Lower East Rosebud climbing

So Lucas and I found ourselves chasing historic climbs in a historic place. And we found some! Since the Montana Mafia is watching, and because I like that this place is still tight-lipped, I wont post anything Ron Brunckhorst hasnt already published.

Hmm, any rock climbing up here?

There is the Ramp and Double Book Dome

The Ramp. I led P1 and Lucas took P2. He decided to get crafty and find something new and we ended up way left of the standard route at an anchor that was only going to let us rappel. Judging by the amount of old webbing there, we are not the only ones that got off route. We went down to the Double Book Dome and Lucas tried The Book and got shut down at the offwidth. I then tried Beginners 1(?) and got humbled. If that is 5.7 then Obama is my dad. The MOST SANDBAGGED routes I have ever seen/tried to climb. We didnt send a single route all day. Big boy territory! 

My super stoked climbing partner.

The 3 Sisters: Tower of Poor Rock, Tower of Innocence, and Incubus Tower.

We were hoping to send something up the Tower of Innocence.

A little liquid courage never hurt onsight trad climbing.

See? Stoke factor: High!

Noticed this beautiful tower while walking up to Innocence and decided to try it instead. 

Pitch 1

Lucas following P1

Lucas' P2

Getting a little difficult up there Lucas?

(Lucas) "Yeah I aided through that baby!" This crack was excellent just a little bit harder than we can climb cleanly.  

Lucas chilling below my P3. While sitting here, the scree gully to our right (E) blew up like a car was driving down it. We ran over and there was a large Black Bear screaming down the gully getting the heck out of there. Inspired the name of the route: Cave Bear.

Up the streaks. 

Original idea? Guess not! Anybody know who uses extremely thin wires with baby blue tape? This lil guy has been there a while! After Lucas was up to the belay, I traversed out left to the base of a dihedral Lucas had seen from the road. He then led the best pitch by far. And of course, there was another stuck nut. I followed then led one more pitch to the top! 

Starting to get up there a little way; 6 pitches. Epic views. 

Thats the Bear's Face (?) back there middle-right of photo.

Could have been worse.

Lucas looking for the glasses he dropped, to no avail.

Walked off the top of the pinnacle and decided to check out the bear's cave.

Thats where the Black Bear was sleeping before we interrupted him. 

We climbed the little tower just to the left of Innocence. 

See that epic dihedral Lucas spied then climbed; kinda middle left of photo?

After yesterdays manhandling it was awesome to get a climb in. We celebrated big time with help from the Grizzly Bar.

Stoke factor low on Monday so I decided to go fishing. 

They were nailing the dries! 

We had such a good weekend with lots of laughs and good times had by all. It was such a heartbreak to return to Bozeman and find out that we had lost two fellow climbers out there doing exactly what we were doing. It hit really close to home even though I didnt really know either of them. Its just a reminder to be ever vigilante and never let your guard down while on the rock. They were both experienced climbers so lets learn from their mistakes/misfortunes (broken hold in the Clarky?) or whatever happened (if we'll ever really know).

Tetons link-up: Buck to Static to Albright

Went down to the Tetons for my third attempt at linking Buck mountain to Static mountain to Albright peak. First attempt got rained out at the TH, second attempt had me running off Buck 5 minutes from the summit with lightning on my heels. I actually had to perform my first real/serious self-arrest on the East face snow field cause I slipped while glissading. Both those trips were solo missions but I was able to talk my friend Neil into spending all day running around the mountains. We summited Buck in a little over 3 hours and were on Static a couple hours later. The numerous tourists couldnt believe we had just come "from that mountain over there?!" From the top of Static, we hopped down to the Alaska Basin trail, took it to the saddle and scrambled up Albright. From Albright, we took the AK Basin trail down to Death Canyon for a leisurely walk out. 10 hours and ~16miles later with lord knows how many feet gained (7K-8Kft) we were back at the car. My camera batteries pooped on me on Buck so Im missing some summit photos. 

A commanding view of the Cathedral group from the South.

Timberline Lake were we had lunch before scrambling up Static via the obvious couloir coming down off the E ridge. From the col, we traversed a disintegrating class IV hillside until we could scramble up scree and grass to the summit and surprise the hell out of the tourists. 

Some amateur photography.

Hey there's Neil on Buck mountain.

Looks like a weirdo not a Buck.

Looking down at Death Canyon.

Beartooths: Mt.Wood

Ben and I spent as casual of a weekend in the Beartooths while still doing work that you could ask for. Perfect weather, easy route finding, the bushwhacking was more like off-trail hiking, packs were light and stoke was high! 

This is the fals summit of Mt.Hague with the Mystic Equinox Tower.

Its hard to tell from the photo but there is an orangeish tower in front of the main massif. 

Ben was just so excited to be on top; feeling the love!

No Ben, you're not holding Simba in the Lion King.

We went to the W summit; its more prominent and harder to get to even though its a foot or two shorter.

Givin it to that summit block! It is Mt.Wood after all..

I am all that is man! 

Some meat to go with our pesto pasta for din din.

Ben slaying.

Did I mention we had some Sangria to wash our fish down with. 

Yup, thats our private sandy beach!

Mystic Equinox Tower from the trail. I got really inspired by that chunk of rock and WILL go and climb it someday.