geosean

Wow, "reservable overnighting facilities operated by three private commercial entities" is exceedingly vague about who gets to use it. I feel like if you're going to allow any kind of development on public land it should be publicly accessible. The way I understood it last time was that the huts were going to be for private guided groups. I don't want more access for the rich pay to play crowd at the expense of any portion of the public trust. Cheap public huts like in Canada... maybe.

"something felt not quite right about that, like I hadn’t earned it." Hahahaha, nice. I wouldn't have expected anything less from you Eric! Glad you made it at least even if it wasn't exactly your style. I bet Pemba was thrilled to have you as a client on that one! I assume you're way less work and more helpful and self reliant than basically everyone else that uses Sherpa support. Thanks for the great read, I loved it.

Nice seeing you guys up there (we stayed at the shelter with you). Glad you guys made it too! Did you get out through the gate ok?

Wow dude, amazing write up, and a great effort! Thanks for all the effort explaining the whole trip; I'm actually more interested in the logistics than the thought of climbing the peak so it was very interesting. Did you do a write up of Kangchenjunga?

Trip: Mount Rainier - Ingraham Direct Trip Date: 03/17/2024 Trip Report: Mount Rainier in calendar winter... 👻👻👻 Whooooo oooo ohhhhh 👻👻👻 Scarry Well, this wasn't like that. With the big first warm-up of spring predicted, NWAC was saying considerable at all elevation bands everywhere due to wet slides. This actually made a calendar winter climb of Rainier seem spot on for the weekend of St Patrick's Day. Me and @Albuquerque Fred headed out hoping for an easy nab. So that I could get some extra sleep and to let the gate opening crowds thin out we left Seattle at 9:00, getting to Paradise close to noon. The ranger at Paradise (where we self-registered) literally said "you should have no problems"! This was extremely surprising after getting used to rangers telling you how scary and dangerous everything is, assuming that you are getting in way over your head. I think this may have had the opposite effect and made me nervous. It was 68° in the parking lot at 12:30 p.m. We slogged uphill passed about 400 people, mostly snowshoeing in jeans, good for them getting outdoors though. I think it was due to the heat but we felt like we made awful time getting to camp Muir but upon further reflection it took 4.5 hours which seems respectable with overnight packs. There was one other party of four staying at the shelter that night, they were going to bed extremely early for an Alpine start, so we hung out outside in the warm weather making water and cooking and eating and watching the sunset. We turned in at a halfway reasonable hour for a 4:00 a.m. wake up. At 4:00 it was indeed quite cold, especially after my pad went flat and I had to blow it up like five times. The prediction was for low 20s° weather, that seemed about right. We started hiking at 5:15 with our skis on our backs in the pitch black. It was cold, but calm. Booting up Cathedral Gap got me mostly warmed up, and it started to get a little light by the time we crested the ridge. I was taking diamox for the second time on Rainier (the second with diamox that is), and I didn't realize it but tingling in your fingers is a side effect, I thought they were very cold all morning but I think there was just extra blood flow. It felt a lot like light duty screaming barfies though. The sun rose right when we hit Ingraham Flats right around 11k, it was stunning. The going was hard, punching through breakable crust while booting, but it seemed like skinning would just be icy and scary, and the crust was intermittently supportable. The perfect conditions for disheartening travel, right when you think you are making headway on top of the crust you start breaking through, then you have to put extra effort into stomping the crust down so you don't pitch forward. There were two crevasses, one we stepped over, and the other had a nice stable bridge/plug. We went straight up the gut although I think climber's right is actually more filled in. We made slow progress up to 12,200' where we briefly tried to skin, but it immediately was supportable and icy and steep and scary, once I got to a place I could get out of my skis I did so with gratitude. Due to the hard going we decided to hang a left off the Ingraham Glacier to gain the upper part of the Gibraltar Ledges route and follow the other party's boot pack. There was some minor crevasse dodging here at the ridge crest but nothing challenging, then we followed the boot pack to the summit passing the other party on their way down. The head wall above 12800' above Gibraltar Rock was easy cramponing. As soon as the sun came up it had started to get extremely warm, the bowl of the Ingraham Glacier was absolutely roasting, I was wearing long underwear and couldn't really take it off so I was down to just a sunshirt on top with no gloves and no hat all the way from about 12K to the summit. I summitted in a sweat soaked sunshirt, there was basically no wind the whole way. The crux of the entire climb was definitely the heat, it sapped us pretty hard and made for slow going. This was also very unexpected so it was hard to convince yourself you needed to shed a layer. We were very far behind schedule after almost 7 hours camp to summit, so we didn't linger, we stripped skins, put our skis on for the first time in hours and headed down. I found the skiing to be very challenging for the top 1000 ft on hard packed sastrugui, with the occasional hard-packed smooth pocket that made for easy turns. At about 13,000' there was a long smooth steep head wall that made for great linking turns, though very fast and icy. From here down I found all of the skiing to be quite excellent all the way back to camp Muir and below. With the heat the snow from about 12,800' and below was creamy on top, but still supportable. I made it to Muir with my skis on. Fred is less into sketchy, bumpy, icy, exposed turns, so he found the whole thing much less enjoyable. I guess it's just a matter of taste. We packed up camp and headed down. The snow below Muir was excellent until 6700' were a bad case of mashed potatoes set in. It didn't really matter anyway as this was boot packed out 50 ft wide, so we just survival skied the boot pack back to the sign-in hut, and eventually the car. From summit to car with 30 minutes of packing was 3 hours. It all goes to show you that "calendar winter" is total BS and everything should be based on conditions rather than man-made dates. I found this trip to be a more challenging ascent than the Emmons Glacier was in the spring last year, due to the hot conditions and punchy crusty snow. Gear Notes: Avalanche gear, crevasse rescue gear, 2 30m ropes, sleeping gear (no tent, but a pad with a hole in it), way way way too many clothes, not enough water. Approach Notes: Show up late and skip the gate line, it only takes a third of a day to get to Muir, and what are you going to do before it's reasonable to go to bed anyway? It was a bust day on Saturday: Nice sunset though, views all the way to Jefferson: Fred slogging on the Ingraham: Sunrise: Fred finishing it off: Warm summit break:

