Lowell_Skoog

I haven't heard of any other ascents, but that doesn't mean much. --Lowell

The Alpenglow Ski Mountaineering History Project is the first comprehensive effort to document the story of ski mountaineering in Washington. The project is at an early stage. So far I've reviewed the following references, plus my personal notes: The Mountaineer Annual (1907 to the present) Cascade Alpine Guide (volumes 1-3), by Fred Beckey Challenge of the North Cascades, by Fred Beckey The Challenge of Rainier, by Dee Molenaar The History of Skiing in Mt Rainier National Park, by Linda Helleson I've created a web site with my findings: http://www.alpenglow.org/ski-history This is a long-term project. The web site describes the project philosophy and plans for future work. If you'd like to offer suggestions, corrections or tips, please let me know. Lowell Skoog, Seattle lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org

Wow, this topic sure took off while I wasn't looking. ;-) I agree with Jon that we don't need to be hasty. It sounds like there is a fair bit of interest in having a "reviewed" source of information on new climbs and guidebook revisions. Most of the heat in the recent discussions has centered around where and how to host it. Some good points have been raised. One idea to consider is to involve the Mountaineers in the discussion. I'd think that the Mountaineers Books would be interested in hearing about guidebook errata. I'd also think that the Climbing Committee would have an interest in new route reporting. The club might be able to play a role, both in the "review board" and in publishing the material somewhere (perhaps on their website). I have some contacts in the Mountaineers, and would be willing to explore the subject with them. My time of course is limited, but I'll be happy to help nudge the effort along. Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org

Novelty is the spice of mountaineering. I like to find new experiences in the mountains. That doesn't necessarily mean new routes. Sometimes it means finding new ways to experience peaks I already know. Since I plan to climb in the Cascades for a long time, I like to parcel out my experiences. For example, I might go into a peak I've never climbed before and do the standard route, then come back later to do more interesting routes. Or, I might come back on skis, or plan a bivi on the summit, or do it in a day, or in winter, or whatever. I also like repeating good climbs with different friends. On one favorite climb, I first swapped leads with my older brother, then came back with my younger brother and followed him up it, then came back with my wife. Perhaps in a few years I'll go back with my son. With this approach I get many good trips out of one area and I enjoy learning it well. It is also the best way to spot new routes, of course. Another fun approach is to put a little ingenuity into a trip. For example, on a ski circumnavigation of Mt Rainier we closed the circle by stashing rollerblades at the Fryingpan Creek trail and skating back to our car at White River campground. Using bicycles to approach climbs or ski trips is also fun. --Lowell Skoog p.s. By the way Dan, are you aware of Croft's solo one-day traverse of the Stuart Range a few years back. A good story. I believe he climbed full north ridge of Stuart, traversed the range to the Enchantment plateau, then finished with the west ridge of Prusik. As I remember it, he had planned to do the south face of Prusik, but was feeling a little ragged by that time.

MVS makes some good points. I think a website could be useful tool for recording climbs. It seems like we've always had three levels of reporting: 1. "Raw" reports like you find on personal websites, commercial sites (e.g. climbingwashington.com) and "community" sites (e.g. cascadeclimbers.com). Before the web, these reports would be have been submitted directly to Fred Beckey (for his guides) or published in magazines as either feature articles or "basecamp" notes. 2. "Reviewed" reports. These are reports that have had some sort of editorial review by experienced local climbers to select ones that are "significant". If you were interested only in historical reporting, then the criteria might be that the climb must be "new". But if you were interested in a broader record, then you might include reports that are especially well written, describe unusual trips and so on. This level of reporting is what the Mountaineer Annual and AAJ used to provide. 3. Finally the information gets published in guidebooks or regional narratives. Without the second level of reporting, the job of a third-level author gets much harder. The second level is the one we're talking about, I think. This could be provided by a website but as MVS said, the source needs to be authoritative. There shouldn't be too many of these either. It might not matter if the material is published on paper if the website publisher is reliable enough. --Lowell Skoog p.s. As MVS mentioned, a system like this could serve for reporting guidebook errata as well as new climbs. [This message has been edited by Lowell Skoog (edited 01-25-2001).]

