Adventures of Fall

It's been awhile so here are some photos of fall's adventures.
Enjoy.


Getting some meat for the winter. Little Wolf Creek. MT.

Fun face climbing in Pouder Canyon, CO.

Devil's Tower National Monument. Awesome climbing fall climbing!

Getting close now. 1/2 way up the Durance route.

Georgeous day at Vedauwoo, WY. Looking East toward the Nautilus

Alternate view of the Nautilus.

Larry doing his part.

Beautiful sunset in Penitente Canyon, South Central CO.

Sunset over Strawberry Lake, Arapahoe National Forest, CO.

Crazy clouds at Wild Iris, Lander, WY.

Frosty day up Cottonwood Canyon. West side of the Bridger Mtns. A balmy 1 F.

Lots of fun climbing at: City of Rocks, ID; Wild Iris, WY; and Vedauwoo, WY.

Thin Slice in the City of Rocks. Awesome granite climbing.

Tetons in the Fall

Wild Iris Limestone.

Sunset in Wyoming

Sensational granite off-widths at the famous Vedauwoo.

It has been a great week here in Jackson, WY. The weather has been back and forth between rain, hail, thunderstorms, hot and sunny. Even with the weather card being a wild one, there still has been plenty of opportunities to go climbing.
There are many appealing areas in the greater Jackson area to climb no matter the weather conditions.
The first part of the week we were able to climb some excellent limestone at The Cave, Blacktail Butte, Rodeo Wall and The Shield.

Sunrise just East of Jackson in Idaho.

Blacktail Butte Limestone.

Joel following Stinker. A "classic" overhanging limestone 5.12c along the Hoback River.

James Burwick belaying Joel on Stinker.

On Thursday afternoon, Joel and myself hiked into the lower saddle between the Grand and Middle Teton in gorgeous 70+ degree weather and little to no wind. We woke up at 4:15 Am to temps in the mid 30's and clear skies. After some coffee and a quick breakfast we were moving by 5:30. After a short hike up the scree field we adorned our crampons and started climbing/traversing around to the West Face of the Enclosure.
Throughout the climb we found a variety of terrain from crack climbing to alpine ice and every kind of snow condition.
We topped out at 1:00 Pm to find some much appreciated sun.

Teewinot from Lupine Meadows.

Garnet Canyon on the approach to the lower saddle.
The Middle Teton at the back of the canyon.

Beautiful sunset looking to the West into Idaho from the lower saddle.

Same sunset from the lower saddle, looking East this time.

Excellent pitch of rock on our traverse.

Shadow of the Tetons over the foothills to the West.

Looking up the West face of the Enclosure.
Our route went through the notch just right of center.

Joel leading the final moves to the top. This was a very awkward squeeze chimney.

Looking at the South ridge of the Grand Teton from the top of our route.

Bitterroot Mountains.

The not so elusive mountain goats.

Heart Lake.
Greetings from the MT. It's been an awesome season in Alaska and now it's time to enjoy some sunny weather. Saturday Dave, Kara, River and myself hiked to Heart/Pearl/Dalton Lakes in the Bitterroot Mountains. The weather was incredible and we even had some time to do a little fishing.

A nice large crevasse to hang out in for the month of July!



View from camp at the Matanuska Glacier looking into the Chugach Mtns.



Descending back to 17,200' camp after a beautiful and successful summit day!



Looking out over high camp after summit day at 2:00 AM.

Yesterday (June 2nd) Joe, Beth and myself used AMS's drop tower to test the strength of zip-ties incorporated into the the sled hauling system for expedition/glacier travel.
We were trying to determine how many zip-ties it would require to hold the static weight of a loaded expedition sled and at what point they would fail in the event of a crevasse fall.
We used two different width zip-ties as a single and a double.
After many drop tests and static loads we determined the ideal setup would be to use two of the wider zip-ties to shorten the length of the sled haul to create a breakable link in the system to allow the weight of the sled to be transfered to rope instead of continuing to pull on the climbers pack after a crevasse fall.
This system is used by a few guide company's on the mountain, and to our knowledge, has not been tested for static and dynamic loads (only live field testing).
Getting ready to drop-test the sled haul with zip-ties.
(Photo courtesy of Joe Butler)