cut. It was an awesome run of Class V survival skiing!

We got back and jumped in the Subaru, cranked the heater, and made our way back to town. We stopped at KB's and I devoured a regular sized burrito in about 10 minutes. I love that place! We are having a great start to this year!

Freeman (11/25/10)

2010-11-26T09:02:00.001-07:00

I wanted to get in some birthday turns and I HAD to be home by 2. Freeman would have to do. Even with the combat skinning up to about 6500', it was still great to get out.

There is about 105cm of snow at around 7500'. It was surprisingly heavy. I figured with the cold temps it would have been lighter. We didn't have time to skin up to the "lunch rock", so we skied down from the point above where we made the igloo last year. We made a one-run-wonder-run and went through the street fight simulator on the way out.

The other cool thing worth mentioning is that Mr. Plow has hooked us up so far. In past years it seems like we get a couple car spots at the Freeman pull-out and the snowmo-derps get a Wal-Mart sized lot at Mores Summit.

Hopefully, we will have more snow in the near future and our close to home playground will be Merry for Christmas Eve turns!

Dark Side & Skateboard Ramps

2010-11-07T08:15:00.004-07:00

Our work schedules have been very demanding and it's put a cramp in being outdoors. I really wanted to just BE outside. We had some time on Saturday and I wanted to head towards SV and go up towards Silver Lake. I also wanted to sleep. Sleep won out.

I decided to go to the new Oregon Trail Interpretive center across from Lake Forrest drive and hike the Dark Side loop. Starting from the Center parking lot and hiking towards the Dark Side of the Black Cliffs, we skirted along the cliff bottom and linked back up with the upper road. We turned around and followed the upper road back. About 3 miles total.

I also haven't climbed out at the Dark Side for a LONG time. So it was nice to check it out. I think that there is the potential for some moderate routes to go in there. Sandy and the guys did a great job with the clean up during the Adopt-A-Crag. I missed this years event. I'll have to earn some Karma points elsewhere.

I like the Dark Side because it lures you in with a nice doable crack and then smacks you with the feeling of being slightly overhung. Because you are! Sweet cracks and overhung gorilla hauls are sweet out here. The sun doesn't hit the Dark Side, ever. But the wind seems to not affect this aspect as bad. Combine all that with no people, a two mile total walk to the crags, no top ropes (sorry REI bunnies), and nothing less that 5.9, you've got good times!

Since I have been confined to the home. I built a ramp for the Little Man to practice dropping in on. The picture above is without the final masonite sheet, but you get the idea. He likes it and has been making me wish I was able to bounce off the concrete. I'll stick to my longboard.

Black Cliffs

2010-09-06T21:53:00.005-06:00

"Number Nine" at the Mids

We decided to try to get a couple pitches in at the Cliffs since the weather cooled off. We were wanting an early start, but there was shoe shopping to do. So we got up there about 1:30 and it was pretty warm. There were four others climbing on the Short Cliffs so we went to the Mid Cliffs. Last year, I started to try to climb the "obscure" routes out there. We climbed some cool routes, we climbed some routes that might not have been the right grade, we climbed routes with "good pro" and generally had fun! The Project Obscurity routes are mostly gear routes and sub 5.11 so they rarely get done these days.

"Prominent Crack" with bush

Today's selections were "Number Nine" (5.8) and Prominent Crack (5.9). Due to the heat and the poison ivy-like bush, we didn't attempt Prominent Crack. We almost didn't start up "Number Nine" because the rock is black and south facing. But I geared up and started up.

The route starts out easy on in-cut edges and flakes. The seam in the dihedral is micro small so there is no real opportunity for pro and I didn't want to place anything behind a flake. You could probably get a couple micro-nuts in the seam, but the climbing isn't too hard down low. I placed a cam horizontal in a flake that was wedged in the dihedral. After the edges and flakes, the pro is great! Plenty of constrictions in the crack for perfect nut placements. This is good because the climbing gets into the meat of the 5.8 about then. It's a really fun route because you do everything on it. Starting with easy, positive edges into a stance to place gear. Then a face section that takes some balance to another nice stance to put in another piece. A short finger/hand crack to a fist crack to Fixe anchors. Nice. I did have to do some gardening on the upper crack to get a cam in, but I won't complain!

Bonnie at the finger/hand crack

We climbed it three times. Highly recommended. As I've said before, if you climb gear routes at the Black Cliffs, you will rarely be around other climbers. And who cares if you are! We are all just there to have fun! Like the Bible says, "Love thy Neighbor as you love yourself". I personally like Anton LeVay's, "Do unto others, as they do unto you."

The first ascent of "Number Nine" was in 1973 by Charlie Crist and Barry Dewane. "Prominent Crack" was first climbed around 1975 by my friend Bob Jahn. The norms that were broken in the past should serve as a guiding light to us now. When I climb a route that is now obscure (not covered in chalk or bolts), I think about the mental fortitude these guys had to push harder. I try to push, but it is over known ground. Not nearly the same ground those before me covered. They serve as an inspiration to me. Thanks for shining the light...

Outdoor Climbing Gym

2010-09-05T14:50:00.003-06:00

Everyone that lives in Boise knows where Table Rock is. Everyone that climbs here knows that there is some excellent bouldering and top-roping up there also. But, there is a side of Table Rock that is not as classic as the South side. It's called the Traverse Wall in Sandy's guidebook. Drive up past the gate and park at the first spot on your left after you level off. Don't park in front of the quarry gate or you can be Federally executed since they are protecting History and nature by blasting the shit out of it.

Walk around or climb down to the bottom of the cliff and there will be a nice shady wall that runs for a hundred or so feet. Start anywhere and traverse on jugs and pockets until your forearms quit. You don't really need climbing shoes since you are going for the forearm pump and there's not much finesse in footwork on this wall. Some footholds have been epoxied to prevent further erosion.

I like it because it's cool in the summer, the kids are safe, there's no techno music blaring, nobody is shouting beta, but best of all... it's outside!

Snow Pickets

2010-09-03T19:28:00.005-06:00

Since it snowed a little while ago, it made me think that it's not that far around the corner until ski season and it made me excited! Also since I didn't do anything this week worth writing about, I thought I would blog about... Snow Pickets!

Namely, how to make them. I make a lot of stuff like sleeping quilts, packs, tarps, and clothes for the Alpine for myself. But, the only piece of climbing gear that my gremlin fingers will make (and I trust) is a snow picket.

If you want to read an EXCELLENT article by Don Bogie that explains pretty much everything about pickets and their placement (and their failures). Click here. It's PDF and 20 pages long.

DIY Picket

Now, on to the DIY picket. First you have to understand that you can have access to the same aircraft grade aluminum that commercial picket makers have. It's the same with fabrics for clothes, shelters, and sleeping bags. You CAN find the source! My source for metal/aluminum is here in Boise. Actually it's Garden City, but we'll let that slide. The owner supplies material for a lot of weird things. Here's the place:

Gem State Metals, LLC

5220 N. Sawyer Ave., Unit H.

Garden City, ID 83714

When you get there, you want to have them get you the 2"x2" angle 6061-T6. Figure how many pickets you want, and multiply 2 feet (optimal picket length) by that number. To make it easy on yourself, you can have them cut 2 foot sections at a time. It's free.

When you get your 2 foot sections home, break out the drill with a 1/2" bit and tape measure. The first holes will be centered on the 2" sides and in the center of the length (at 12" from either end). The next holes are 3" down from the ends and centered. The next holes are again centered on the 2" sides and are 7.5" from each end. This makes the holes symmetrical from the center hole.

You will want to use a round file to smooth out the holes. After all the holes are smooth enough to run a finger through with zero burrs, pick a side and thread a 12" long piece of 5/8" webbing through both of the top holes. Tie a water knot. Tighten the knot every time you rack your pickets.

DIY Picket and pack on Rainier

I use a lightweight wiregate 'biner to attach it to my pack. It's secure in a way that is easy to get out in the event of a crevasse rescue. If I am snow climbing and need to rack it, I slide it between my back and pack, then clip it on a shoulder strap. I usually have another picket in or on my pack for setting up a belay. I also take a large locker and 48" sling to T-slot the picket (read the above mentioned article if unsure). You can girth hitch the sling through the center hole.

Now the bottom line. How much do you save making your own? A commercial picket will be around $18-$20 + shipping. DIYs will be about $7 a picket. Is it worth it? Only you can decide. I like making shit, so for me it is. Plus, if you are outfitting a group to go up Rainier and need 5 or more, you can really save some money!

One last thing... If you decide to make pickets, your life is in your selection of materials and craftsmanship. Remember that the 6th Satanic Sin is "Lack of Perspective". Your choices are yours alone. Become educated, own your decisions. AMFYOYO

Beaverdam Peak

2010-08-23T19:21:00.005-06:00

I was looking for a close trip to a peak with some Alpine rock options. I started looking in the Lick Creek range in Lopez' book and started noting that there are A LOT of untested N. faces of mountains. They may have been tested, but there is nothing written about it. Either way, I just like aesthetic looking peaks and lines. I consulted my friend splattski about some slabs he saw when he was descending Beaverdam. It sounded like a perfect peak for what I wanted. We took the kids to my parent's for the night so we could get an early start. We made the drive in good time and were soon at Summit Lake and going cross country through some very neat terrain.

