Alasdair

At least you did not have to wait 8 hours for your plane.

Any one got any info on climbing in the Idaho Sawtooths? I am wondering if given shitty weather here and a need to get out for a long weekend, whether it is worth the drive to idaho?

Here I am. Jobe, you suck. You seriously need to chill. I guess it is time to give up climbing in Alaska. What the hell do you do on your planned summit day when the weather is not good. Several years ago I got off of Foraker as a storm was heading in. There was quite a few climbers sitting at base camp looking to get out. There was a bunch waiting for Doug, and a unknown number waiting for the other flight services. In the next 12 hours Doug flew multiple flights to get as many people off the mountain as possible. No gear, just people. The only people who got off the mountain that day were people who were flying with Doug. Everyone else spent 3 more days in a storm at KIA. Next time you are up in AK(If you dont die of a heart attack first). Take another flight service. No skin of Dougs back, no skin off yours. Thanks for the entertainment dude. I dont think I have ever herd of anyone getting upset about waiting for 8 hours at KIA.

yes they were on the SE Ridge. I shot the two pictures below in May The ridge looks pretty strait forward except for the Heinous ice fall about 1/3 of the way up. I have not seen a picture of it looking this broken up before. I am sure it is much worse now. That route is fairly well known for avi danger. RBW do you have any more recent pictures of the route? Specifically the icefall section. I am hopeing to climb this next year. http://www.nwclimber.com/climbing/trips/hunter2002/Scan70.jpg http://www.nwclimber.com/climbing/trips/hunter2002/Scan71.jpg

neither.... He's a fat fuck!

Climbing Fatalities on Mt. Foraker Identified Three Alaskan brothers lost their lives in a climbing fall on Mt. Foraker this past week. On Monday, June 17, 2002, National Park Service (NPS) rangers confirmed the deaths of Kevin Strawn, age 27, Anchorage, Travis Strawn, age 21, of Wasilla, and Colby Strawn, age 15, of Eagle River, Alaska. The brothers began their climb of the 17,400-foot peak on June 11. Their last reported contact was made by CB radio on June 13 when the climbers reported their location at 10,500-feet on Mt. Foraker. Although the climbers were not overdue, a pilot with the group’s air taxi flew over the the Southeast Ridge on June 16. The pilot did not see the climbers, but noticed evidence of avalanche activity in the area. On June 17, basecamp personnel notified NPS staff at the Talkeetna Ranger Station that they were concerned about the climbers. At 3:30 p.m., NPS dispatched the Lama helicopter with two NPS rangers to search for the climbers. The rangers found tracks near the 10,500-foot elevation of Mt. Foraker. The bodies, still roped together, were found at approximately 4:40 p.m. on a slope at 8,500 feet. It is unknown what triggered the fall. The bodies were recovered from the mountain on Monday evening with the Lama helicopter.

Wayne1112 and I almost got shelled on Polar Circus a couple of years ago when the road crew was doing avi control on a slope next to or above us. We dont really know where the hell they were shooting the charges but they were damn close and we both thought we were going to die.

If you know anyone who lost a ski on silverstar glacier this winter it has melted out and is sticking out the top of a snow bridge. I would have picked it up and brought it down had I had a rope to go get it. Let me know if you need details of where it is.

When I spoke with the Ranger last weekend he said that the road was blocked by a huge amount of avi debris and it may be a while before it is opened. Probable past July 4.

The dude that spent the night in the crevasse was wearing Jeans and a t-shirt. Oh and it was not a crevasses, it was the moat next to the rocks I believe. Ask Wayne1112 he pulled the guy out. From my experience on Glacier the only cracks on the entire thing were in the small bulge in the center of the Glacier. You should be able to figure out where that area is with out any problem.

I think we should charge everyone who owns a boat $150 every time they go out on the water. No, acctually I think we should make all boaters pay for their own rescues. Can you imagion if they started asking drunk boaters to pay the rescue costs of 150 foot coast guard cutter comming to their aid? Not to mention the rescue costs of slinging the crew off of a little boat in the open ocean with a Dolphin (coast guard chopper). I would be willing to bet rescues over open ocean are MUCH more expensive that mountain rescues. The rescue costs on Lake Washington on any given sunny weekend are probably just as high as the mount hood rescue (if you forget about the crashed Pavehawk).

DAMN!!!! That is amazing. Did you think about doing a lightweight traverse? I was thinking about doing bonanza and then heading back to Holden, and then going up copper and doing a traverse over Fernow, Maude and SFJ to Phelps creek. Do you see this a possible?

How long did you take for your trip on Bonanza, Maude, Fernow, copper, and Seven Fingered Jack? Did you do the traverse from Holden? I want to do this exact thing. Can you give me more beta on your trip?

What route was he on?

Where on hunter was the chest deep snow? And what date was that on? Wayne and I encountered no such thing, however we possibly were there a little earlier.

That was definatly not be getting pummeled by wet slides on shucksan. I was at the very top of the ridge, and there is no way anyone could have seen me when I was up there because the visibility was zero.

I can understand why they may have thought that the weather was OK and continued up. The clouds cleared almost completly around midnight and it stayed clear till about 8 AM. At this time the clouds totaly engulfed both Baker and Shucksan above 7000 leaving zero visibility.

