Multnomah Falls Rappel - 4/26/09

Today I had the unique oppertunity to do a ~550 foot rappel off of the top of multnomah falls as part of a garbage collection and "public safety demonstration" (the area is usually off limits to climbing and rappeling). Once a year Oregon State Search and Rescue units conduct a high angle clean up of all the trash that gets tossed off the cliffs, which means that a group of us got to rap the big one. It was certianly one of the cooler things I've done with SAR, and all the driving was certianly worth it!


Drew practicing at the Gresham Fire Rescue training tower


View from the top


Rocky from Portland Mountain Rescue scoping out the line

Next is a sequence of my rappel that Mel shot from the lower deck. You have to click the picture to actually see me because it's so big!











Drew's at the fire tower... The objective was to rappel with 40 lbs of weight below you to simulate the weight of 600' of of rope below you. Half way down the guiding line begins to pull you away from the wall... At this point, for training, we practiced locking up the ASAP (a device that clamps down on the rope if it suddenly accelerates), and then unlocking it. It's a unique setup to go along with a unique problem!


I shot this about 2/3rds of the way down...

More catching up...

Okay, yeah, I've been lazy again, so here are a few pics from random trips we've been on in the past couple months. First was a ski trip into the MTTA High Hut near Mt Rainier. This was a trip that Justin and Laila put together and we got lucky enough to get a spot on... The hut was 4 miles from the trailhead on a ridge crest that could pounded by weather all weekend. Overall we probably had something like 3 feet of snow. Skiing was okay, but the weather made it rough to want to leave the plush digs and good food to go make turns.



Part of the crew getting ready for our first run


Drying out the gear... A theme of the weekend! :)


Evening activities


Breakfast before the LONG ski out


Bunch of rippers on our first run of the day


Justin and Mother Nature going head to head



Next is a quick ski trip we took up at Tombstone Pass... Highlight of the day was awesome views and great turns down the east face of cone peak.


Working in a skin track for the lower snowfield


Skinning up after our first run


East face of Iron Mountain


Self portrait on Cone Peak


Summit of Cone Peak


Someone was getting tired...


Cone Peak Summit Pano... Windy!


Skiing through the trees near Iron mountain



About a month ago we took a weekend and drove down to the desert in southern oregon. I don't have many pictures, but one of the highlights was eating at a place called the cowboy dinner tree... They only have 2 menu items to pick from: a 28oz steak or a whole chicken! Talk about absurd.


Some cool lake out in Eastern Oregon... I forget the name.


Mel somewhere near the cowboy dinner tree


Couple of cuties


Awww...


Then I figured I'd toss in a few pics from our last lift serviced day of the year... The mountain was closing the next weekend, but it had just snowed 8" and the conditions were about as nice as they'd been all year. Cool views I'd never even seen before (usually it's cloudy).


Blinded by... what is that... the sun?


Mel with Diamond Peak in the background


Odell Lake from Willamette Pass


Top of the lift shot showing bachelor, broken top, and south sister in the background.

Couple different trips - January & February

Here's a buffet of pics from a few trips in January and February. First was a snowshoeing trip by Detroit Lake. We had mighty aspirations, but poor planning on my part (what forecast??) had us packing up the tent sunday morning for a wet blunder back to the car.


The glorious Virginia Slims headband


A very spoiled dog


A glimpse of Jefferson from camp


Then came a quick scouting trip up Eagle Creek to see if it's a reasonable canyoneering objective for this summer... Looks fun!


The trail here is blasted out of a cliffside hundreds of feet above the creek


Metalko Falls


Punchbowl Falls


Narrow slot canyon!


Another tributary


And most recently was a trip out to the desert. We spent most of saturday wandering around the Badlands, and then camped out and hit up Willamette Pass for some skiing on the way home. No pics of the latter, but you'll be happy to know that Mel is starting to tear up the blue squares!


Vista from Badlands Rock


Mel after the short scramble


Nice weather for February!


Bella (this wasn't a posed photo believe it or not... she's really that cute)


Somebody had to do it...


Cool paterns on the ice


More ice patterns


You'd think she'd have been tired by now...

Hoody Adventure - 1/17/2009

Last weekend Aaron Hartz and I climbed Mt. Hood via the Wy'east route (East Crater Rim). Our route took us across the whiteriver glacier and up an access chute to the snowfields above the newton clark glacier. Up to that point we had encountered difficult conditions... Variable snow conditions mixed with blue ice and significant ice mushrooms/gargoyles. But, the route choice ended up being a good one because it took us along a ridge crest above the ice that was apparently chrashing into the crater of the volcano. Parts of the route were protected with a running belay using pickets and the snow conditions improved the higher we got. We summited around 11, and then downclimbed the old chute. Conditions in the old chute were icy and steep, but we passed through quickly and then traversed over to the hogsback right about level with the bergschrund. Overall a pretty nice/standard day on hood, especially for early season.

This is when things took a turn... As we decended to the hogsback, at the point where the bergschrund crossed I happened to glance over to the climbers right and saw 4(?) people at the base of the pearly gates. Three of them were bunched together right in the debris chute, with another person in a safer location. I asked a guy who was standing there (later found out he was spotting for icefall) if they were okay and he said "no, that guy just fell 200 feet". I told him that I was in mountain rescue and asked if they needed any help to which he replied "yes, I think they do." When I got to them, I found out that they guy had fallen from far above and had broken both ankles. I also saw that where they were sitting was particularly subject to icefall and that if the rescuers and patient didn't get out of the debris chute that there was a good chance that someone else was going to get injured or killed. Within minutes this point was punctuated by a rather large icefall event that literally sent me running from the gully (an interesting concept with crampons on a steep slope). Behind me the two rescuers and patient in the gully were getting slammed with ice. For me this was the scariest part. I honestly wasn't sure they were going to be okay, but slowly, one by one they checked in.

So, I'm not going to go into the details of the rescue other than to say that we were extremely lucky to make it down without anyone else getting seriously hurt. The icefall was some of the worst I've ever seen, and more than once large chunks bracketed us on both sides. We did end up lowering this fella (who was a very experienced climber by the way, and a nice guy too) at least 600 feet down into the devils kitchen area to where we could carry him over to a blackhawk helicopter piloted by the folks from the 1042 air national gaurd (see my second post ever for pics).

The really sad part of the story is that five days later a gal named Brooke Colvin was killed in the same spot by falling ice. Another very skilled climber who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. :(

Here are the pics:


Ice gargoyles up to Aaron's thighs!


Sunrise on the Newton Clark Glacier


Cloud sea


A view from the east crater rim of climbers on the standard route up the mountain


Taking a break at a flat spot


A view of the upper portion of the route, which winds up gulleys on the right skyline


Aaron looking back down one of the gullies


Aaron traversing the last exposed bit over to the summit


Summit dorks! :)


Aaron decending the icy step in the "Old Chute"


Shot taken by someone else of the initial patient contact


After we completed the lowering, a reach and treat team arrived with happy meds! :)


Helicopter on approach


Helicopter


Looking back on the scene, with the red X marking where the rescue started