Once we made it through the old burn area, we started up the boulder field towards the looker's left of the peak. The bush was thick, and I really don't like thick bush (giggity). To avoid the huckleberry bushes we opted for the boulders.

The boulders were fun for about 15 minutes. We then moved over left of the field and mixed bush with boulders. We made it to the gully and had some water. We were running low on time (we had to pick up the kids). So Bonnie waited under an overhang.

I third classed up a large fracture in the slab. I popped out into blocks and small trees a hundred or so feet below the summit. I ran up and signed the register. I then used the same gully John and Art had used to descend.

If the slab went all the way from the base to the summit it would be awesome! If you want to take someone on an easy Alpine rock route with a summit, Beaverdam is it! From the base to the blocky section there is probably about 3 to 4 pitches of slab climbing. I didn't start at the base, but instead traversed from the gully across the face. The granite is white and solid. I will be back. This area is bitchin'!

The only problem with the area is driving the highway to McCall. You could be driving 470.44 mph and in no time there will be some asshole in a big truck with a trailer riding your tail. Oh well.

Thanks again to splattski for the pictures to get the inspiration to go up there. Much better than the Moob picture from El Cap...

Long time... No Post...

2010-08-19T21:13:00.006-06:00

I haven't been writing as much. Just lazy. My schwankle has stopped me from doing a lot of what I have been wanting to do. I went to the doctor and am on the road to recovery. My injury screwed splattski and me out of Merritt. I owe him next June...

We have been taking some short trips with the family. We hiked up Blackman Peak. I think that this is a perfect peak for younger ones! What a blast! Other than the parking lot at the 4th of July trailhead, it was a perfect day.

We also made a trip over to Castle Rocks SP to climb. We stayed at the RV campground. What luxury! Showers, electricity, water right next to you! It was great to stay there in the Westy. We didn't even climb in the City. Castle Rocks is not crowded and there is a lot to do in one spot so you don't have to hike around too much. We climbed some obscure stuff on Fenceline rock. We climbed one route that had 6 bolts in 100 feet! It was only 5.8, but it makes you think for a minute!

I ran into Brad Shilling (the climbing Ranger) and got to talk to him about the bullshit BLM closures in parts of Castle. After that we climbed a bit, hiked a bit, hit the hot springs, ate, read, and generally just enjoyed life!

Now I am going to focus on getting ready for the ski season. I can't wait! There is still climbing to be done. Alpine goals to attempt. Hell's Canyon will be cooling off, then it's game on Limestone!

Parks Peak

2010-05-23T15:24:00.005-06:00

Chris, John, Tom, Bob and myself travelled to Yellow Belly lake to start our 2 mile booter. Actually we used lighter shoes and boots and carried our skis and boots. It was hard to predict what the N. coolie would look like and Marc had told me there was an ice bulge when Chris L. and him skied it a couple of years ago in a good snow year in March. I brought a ski rope, 2 ice screws and harness. It ended up being worthless weight. None was used since the cooler had puked and spewed avy debris. We skied the NW apron down to the lake after a tough traverse from the West. The lake wasn't frozen well enough to cross, so we had to cross the creek.

John and Tom finally found a snow bridge and we crossed, then split up. Chris and I headed for the apron on Parks and John, Tom, and Bob toured further into the valley west of Parks. They were rewarded with the sighting of a wolverine. Actually, John was the only one to see it. He attempted to call it closer with a high pitched squeal, but the pitch must have been wrong and it darted. Chris and I were rewarded with 2" of heavy snow over a solid base. Good turns all the way to the lake.

I had ski crampons and was able to make it further up before I switched to boot crampons. Chris tucked in behind a rock halfway up to wait for me. I had a strange revelation when I was up in the cliff-band. I love being in the mountains, but this feeling was different. I can't explain it very well, but it felt like I was supposed to be there. Even with my meager skiing and climbing ability, I will strive to have this feeling of connection more. It was a good feeling.

Also, it is always great to enjoy a trip with a fit and skilled group of guys. It's strange to have 5 individuals and no "weak link" (unless I'm the weak link and don't know it). It seems like there is always a turd in the punch bowl, but there is no turd in that mix! Last, but not least, Happy Birthday Tom!

Busy.

2010-05-16T21:47:00.004-06:00

I've been busy the last couple of weeks and haven't posted anything. Not that anyone cares...

I did some ski mountaineering in the Sawtooths with SMG. Stayed in a yurt and ate great food.

Then I took a week off to allow my Shwankle to get better. But it didn't, so we went climbing in Hell's Canyon anyways.

I'm going to try to make it to the doctor this week, and then probably on to the City if the little lady has the time off.

Swan Falls Float

2010-04-25T09:06:00.003-06:00

We floated the Swan Falls to Walter's Ferry section of the Snake River yesterday. It was a great trip. The river is lower than the recommended level. It is best at 10K-17K cfs and it was at 7700 cfs yesterday. Some big rocks were showing and the rapids were more rapid.

Once the wind picked up, it became an endurance fest. The best thing to do is to float from Swan to Celebration park. The stretch between Celebration and Walter's Ferry is hard to do with a headwind.

East Dickey Chute

2010-03-25T20:58:00.005-06:00

John and I skied an excellent gully off of the east ridge of Dickey in the Lost River Range on Wednesday. We got an early start from Boise and were originally going to attempt McCaleb but there were drifts in the road and we were faced with a pretty long walk just to get on snow. Then we thought about the Super Gully but we would have been a little late in getting up the gully and we had noticed a slide path lower in the gully. After getting back to town, there was a trip report from Dean Lords that had them in the Super Gully that day! We had already decided that we should go do something that had us making turns ASAP so we went north to Dickey. We opted to look for something different and took the road to Doublespring pass and walked in on supportive crust. We found what appeared to be an excellent chute. After following cow trails we stumbled onto a beautiful gully that streamed from the sub-peak. We skinned up until John had some icing problems on his skins. We stopped at an old snag and busted out a skin wax kit. John was an animal skinning with chunks that probably weighed as much as his skis! Problem solved (for the time being) we continued up. Straight up. We couldn't cut switches in to lessen the angle because the chute was too narrow. There was a thin skiff of wind deposited snow on crust and anything less that full skin on the surface and you were sliding.

Booting was out of the question. We wanted to go from the very top, but I was sinking in way too far to be worth it and our turn-back time was approaching.

We started down and encountered soft wind deposit, dust on crust, corn, trap crust, and finally slush over rock (ouch!). Something for everyone. The turns were fantastic once we dialed in what aspect of the chute had the corn.

We made it down a lot further than I expected. From the end of the slide path we got right to work doing the Mahogany Limbo. Once we were on the road it was smooth gliding almost back to the Suby. Beer and socks changed, happiness. It was a great day. Once again, I am very happy to be able to have solid partners. And if you are asked to play hooky to go to the mountains your answer should always be, "Does the Pope shit in the woods"? The only downer of the day is that John's homemade grouse jerky wasn't done in time to enjoy.

Fried on the Skillet.

2010-03-18T17:25:00.009-06:00

Bob and I got the opportunity to ski a classic line in the Tetons on Mt. Moran. The weather was perfect, but the snow could have been a little better. I was invited by splattski , but he was unable to come. Since we didn't go to the summit (we were skiing, not climbing!), I'm sure that we will be back. My other friend Chris was going to go, but work wouldn't let him go. So Bob and I left on Sunday in the nicest Sportsmobile 4x4 conversion I've seen. I have a VW Westy and I may have to upgrade. We made good time and were loading up on bagels shortly after noon. Bob is very knowledgeable about the best spots around JH. Bob is also a very good climber and is mentioned in Stone Crusade, guidebooks and magazines. He was prolific in the Shawangunks and has put up a route that Henry Barber had to rest for 20 minutes on before sending it! Now Bob pushes the envelope with snowboard mountaineering.

There is a long slog across the frozen lake. After the end of the flat travel, we both had blisters. We are used to going up, not flat! It took 3.5 hours to go from Colter Bay to Bearpaw Bay. Partially due to a mistake in setting the azimuth on my compass and that we woke to a total white out.

We pulled the sleds as far as we could. Which was too far. We packed another 500 or so vertical feet and set up camp on the glacial moraine. We melted a gallon or so of water and I made Pad Thai noodles and had some tea. Heaven.

Four o'clock came and we started up. There were headlamps behind us. We had problems skinning on the bulletproof snow. We should have brought ski crampons. I have a list of things I would do differently. We had to start booting and the four guys caught us and passed. We stopped at the bottom of the glacier and fueled up. Then we started skinning again to the 'schrund. The bergschrund was barely open and we were able to go between the cliffs and the 'schrund instead of swinging way left.

