Leavenworth Reorganization Plan

Hi Everyone,

Due to a recent MP user's suggestion I have decided to move forward with a reorganization of the Leavenworth area here on the 'Proj. It's kind of a mess right now (especially when it comes to the alpine routes) and I could use some suggestions for improving it.

I think that looking at the Rocky Mountain National Park area on this site would be a good place to form some ideas. I think something like this would probably work well for Leavenworth:

Leavenworth

-Bouldering
--Icicle Canyon
---Forestlands
--[other bouldering area]
--Tumwater Canyon
---Riverside
---[other bouldering area]

-Rock
--Icicle Canyon
---[crag name]
----[route]
---[crag name]
----[route]
--Tumwater Canyon
---[crag name]

-Ice
---[canyons, mountains, crags, etc]
----[routes]

-Alpine

That would probably be a good starting point, although I don't know the best way to separate out all of the alpine areas. Splitting it into major groups/areas and having individual peaks within those areas might be the best option. Again though I'll defer to people like you who probably have a better grasp on the most logical way to organize it.

Although I do frequent Leavenworth a few times per year (if not for the 5 hour drive up from Portland I'd be there far more often), but most of those trips are bouldering outings; I'm not nearly as familiar with the cragging and alpine options as some of the regulars from Washington, so I'm going to defer to all of you for advice on how those sections should be organized.

I'd love to hear your opinions about this, and if I could get a few people to commit to writing up some descriptions for the major alpine areas and their peaks I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

Seems like a difficult challenge. I think its more complicated than just Leavenworth, and probably needs to incorporate some changes at the state area level. One problem I notice is the "Mt Stuart & Vicinity" area. The Washington page already has a "North Cascades" area, which includes a few peaks that I would consider in the "N Cascades", like Mt Baker & Shuksan, but excludes many others, like Rainier, Adams & Glacier Peak. Perhaps that page was meant to only include peaks in the National Park.

Not sure what to do about that. I think some form of organization is better than having 100's of areas listed under the state page. If you have an "Alpine" area (I would recommend a different title, perhaps "Alpine Peaks" or "High Peaks" or "Alpine & High Peaks"...) I think it should be at the state level, not under the Leavenworth area, and the Mt Stuart stuff can be moved there. But it doesn't solve the problem of what to do with things like Liberty Bell. Is that "Alpine", "Rock" or "Alpine Rock"? Maybe there should be an "Alpine Peaks" area and an "Alpine Rock" area. Wish I could be more helpful.... Whatever you decide to do, I suggest you provide an exlanation on the main page (either Leavenworth or Washington) that explains the divisions.

One more thing to add, the CO organization isn't perfect either. If you want to find the bouldering on Mt Evans, you have to know that its located under CO, then "Alpine Rock", then "Mt Evans", then "Mt Evans Bouldering". (Or you could just search for "Mt Evans Bouldering".) At least its consistent in the sense that RMNP bouldering is also under the "Alpine Rock" area. But the organization is not cut & dried. There's destined to be a lot of overlap, and different ways to go, so pick something that makes sense to you and do your best to explain it on the front page.

Peter-
Good on ya'. The Leavenworth section needs it. I agree with Mono that the main trouble you may run into is the distinction between 'rock' and 'alpine.' snow creek wall is definitely 'rock,' but it sure has a distinct 'alpine' feel. but, it's also not a peak. hmmm....i'm confusing myself.

As for Stuart, couldn't it be included in the same area as Dragontail, Colchuck, etc.? Same mt. range, right? kind of like a central cascades section.

Good luck.

I believe this thread is a result of me not having a good place to put Sherpa Peak. Thanks Peter!

I think MY preference would be to organize by physical location only. Routes on mountains can be rock, or ice, or both. Likewise, a crag could have rock routes as well as some boulders. So I see trouble trying to organize by "discipline". If someone only wants to see the bouldering in the neighborhood, for example, they can do a search, same as if they only want to see trad routes between 5.7 and 5.9. Does that sound reasonable?

As for where to draw the lines between Icicle Creek cragging and more alpine destinations, it's tricky, no doubt some judgment calls would have to be made. But, Snow Creek Wall is about an hour approach, and there are plenty of other smaller, less-popular walls in the area that are also an hour approach from the road. So I'd say SCW should stay in the Icicle Creek area. I believe this is how the Kramar guidebooks have been organized, and the excellent newest edition has an "Alpine" section near the back that includes climbs out in the Enchantments, near Stuart, as well as some stuff up the Rat Creek and Hook Creek drainages.

I think all the peaks near Stuart and the Enchantments are part of the same range- just ask Peter Croft- and that organization seems as good to me as any. How about a "Stuart Range and the Enchantments" area? With sub-areas for each peak?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuar…

Mono- most of what you point out is very valid, although specifically I'd say Rainier and Adams definitely do not belong in the North Cascades- I'd say they are in the Central and South WA Cascades, respectively. But at any rate, I am most interested right now in fixing the stuff near Leavenworth.

I think having a general category for "Alpine" in all of Washinton would be nice, then sub-divide that by area/region.

I loving coming back home to Washington to climb alpine stuff (woot, Mt Olympus this next week!), but mountainproject needs a bit of help for alpine routes in general since it's such a different type of climbing compared to the general rock or ice routes that MP seems much more focused on. A general "Alpine" category would probably help fix that quite a bit.

Just my 2 cents :D

You should definitely separate out alpine climbs from the Leavenworth section and then divide the state into different regions to help organize the various peaks and routes. Don't reinvent the wheel - look around at what other sites/guide books have done. Start there and then make improvements based on the how this site works. There's lots of models out there - Beckey Kramar, cc.com, bivouac.com, summitpost, etc etc.

Oh yeah, and SCW isn't alpine climbing. That's a crag.

Eric Fjellanger wrote: Mono- most of what you point out is very valid, although specifically I'd say Rainier and Adams definitely do not belong in the North Cascades- I'd say they are in the Central and South WA Cascades, respectively. But at any rate, I am most interested right now in fixing the stuff near Leavenworth.

Ya, I see your point. I'm from Oregon, so from my point of view, the "Cascades" stretch from Mt Lassen in CA to the Canadian Border. Anything North of Mt Hood is "North Cascades", from my perspective.

Chris Winter wrote:There's lots of models out there - Beckey

Just to reinforce this, the Beckey guidebooks break it out by sections of the cascades between roads/passes... ie, white pass to snoqualmie, snoqualmie to stevens, stevens to highway 20, etc. Pretty easy to locate what you are looking for that way, and maybe something that could help you group things easily.

Monomaniac wrote: Ya, I see your point. I'm from Oregon, so from my point of view, the "Cascades" stretch from Mt Lassen in CA to the Canadian Border. Anything North of Mt Hood is "North Cascades", from my perspective.

Hehe, yeah, point of view matters! I think most of the time when people say "North Cascades" they are mostly referring to the peaks that are in the North Cascades NP... or close to it. That's how I've always understood it, being from Washington. :D

I think it would be easy enough to create a Leavenworth section that is broken into bouldering, cragging and ice, but it doesn't make much sense to lump the alpine climbs in with it. for example, Mt Stuart has a couple different access points, one of which starts in Leavenworth.

Seems like you could put together the alpine areas geographically. "Enchantments" could encompass climbs from Colchuck to Temple Ridge along the main Enchantment Lakes trail. "Stuart Range" would include Sherpa, Argonaut and others. Technically, all of the peaks in the Enchantment area are in the Stuart Range.

While we're at it... Shuksan is TOTALLY screwed.