Self Belief is Everything

All words and pictures copyright Alastair Rose 2011

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Sea Kayak San Juan

Just back from the san juan islands where we spent the last 13 days.
Nico my co-instructor sitting in the misty morning
Matia harbour sunset
The San Juan islands
Learning to Roll
Purple common starfish
The beautiful flat calm morning from Matia
Mt baker in the background
Nico
Another cold misty morning
Paddling as the fog lifts

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Wyatts Idea

I am in fact prepping to go sea kayaking for 13 days right now but a couple of days ago things looked a little different. I got up to Mazama Washington and was soon climbing the North west corner route(5.9) of North Early winter spire with Wyatt. Little did i know that there was a plan in progress. We ended up leaving a 60m rope hanging from the summit (on purpose) and the next morning Wyatt woke me up at 630am to go set up a Tyrolean between the two Early winter Spires in Washington pass. This involved hiking an epic amount of rope and webbing and karabiners up to the base of South Early Winter Spire, Climbing the South Arete (5.7) with it. Setting a mass of anchors, rappelling down two different ropes (one 100m long static line and one 120m dynamic (2 60ms tied together) and then hauling them up the line we had left in place the day before (jumaring up the line with two ropes attached to my harness was a little epic). We then built more anchors and tightned the lines. It was then time for Wyatt to realise his idea from 4 years ago................ All in all a long day as we then had to take it all down (thankfully some friends showed to partake in the extravaganza and help dismantle) and get it all back to truck) If none of that made sense - take a look at the photos.............
Wyatts truck in the early morning light with the Early Winter Spires above
Sorting 220m of rope, 300m of webbing, 30 karabiners and the rest before the hike in.
Wyatt crossing the Tyrolean after 4.5hrs of rigging. (click on the photo and it should get a little bigger)


Wyatt making his peace with the world before testing the system - (we only had one chance to equalise the first set of anchors.....)
Me looking relieved to have made it to the other side.
The anchors on the South Early Winter Spire (thats 4 seperate legs to two different anchors using 1 inch webbing (i have some interesting photos of the 6:1 pulley system we used for tension))
Wyatt very happy above the ground.