We started booting again at the 'schrund and made our way around the corner and into the couloir. The angle is not nearly as steep as it looks from across the lake! It's still 40+ degrees and the snow was NOT softening up. Which brings me to my next item on the list of things to do differently. If the snow is hard at the 'schrund, put your crampons on then. You will not be able to until WAY up on the couloir. Probably make sure you can get to your axe, or bring Whippets. I'm glad I brought two tools...wink, wink, nudge, nudge (inside joke alert)!

We were stuck in boots on hard snow. It wasn't too bad until the sun hit the right wall. Then the icefall came. First a baseball sized chunk hit my kneecap. Bitch. Then at around 11,000 I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach. We pushed on and it got better. I have never had a problem with altitude, but then again, the highest I have been to is 14K+ so who knows. We pushed on and the Bozeman 4 made their way onto the summit ridge. The icefall continued to get worse and bigger. I heard a crack and thud. Then THUD, THUD, THUD. The thuds were getting further apart. I strained to see what was coming and saw a chunk of ice the size of a couch cushion coming right at us. Bob was about 20 meters below me and I yelled, "ICE"! He ducked into the slope and I tried to fit up into my helmet. It whizzed over me and landed about 5 feet in front of Bob and bounced over and on down. For the first time in awhile, I thought about mortality. I decided that I came to ski the handle and not worry about the summit. Bob continued up another 200 feet and found no soft snow. Bulletproof hardpack. The Bozeman guys continued up to the summit and I transitioned to skis. I told Bob that I would wait for him at the bottom of the glacier. He was going to wait for it to soften more. I really wanted to ski from the summit, but it wasn't there for us. I think we are both happy to just get to ski the Skillet. My first turns were nerve wracking. I skittered down 10 feet after each pedal hop. I thought about stopping and waiting for it to soften, but the shade of the chute was starting to come across and the East Horn was casting a huge shadow below. I pressed on and found great snow 1000 vertical feet below. Now it was fun! The whole chute from the notch to the cliff is pretty much the same angle. It is sublime! I couldn't recommend it more. I know I'll be back to finnish the job!

I stopped at the glacier and set up a chair with my sit pad and skis and waited. I fell asleep and woke up to see the Bozeman guys skiing by in the distance. No Bob! I was worried since there were more and more sluffs coming down the couloir. Finally Bob came out of the chute and down by the cliffs.

We skied the final chutes down to camp and packed up. We were going to stay another night to rest, but we decided to take one good kick in the nuts instead of two small ones. Good choice. We wandered around blistered and exhausted in the dark until finding the van. Soup, water, sleep... heaven. Bob has an uncanny ability to wake up at exactly 5 minutes to 5 a.m. I don't know how he adjusted for Daylight Savings, but he did. We stuffed and stashed, hoisted the main sail and were on our way for the breakfast special at Bubba's. I am very grateful to be able to go on such a great trip. Thank you Bob and thank you John. I am lucky to be surrounded by great partners (Chris is alway ready to go on one of my trips that my mind wrote a check for and our ass can't cash). I have yet to regret going with anyone. Now, I am off to lick my wounds and get ready for the Sawtooths in April.

Going somewhere?

2010-03-13T20:23:00.002-07:00

I haven't packed this much stuff since Rainier! I'm really hoping that the weather window will open and stay open for a couple of days. Back on Wednesday!

Burnt River

2010-03-07T20:37:00.006-07:00

It doesn't get much better than backcountry skiing on Saturday and then climbing limestone on Sunday! I had been promising my wife that I would take her to Burnt River and show her the limestone stash. So today we drove the two hours over there. It's more than worth it!

She stepped up to the plate and got the seasons first lead! She cruised up a 5.8. I guess the climbing gym membership IS useful after all! We ran laps on the 5.8 and a 5.10 that was near. I love limestone!

The Little Man even got in some limestone action. We climb on Basalt, Granite, Smith Rock Tuff, and Limestone. We need to get to Moab to round out our experience. My personal favorite is limestone, but the City and it's granite calls to us a few times a month in the summer!

We went back to the truck and had lunch in the peaceful canyon. It was a very nice day. I need to figure out how to work two days and have five off! On the drive out we saw some sheep. They were close to the road and weren't too shy.

The Bighorn sheep was reintroduced in the late 80's to the canyon and they seem to be doing well.

Spring Skiing

2010-03-06T21:19:00.002-07:00

We skied Freeman today and had our first dose of corn! It's sad to see winter go, but there is still plenty of skiing left! We skied some south facing chutes from the main ridge, but first we skinned to the top to check the snow. It wasn't good enough to stay up there so we came back down to ski the softer snow.

The skin up in the early morning was exciting. Ski crampons would've been nice!

Quick Hit

2010-02-28T16:13:00.005-07:00

Exit chute

Chris, Wes and I went up to Freeman on Saturday to get some vert in before noon. I really like getting in some vert and turns and still having a day left! At the parking lot we met Jared and his dog. We hiked up the road and started to skin up the ridge. Some most excellent person has reset the skin track to follow the ridge up. This is my preferred route up and the person that set this track did very well!

There was a post on Idahosummits.com about instabilities in the Mores Summit area, but we found very stable slopes. Warmer temps today (Sunday) may change all that. We made three laps and the temps started to rise so we called it a day at around noon. I wanted to check out the exit chute off of the skin track that leads almost right down to the parking area. Wes and I skied down the ridge and dropped in. Conditions were most excellent and we didn't have to walk down the road to the truck!

We went into Idaho City and ate cheeseburgers and drank a pitcher of PBR. Wes bought lunch and the pitcher. Thanks Wes! I feel much better this weekend. Hopefully I can get something bigger planned for the upcoming weeks.

Skiing the New Rig

2010-02-26T10:37:00.004-07:00

Chris and I went out to Freeman and skied some laps on the N. ridge. The steeper faces were stable and the chutes at the bottom were "dust on crust". Enjoyable. We went up early since we both had things to do later. We were able to get 3000' in before noon and went home.

I just mounted up a pair of Dynafit Seven Summits with Dynafit STs. I skied them with Dyanfit Zzerro 3s. In case you didn't know, the Eco-Lounge in Meridian is a Dynafit dealer and can get anything you need in no time.

I haven't skied the Seven Summits enough to give an honest opinion. These things are light! I think a trip to Copper will suss out the rig nicely. Now if I only felt better. Damn illness...

Skin Waxing Kit

2010-02-11T19:20:00.005-07:00

This past trip up Copper made me think about about how going from sunny snow to shaded snow can really ice up your skins. It's not even like the springtime mush that clings to them, this is full-on ice frozen to skin material. But it's easy to remedy if you are carrying a simple, and I mean simple kit.

It's nothing more than a gift card and a broken off chunk of skin wax. My favorite is Black Diamond Glop Stopper Wax. There are other products to help treat your skins, but they are less portable.

When you get your chunk of Glop Stopper, put it over a sharp edge and break off about a 1" section. There is no need to carry the full bar and grams accumulate! The next component of the kit is a gift card or expired credit card. You could carry an actual wax scraper, but it would be heavier.

When you start to feel resistance, STOP! You might be able to kick off some of the ice as you skin, but it's a losing battle unless you stop and wax. Take off one ski, and scrape the total length of skin with the gift card. You're going for a "squeegee" effect. Once you are satisfied, take your glove off and rub the skin wax the length of the skin. I usually give the portion underfoot a good back and forth rub. Click back in and repeat for the other ski.

Stopping and waxing is a pain, but it's like the deal with the guy cutting a tree down with a dull axe. He doesn't want to take time to fix the problem, so the work is even harder and even more time is spent.

Copper Traverse Trip Report

2010-02-09T22:21:00.006-07:00

John and Bob have done this traverse before and I was very grateful to have the opportunity to follow them. Chris and I left town at around 6 a.m. on Sunday in his Trooper and decided that we would take the way through Horseshoe Bend. His wife had gotten hit a few weeks earlier so the rig has some body damage. As we drove down Eagle Road we passed a cop and since we had only one headlight (with a marker light on the side that's out) he whipped around and pulled us over. We were glad that he let us go, I theorized that you could probably get a ticket in Eagle for driving an undetailed vehicle, and without shiny wheels we would have really been in trouble! We were also thinking that we should have said that the vehicle was fine when we were leaving the bar. Which would have been appropriate, since the cop asked if we were aware of the body damage. "Well no officer, we were unaware that the fender fell off. I guess we should go look for it." Finally we were in the woods! We were rewarded with a sighting of a mountain lion in the road. We stopped and watched her meander down the hillside. We arrived at the parking lot right at 8:30 a.m. I amused myself by throwing snowballs at the restroom while John was in there and then gear was donned and dumped and transferred to the shuttle vehicle. Bob and I took off, with Bob breaking trail. A short while latter, John and Chris caught up.

We made it onto the ridge of the first peak and started up. The conditions were very good for skinning. It was nice and cold and the snow was not too deep.

