Outdoor Research Verticulture » Blake Herrington http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com Just another WordPress weblog Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:37:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Launching into the Unknown http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/02/launching-into-the-unknown/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/02/launching-into-the-unknown/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:44:45 +0000 Blake Herrington http://outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=2071 “I would like the experience at some point this year of launching up a wall and into the unknown…”

The above was written by my friend Rad Roberts last spring, acutely distilling an alpinist’s desire for exploration into one line of email. But desire is a foe ill-suited to stormy Northwest weather. So after a summer of missed chances, a forecasted few days of sun was all we needed to put plans into action.

 


We left Seattle at 5AM, en route to Sloan Peak (7,800′). The Southwest face was 1,500′ of solid-looking stone in an accessible location. It had never been climbed…

Rad so strongly wanted to launch into the unknown, so after a few miles of old-growth and alpine meadows, I let him take the first pitch. A mossy chimney leads to who-knows-where. From atop the chimney progress slows, but movement is interjected with whoops of joys and grunts of desperation. I prepare to get sandbagged. Instead of the vegetated corner, Rad’s following a line of previously-unseen –and overhanging– splitter cracks. Forty more feet and he’s off belay, 15 meters of slack pulled up, and I’m on.

I reacquaint myself with backpack-clad squirming, lean a right shoulder into the wall and pray the rubber on my comically blown-out shoes will adhere for a few more moves. The climbing is phenomenal, and well-protected. I trundle some blocks and barely hang on between desperate finger locks.

We trace a line up thin cracks and delicately-featured rock. Dodging left around a huge roof, Rad dances up a right-facing dihedral, belaying along a major ledge system 400′ up.

We survey our situation: time, water, location… and I’m off. With another steep unknown wall looming, it’s time for some speed.

The rock here is even cleaner. My pitch flows without hesitation. This is why we climb. Reach up for the jam, stem out to the knob, 3 more moves to a stance and gear…At 50 meters I ease onto a pedestal, and I’m staring at a rusty Lost Arrow Piton! We suspect someone had come across the long ledge which splits the face and also belayed atop the pillar.

Rad’s lead starts out with what we’d expected to be 30′ of unprotected overhanging face climbing. It was actually 31 feet. But instead of no protection, he finds a hidden cam placement, and slings a protruding granite knob. The rock is unlike any I’ve seen in the Cascades. Huge fins, dikes, and scoops facilitate steep face climbing… and set up Rad for the sting in the tail, tight fingers in an overhanging corner.

Two more long pitches, and the angle relents. It’s 7pm, we’ve been out of water for hours and have one micro headlamp. But I’ve never summited Sloan, and if we don’t summit, is it a complete route? We eschew the most circuitous parts of the corkscrew scramble and solo directly to the top.

Forest fire smoke surrounds us, holding a place in the sky for gathering darkness. We begin downclimbing to the East. And soon we’re rappelling into a glacial moat framed by moonlit rock and snow.

The final crux: 2 people, one ice tool, 0 crampons, and an icy late-season glacier. Some minor bollard shenanigans and creative nut-tool usage land us at rocks below the snow, where the sound of flowing water has drawn us. We split our last chocolate bar, drink a liter each, and smile. We’re no longer racing the dark. And suddenly we’re not benighted on a strange descent without the proper equipment. Now we’re two friends at the end of a long day, awed by the stars and thrilled with the climb. As simple sugar and satisfaction course through our veins we breathe deeply and head off the snow, across the rock, and down into the night.

Watch Blake’s full-cut video of the Sloan Peak climb and check out his other adventures on his blog, blakeclimbs.blogspot.com or on his Vimeo channel.

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/02/launching-into-the-unknown/feed/ 0 Blake Climbs RMNP http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2009/12/blake-climbs-rmnp/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2009/12/blake-climbs-rmnp/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:01:36 +0000 Blake Herrington http://outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=641 With a stomach full of Pumpkin Pancakes (Oh yeah, they’re delicious), I’ve been looking through some photos from the last few weeks. Snow is falling this morning, but Rocktober has lived up to its name here in Colorado. I’ve been able to climb in Boulder Canyon, Clear Creek, Rocky Mountain National Park, the South Platte, and even Utah’s Castle Valley.

After some local sport climbing, Kelly the Estes Park local guru took me out to the Rock of the Ages in Rocky Mountain Park. We did some of the local classics and tried not to get blown away by the wind. It’s a beautiful cragging spot.

 



Our buddy Forest Woodward came into town and we went out to Lumpy Ridge to climb and get some photos. All these shots are Forest’s.

Check out Blake’s blog for more on his adventures[

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2009/12/blake-climbs-rmnp/feed/ 0 Mendenhall Towers Expedition, Juneau, AK http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2009/12/mendenhall-towers/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2009/12/mendenhall-towers/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:43:01 +0000 Blake Herrington http://outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=347

What sticks with us after a climbing trip? For me, it’s seldom the climbing. Sure there are pitches I try to remember, and scary moments I want to forget, but that’s not what I remember most. Instead, I can remember laughing with Jason about the too-close-for-comfort crevasses, certain that these gaping chasms were slowly easing their way nearer to our tents. I remember being encouraged on the hike out, as bushwhacking and mosquitoes took a backseat to talking about how much pizza we’d consume back in Juneau. And apart from the amazing views and careful cross-word rationing, I remember some culinary adventures around camp. Anything (coffee, Oreos, PB&J) is better with the inclusion of butter. Larabars make great coasters and a convertible chair/sleeping pad is worth every ounce on the hike out.

One evening, after surveying our depressing pile of half-buried food (“the fridge” section of camp) I decided to make falafel. I skeptically eyed the powdered contents of a Zip-Loc bag that Jason had brought from his “camping food” box in Colorado, before heating our oil and mixing the dough. The consistency felt a little “off” but I chalked it up to age, and dropped a couple of the doughly lumps into the hot oil. Falling seracs and cornices provided entertainment as my culinary experiment set to cooking. Oddly, the lumps absorbed most of the oil and took on a consistency of Play-Doh. Woops… falafel, this was not. Jason and I tried the lumpy batter balls, and couldn’t really decide if it was some sort of spackle, drywall, or breading. As a native Washingtonian, I wanted to show off the taste of a few Walla Walla sweet onions we had, and decided it must be breading for onion rings.

Sliced onions were mixed with the powder and then dropped in yet another batch of hot oil. This time, the batter fell off the onions, turned brown, and the oil developed a slick, scummy coating. The onions bobbed around in the hot murk, and Jason just kept laughing. I strained the onions, pouring all the hot oil and mystery dough into our nearby expanding crevasse, and settled on making burritos, extremely onion-intensive and free from all traces of the mystery powder.

 


**This video was produced by Jason Nelson. Check out more stories of adventure from Jason and his family on their blog, Visual Adventures. Blake Herrington, author of this article, shares his adventures on his blog Blake Climbs. Both Jason and Blake provided the photos for this story.

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