I don't really fault the AAJ publishers for their decision. They have decided to focus on high-end international climbing. The sort of climbs done in the Cascades these days rarely qualify. On the other hand, if you look through Beckey's guides, the vast majority of Cascade routes (some very nice) are below grade IV. I'm enough of a Cascade fan to believe that there are more short, quality routes out there waiting to be discovered, in summer and winter. So, who should fill the recording gap? Dee Molenaar (for Rainier) and Fred Beckey (for the Cascades as a whole) have been the keepers of our history. (The Olympics, unfortunately, have not been so well documented.) The Mountaineers have supported both of them by publishing their books. The AAJ's have been an important information gathering tool since the Mountaineer Annual died. What we need is a reliable system for gathering information that can be fed to whoever is responsible for the Cascade Alpine Guides. (The Nelson-Potterfield guides, having only selected routes, don't fill this role.) I'm willing to help. I already have another history project underway though. I'm researching the history of ski mountaineering in Washington. This is a big project, but very fun and interesting. When I get my project foundation built, I would be willing to work with The Mountaineers, cascadeclimbers.com and others to work out a system for recording new Cascade climbs. --Lowell Skoog

This may be of interest to climbers who put up new routes in the Cascades or who like to know about recent routes. A climbing partner of mine submitted a couple new route reports to the American Alpine Journal for the 2001 edition. These were relatively easy alpine climbs in the backcountry, the sort of thing one finds after years of snooping around. The AAJ editor replied that the journal will no longer be printing reports of new climbs shorter than grade IV. Since the Mountaineer Annual is pretty much dead, this leaves no generally accepted "journal of record" for recording such climbs in the Cascades. How do you feel about this? Will another medium take the AAJ's place? Can something as short-lived as the web do it? Do we need to send reports straight to Fred Beckey? I'd be interested in any opinions on this. Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org

It must be a combination of being in a heavy snowfall area plus having a summit structure that is broad enough to build up a big pile of snow. Probably the summit has to be shaped "just so" to accumulate snow in winter, rather than blowing off. The only other non-volcanic summit I can think of that may have a permanent snow cap is Mt Fury's east peak. I'm not sure that cap survives every year. There are also nice snow aretes on the NE shoulder of Redoubt and the N rib of The Pyramid in the southern Pickets. --Lowell

I don't have an answer to your first question, but as to your last question, yes, this has puzzled Eldorado climbers since the beginning. Here is a quote from "The Ascent of Eldorado Peak" by Don Blair in the 1933 Mountaineer: "The last part of the route lay along a knife-edge of snow. This snow ridge, although apparently higher than the summit rocks, did not appear to be permanent. It is the belief of those in the party that, in a year with normal snowfall, it would not exist that late in the season." Shows how much they knew. ;-) --Lowell Skoog [This message has been edited by Lowell Skoog (edited 01-10-2001).]

I'll be giving a slideshow on backcountry skiing at the Seattle North Face (1023 1st Ave) on Wed, Jan 17 at 7 pm. It’s the same program I did for the Washington Ski Touring Club in November. The program covers early season skiing, hunting for powder, coping with dry spells (like this year!), Canadian hut trips, spring flow days, and an extended version of the Ptarmigan Traverse. This is the last time I’ll be showing this program, as I need to take it apart and use the slides for other purposes. Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org

CascadeClimber asked for a list of things the Mountaineers have done for the Cascades. I don't have time to do a thorough brain dump, but here are a few things that come to mind: * They created The Mountaineers Books, the biggest publisher of mountain books in the country and arguably the best. The Mountaineers Books are known for their high quality and their responsible approach to publishing. (Disclaimer: I've been a volunteer manuscript reviewer for over ten years.) * They published Tom Miller's "North Cascades" and "Mountaineering, the Freedom of the Hills." * They were a key player in creating the Mountain Rescue Council, both as an organization and through the individual efforts of the founders, Wolf Bauer, Otto Trott and Ome Daiber (all Mountaineers members). * They were an important player (although perhaps not as important as the North Cascades Conservation Council, a Mountaineers spin-off) in creating the Glacier Peak Wilderness, North Cascades National Park, and Alpine Lakes Wilderness. * They have recorded the history of exploration in the Northwest (one of their missions). I've been spending a fair amount of time in their library recently, and I can't thank them enough. Most recently, they've taken the wrong position in support of Fee-Demo, and I share the disappointment of others in this. (I'd like to see a guerrila action by the members reverse this. Note that NCCC is firmly against Fee-Demo, which they've described as the biggest potential disaster since the railroad land grants of the 1800s.) --Lowell Skoog

I've been a Mountaineers member for many years. I've never taken any of their courses or joined any of their trips, but I consider membership in the organization valuable. I originally joined so I could check out books from their library (and make 10 cent copies). I remain a member because, despite their faults, they are an organization that has made great contributions in the Cascades, and I think they still have a role to play. Another great (but small) organization if you're interested in conservation issues is the North Cascades Conservation Council (see http://www.halcyon.com/rdpayne/nccc.html). The directors of this organization were "present at the creation" of the North Cascades National Park and many wilderness areas and they know where the skeletons are buried. Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org [This message has been edited by Lowell Skoog (edited 01-04-2001).]