After about two and a half hours we were on the summit and eyeballing the terrain. Oh! The terrain! Don't even ask me where some of this stuff is. Well, you can, but I'll lie! We ate lunch. I had my usual; whatever anyone didn't want. Which was a score since it was one of Chris' most excellent turkey wraps. First rule of Mooch Club: Don't feel guilty about taking what's offered. After lunch we skied some most excellent terrain!

After gaining the saddle again we continued up to another peak and skied off the ridge and onto a flat traverse that gained another saddle. We skirted around a peak and onto Copper's face and up to the summit.

Once on top, with light fading and energy running low we were moving with purpose. Bob and I were going to ski from the summit since there is a glitch in our brains that makes us crave directisimo. John says it's lack of intelligence, but I think it's really just a mild case of blissful ignorance.

I transitioned from skinning to skiing and stomped a gap in the summit cornice to access the chute. Chris and John skied down onto the shoulder and took a sweet looking line down. I slowly slipped down through the gap and cut a small windslab loose. After that is was one turn to the right, then another to the left and so on. Bob boarded through the gap and was next to me in no time. We then survival skied out to the shuttle vehicle and ended a most excellent day!

Copper Traverse Video

2010-02-08T23:10:00.003-07:00

Yay! YouTube is up and running. I posted a video from this Sundays traverse of the Copper ridge. It was great to go with John and Bob. They knew right where the best stash was. I am still in awe that the stability was what it was in February! I will post a trip report as soon as I can. Platt has his trip report up on his website.

Here is a link to the Copper Traverse video. Sorry for the poor quality of Bob's run. I had zoomed the camera in thinking it would be better, it wasn't.

Soldier Mountain Backcountry

2010-02-04T08:12:00.003-07:00

Just a quick post to drop the link for the video from Saturday. I'll post more about the conditions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDMnovLQWSY

This site does not support embedded trip maps. View the trip here instead.

Christmas Eve Dawn Patrol

2009-12-26T16:07:00.002-07:00

We have skied Freeman a couple of times and other than the brushy skin track down low, the upper section is great. There is some instability on the steeper angles, but we have had no problems on the ridge or lower angle glades.

We have also constructed an igloo to serve as a warming hut for all that tour up there. It is located on the main ridge at about 7200'. The entrance is on the North side and in line with a dead tree, in case it is snowed over. The first video is the construction of the igloo and the second is Christmas Eve's dawn patrol. Click on the video twice to open it up in YouTube.

Hell's Canyon

2009-11-11T08:20:00.005-07:00

I wanted to get out and do some climbing this last week and wanted to get out of town. So we went to Hell's Canyon to the limestone and solitude.

There are so many routes here on the beautiful limestone. You can show up with about 20 draws and a 60m rope, everything is bolted. We set up camp with a great view of the river and the limestone.

We went up and climbed on Glass Wall. It's a great place to start since it's close to camp. The weather was nice, but cold. If the weather would've been about 15 degrees warmer, we would have gotten in more climbing.

Glass Wall

Glass Wall has about 8 routes on it. They start at 5.9 and go to 10c. The arete on the right is a classic 10b, which we didn't get to do. The climbs are about 60 feet and are bolted and have great anchors.

On Sunday, we climbed on Big Bar Buttress. It was very cold and I knew we wouldn't be there long.

Big Bar Buttress

Climbing on Big Bar

Chillin' (literally!) while I set up the anchor

Alex Lowe Duathlon

2009-10-13T22:21:00.005-06:00

Steve House said that in remembrance of the passing of Alex Lowe on Oct 5th ten years ago, that we should do something difficult. So I planned a "duathlon" on Sunday. Then I recruited another glutton for suffering, Chris. I wanted to do Heinen and Kepros in the same day. Heinen is a 10 mile hike/run with 3,000' of gain and Kepros is almost 10 miles with a lot less gain. The plan was to hike/run Heinen and mountain bike Kepros. Everything went according to plan, since we had figured that we would have to "hike-a-bike" on Kepros.

Heinen has many false summits and a large headwall to start. Once you make it onto the ridge, the going is very pleasant.

We made it truck to truck in 5 hrs 15 min. Not a great time, but we knew that we would only be half done so we tried to pace ourselves. The downhill didn't do my knee any good, either. We fueled up on Chris' legendary turkey-tortilla wraps. Then we drove to Blacks Creek summit to start the biking leg.

Kepros in the distance

The start of Kepros was as expected with us taking the bikes for a hike. On the top of the ridge where it splits to Three Point, it became rideable. Well, somewhat rideable for me. Chris is really good on the bike and teaches me a lot. He was able to ride down some of the stuff I had to walk. He was giving me a good lesson and by the mid-point of the ride, I was doing a lot better on the downs.

Terrific single track!

The ridge turns into a road in a mile and a half. We met a jeep scouting for deer. The jeep drove all the way to the summit.

Trail meets road (me pointing back to start)

Looking at Heinen from Kepros

The ride back went even better because we found a trail that went around the ridges we had ridden over. We made it back to the truck in 3 hours 30 min. So the total time for our homemade duathlon was 8 hours, 45 min. The real purpose was to feel a little enlightenment through exertion...

Swan Falls Bouldering

2009-10-10T23:07:00.003-06:00

Swan Falls has more bouldering than you could imagine! Even with the cold today, we went down in the canyon for some bouldering. The rock is bulletproof basalt and there is plenty of steep and overhung stuff. I stayed more on the vertical side due to my non-bouldering weakness!

There is even an abundance of cracks to boulder on. There was a boulder with a 20 foot tall splitter hand crack.

Too bad it is mostly a slab! If it were vertical, it would be a blast. It was still fun and the arete to the left was cool. Grab your shoes and head on down!

Bouldering Gym...

2009-09-24T22:33:00.004-06:00

There is a new bouldering gym in town and it's awesome! It's called The Boise Front. We went to the grand opening along with quite a few other people.

The walls have a lot of angles and transitions. There was always room to get on the wall and try a problem. I don't think that they will have a problem accommodating a large number of users. Which is very nice since with Winter coming on, I think we may join up. We have a home wall, but it's not even in the same stratosphere as this place!

The roof section is impressive. I didn't give it a go, but Kaden tried it and said it was hard! There were some animals there that cruised it.

The wall angles back to vertical and has problems that everyone can enjoy. I really liked how they were set. Not just crimpers and dynos. You had to have good balance and your footwork dialed in. I like to figure out sequences and this place didn't disappoint.

They have a separate area for kids and others. They have a nice top-rope rig set up in that area also if your kids don't like dropping from 20 feet up.

They even use the wall that divides the climbing area from the hallway for a traverse wall. I love a good burning traverse!

Pocatello Pump

2009-09-23T17:49:00.003-06:00

We enjoyed ourselves in Pocatello and at The Pump. I didn't compete this year, but the wife and kids did. Everyone did their best and Sierra was 2nd in her division.

The raffle was great! Rope rug, Acopa shoes, water filter and more! This was our second year going and I think it's going to be a tradition. I have gone before, but I was really young. Great event and great people!

Plyobox.

2009-08-29T22:13:00.007-06:00

We were going to go up to Mores to check out some formations, but my shoulder has been jacked. I may have hurt it climbing last week, which sucks, since the Pocatello Pump is in about 2 weeks! I decided to make a plyobox. I have been doing box jumps on an irrigation box, but it's less than 20" tall and I have to put it up on something to get it to 24" (which is dangerous).

Ski season is coming up fast and I need to get my legs in better condition. A plyobox is a great tool for plyometric jumps and set-ups & weighted step-ups. They are not that hard to build. I used AC plywood, 3/4 inch. CDX is cheaper, but Lowe's had a pretty ragged selection. Lot's of great (more expensive) AC, though. I had Lowe's rip it in half lengthwise. Brought it home and got to doing some layout.

I got the plans off of the Crossfit website. I don't do Crossfit, but there are some pretty skilled equipment craftsman on the forums. I don't know what it would cost to buy a plyobox, but I doubt it's less than $15 (half a sheet of 3/4).

Then I cut out the components.

Next, I cut the ends to a 6 degree angle. I could have made one cut per end, but since only one side of AC is finished, I had to flip the piece over to have matching angles.

All parts done, now it's time for assembly.

All done except for the top. If you make two 24" boxes out of one sheet, you will need to have some scrap 3/4 or you can make one 24" and one 20" and the layout will leave just enough for the tops.

Kaden gave it the first go. He tried to pull off the jump many times. He got to where he would land on his knees. If he could nail the jump onto his feet, that would be the equivalent of me doing about a 50" jump! I have seen guys from Gym Jones hit a 42" jump, but they are at another level.

City of Rocks & Castle Rocks

2009-08-20T19:22:00.011-06:00

Anytime I get more than two days off, I think about climbing at The City. We made the trip over there this past weekend. I am about a pound lighter after shaving my beard. It feels nice now, but I may have to grow it back for skiing.

