| Steve Dougherty ~ Aug 4, 2005 |
| The Sunday climb team joined the Saturday climb team for a Saturday night dinner hosted by the leader's wife, Shelley, at Big Meadows Horse Camp. Steak stirfry, salad, and bread was served. Sunday climber's Tim and Robyn Smith arrived early to make and bake a dutch oven apple crisp on site. The Big Meadows Horse Camp is just 13 miles short of Santiam Pass and has served as a base of operations for Three Fingered Jack and Mt. Washington climb weekends the past two years. Strategies for the next day's climb were reviewed and then the climb team drove to the Patjens Lakes trailhead to camp for the night. The climb team woke at 5:00 a.m. and set about the task of breaking camp. Markian Hawryluk transported leader, Steve Dougherty, and the tailgate breakfast arriving at the trailhead at 5:40 a.m. The group set out from the Patjens Lakes Trailhead at 6:15 a.m. and kept a pace nearly identical to Saturday's climb team. The conditions were calm and notably warm as we made our way up the ridge. The climb team arrived at the notch below the first rock pitch behind a large group of Obsidians taking their time on the first rock pitch. The competition for the route contributed to the group falling two hours behind the record pace set by the previous day's climb team. The leader set three fixed lines enroute to the summit and reapplied baby powder to the paths between fixed lines. Assistant, Tim Smith, cleaned the bottom and middle fixed lines while belayed by assistant, Scott Kelley. Assistant, Robyn Smith, directed traffic from the bottom of the third fixed line as we and the Obsidians competed for access to the final chimney. Once all climbers had summitted and summit photos were taken, Scott Kelley descended immediately to set the middle and final rapel ropes. Climbers descended the first fixed line with a Muunter hitch under the direction of leader Steve Dougherty. Tim Smith supervised the middle rapel and Scott Kelley managed the final overhanging rapel to the notch. Scott employed the use of each climber's long prusick and non-locking carabiner as a chest harness while Robyn Smith positioned herself at the bottom of the rapel, ready to employ a fireman's belay if necessary. During the day's climb several rock fall events were observed. The Obsidians displaced a large two foot boulder sending it bounding downhill narrowly missing members of its own climb team while descending the gully below the notch. Liz Redman displaced a peice of dinner plate shale on the middle rapel which struck Chris Bell in the backpack. These events piqued the climb team's interest in mitigating the danger of rock fall as they descended the gully. This danger can be managed fairly effectively by maintaining a position high on the ridge so that rock fall rolls away from team members and by avoiding climbing above other members of the party. After reaching the bottom of the scree descent, the climbers set a fast pace back to the PCT, making up ground on the previous day's climb team. Assistant, Tim Smith, who was bringing up the rear, stopped to relieve himself and became separated from the group. With trusty GPS in hand he noted that the bread crumb trail captured during the morning's ascent was some distance to his right. Tim chose to traverse over to this route and follow it to the PCT. He successfully located the trail and communicated to the group that he was descending the morning's route. Steve Dougherty and Robyn Smith waited at the climber's cairn for Tim and cleared the remaining team members to return to the trailhead. Unfortunately, Tim lost the trail. He chose to follow a cross country route in the direction of Hoodoo Butte since he had the waypoint stored in his GPS. This route took him out of radio contact and basically paralelled the PCT. After waiting for 30 minutes, Steve and Robyn deducted that he had either injured himself so badly that he could not call them on the radio (a very improbable scenario) or had walked out of radio range by cutting the corner and going cross country. Steve and Robyn jogged down the trail making frequent radio calls to Tim. Radio contact was achieved when Steve and Robyn reached the south side of Big Lake. Tim was able to communicate his UTM coordinates to Steve and Steve plotted his position on a map. Tim was directed to travel due west one kilometer where upon he reached the PCT just north of the church camp trail junction. Climbers enjoyed a spaghetti dinner back at the Big Meadows Horse Camp before traveling back to the valley. Participants were Steve Dougherty (leader), Scott Kelley (assistant), Tim Smith (assistant), Robyn Smith (assistant), Markian Hawryluk, Debbie Levy and son Shale Pagel, Mary Wood, Liz Redman, Nate Skon, and Chris Bell. |