Fall Pics:

Just thought I'd post a couple pics from a quick 30 minutes out shooting around campus today. We're into some nice, crisp fall weather here.

Fall Foliage

Colors over Beebe Lake

Ho Plaza from the clock tower

Sunset

Cayuga Lake from the clock tower

AD White reading room in Uris Library

'Gunks Climbing trip!

For those that know me, I love being up high as long as there's a decent assurance of safety. I've been rock climbing at the indoor wall here at Cornell quite a bit here lately, so I decided to take it to the next level and see what real multipitch outdoor climbing was like. The conclusion? Same as my conjecture: simply awesome fun!

Gunks rock and fall colors from the intermediate belay stations we set up on the High Exposure route.

To address the whole safety thing, I did it in the context of a class. Yes, a Cornell class, on my schedule right along with the algorithms course I'm taking this semester. Only this class had 5 students, three instructors, and spent 4 days out climbing on the east coast mecca for this type of climbing: the Shawnangunks Mountains, or just the 'Gunks for short. It's a three hour drive from Ithaca, in SE NY.

The Gunks! Taken from the Trapps, looking towards the Nears and (in the distance) Milbrook.

Gunks at Sunset

After a couple introductory classes and a bunch of time getting reasonably in shape on the indoor rock wall (IE, working those arm muscles that get used in climbing and pretty much nothing else), we headed out on Friday night. We were camping nearby, and got everything set up in the dark just fine the first night.

Fall colors. Not quite in full swing, but definitely getting there!

What follows are probably going to be some of the most memorable 4 days of my time here at Cornell. The weather was fantastically 70 degrees and bright blue skies (last week it was 40s and raining) and the trees are just getting into their fall color swing. From above, the deep green forests were punctuated by patches of bright yellow and spots of vivid red. but I'm getting ahead of myself.

More fall colors

The climbing we were doing was traditional, or "trad" climbing. (Wikipedia article) This means that the cliff is too high for a single rope to reach the top, and that there are not (many) fixed bolts in the cliff. While a complete description is out of scope, basically the lead climber (the instructors in this case) climbs up and places protection (nut, cams, and other climbing specific gear) in cracks of the rock. They are belayed from below by the second climber, but are in danger of falling to their last piece of protection they placed in the rock. Before running out of rope, the lead stop, builds an anchor out of several pieces of gear, then belays up the seconds, who clean all the gear as they follow behind. Then the whole process repeats as many times as necessary to reach the top.

Me partway up a route called "Strictly from Nowhere" (Thanks Mike for the pic!)

So that's basically what we did for 4 days. Except every new climb is new and exciting. And every minute on the cliff was a minute I was drinking in as complete fun. In the evenings, as darkness approached, we would top-rope shorter, much harder sections of cliff to work on skills and such.

Top-roping at the end of the day! This route's called "Colorful Crack", and has a super fun and not too hard overhang

A personal goal of mine on the trip was to learn how to safely do the lead climber's job, so I spent one full day working on that with one of the instructors. I had practiced and become familiar with the types of protection and anchor building on my own time in the weeks leading up to the class, so it was not a big step to accomplish this on a fairly easy climb. Definitely exciting, though! We also spent several hours working on knots, rope ascending, and other vertical rescue scenario skills, all of which was beyond the scope of the class but we wanted to learn anyway.

My favorite climb? Split between one called Madam G's and one called High Exposure. "High E" as its called is possibly the most famous trad climb in North America. I didn't get any good pictures of me on it (busy hanging on), but here's a random one from a climbing website.

Madam G's route (with random guy on it for scale). One of my favorite climbs this trip!

Ready to jump off the top of madam G's to rappel down 200 feet. Yes, its massively overhung, and yes, that's a solid, 40 foot tree growing there!

The rappel off Madam G's was by far the most fun. Over 100 feet of just rappeling through free air from the overhang. (Thanks Mike for photo!)

Overall, awesome weekend. (both the climbing and the natural beauty!) I was pretty confident on all the trad climbs we did (up to a 5.7 rating), and certainly never close to coming off the rock on those. With the top-roping stuff, I maxed out at ascending a 5.9, and got up a 5.10 with a little rope-hanging here and there. Fun stuff.

When can I go again?

Summer Travels :: Part 3
(Actual date: August 25, 2008)

So this is going to be a picture-heavy post because I simply can't decide how to narrow things down more! To round out the summer adventures, I timed my visit in the Seattle area to participate in a trans-cascade backpacking trip that my Dad and friends were planning. This was a 4 night 5 day mountain extravaganza that started at the cascade pass trailhead on the west side of the cascades and ended up at the town of Stehekin, an "Island on land" back at the end of Lake Chelan accessible only by boat or plane.

Before I get too far, you can trace our journey on a map (complete with pictures in their correct locations) here. Journey starts at the upper left of the continuous string of photo icons in the middle (zoom in!)

The first day was bright, sunny, and perfect for hiking. We got a relatively early start and drove the 2-3 hours up to the trailhead. As far as places in the cascades accessible by car, I think this trailhead wins the prize for most amazingly scenic! The hike up to cascade pass itself was pretty short (3 mi or so) and not a huge amount of climbing with our 45lb packs. The pass is only 5400' or so, but after lunch, a few of us decided to spur off up the Sahale arm, up the side of Sahale mountain.

The trailhead. Not a bad view to start with...