We set up a toprope on Practice Rock and the kids did some laps on a 5.7. Then we were mobbed by a gang of Utards with more children under the age of 2 than the law should allow. One kid had a diaper poking through a rip in her pants. It looked like the worlds largest hemorrhoid because it was so full that it just dangled out. We pulled our gear and let them have at it. Oh yeah, I also got to see my first public breast feeding!

We normally camp up near the Parking Lot Rock area since you can walk to a lot of cool climbs. This time we tried camping near Practice Rock. The site was pretty cool. It had lots of boulders for the kids to explore. The parking area wasn't level enough to just pop the top on the van, so I jacked her up and leveled her out with some 2x4's I keep in storage for such an occasion. We didn't need to cook since we had eaten at The Outpost in Almo. I have always steered clear of the place since it looked too clean and there was always a full lot of SUVs with shiny wheels. I thought that they may be expensive. But they weren't! $5.50 for an Angus cheeseburger with steak fries. We will still buy a pizza at Rock City when given the choice, but they were at the fair in Burley that weekend and the lady watching the store wasn't cooking pizza. We did stop in there and buy ice and a six pack of beer.

Humming Birds at Rock City

I woke up before the sun. Not because I was so excited about getting on the rock, but because my head hurt so bad. It felt like something was pushing my right eye out of it's socket. I stayed lying down and tried to use accupressure on my head, but it hurt to touch my eye socket so bad that I got sick to my stomach. I ended up seeing the cheeseburger and organic wheat beer a second time. I laid out in a T-shirt on a flat rock until my stomach was settled. I went back to the van a pounded water and asprin. I went back to sleep for awhile and then just laid in bed until about 2 p.m. I finally felt better, and we went down to a climb I have been wanting to do for awhile.

Micro Pillar (11a)

Now I could make excuses and say that I was weak from being sick, but this climb was hard! Bonnie climbed it first and fell quite a few times and finally made it to the first bolt! Then I gave it a shot to let her have a rest. The bottom is a powerful layback with a long throw to a good hold. I wish I had some more power. I fell quite a few times and made it to a rest above the first bolt. It let up on the way to the second bolt, but then there were some balancy moves above it and I fell a couple more times. I hung on the rope to rest, sorry. The upper section is only like 5.9, but this route targeted your left forearm so well that I had a hard time hanging on to the bigger holds. We finally lowered off after working on this thing for over an hour. We then hiked further down to the Humming Bird Corridor.

Get Over It (11a)

There is a long route in the Corridor called Get Over It (11a). It's a Kevin Pogue route so it's bolted very well. It has a large roof (crux) that leads to easier climbing without a death runout between the bolts. Kevin's routes catch flak from people that don't climb at my lower level, but I like them and the easier ones (sub 5.8) he has put up are very popular with people that only climb a couple times a year.

We hiked back up to the van and got some food and went for a hike. The kids enjoy all the weird geological phenomena that time and the elements has created.

Every cave that Kaden sees he MUST check it out. I could spend a lifetime here and still be in awe of the formations. We went back and went to sleep and I woke up early again. This time it was because I was excited to get on the rock. We packed up and drove to Castle Rocks SP. There was nobody in the parking lot and I decided to explore some of the less visited formations. We hiked to True Grit and The Duke. We spent some time finding a climb that the whole family could do and ended up on the NW ridge of The Duke. I think the climb was a 5.6 and had two bolts and then needed gear to the anchors. The rock was pretty bad since it probably hadn't been climbed in a long time. Quite a few holds broke in hand and under foot. The gear placements were less than stellar, as well. I love Metolius cams because they have a larger lobe and different geometry on the axle that make them more secure. We stayed in the cool corridor for awhile.

5.6 Mixed Bolt/Gear

Kaden going for it!

Sierra's good footwork

Easy money.

On the way back to the van we stopped at Lone Rock and Bonnie led Poking Holes in the Firmament (5.6). She did very well. I could get used to swapping leads!

Bonnie Leading.

At the Anchors.

Lone Rock.

Everyone was worn out.

Mores Mountain

2009-07-25T22:01:00.004-06:00

We tried to get out of the heat by going up to climb at Mores Mountain. It's a great spot to climb in the summer since it's over 6,000 feet in elevation. When we got there, two guys were already up on "Roadside Rock". I was actually surprised that there weren't more climbers up there.

Roadside (L) The Pincer (R)

We scrambled up a class 3 wash-out since the last time I was up there was years ago and there was a fixed line up an eroded path. The kids made it fine and we stopped to soak up the area. The two guys came over and we talked for awhile and then they packed up and headed down. They told us that there was a trail that is in really great shape. Later, on the way down, we took it and it was in great shape.

We went over to the backside of "Roadside" since it is eternally in the shade. It was still hot. Not as hot as town, but still too hot to climb in the sun. We climbed a route called "Life without Beer". It had evil little knobs and your footwork needed to be dialed in. We didn't have long, since the kids were starting to feud and complain about hunger or something. After I put up the route, Bonnie tied in and proceeded to climb her first 10b! It was amazing! She would start to think about weighting the rope and I would yell encouragement and then she would yell at herself and push on. I was very happy and proud.

Bonnie almost at the anchors!

After she climbed it I had to clean it because I left the draws as directionals (falling on toprope would swing you WAY left!) and rap down. I got to the 4th bolt and was stepping up on a micro Evil Knob and it snapped off! I don't think it will make a difference because it was pretty small and I was in a hurry. Plus, most of the other guys besides me that climb up here probably only need one foothold per 20 feet anyways!

Evil Little Knob

There are A LOT more formations that I would like to explore. The drive from town is only 25 miles and is well worth it.

Potential???

Rainier

2009-07-13T20:34:00.007-06:00

We made it to the summit via the DC on Wednesday. It took us about 5 hours from Muir to get up and about 2.5 hours to get down. The conditions were very good and there was a full moon.

When we first arrived at Camp Muir, there was only one other climber there. We actually prepared to stay the night in the shelter. Soon the clouds parted on the Muir snowfield and "The ride of the Valkyries" cued up. There were LOTS of climbers making their way up. I mean LOTS. I didn't know what the hell happened. I planned on a nice relaxing mid-week summit with very few other climbers. After things settled out, the shelter was full. I mean like 30 people full. I left our stove in there and asked Chris if he wanted to stay out on the glacier. I think he was already down there and had the tent out by the time it left my mouth.

We pitched the tent and enjoyed the solitude of the glacier and our nice little piece of real estate. We went up and found a King 5 camera crew milling around the shelter. I talked to one of the guys and found out that there was the commissioner of the NFL and the head coach of the Seahawks doing a United Way charity climb. RMI was the guide company for the cause and we got to meet Ed Viesturs. Then we found out that Camp Patriot was there as well. Camp Patriot is an awesome organization that assists disabled Veterans in getting back into the outdoors. The NFL guys had a giant man-tourage and the Camp Patriot heroes had a couple of guides.

Needless to say, our solitude didn't last on the glacier as a Mountaineering club from the midwest moved in and a couple of other independent groups came down also. I felt like a Native Idahoan being overran by Californians.

I think some of the tents may have been made by Hubble or Corey Barton. On our summit night the tent below us kept yelling to the tent above about having a water bottle. Which is okay since when I went up to the shelter early in the morning to make coffee, it was a steady drone of snoring, coughing and farting.

The route was in really good shape. There was a nice bootpack all the way up. There were about four or five crevasses to cross. Only one required a jump.

I was concerned with rockfall since it was coming down off of the Cleaver and had injured a climber the day before we arrived. We roped in short and moved fast through the more hazardous areas.

There was some pretty good sized blocks coming down off of the Cathedral Gap. A refrigerator sized chunk missed a party by about ten feet.

I think that the summit crater is the longest 1/4 mile a person can walk...

There were about 10 independent parties including us and 5 summited and 5 turned back. Three of the 5 that summited were from Idaho!

The City II.

2009-07-12T11:30:00.006-06:00

Rapping off of "Jackson's Thumb"

My wife and I went back to the City for a few days climbing while I rested for my trip to Rainier. It was a very enjoyable trip. The weather was nice until the last night when it ripped our camp up while we were eating pizza at Rock City!

We were able to climb some fun stuff and she led some stuff in Castle Rocks. We did a 5.7 on Jackson's Thumb called "Theater of Shadows" first thing because I've tried to climb it twice and have been shut out because of weather. I love the City!

I'm back from Rainier. We made the summit under a full moon and great conditions! I will put more up here with some pictures soon.

Summit of Rainier

The City.

2009-06-17T17:27:00.008-06:00

Chris and I spent a weekend climbing at the City of Rocks. It was more like dodging weather than climbing. We took a long hike that started at Window Rock and circled around the inner City and back up Circle Creek. I got to see some routes that I had been too lazy to check out in the past when the weather was good and climbing could be done!

Mushroom Rock

I wanted to take Chris up a nice moderate multi-pitch. I hadn't climbed "Theater of Shadows" and wanted to, so we drove to the parking lot at the overlook and started the approach. The weather seemed to be stabilizing, but it also looked like it could go either way real quick.

Do you feel lucky? Well, do you punk?

