SEWS/Kangaroo Temple

Date:8/19/2006-8/20/2006
Route:SEWS/S. Arete and Kangaroo Temple/N. Face
Climbers:Kirk Alm, Glenn Pittenger, Myself and Lots of Basics

I Met Kirk Alm at the Ash Way Park and Ride at 4:00am Saturday morning to head up to Washington Pass. Everything seemed to pretty much drag on the way up. We arrived at the Blue Lake T.H around 6:45am. We met the other basics and headed up the trail. After about 2 hours of hiking we arrived at the notch of South Early Winter Spires. There were six of us total, and Katie Steffl was my follower on the climb. The last time I did this climb, I did the crux pitch by traverssing to the left. I decided to try something different and move straight up the face this time. It was a bit of a challenging move on lead, but not harder than 5.5 I would imagine. I had rock shoes on for this particular section. I brought Katie up and was belaying her with a munter hitch directly off the anchor which proved to be a wise decision since she took a couple of falls on the rope and ended up gashing her leg pretty good. We passed the chimney and then all congregated at the "whale back" - a 12-15ft hand traversse. A fixed line was set up on this portion of the climb for those people that may have been more nervous. We all got to the summit and enjoyed the views and then got ready to come down.

We started to notice just how many gomer, inexperienced people this peak attracts. The mountain became a cluster fuck on the way down with dozens of people that were doing stupid things. One party felt that it was necessary connect 5 or 5 people with different ropes, fixed belays all the way up the peak. Morons.

After the climb and the bizzare events that took that place, Kirk and I both felt that it was necessary to relieve our mental anguish by enjoying some Winthop Hops. After our beers we headed back to camp and slept it off.

Sunday - K.T

Sunday morning Kirk and I woke up from our stay at the Lone Fir campground. I carcamped that night and didn't sleep all that well. Perhaps from the beer? We met the basics for the Kangaroo climb at the hairpin curve in the road. Again, there were six of us. This was my first time on the route,