Forrest Murphy said: -- I swear, after 7 or 8 rappels, that thin line felt like we were trying to pull on dental floss, both for being difficult to grasp and for slicing painfully into your hands. Have you seriously never found this to be an issue? Maybe our thin rope was just *too* thin. -- I've been using a 6mm line, which is even thinner than you mentioned. I agree that after 7 or 8 rappels this could become a pain. However, there are few alpine climbs in the Cascades that require 7 or 8 long rappels to descend. Usually it's more like 3 or 4, at most. If I expected to make a lot of long rappels over rocky ground, I might choose a different system. On the other hand, a thin pull rope works well on snow and ice rappels, due to the low friction.

For long rappels with a 50m lead rope, I carry 55+ meters of 6 mm static line stuffed into a bag. I make sure that there is a rappel ring or a small loop on the anchor sling. The lead rope passes through this, so if the thin line fails, there's a reasonable chance that the knot joining the two ropes will jam, preventing the big ride. I throw down the lead rope, but not the thin line. Instead, I clip the stuff bag to my harness and let the thin line pay out from the bag into my brake hand. There is never any tangling of the thin line with this system. I've never had too much trouble pulling down the rope (pull the thin line and re-stuff it as you go), but certainly this could be a problem at times. If I anticipate bad rope drag I shorten the rappel. The only place I've seen much wear on the thin line is near the end tied to the lead rope. I buy a little more rope than I need so I can cut away the worn section once or twice before retiring the line. I made up this system, and I'm open to criticism about it. If you can convince me that it's unsafe, I'm all ears. Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org

You might consider taking the Gibraltar ledge route rather than Fuhrer Finger. The route is about the same length, and you can use the Muir shelter for high camp. The main avalanche hazard area on the Gibraltar route is between Muir and the ledge. You can minimize the hazard by hugging the left edge of this snowfield. Beware of cross-loaded avalanche slopes on the Fuhrer route, especially near the top of the finger.

Routes become classics for two reasons: 1. The route is outstanding in its region. 2. The route is outstanding in its category. Every range has its classics. In a big range like the Cascades, sub-regions have classics too. For example, you might not consider Chimney Rock to be as good as some climbs in the North Cascades, but in the Alpine Lakes region it's a classic. When you consider classics by category, you have to remember that there are many, many categories. "Alpine climb" is too vague to categorize climbs in the Cascades. Alpine climbers consider many factors in choosing classic climbs. For example: * Approach: short/long, straightforward/grueling * Climbing type: rock, snow, glacier, ice * Difficulty: simple, moderate, technical * Length: short, medium, committed * Topography: ridge, face, gully, traverse Combine these factors in various ways and you define categories. Some examples: * Long glaciated approach, short easy rock: Olympus, Blue glacier Challenger, Challenger glacier Dome Pk, Dome glacier * Short, simple approach, short moderate rock: Liberty Bell, Beckey route Tooth, SW face East Wilmans Spire, standard Sharkfin Tower, SE ridge * Long glaciated approach, long moderate rock: Eldorado, West arete Goode, NE buttress Fury, N buttress * Long approach, medium length technical rock: Prusik Peak, S face Cathedral Pk, S face Gunsight Pk, E or W face * Alpine snow or ice face Buckner, N face Redoubt, NE face Fury, NE face * Alpine snow or ice gully Stuart, Stuart glacier couloir Dragontail, Triple couloir Goode, N couloir * Technical ridge traverse Stuart Range traverse Torment-Forbidden traverse Bonanza summit traverse I could go on and on. I think all of these routes are classics in their category (I haven't done them all), but they are very different climbs. That's why I find it so hard to name my favorite climbs (besides being reluctant to make them more crowded). I have so many of them. Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org

Maintaining the site as a hobby is a valid business plan. I just wondered where you were coming from. I'm happy to hear that you don't have a commercial agenda. Too bad you didn't register the site as ".org" instead of ".com". --Lowell

I received the following newsletter article recently and thought the topic was relevant to this website. For example, I have wondered what the meaning of ".com" is in cascadeclimbers.com. Just curious... http://strom.com/awards/226.html

A couple friends and I skied (to use the term generously) the Interglacier on Mt Rainier on Saturday. Actually, we ended our tour at St Elmo pass because we were running out of time. Based on this tour, I think the hazard on high old snowfields is not so bad. The weather last week was pretty warm and there was a fair amount of wind. The Interglacier had more windcrust than faceted snow. I think the faceted snow is only prominent in cold wind sheltered spots. Most of those spots are in places where terrain and vegetation anchors are still exposed. So, maybe we aren't developing a hair-trigger base. We'll see... Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org