Trail leading up to Cascade Pass

Every step up that trail led to more and more beautiful terrain and I simply could not stop taking pictures. Wildflowers, marmots, a deep blue lake, the snowcapped rugged sahale mountain, sawtooth ridges behind, beautiful alpine and subalpine terrain, colorful meadows, rolling knolls, interesting snow patterns, and the feeling of getting closer to the top of the world all conspired together to keep my shutter going almost non-stop! We topped out at around 7500' well into alpine terrain and an awesome campground used as a base camp for those summiting. Due to its technical nature and lack of time, we didn't summit, but it's on my list of things to do...

First crest coming up onto Sahale arm. Doubtful Lake below.

Heading up the Sahale arm.

From the Sahale Arm looking down valley towards Stehekin. We later climbed the mountain straight down the valley on the left.

Panorama from as high up the Sahale arm as I got.

After cruising back down, we dropped a total of about 4500 to our first campground for the night. it was quite primitive... just a few flattish spots to pitch a tent. but who's going to complain in such a beautiful valley?

The next day we got up early and a few of us immediately spurred up to Horseshoe Basin. It was an awesome 270 degree basin with no less than 15 waterfalls coming over the lip. Amazing. Pressing on up to the very back of the basin, we came across a very substantial old mine shaft (turns out its called the Black Warrior Mine) that went back straight into solid granite right beside one of the waterfalls. Assured that the granite was indeed quite solid, I went back and explored a bit, and was surprised to see the old cart rails split at a 4 way junction about 50 yards back. I only followed one of the branches, and it went another 50 yards or so before being blocked and marked as unsafe. So who know the full extent of it, but it apparently is extensive, having operated on and off from the 1890s to the 40s. An interesting history of the mine may be read here.

Horseshoe Basin

Black Warrior Mine (an unexpected find!)

We headed back around mid-morning and broke camp. One interesting complication was that that very day, trail crews were retiring the campground we had stayed at and opening the new one several hundred yards back. They brought in a chopper to move the big, heavy bear box which happened to still have our food in it! Fortunately, we had chatted with them before we headed up, so we knew where to find our food, but interestingly we came back right as the chopper was there.

Our food getting airlifted

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. At this point, the trail became (mostly) a dirt road that had been built up from Stehekin but washed out so badly downstream they didn't bother to repair it. So the hiking was mostly easy, with some extremely rough/wet boots washouts. The campground that night was a couple clicks closer to civilization, complete with rough tables and fire pits. Luxury! Before dark, some of us jumped into a beautiful turqoise swimming hole a few hundred yards back up the trail. "Refreshing" is a word I might use. Getting the grime off was great, but the water had probably only been melted for about 30 minutes before it got to that point! So, chilly, but very worth it!

Just above the swimming hole, 2nd campground.

The next day was actually pretty short hiking-wise. It was only about 4 miles to get past the major washout on the road, and after that we caught the old school bus that one of the recreation companies runs up the valley from Stehekin. There are no roads connecting Stehekin to the outside world, but there are several miles of road leading from town up the valley (some is even paved!) and the few vehicles there were barged in up the lake. more info on the town here (Wikipedia article).

My Dad actually knows one of the couple hundred or so permanent residents (former boss) so we visited him at his beautiful, rustic, large house he built for himself over the last 25 or so years. (he even sawed and planed much of the lumber himself!) He also helps run the town's power plant (its completely off-grid) which consists primarily of a hydro wheel, but with massive diesel generators for backup. We even stopped at the famous bakery towards town, which has gained an enourmous reputation with the Pacific crest trail thru hikers (it passes nearby) for good reason. It's a full service, delicious bakery essentially in the middle of nowhere.

From our campsite, 3rd campgroud.

We had a nice, sandy campsite by the river, and the next day we did a day hike from there. After catching the shuttle back up the valley, we jaunted up McGregor Mtn. Ok, "jaunted" might not be the best word, considering that we gained 6100' of elevation in about 7 miles. Up and up and up! Again, we were shut down from summiting due to the techical nature of the last 300 or so vertical feet, but we still had some very nice 270 degree views both up and down the Stehekin valley.

View from McGregor mtn looking up valley at Sahale Mountain and Cascade Pass (on right)

View down valley from McGregor Mtn, at head of Lake Chelan.

Summit of McGregor Mtn. My pack is in the pic for scale (blue, lower right...)

The trip down was pretty uneventful, other than choosing to hike the 7 miles along the road instead of wating 2-3 hours for the next shuttle ride. That made it a solid 20+ mile day. Great fun! The rest of the days we had only been doing roughly 10-12 miles (including spurs) so this was a good chance to stretch the legs a little bit.

The next day we hiked the last 3 or so miles into town (detouring for Rainbow falls and that alluring bakery) to meet the ferry out. My mom and grandparents had driven around to meet us, so we reunited on the ferry for the 4 (!) hour boat ride out. Lake Chelan is long (55 miles) and rugged (at least at the upper end)! We spent the night near the town of Chelan, and took the scenic Rt 20 back. This has to be my favorite drive of all time. You go from dry eastern Washington climate to wetter western Washington climate through a beautiful rugged valley, cresting at 5400' Washington Pass. There's also intersing history in the area from the 30's, and several bright torquoise lakes nestled in deep pockets that provide power to the cites further down.

Ferry on Lake Chelan

View from Washington Pass, Highway 20.

All in all, wow! My rough count puts the full trip at a bit over 60 miles of hiking in 4 days through some endearingly beautiful classic Cascades terrain. Just what I needed to survive another winter on the "tame" east coast.

The rest of this summer trip consisted of spending time with my grandparents (who had come up from CA) and another short hike, but the weather had turned a bit worse. All in all another super fun (although way too short) summer adventure