AllYouCanEat

LOL, my adventure was much the same when I went back there a few years ago. I have no idea where I ended up but it was the top of something...kinda looked like where you ended up .

Sweet. Another view.

Baker from Shuksan last weekend. I would think you'd be able to ski most of the way down to the trail and perhaps a bit down it right now, depending on how much you want to scratch your skis. BTW, shuksan was sweet!!! Flotation is always preferred

Nice work steph! A nice escape for a short bit. I especially like to see the places I've been.

Hey dan, if the weather is good enough this weekend, I could be tempted. I know all the road shenanigans. e-mail me. jason...

Dan, this is the worst time of year for crevasses (as you know). Wait until feb and the danger is much less. Right now when skiing on baker and rainier, you have to be careful until there is a good dump of snow. And whiteouts are a pain, but as you become more familiar with our terrain, you learn to get out of dodge when weather comes in. You have skis and can get down a slope quick. Plus, you are usually solo and on a day trip. Pick your days and you'll be fine. When the weather is crap, I stay off the glaciers. I'm not a fan of GPS and have never needed one. Mostly I use my local knowledge of the places I go since most are now pretty familiar places I've skied a lot at.

I skied it in February and it was amazing. The climb is a bit of work, but I would think going up the Whitehorse Glacier, staying right in the basin to get around the cliffs at the bottom, then climbing up to the summit would be better than the other route which is pretty circuitous. Not too bad, but a good day and very condition dependent. Here's a TR from the day I was up there with some nice pics and story? It's a wonderful mountain. WHITEHORSE FEBRUARY TRIP REPORT

Layton, I don't have a picture of that but this looked cool on the way out.

To me Lowell, if people are going to camp in a small place, especially at a pass where lots of people go, you may as well make one small place established. You say on the snow, not a hell of a lot of snow there this year, just a big hole, but it doesn't really matter to me. If you are up there, have fun tearing it down. I'm sure someone else will put it back up, maybe even me. The older you get, things change. One day I'll be pissed to see things I like change in ways I'm not so happy with. Seen it already. Like I said, I made some improvements, and hell, I took others down along the way to the impatience of my brothers. I'm not always as pure as I want to be but no one ever is. And yes, you are certainly carrying the grouchy old man mantle these days, but I guess some ones got to do it Maybe one day I'll take over for ya.

Sweet. Nice to see different variations of the Ptarmigan this year. BTW, glad to see our work on the 8600-ft camp is being well used. How did you like the lower 'kitchen' area? I'm not much for doing that sort of thing, but with this camp here already, it seemed appropriate to make it a better place to camp. Anyhow, sweet TR and nice pics.

Nice 1st post. Thanks for the pics and words. I love Ruth Mountain...

Awesome. I saw this linked somewhere else and checked the page out. It was fun seeing photos from somewhere else. Man, I would love to go on a trip like that one of these days.

More bad news. Another accident that didn't end as well in the same place http://wenatcheeworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080808/NEWS04/448634810/1002

Picture number 6 is awesome. Thanks for the report...

I always liked this TR of the FA of the S face of Nooksack tower: http://cascadeclassics.org/Climbing/NooksackTower/SouthFace/Summer01/SouthFace,Summer01.htm

Oh man, I was hosed on that approach once. So fun. At least we found it on the way out. Nice trip.

Must've been those skiers who jacked the beer. They deserved it Awesome work. Love that area. Cool to hear some skiers got up in there. I'd love to hear more about that since I haven't heard of anyone going to challenger/whatcom with skis since I went back there in 2003 or so. It was one of my best ski trips ever. What an area!!!

Dan, I was up there and skied the Easton. It was nice. There are a few quickly thinning bridges. The squak could be a better bet and certainly gets you away from the people. There were a lot up there. Ha. I should've expected it. Anyhow, you can drive to the parking lot, spotty snow until the railroad which is nice and dry. Tons of camps around, but lots of people so you could get hosed. If so, head left or right and you'll find something. Otherwise the glacier is in good shape cept for a few thinning bridges some may want a rope for.

Here's some route photos I took on a trip a few weeks ago: http://www.cascadecrusades.org/SkiMountaineering/adams/adamsroutes/routes.htm There is probably a few miles of road. It goes fast. The Indians plowed (I believe to 4 corners which is the junction of 2329). You may or may not find parking.

It was good, but I'd hit it soon if you are going to ski it (like this week or next at the latest). The chikamin was broken up a fair bit. Snow went down to about 5500-ft, and in some places lower and others higher depending on aspect. The Dana made for a nice shortcut to dome if you skipped the righthand side that goes to Itswoot ridge. Mid-cascade, s cascade and Le Conte were very nice. The peaks could use more snow, cept for Hoch Joch's Spitz. That was a nice ski but s face spider was a bit thin. More info, let me know.

That certainly looked like a great route, Lowell. It was one of many I had in mind. In fact skiing back over cascade pass from stehieken would've been a cool addidion, but weather conspired to stop my jolly traverse and skiing. An escape down past blue lake, into that valley was very exciting nevertheless. Eventhough the schwacking was epic, I think better ways could be found and have been (the earlier thread mentioned a ridge above blue lake). I have no idea if anyone has been down the basin we climbed through. There was some cool falls and HUGE (a few 50-ft round more or less) trees there. A days pain didn't seem so bad a price to pay for 7 days in such a cool area. And skiing down to blue lake was so cool and as was heading into an unknown area for me. One day I'll get to try that other route.

Oh boy, hard question. Ha. I just finished a week long trip skiing the ptarmigan. We exited via gunsight pass down to blue lake and its outlet to spruce creek, then to agnes and out high bridge (which was out). It was not the way to go although we got to enjoy epic bushwacking of monumental proportions, it really would behoove you to look up an earlier thread on the subject. My last post I believe was about this very same question. There was good advice in there about a way to go down to spruce and agnes creek (via a very different route than we did). It should be easy to find. Good luck. The way we went has fields of slide alder that tops any I've every had the pleasure to shake hands with.

This route is good most years late into the season. It would be worth it for sure.

esugi, here's the best I can do: http://cascadecrusades.org/SkiMountaineering/adams/adamsroutes/routes.htm My lens fogged up inside the camera (damn) when I was going by stormy, but I can tell you both are looking very good. Lava wasn't crapping yet and stormy was filled in nicely. I wish I had more time there to ski them again, but it will have to wait until later. Not a great pic, but here's the lava hw...

Here's an overload of them: http://cascadecrusades.org/SkiMountaineering/adams/circumnavigation/circum2008/highorbit2008.htm The mountain is in great condition.