We got to the base of the climb and started up. Within about 5 minutes the wind picked up and brought a wave of rain. I lowered back down and we waited for about 30 minutes. We had a break in the weather and I started back up. By the time I was below the first belay, a HUGE bolt of lighting ripped across the valley.

The Gods handing us our asses.

Then the rain started again, but much harder. I rapped back down and we bagged it for the afternoon. We headed into Almo for pizza and Scrabble at Rock City. After pizza the weather improved a lot. I took Chris to Castle Rock SP and we climbed a couple of moderates. After such an exciting day, we soaked at Durfee Hot Springs for about 45 minutes. We made it back to our camp spot and after a couple doses of fermented malt, I racked out. I woke up later in the night with an iPod earbud in my nose and my headlamp in my eye socket. I must have thought that I was going to read before sleeping, but things didn't work out that way...

We were able to accomplish our mission of hiding another Mammut geocache. The bonus was climbing on Window Rock and seeing the brine tanks at the top.

Good Times or Pure Pleasure (5.6)(I can never remember)

The hiding spot!

Mammut Shoe Chase.

2009-06-05T17:26:00.002-06:00

Too Easy!

I suggested two spots to hide a geocache and have hidden one close to Boise. If you want to look for it and be a part of the Shoe Chase go to the Mammut Basecamp and go find it!

Smith Rock.

2009-05-08T18:40:00.006-06:00

We traveled to Smith Rock to do some climbing last weekend. I knew that the weather would be suspect, but I figured that we would be able to climb all three days. We could and we did. There was rain each day. Sunday turned out to be the best, unfortunately we were headed back home and could only climb a couple of hours. We got there on Friday and went straight to Cinnamon Slab (5.6). It was a cool climb.

Cinnamon Slab (5.6)

Bonnie and Sierra climbed it and then we moved on. Having people right next to you is different. At the City you can skitter from crag to crag and never HAVE to climb right next to someone, not here.

Rapping Cinnamon Slab

You really have to just accept that you will wait in line to do the popular climbs and that people will be right behind you and rapping over you. One guy next to me said that if the river flowed in a circle around the park it would be Disneyland.

I wish we would have taken more pictures, but we were using our older camera and it's a piece. I prefer the "duct tape" camera. Placing gear there was also different. There are so many little imperfections in the cracks that you really have to make sure of the cams. I can understand why Metolious created their fatter lobed cams.

5.7 under cover

We climbed a short but sweet 5.7 that was completely under an overhang and while it rained hard we climbed! It was a great weekend. Now, on to the City...

Spring Skiing...

2009-04-18T10:34:00.007-06:00

After seeing pictures on idahosummits.com I really wanted to ski 2nd Peak above Soldier Mountain Ski Area.

Chris and I decided to drive up on Thursday and ski Friday. He has a really nice Airstream and wanted to take it out for a spring shake out. I wasn't going to argue! We set up in the parking lot at Soldier Mountain and had dinner. After dinner we just stared up at the dwindling snow on the ski runs. We thought that some night skiing would be nice. We made one run and it was nice. Unfortunately, the moon is not up early in the evening, so we skied with headlamps on.

We went to bed and in no time, the alarm went off. We were off at around 8 a.m. and skinned up the cat track that leads to the saddle between the two lifts. Surprisingly, we had snow all the way up to the top of second chair. We stopped and the top and ate. The "backcountry" cat skiing track was set up very nicely and leads all the way to the summit of 2nd Peak. We only had to cross mud once! The temps were hot! T-shirts and glacier hats were the clothing of choice. Once on top, the temps changed.

The snow conditions were perfect! We skied the face down into the large bowl and enjoy a LONG run of great corn snow.

If you are wanting good corn, this is the place to be. The approach is 4+ miles and gains over 3,000 feet. I'm not sure how long a person will be able to skin from the parking lot, the snow is melting fast. There is plenty on the N.E. side of 2nd once you make it there. It would be nice to camp up there like Splattski and get in lot's of turns!

Obscurity.

2009-03-29T17:09:00.006-06:00

Friday we went up to the Black Cliffs after I got home from work. We went to the Mids (section 1) to climb "Little Boots" since my wife hadn't gotten to climb it last week. She climbed it, then we packed up and left for home because of the wind and cold. The weather was supposed to be nice for Saturday, so why not come up then? I did get to climb on my fresh resoles. My La Sportivas are pretty old, but they fit perfectly. I like resoling them rather than wasting money on new shoes that probably wouldn't fit as well.

The guy that you want to do your resole job is Fly'n Brian. Not only does he do the best resole that I have ever seen, he is a bad-ass climber! I was happy to get them back since I was climbing in my eVolvs and they are great for the gym, but not great for extended wear!

Saturday appeared to be shaping up when we left the house at noon. We were going back up to the Mids, but this time we were going to be down at section 4 (ref. Sandy Epeldi's guidebook). When we climbed "Nut'n a Sling" last week, I thought that it was cool to be on a route that wasn't covered in chalk. That made me start thinking about the "obscure" routes at the Cliffs. Friday night I went through Sandy's book and made a list. First on the list was "Nikita".

Bonnie cleaning "Nikita"

"Nikita" is a thin seam with some very cool moves on it. Unfortunately, it started to rain about half way up. We had waited to see if the weather was going to get better. I thought that it was, so I started up. Five minutes later the sky opened up. I got to a nice bucket and plugged in three pieces of gear and lowered off. We hunkered down and ate graham crackers for half an hour. Then the skies cleared and we were back in business. I climbed back up to the bucket and started back up and was stopped by a blank face with only the seam and a side pull. I was able to get a good finger lock in and friction on the face. I could see a nice jug about two feet over my reach, but I had my right fingers in the seam and left hand side pulling. I pulled up with my right and reached across with my left. I was out of balance and on my way down. Left finger lock, right hand reaches. Much better. The rest of the climb is nice. I had to scoop dirt off of some of the holds where the angle eases. There is also a giant rock at the top that teeters when you step on it. I don't think that it will come off since it is on a big ledge below the chains. I wish I knew who the first ascensionist was because I would like to move the chains to the face to the right of the current location. The chains are different to clip.

The kids gave it a go. They both made it to the ledge below the crux, and gave it their all to go higher, but couldn't work it out. I try not to spew beta at people climbing (including family) unless someone asks, because I like to think that most people want to figure it out for themselves and if they want beta, they will ask.

We were going to try to cross another one off of the Project Obscurity list but the weather wasn't having it. I'm glad it's not a long drive to the Cliffs. "Nikita" is a very enjoyable climb. It would be nice to get some more traffic on it to clean it up. It's rated 5.8 and takes nothing bigger than a #4 Metolius TCU with the emphasis on sub #2 Metolius TCU sizes and small nuts.

More Black Cliffs

2009-03-19T21:57:00.006-06:00

With the weather so good, I decided to take today off and take the better half up to the Cliffs to climb. The night before, I had gone into The Benchmark to return some totally bitchin' 80's climbing films that I checked out and saw Seth. He said he wouldn't mind coming out. We were out there at around 11:30 and the temperature was great. You can truly only enjoy the Cliffs on the North side of the river in the spring and fall. The summer is just too hot. I went back to "Nut'n a Sling". Seth is getting a nice trad rack built up and wanted to observe gear placements. I led it and he cleaned it.

Seth on "Nut'n a Sling"

After we top roped "Nut'n a Sling" a few times we went down to "Little Boots". It has a thumb's up in the guidebook and it definitely deserves it! It's a really fun climb. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time, so I led it and Seth cleaned it. We then hurried home to meet the rototiller dude (with a detour to the coffee shop).

Starting "Little Boots"

Below the crux on "Little Boots"

We also got a Trango Cinch to belay with. I really like using it on bolted routes and for top roping. It's very easy to lead belay with. Easier to use AND cheaper than a Gri Gri!

Cinch in action

Black Cliffs

2009-03-14T20:32:00.002-06:00

Taylor, the kids and myself went out to the Mids today. The weather was a bit cold when we started, but it warmed up to a perfect climbing temperature. I have never climbed "Nut'n a Sling" (5.8) so we went up to it. We rock-paper-scissored for the lead and I won (or lost depending on view). I started up the climb and found bolt holes. I don't know who would bolt this climb because it takes gear very well. The top section is very fun and makes you think. I was having a hard time concentrating since our shower stopped producing hot water. I was able to get the cartridge out of the faucet, but Lowe's didn't have the part. Thankfully Grover's had it when I went in today. So I was drifting to thinking about the impending repair. As of this writing, the shower is producing hot water and I only lost a small amount of flesh!

Sierra on "Nut'n a Sling" (5.8)

After Taylor cleaned the route we put the kids on it. The Little Man made it about half way, and Sierra made it about three quarters before crapping out. We then moved down to a 10a named "In Vitro". Taylor led up the climb very nicely. I then worked my way up and was stopped by the bulge. It has great moves through it, but my legs were noodles after running five laps on the 5.8. I need to start a Rock training routine very soon. I was frustrated to fall because of a lack of power. I was able to finish the climb, but I was roasted!

