Climbing
It was my wife’s birthday last week and so we decided to go camping in Maple Canyon. It is a beautiful canyon–full of great hiking and killer climbing. We mostly just relaxed but I did have the chance to teach my wife how to lead climb on an easy 5.4 that lead to the Trash Compactor Wall. She did a great job. Next time we will come back and do some of the routes inside the Trash Compactor. They looked really fun but we ran out of time.
While we were there we did have a chance to hike up Box Canyon (.7 miles up the canyon) and see some of the routes that have been set there. It is an impressive looking area; however, there are access issues. So, definitely visit the canyon sometime, but be sure to not visit too often and be a courteous guest while you are there.
June 26th, 2006
I love one-move wonders. Yesterday I went climbing with a friend up Rock Canyon at The Black Rose Wall. It is the very first Wall you come to in Rock Canyon and is to the left of Red Slab. The left most portion of the wall as two climbs that you can top-rope. They are in the neighborhood of 5.9/5.10 and are pretty fun. To the right of this slab, however, are some bolted climbs that are 10a (Pink Canoe) and 12a (Fat Hippos.) They both go to the same chains so if you just want to lean the 10 and try the 12 I would recommend it.
The 10 is tricky with the crux between the second and third bolt. It’s not very hard if you do it right but it is tricky getting the right footing so that you don’t swing off.
The 12 is very fun. It is a crimp fest and will likely put the most strain on your feet as you edge on little, quarter-inch holds. This climb is a total one move wonder. Once you get up to the crux, which comes after clipping the second bolt, you have to stick your left foot in a tinny hold that you would swear would never hold you. Then, while pulling hard on the crimper with you right hand, you reach up and left to hit the bottom of a very thin crack. Then you have to hurry and match your right foot to your right hand. once you hit this it is all pretty strait forward from there, yet strenuous.
The reason i like this one move wonder is because it it just my style. I have power, but only for a short amount of time. I’m one of those guys who boulders way harder then he climbs sport.
June 9th, 2006
Winter Mountaineering Epic somewhere near (or far from?) Camp Muir
This trip my friend (the same one that was with me on Success Cleaver) and I decided to head up as far as we could on Rainier during the winter. Originally we planned on trying a summit bid, but realized the weather probably wouldn’t cooperate, so we settled on just making a trip up half way and do some winter mountaineering practice. We set out from Paradise up towards camp Muir as a somewhat iffy day, but most of the mountain was still visible so we had high hopes. As we began our trek up the Muir Snowfield, the weather began to deteriorate rapidly.
The clouds went from hovering around 12,000-13,000 feet to less than 8000 in the time span of just a few minutes. Soon the wind started picking up and snow started falling. We were in a textbook Winter Whiteout somewhat high on Rainier. Navigation in a whiteout is nigh impossible. We got out our map and compass and navigated by trying to follow a bearing to camp Muir so we could seek shelter in the hut. But we realized we were lost and weren’t going to make it and it was going to be dark soon, so we decided we better started digging in and hunkering down for the night before something bad would happen.
As we were fighting to set up our tent, there was a brief “clearing” when visibility went from several feet to maybe 100 feet when I noticed a person coming towards us. At first I thought it was a ranger who was going to check our permit and tell us that we can’t camp here because this isn’t Muir, but it turns out that it was a skier who was going to go up to Muir and then ski down that day. He had an earlier start and less gear, so he got caught much higher on the mountain during the storm. He quickly informed us that he needed our help, as he had no more food, water, shelter, or clothing.
The first rule of whiteouts is don’t be in one, but if you are stay put and wait it out. He had gotten lost and tried to find his way down and ended up on the Nisqually Glacier and almost fell into a crevasse. It was then he realized the peril he was in. After several hours of wandering around, he saw our bright yellow tent during the “clearing”. It was a very long night trying to fit 3 people into our small 2 person mountaineering tent. We imparted of our supplies to him and hunkered down for the night, which was a miserable experience on so many levels. The winds were so strong that we had to have one person try to stabilize the tent. If he hadn’t run into us that night, there is no way he would have survived the night. Looking back we probably should have turned around earlier that day at the first sign of bad weather, but being two invincible seniors that we were, we kept pushing on and ended up saving some guys life. Funny how that works, huh?
April 1st, 2006
Alright, I have 2 worst trip ever stories and they are in my opinion equally as bad, and being that they occurred on the same mountain I chose to do both of them.
Success Cleaver, Mount Rainier
Success Cleaver is the long ridge coming down in the middle
My boss, two of my friends and myself chose to try to climb Rainier via Success Cleaver the summer before my Senior Year of high school. We were enticed by the “alpineness” of this route since it involves no glacier travel, is really long, and nobody is on it. We planned on taking 4 days to do the route; one for the approach, one for some more approach and the lower half of the route, a day to summit and carry over down Disappointment Cleaver, and then a day to sit around and descend back to paradise.
As we were high on the route, my boss became rather ill, in fact he became violently sick. The altitude was causing him to have a nasty case of Acute Mountain Sickness, which induced an what we think might have been an asthma attack. We stopped for to rest hoping that he would be able to pull through it, but to no avail. When it came to the point when he began coughing up a pick fluid (I don’t know if it was blood or what) it became apparent that he couldn’t go any higher and needed to descend immediately. He was having trouble breathing and because of that, he had no equilibrium or balance and was basically unable to walk without assistance. The 3 of us decided that we needed to take his pack and somehow distribute it between the 3 of us, rope up and begin assisting him down to a lower elevation. This was a major ordeal since success cleaver is steep enough that if a roped team fell, it is unlikely that you could team arrest to stop a fall. It was an arduous task of at times having to plant feet and constantly having to place pickets for protection during the descent. After descending several thousand feet, we eventually camped towards the bottom of the cleaver and waited to see if his condition would improve, which it did, but it was out of the question for him to go any higher. Our summit hopes were gone by then because he couldn’t go up anymore, and if the 3 of us continued to the summit, we would be unable to carry over as planned and I wasn’t about to descend the cleaver again.
The upper mountain from around 10,000 on Success Cleaver
March 31st, 2006
Last night I caught the I-need-to-get-out-of-the-house-or-I’m-going-to-go-crazy bug. I called up a few people that i know who like to climb but i couldn’t find anyone who was willing to belay me…uh…I mean, climb with me. So I decided to embark on a spontaneous, home-made triathlon. I started from my apartment and biked three miles to the Quarry Climbing Gym. Once there I warmed up, worked on a V4 in the bouldering room followed by a V5 and then another V4. I then biked the three miles back to my apartment and grabbed my goggles (I meant to bring them with.) After getting those, I biked the 207,990.21 centimeters (I love Google Earth) to the BYU pool and swam a mile (33 laps.) Also, keep in mind that this is the first time I have accomplished such a feat. Once I completed that highlight of my nascent swimming career, I biked the 207,990.21 centimeters (1.29 miles) back to my apartment and I was victorious (placed first overall.)
I don’t know how long it took me to do (I’m not sure if I want to know) but it was my first home-made triathlon. It was a blast. Have you done any sort of creative triathlon? Let me know.
March 25th, 2006
I am thinking about going down to do some bouldering at one of Utah’s premiere bouldering spots: Triassic. It is outside Price, about 1.5-2 hours away. I would go down Friday evening, 4:30 ish, camp out there, and probably be home Saturday afternoon/evening. If you are interested in coming, send me an email: david_mcnay at hotmail dot com. I have a crash pad, but you would need your own climbing shoes, as well as camping equipment. It will probably get down to freezing at night, but be upper 50s/low 60s during the day.
March 21st, 2006
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