wisam
·
Aug 29, 2023
·
Unknown Hometown
· Joined Jan 2012
· Points: 60
Climbing flyboys this weekend. Flying in so only have one car and prefer not to rent a bike. Curious, is the route popular enough we have a decent chance of hitching a ride once we get to the top with a fallback of running the road back to our car.
also, our choices are Friday or Saturday, Saturday has better weather but curious, is it too crowded on weekends?
I have a fun little story of two idiots that tried to do this once! We got to the top, smoked a joint and decided we'd try the "walk off route". The top of the wall has no serivice AND no GPS so we accidentaly located our position wrong on our map. turned the wrong direction on the road, and started walking. We walked for about 8 flat miles until we reached the END of the forest road. It just ends.
SO, we turned around, walked all the way back to the top and by this time it was 11pm, so we slept on our ropes and rappelled at 5am.
Seriously, just do the raps. Hell, walk over to the Prime Rib top out and do fewer rappels down to the base. Or just rent bikes to drop at the top. Don't under estimate the walk off. It's fucking MILES down there and it's going to be faster to rappel off in the end.
wisam
·
Aug 29, 2023
·
Unknown Hometown
· Joined Jan 2012
· Points: 60
So it looks like we can still get there if we drive the long way around, anyone interested in splitting a shuttle if they have another group of two? Would prefer to go on Saturday but open to Sunday
We did flyboys last Labor Day weekend, expecting it to be crowded and preparing for the crowds. No exaggeration, there were at least 50 people total on the route. The route took us 13 hours because of multiple slow parties who refused to let us pass. Just be prepared for possible crowds like no other
We did flyboys last Friday. Only one other party on route. I wouldn't count on hitching a ride down going on a Friday. I'd imagine more crowds on a weekend, but I still wouldn't rely on other parties getting you down. Stashing a bike at the top and riding down was absolutely the safest/best option for us. Rapping 18 pitches is a pain.
Rapping either route is perfectly reasonable. I’ve done PR from the top and FB from 3/4’s up. There’s a lot of walks between anchors so if one person coils while the other pulls slowly, you’re ready to walk as soon as the rope comes down.
The rope got stuck only once on a bush at the right hand traverse pitch about halfway up FB. Clean and quick otherwise.
The time we hitched a ride from the top of FB was the best though. They even had beer for us! Good luck
I'd consider doing Prime Rib instead. IMO, the quality is higher. Fly Boys sounds cool at 18 pitches, but probably half are <5th class or only have short 5th class sequences. Prime Rib also has a better rap route, which is the way to go if you don't have a shuttle set up.
+1 for Eric's response. Flyboys is something you'll tick and not remember a single pitch. It's long but uninteresting and a lot of carrying your rope. Go do Prime Rib or any of the other various routes in the area.
E MuuD
·
Sep 3, 2023
·
Unknown Hometown
· Joined Sep 2018
· Points: 160
We did Methow Inspiration Route yesterday and only saw one other party out anywhere - they were doing sisyphus, (they also did Methow later in the day). Seems oddly uncrowded....
Also: if you've done Flyboys and don't remember the chimney pitch... ???
Simulclimbed the first nine pitches in about 20 minutes to a nice ledge. Two parties of two climbing together were not at all receptive of us cutting in. I made a little bivy and napped on the rope for an hour. They were still bumbling their way up the start of that pitch, we reprimanded them for being tossers and not recognizing when obviously faster climbers are trying to pass, and rapped down. Very happy having burgers at Schoolhouse. Fortunately we had just done a bunch of actual good climbing at Washington Pass so we were content with the trip.