Little Man on "Nut'n a Sling" (5.8)

It was a good day to be out. There were hardly any other climbers out. Nobody was at the Mids except for us. Two guys walked by earlier in the day, but I don't know where they went. Taylor said "Hi", but the guys didn't acknowledge him. I don't know if they thought they were too hard to say "hi" or just a couple of pricks. Maybe the geographical origins of the pair were South enough to affect their attitude. Taylor's friend Dustin showed up with a few friends later in the day. I hadn't seen Dustin in a year. He is doing well and climbing a lot of ice. I wish that I could make a pilgrimage down to Ouray with him. As I always say, "There's always Alpine Ice!"

Backcountry Ski Race

2009-03-07T20:26:00.004-07:00

We got the family up at 4a.m. this morning to drive to Brundage to participate in a BC Ski race. The weather was great and there was fresh pow everywhere! The only problem is that I paid to participate in the race. It was hard to ski the paltry 1200 vertical down in sick pow! To top it off the course was a lot flatter than I was thinking it would be. When you have an AT set-up as heavy as mine, you actually like the up. Sounds funny, but for me it's true. There was a mix of tele and AT skiers in the race. Almost all the AT guys had Dynafit bindings and light skis. A couple of them had a full-on randonee race set-up.

A lot of the people shot out as soon as the race started. I started to justify my last place as being "there for the experience" and other statements of weakdom. In the end, I passed all but five of the lead pack. I think that there were about 20 racers, maybe less, so 6th place really isn't much.

I was still a little depleted from climbing and skiing on Galena Peak a week ago. I fueled on the drive up and maintained a disciplined fueling regimen during the race. The course was well marked and kicked your ass right out of the gate with a 1600' skin up a groomer! After that was a ridge traverse. I couldn't resist dropping off the ridge and skiing the powder. It was supremely delicious! That of course dooky-chuted me to skin back up to the ridge. It was worth it. I know that two others did the same thing! Then came a very slight 1200' or less Low Angle Geh Powder (TM Dylan Freed) run. The next section was very flat and very long which led to another skin up a groomed snowmobile run, complete with exhausting snowmo-bile-s. The last bit was on a groomed cat track all the way to the last 200 yards, where I had to put my skins on for the last time to make it up the groomer to the finish line.

The food was excellent! Gourmet brats with grilled onions washed down with the lightest beer I have ever drank. It was provided by Salmon River Brewery . We had a good time, even though there was a loud-mouthed guy with a Class 5 Cali-jowl that wouldn't shut up about a community in Torre Utah. I figured that he was just a disgruntled Californian that was looking for the next body part of the US to infect with the cancerous tumor of Californication. He wasn't even there to race, only to talk.

All in all, it was a good day. I think that I will rest tomorrow and maybe climb on our wall. It's almost spring and time for hitting the crag!

Galena

2009-03-01T16:20:00.008-07:00

Tim from Colorado had posted on idahosummits.com looking for a partner to climb Galena. We were going to climb it today (Sunday), but he has been ill for the last week and couldn't shake it. So I decided to use the weather window on Saturday and go up. Chris and I drove up Friday night and slept in the Galena lodge parking lot. I decided to take the same route that splattski took last year. Due to the snow that the area had received, I was not looking forward to the skin up the SW ridge. As was expected, it was miserable! The snow was 2 feet deep all the way to point 9824.

SW Ridge

The wind had scoured all the new snow off the mountain after this point. The rock section had mini-cornices that needed to be negotiated. We probably should've turned around and skied the sweet powder in the trees on the lower portion of the ridge, but we trudged on. We made it to the convergence of the West and South West ridges and started towards the summit. We started across a small windslab on a low angle, it settled. There was a much larger windslab further up on steeper terrain. I called it. It sucked to stop 200 feet shy, but it wasn't worth the risk.

West/SW Ridge Convergence

We booted down the West ridge since there wasn't enough snow to ski. At around 10,000 feet I was able to finally put my skis on. I stayed right on the ridge due to the instabilities of the snowpack. Chris was on tele gear and booted further down to where the ridge widens.

SW Ridge Rock Section

I dropped down off the ridge through the trees and skied right up to the deposition zone of a recent avalanche. I could see that it had come off of the NW aspect. I turned my beacon over to "search", but luckily... nothing.

Deposition Zone

After a 9 hour up-and-over, we were at the truck, changed, and driving down to cheeseburger bliss in Hailey.

On the Rock in February!

2009-02-20T16:27:00.004-07:00

We climbed out at the Black Cliffs today and I actually got hot! Taylor and I introduced Levi to the addictive hobby of climbing. It's always nice to have a pool of partners. You never know who will flake out on you. Levi impressed me immensely with how quick he could pick things up. He was even climbing in Taylor's approach shoes!

Levi rapidly learning the ropes.

We enjoyed a beautiful day. It sucks to think of the drones in Boise behind us buzzing along praying for a quick end to Friday. Sucks to wish your life away!

Myself and Taylor

Below is a very nice 5.8 that I put up. It's always hard to get the first lead of the year out of the way. I love trad! Once I set up the toprope, Levi flew up the thing. With a pair of no-shittin' climbing shoes, this dude is going to tear things up! My body was wondering why we weren't skiing. This has been a weird year in terms of weather. We climbed out at the Black Cliffs until December and didn't ski until almost January. Taylor and I were wondering where the ice season went. I think we had a total of four times on the ice. There's always Alpine ice!

Little Boots (5.8)

Below is a bolted 10a that could use a bolt a little lower. There is a seam that would take very small wires before that first bolt. It was the most fun climb we did today. It would be nice if the whole climb was as flowing as the top half.

(10a)

Yellow Pine Ice (1/31/09).

2009-02-01T10:11:00.002-07:00

We took a trip up to Yellow Pine. The ice is in pretty good shape and the road is in good shape, as well. The roadside formations are beautiful.

It's hard not to stop and take a picture. The weather was also great. It was warming up and was well above freezing. Once we got on the ice, we had limited time due to a late start and the 4 hour drive. The drive up there is something else. Going to Yellow Pine in the summer sucks, but going there via the winter road is a suck of another level. It would be nice to stay the night and get two days worth of climbing for the drive.

Even though the the drive is miserable, I have already hit up a friend about going back up. The formation in the picture above is very fat! It's probably WI2/3. There are also a couple of WI2's to the climbers left from the fatty. If you bring up three or four screws, cordelettes and a 50 foot static rope (for the larger trees further back), a toprope can be safely set on the climbs.

Lazy Skiing.

2009-01-26T20:45:00.003-07:00

We skied up at Brundage today and had a great time. The weather was perfect and the people were nonexistent. I really need to find a two-day-a-week job that pays very well!

Parking for the Unemployed/Rich

Chris was taking a Tele course, so I occupied myself for a couple of hours. Skiing mostly backcountry, I was amazed to have skied close to 10,000 vert in that short of time. There was powder hidden in the trees. My last run was "The Face". I had skied it a couple of times because the pow was nice in the trees. I noticed a large rock under the lift and thought that I could ski off the edge (Damon must have been with me). I hit it and went a lot further than I thought I would since the bottom was quite a bit steeper. The lodge should have a small laundry facility for occasions like that.

It seems like they could definitely use some more snow. I went down "Skidaddle" (aka "Stumpy") and noticed a lot of exposed stumps. This coming week should bring some white stuff.

"Skidaddle"

At any rate, I still enjoy earning my turns. But, the $199 season pass deal next month at Bogus is looking better...

Skiing on Freeman.

2009-01-24T18:00:00.005-07:00

I skied the Freeman ridge today and the snow was nicely consolidated, so I skied some steeper lines. The skiing was absolutely bitchin'! On a side note, I cut my hair. There is about a foot less hair on my head. I was able to donate it to "Locks of Love".

If my legs weren't so worked from making multiple laps, I would head up again tomorrow! Happy turns!

The last run was Damon's run and I thought of him as I blasted through the fat pow down a nice and steep line.

On a lighter note, we had too much time on our hands today...

Napoleon Dynamite on skis, "Do you ever go off any sweet jumps with those things?"

Boise Ridge Traverse.

2008-12-25T08:09:00.005-07:00

I spent a day out traversing the Boise Ridge with John. The traverse starts out on the road to Bogus. You climb up to the antennas on the backside of Bogus and then get some downhill. The road was nicely filled in and the turns were sweet! John had a nice touring set up for Tele and I was on AT gear. After some turns we hit some rollie-pollie terrain. I really didn't want to put my skins back on so John taught me a quick lesson on using kick wax. It worked very well. I am going to study applying kick wax a little more. You got a good kick and glide and didn't have the weight of skins.

It was an excellent day to be out. The sun was trying to poke through the clouds, but never did. We stopped for a quick lunch and became cold just sitting there. After lunch, we got a few more turns in and then started the climb up to Eagleson. I had to switch to skins and finally made it to John waiting under a tree. He said that I was only a few minutes behind him, but I think he was just being nice. Let this serve a warning, if you go out and do endurance activities with a national cycling champion, expect to be humbled! He was even breaking trail!