Snowleopard said: "High Ice. A film in the 80's about rescuers. I never saw this one, but heard it was okay from other climbers." This made-for-TV movie was pretty bad, but it was interesting from a Northwest perspective. The peak in the film was the unclimbed east face of Whitehorse Mountain in the Cascades. They built a mockup of the face in the Darrington high school gymnasium. They also staged a helicopter crash on the mountain (lots of explosions and fire), impossible these days now that it is a wilderness area. I believe some local climbers helped out as riggers. Finally, David Jansen's character was a crusty old mountain man that reminded me of Fred Beckey. Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org

I've used the SecuraFix, which predated the Alpine Trekker by a few years. The advantages and disadvantages are pretty much what you'd expect. Advantages: * Cheap (if you already have alpine gear). * Light and compact (if you're already using alpine gear--like when traveling around to various ski areas, just bring one set of gear). * High performance (you've got full-power alpine gear for the descent). Disadvantages: * Heavy (your alpine gear, not the trekkers). * Cold (alpine boots typically have a "performance" fit). * Clumsy (your foot is lifted an extra inch off the ski, and you get all the freedom of movement of alpine ski boots ;-). My sense is that trekkers are not very useful in the Cascades. Either you're skiing very close to a ski area, in which case you can get there by sidestepping or walking, or you'd like to get farther out, in which case you'll really want lighter, more maneuverable gear. They might be useful to give you your first taste of backcountry skiing, but then again you might not get a very accurate impression of the sport. If you're a good skier, the cheapest way to get started in backcountry skiing is to use mountaineering boots on an old pair of alpine skis. Silvretta bindings are about the only choice anymore for touring with mountain boots. Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org

I think Alex's analysis is good. I posted the question after skiing near Mt Baker ski area last weekend. There was nice powder on permanent snowfields, but it was poorly bonded on steep slopes. It was plain that the cold temperatures were turning the new snow to sugar (faceted snow, depth/surface hoar, temperature gradient snow, whatever). Based on these observations, my theory is that new snow over perrenial snowfields could become very unstable with the next storm. North faces will be the worst because the current layer will be weakest there. Around Mt Baker at least, the snowpack is still shallow enough that there are a lot of terrain anchors exposed, so areas that don't have perrenial snow may not be so bad. (Don't go betting your life on it right away though.) Warm weather and rain would be the best way to get rid of this problem, but that doesn't look likely. It will be interesting to see what the Avalanche Center has to say about it when they start forecasting later this month. I consider it a good learning tool to compare my own observations with what the NWAC and their informants say. By the way Alex, when you mentioned the "temperate snowpack" of the Rockies, did you mean "temperature gradient snowpack" or maybe "continental snowpack"? "Temperate snowpack" sounds like normal Cascade conditions, although I think "maritime snowpack" is the usual term. (Just a terminology question--your analysis seemed excellent to me.) Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org [This message has been edited by Lowell Skoog (edited 11-15-2000).]

To stimulate interest in the topic of avalanches, here's a puzzler. I don't claim to have the right answer, but I have a theory or two... *** The current weather and snow conditions in the Cascades are setting the stage for significant future avalanche hazard. In which areas and under what conditions will this hazard be the worst? What changes in the current conditions could prevent the hazard from materializing? Post your guesses here! ***

I received a flyer from the Friends of the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center (NWAC) about two Fall 2000 benefit programs for the Center. They'll be showing TGR's new film "Further" at the following locations: Nov 16 at the Mountaineers Clubhouse, Seattle, 7:30 pm (Tickets available at Mountaineers bookstore) Dec 8 at Seattle REI, 7 pm (Tickets available at REI Customer Service counter) Cost: $7 general public $5 for Mountaineers or REI members For more information about the Friends, visit their website at http://www.avalanchenw.org. For more information about the Center, visit their website at http://www.nwac.noaa.gov.

I've got an old wooden Nordic Track that I like. Back when I bought it, it was one of the most effective aerobic trainers. But I don't know how it compares with the modern elliptical ones. Mechanical trainers are good for working up a sweat, but I still like hiking to keep my legs in shape for mountaineering. When my schedule doesn't allow me to get out on weekends, I try to do a morning hike once a week before work. My favorite is the West Tiger cable line trail at the High Point exit off I-90. I like to start out before twilight and summit (at the radio towers) around sunrise. The round trip from my house to work in Seattle is about 3 hours, depending on traffic. Lowell Skoog lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org p.s. I almost never wear raingear on these hikes. I carry a big golf umbrella instead. [This message has been edited by Lowell Skoog (edited 10-31-2000).]