Strauch/Bruno Web Photo Album

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Email us Tom, Laura, Matt or Kelsey. Search all the photo pages.

07/25/2010 Tim and Julie's 7th Anniversary, dinner at the Portland City Grill on the top of Portland's tallest building, and we get to baby-sit. Slideshow

07/14&16-19/2010 Laura's 61st birthday with Katie; Camping with Tim, Julie, Elizabeth and Addy at Tumalo State Park near Bend; McKenzie Pass; Birds of Prey Ranger Talk; Boyd and Skeleton Lava caves. Slideshow

07/09&10/2010 Broken Top climb 14 miles 3700 feet with Santiam Alpine Club Fritz, Peter, Pedro, Aurora, Lisa, Joel, Simon, Jenny and Jeremy; Buck Peak hike 11 miles 1500 feet from Lost Lake, highest point in Multnomah County with Richard and Gail. Slideshow

Trip Report
Broken Top Climb
Green Lakes Route
July 10, 2010
Excursion Time: 13 hours car-to-car
Carpool Ratio (people/cars): 2.0

A Santiam Alpine Club team reached the summit of Broken Top on July
10, 2010! The team consisted of club veterans Peter Tuazon and Tom
Strauch; 2009 Climb School student Simon Boyd; 2010 Climb School
Students Lisa Westerfield, Aurora Mehlman, Peter Urban, Jeremy Gish,
and Jenny Wang; guest Joel Byler, and your faithful leadership
impersonator, Fritz Capell. Tom served as Assistant.

Most of us arrived late, and we all camped at the Green Lakes
trailhead, a very hospitable place for camping, with a soft surface, a
babbling brook and last-minute water source, and even a pit toilet -
first class accommodations! We placed our tents randomly, but the
ranger came by in the morning and scolded us; apparently there are
some posts marking appropriate places to camp, which we never saw in
the dark. We'll look for those next time.

We awoke to a few deer grazing nearby, and rousted ourselves to a
rather embarrassing 6:50am departure. I won't name any names, but are
we climbers or hibernating bears? I'm going to have to wake some of
you earlier next time I schedule a 6am climb. Fortunately, we had a
wide open climbing window, so we could afford a yawning start.

Heavy June snowfall made this an unusual year for snow. The trail was
bare at the trailhead, but soon drifts appeared, making the trail
rather difficult to follow. Since it follows Fall Creek, it's hard to
get too lost. We abandoned the trail when it departed from the creek
up the side of the hill, as my climbing instinct wouldn't let me give
up the elevation we'd gained. Turns out it would be better to lose a
little elevation and stick with the creek - we returned via that
route, and it was a much easier passage.

We reached the Green Lakes area at about 9:30 and scoped ourselves out
a route up onto the ridge to the north, targeting the western edge of
the ridge's saddle. The area around Green Lakes was very snowy, though
melted through in some areas, and the lakes themselves were full of
ice. The ascent onto the ridge was mixed snow and rock, but not
difficult. We were on the ridge by about 11, stashed some of our gear
there, and continued eastward up the ridge, reaching The Nose around
1pm.

The Nose is basically the crux of the climb, a slightly tricky little
rock pitch that we usually protect because it is rather exposed. The
accumulated snow on the north side of the ridge alleviated much of the
exposure, and most of the team felt they could tackle the pitch
without protection. But we set an anchor and roped up anyway, just to
make good use of the rope we'd hauled all the way up here, and anyway
we figured the descent would be better rappelled.

We set up an anchor and Jeremy belayed everyone up, and from there
they continued with the last traverse, around the horn to the south
and then back across on the east side to the summit. Our first
climbers reached the summit shortly before 2pm.

We encountered only one other group on the mountain, four hikers from
Corvallis who arrived as we were belaying. I offered to belay them up
without considering all the ramifications - they were without
harnesses or helmets, and without even the skills to tie themselves
in. Simon and I gave up our harnesses, Rory and others helped them tie
in, and their heads were their own problem, as it would have been
foolish to give up our helmets. Probably shouldn't have done that, but
it must have been worth some serious karma points.

Everybody got a few minutes at the summit, which was in perfect form.
Beautiful day, mild temperatures, and we could see every mountain from
here to everywhere. The view of the Sisters from that vantage point is
especially spectacular from there, and the more so with a heavy
dusting of snow on them. I could have spent several hours up there,
but the team was anxious, and some had already headed back toward our
stash down the ridge. We used FMRS walkie-talkies to keep in touch,
but interference from other groups was a problem, as always, high in
the mountains, because the range can be extreme. Tom and Peter had a
second GPS, so they went on ahead back to the cars.

Our team rappelled, Rory belayed the wayward hikers, we tore down our
anchor, and we all picked our way back down the ridge to the stash
spot, for a last rest before pushing our way down through the mosquito
lands. We plunge-stepped easy snowfields back down to Fall Creek, and
made the rest of the hike out along the usual route. A few sketchy
snowbridges across swollen creeks, and we reached the cars shortly
before 8pm.

Another great Santiam Alpine Club excursion! Special thanks to Tom for
keeping an eye on the GPS, to Jeremy and Rory for their tireless
belaying, to Joel for helping Lisa, and to Simon for encouraging Jenny
and for loaning out his harness! Hope everybody had a good time, and
hope to climb with you all again soon!

More pictures:

Fritz Capell
Climb Leader

06/18&07/02/2010 Hart's Cove hike 5 miles 500 feet on the coast with Lee; Silver King Mtn hike 9 miles 2000 feet in the rain from Elk Lake. Slideshow