Hey, I need a little help, I'm planning a trip to Waddington this summer and would LOVE to get my hands on Don Serl's The Waddington Guide. Does anyone know where I could buy or borrow one? If I could borrow yours for a few days or hours to snap some pictures and take a few notes that would be great also! Thanks all!! Here's a pic of me looking super stoked on a recent "skiing" trip to BC. We hiked down a mountain carrying our skis because conditions were so bad.

Hahaha, I just have to revive this. I can't believe no one asked... @kukuzka1, when did you lose the walkman? Too bad about the AC⚡DC.

Same problem as every other thing in the world: too many people. Get a vasectomy (if you're a man).

I'm not sure what the story is with the gate, looking through the internet it seems somewhat random. You could do 90% of the road with a Subaru or anything similar, the last switchback is the worst but it's only .25 mile. I would have been really torn if we'd showed up and the gate was open, it would be almost too easy to drive to 2800'.

Yeah Jason, get with the running game. I've done Hadley a few times over the last couple of years, it's a spectacular run from Skyline Divide. We pushed on to Bastille one time, also excellent. I think I've seen goats every time I've been up there. Once I gave up on summiting Bastille because I didn't want to keep driving the goats onto the Mazama Glacier. They always seems to take the same route a climber would. You can just make out the line of goats on the left ridgeline, and their trail across the snow.

Trip: Mount Persis - Trail Trip Date: 11/29/2023 Trip Report: After such a beautiful Sunday on Gunn me and @Albuquerque Fred decided we had better play hooky and go catch the last of the high pressure system on Wednesday 11-29, but the best we could motivate ourselves for was Mount Persis. We knew the gate would be long so we took bikes and resigned ourselves to pushing uphill, a lot. This proved to be even more lousy than expected, but totally worth it for the downhill! In a previous trip report I claimed that the trail to Gunn Peak wasn't that bad, this one was THAT bad. I think purses might be the worst trail that people have ever called a trail. I've done a lot worse climber's paths, animal trails, routes, ETC, but everybody calls us a trail, it was tough. The 2,500 vertical feet of biking and pushing probably didn't help. The snow held off until the terrain eased up at about 4500 ft, then we boot packed with minimal penetration, through the forest until popping out into the open. Where the sun had been doing its work over the past week we walked on a nice firm crust seldom sinking in, all the way to the summit. It was cold, so we didn't stay long. The sun didn't materialize today, but it was worth it, plus I was getting paid for being sick. The view of the Indexes is amazing! The view of Fred is always amazing: My butt bones hurts after this: Worth it for the downhill! Gear Notes: Bikes. Approach Notes: Bike the road, as God intended. Then trail, maybe take some pruners.

Wow, nobody else went out there on a great Saturday! Amazing. It was such a fantastic weekend.

Trip: Gunn Peak - Uh, south. Standard. Trip Date: 11/26/2023 Trip Report: On 11-26-23 me and @Albuquerque Fred climbed Gunn and Tailgunner peaks. It was grand fun made much easier than is typical for this season due to the long high pressure system that melted and crusted the snow. Not knowing what to expect from the conditions we brought all kinds of gear: rope, pro, axes, crampons, helmets, snowshoes. We didn't use any of the technical stuff, just axes and crampons, and helmets. The trail wasn't as bad as we expected from the reputation, but it was pretty bad. The heavy frost down low made sure the brush was dry at least. We had to use crampons to manage the log crossing at Barclay Creek. Snow began at 4300', then we broke out into the open and thanked the crust for making the walking easier. Another party in days past broke some trail that helped a bit. Yada yada yada, we donned crampons at the base of the "hidden ledge", not so hidden and definitely more of a gully than a ledge. There was some ice and since 2 climbing for a short distance. The upper snowfield was easy. The ridge crossover at 6100' was the make or break when we got our first look at the traverse ledge on the north side. I was pleased to see that the previous part left us some steps and a bit of a trough. It was a piece of cake actually, though heady. This was what we brought the pro for. You descend, then a really thin snow ledge with exposure, then ascend again. It would protect very well as the belayer is at a notch and there are several great cracks at the low point, then trees at the top on the far side. Then an easy walk to the summit. It had been very warm in the sun all day and it was positively balmy on the summit, T-shirts and lady bugs (not a euphemism). The descent was about the same, crust plodding, then up Tailgunner. Then down, down, down. Headlamps for 15 minutes. Given a high snow level to make the trail tolerable, I think this would make a fine all year summit if you bring pro for the north side (or are bold on a steep slope with exposure going both up and down and across). The route: First crux: Second crux: Summit: Frost line stayed in the valley all day: Gear Notes: Carried a lot. Used axe, crampons, helmet. Approach Notes: Trail is ok, not as bad as advertised.

Wow, an amazing adventure to be sure!! That looks like a wild area to explore. Thanks for the writeup!

Wow, you make this sound easy! So did you summit Ruth from climber's left of the glacier? Oh yeah, and did you do the "more secure route" or the "more exposed route" up Mineral? Per Crowder and Tabor.