We descended down 8th street. We were in "survival ski" mode. The conditions were horrid. Drifts that were 3 to 5 feet tall led to ice. The wind was blowing very hard and I was exhausted. We made good time on the descent and John's friend Tom picked us up after a short walk down 8th after we ran out of skiable ice. My altimeter told me that we ascended 1,920 feet and descended over 5,000 feet in almost 20 miles. It was a most excellent day!

2008-12-21T10:55:00.002-07:00

(If you don't know where this is, you don't need to know )

The ice is setting up nicely. It's still real early season. Hopefully it will fill in with some colder temps. There were a few people up there, but no climbers. This snow that we are getting would make the drive pretty interesting.

The ice is hookable with big nodes, so I climbed up and down a few times trying not to bust any icicles and ruin it for the rest of the season. Downclimbing ice is and art that I need to spend more time on. It makes you very aware of your foot placement.

The kids are now hassling me to go snowshoeing. It's really ME snowshoeing pulling them in a sled. Good for a nice long cardio day.

Black Cliffs

2008-12-06T15:57:00.005-07:00

I went climbing today with Taylor out at the Short Cliffs. We climbed a fun route called Copperhead. I then ran some laps on a 5.8 called Minuteman. It was T-shirt weather out there! It's hard to believe that it's the 6th of December.

Copperhead (10a)

My hand is still a little jacked up from my feet popping off and landing on a hand jam about a month ago. It starts to feel good and then someone shakes my hand with the "I'm trying to impress you with my squeeze" type handshake and then it's sore again.

Minuteman (5.8)

I think that living in Boise and being a climber is a good thing. I can't think how many times we come out to the Black Cliffs. In the summer when there's good light, we sometimes climb 5 days a week. Granted, 5.8s, 5.9s and 5.10s aren't the hardest, but we have fun. I think that Alex Lowe said, "The best climber in the world is the one having the most fun!" Sometimes it can be crowed, but everyone is trying to enjoy the rock just like me, so there's good energy. Also, I love trad climbing and most people are at the Mid Cliffs clipping bolts. So if you can place gear, there's a lot of climbing to be done that doesn't get done much. I grew up here and remember seeing people like Ted Thompson, Rob Hart and Mike Stoeger climbing and being scared shitless of them. I often wish I would've kept climbing, I took a layoff and am now working back up to the higher grades. It's a journey.

The kids were very good up there. I was worried how they would act with only me and Taylor, but they were great. I am so glad that my wife and kids are tolerant of my addiction to climbing! Bonnie is a good climber and I think that once she starts leading gear routes her mind will open to the possibilities of climbing harder. I never want her to feel like she HAS to climb. She is by far, my most favorite climbing partner! Ever since Damon died, I have been thinking of how much of a void people leave when they are gone. I have to be a better person. The better the person, the bigger the void!

2008-11-26T19:29:00.003-07:00

I thought that I would post a picture that goes way back to the mid-80's. This is my first climbing wall that my Pop and I built. At the time, it seemed real hair-brained, but I wanted to climb and living in Fairfield, ID, your options are limited! I wish that I would've developed the idea more based on the amount of gyms in the U.S. today.

I had a good training session last night.

3 rounds 1 min hangboard

10 Medicine Ball Swings

3 rounds Traverse

20 Step-ups with 12 pounds (24" Box)

3 x 3 Boulder Problems

I need to get back on my routine of running. I want to run the Le Griz again this year in October. I love being in Montana and if running 50 miles is a good excuse to go, then sign me up! I wanted to go to the Bozeman Ice Festival, but it's only a couple of weeks away, so we'll see.

The roof has fallen!

2008-11-23T16:17:00.003-07:00

Finally after almost a week, I have installed the roof on our climbing wall! I feel bad because my wife is much smaller than me and lifting the roof overhead was difficult. I had pre-drilled some screws and once it was in place, I popped the center screws in and screwed in the outer edges.

I have tried to think forward of any potential problems. I insulated the walls and the trusses before installing the plywood, I checked structural design to find a good balance between steep angle and strong structure, installed more T-nuts than I thought I needed and painted the panels before hanging. I would recommend even building a small wall if you have the space. It has helped me avoid pumping out. I have found that through training lock-offs and straight arm traverses, I am not as pumped/scared placing gear and my widgets (thanks for the term Dean Lords!) are more thoughtfully placed. The major drawback is that you will walk by the wall doing something else and before you know it, you are in a full-contact bouldering session! I try to only use the wall intensely for 3 days a week. I will traverse and boulder using jugs on the other days.

I would have liked to have two steeper walls and a roof for a more "cave" like feel, but it turned out good for the level that I climb at.

I put up the three roof jugs and traversed across. Man! It's going to take awhile to get strong on the overhanging stuff! I like how it makes you very conscious of your foot placements and balance.

I would like to thank ASANA for the excellent holds that they make. They are a local company here in Boise and produce great products for the pebble grippers of the world. The texture of their holds is near perfect. I have a few Nicros and Metolious holds, but they don't compare to the Asana holds. They have a new hangboard that is awesome! I hope they develop some system holds or strips, as well. Time for a light dinner and a go on the wall!

2008-11-22T16:36:00.003-07:00

Today I used the excuse of scouting for ice up around Crouch to go to one of my favorite hot springs. It's about 12 miles from Crouch and you have to wade the river to get to it.

The river was very cold. I had to carry the kids across. When I put my feet in the pool it was complete pleasure after the crossing! I haven't been up here for quite some time and there has been some major construction going on! There used to be only three pools that were constructed with logs, tarps and rocks. Now it's sporting SEVERAL pools made from concrete.

The kids went from pool to pool. I stayed in the upper pool and enjoyed the light snow and hotter water.

We stayed for about an hour and a half and then a truck pulled up. As we were coming down the hillside, they were going up and down the river trying to see if there was an easy way across. I wadded the river with a kid over each shoulder. I figured that I would rather carry the extra weight than have to wade the river twice again! They asked how it was. I tried to sandbag them and say that it was easy and not that cold. I wanted to see someone else suffer with ice cream headaches in their feet! They drove off without even trying. Then the snow picked up on the way out. It was nice.

2008-11-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

We went to the new North Face store special event tonight. While I got to talk to Pete Athans, my wife admired the clothes (and price tags!). Pete is a very intelligent person to talk with. He has evolved from a very skilled mountaineer into a fine humanitarian. He works with the Khumbu Climbing School to help prepare high altitude Nepali climbers and workers. I talked with him about Anatoli Boukreev. I love Krakauer's writing, but after reading Beck Weather's and Anatoli's books on the Everest disaster, I wonder if his judgement was a bit quick.

Myself and Pete Athans

The store is nice. They have their official Grand Opening tomorrow and I bet it will be a zoo! I'm sure that it will provide the clothing needed to look posh in the downtown area. I will continue to be a patron of The Benchmark. I have dropped money there since I was 13 and they were located on Emerald!

So I guess the moral of the story is, I didn't get the roof on the climbing wall... again! I also didn't train tonight. Unless you call dodging wine toting socialites and cheese servers, exercise.

No roof yet.

2008-11-19T23:29:00.000-07:00

Well, we never got the roof up. Last night we watched Wall-E and tonight we trained on the wall. It's hard now that there is only 10 hours of light. I work for 9 hours and by the time I get home, I have about 30 minutes of light. Not that I need light to put the roof on the climbing wall, but it's a motivation thing. Tonight, we worked on endurance traversing and easy boulder problems.

6 x Traverse (any hold, silent feet)

1 minute rest between traverses

3 x Boulder Problem (Dyno)

3 x Boulder Problem (Lock-offs)

I fired up the "Heater Buddy" while we were out there and it was a comfortable 51 degrees!

Blog. Say What???

2008-11-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

My cousin Damon recently died from cancer and it makes me think about the whys and whats in the universe. He was only 44. He was a voracious skier and lived life with as much adventure as he could. It hurts to lose people that are close, but it served as a wake up call. Everyday I think about time slipping through my hands. There are a lot of things that I would like to get done.

Making a blog is not one of them. But I need an outlet. I notice most of my climbing heroes have blogs. When you read someone's blog, it gives a very brief glimpse of them on that particular day. I also know that more people will read a mattress tag, than this blog. Oh well...

I have a climbing wall in my garage to try to keep in climbing shape when I can't make it outside. We went to the gym last year through the winter. It was great in some ways. It was nice to lead climb and there were some great people that I met, but it's very hard to go to a gym when you are used to climbing outside. It was also very expensive. I used the saved dues from the gym to build a wall. If you go to the Metolius website, mine is pretty much the same design. I am going to put up the roof tomorrow. Building the wall is one of the best things that I have done. I read a tidbit on Vince Anderson's website about his 8 x 10 wall being a great training tool. He is absolutely right! Even a small wall will keep your edge when you can't get outside.