I was up there yesterday. Conditions have not changed much, other than the fact that everything is now comming down in the form of wet slides. Snow shoes or skis were not nessessary however I would take them just like I did, they may be nessessary today.

climbed this route with someone with very little experience last summer in close to zero visiblity and rain and had no problems. More importanly there was no one else on the peak, not even mountaineers groups. If you have climbed the tooth you can climb this.

It was pretty crappy up there yesterday. I was on Shucksan and turned around at 8000 due to zero visiblity. Couple questions: Did they suddenly decide they were lost and get on the cell phone to get rescued? Did they try following their tracks in the snow back the way they came? Why did they not just head back down to where there was visiblity and then find their camp. The cloud level was at 7000 feet yesterday and there was very good visibility below that. I know this because I could see Baker from shucksan when I was below 7000. I know I dont have the whole story, but I am interested to see what it is when they get back. Hope they make it.

Ok, here is a very nearly Darwin award from a couple of weekends ago. This is very true. I got to see the aftermath. On the road outside a motor cycle safety class: Events written by one of the instructors. During our lunch break, I was standing talking to one of the other instructors when we heard the sound of a bike engine revving down the street. We both turned our heads to see what kind of bike and saw a guy on a Suzuki Sport bike come into view. Suddenly, he gives it more gas and pops a wheelie. I remembered thinking, "oh great, right in front of our students too" then everything went into slow motion. The bike just kept going up and up and I thought, "oh shit, this guys gonna lose it". Sure enough, he kept right on going over until the front wheel was staring straight up at the sky and then it went over. One GOOD thing I can say about Harleys, you never see their riders popping wheelies. ;-) The guy did an admirable job of trying to land running but he must have been going about 60 mph and there was no way he wasn't going to go down. It looked to me like he was just standing there about a foot off the ground but as soon as his feet touched the ground he just planted hard face-first on the pavement, bounced once and then slid. The bike hit the tail piece and then flipped end-over-end several times before coming to a stop in the middle turning lane of the four lane highway he was on. The guy just slid to a stop and then lay there not moving. He must have slid about half the length of a football field on his face before coming to a stop. That's when we unfroze and started running towards him. There were three of us at first - Kat Spitz (our first aid instructor) rushed to aid him, I ran out and started directing traffic behind him, and Mark (the guy I had been talking with), was directing the traffic coming the opposite way (slowing them down to avoid debris) while also making the first cell phone call to 911 (there would be three total). Fortunately, he WAS wearing a full faced helmet and leather gloves. One side of the helmet was sanded flat around the ear. Unfortunately, he wasn't wearing much protection on the rest of his body. Just a heavy windbreaker kind of coat and jeans. Miraculously, I never saw any blood and no "big" tears in his clothing although I saw what looked like a puncture through his shoulder. Most of the soles of his riding boots had been peeled back off his boots and were curled up underneath his feet, though. The kid was totally out of it but was moaning when I first got there. I saw him sit up with Kat trying to tell him to stay down. Then he took his helmet off against her instructions. Then he stood up and wobbled over to the side of the road again against her instructions. She finally threw up her hands and went with him. About that time, two off-duty police women who had been taking one of the other MSF courses across the way came up and took over working on him. Another off-duty cop pulled up in his car and called 911. Then a motorcycle cop pulled up and started taking statements. Pretty soon, we had three aid cars and an army of help so, we just stood out of the way waiting to give our statements to the police. I could hear them asking him things like, "What day is it?" and "How many fingers am I holding up?" or "Who is the president?" to which he answered, "Monday?", "Green?", and "Bush?" respectively. One out of three isn't bad, I thought. The cop finally said, "how about an easy one, is it night or day?" The guy couldn't quite decide how to answer that one. They then proceeded to immobilize his neck and body to a body board and then loaded him into one of the aid cars. The motorcycle cop told us later that the kid (yes, in his twenties) didn't have insurance, a license or permit, and had just purchased the bike about a month ago. Can you say, "SQUID"? Pretty soon, all the vehicles were gone and we were back at our range but still watching as the tow truck guys loaded what was left of the bike onto their truck. They looked over at us - instructors and students with our helmets, etc. and yelled, "DON'T DO THIS". We all nodded. Then they drove their truck over to where we were standing while we all oooh'ed and ahhh'ed at the wreckage then they handed out their business cards explaining, "we tow motorcycles". I thought that was pretty funny but one lady in our class got really large round eyes while looking at the bike on the truck. I tried to reassure her by saying, "don't worry, you won't be popping any wheelies, will you?" to which she just shook her head. She passed BTW. Just another normal, quiet day of MC Safety instruction in Washington. ;-)

I lost my keys once when I was climbing at a small toprope area near Eugene where no one else climbed. About six months later (I had forgotten about the keys by then), I went back to climb, was setting up the toprope and still sitting next to the bolts were my keys. So just remember, once you have lost all hope that you will ever see your keys again, they may just show up.

THere is a big difference between the USFS tickets and the Fish and wildlife tickets. Dont pay the USFS ones they cant do shit. The fish and wildlife will send you a ticket from the local sherrifs office. Those you should pay.

I collect these things. I have a stack of them in my car one from just about every national forrest in WA. I have been collecting them ever since the program started. I have never been contacted. And the one time when a ranger was in the parking lot giving me a ticket when I got back to my car I told him that it wont be paid and his comment was "thats fine no one else does". Keep a few in your car. When you pull up to a parking area with a bunch of cars with tickets just take one out of you stack and place it on your car. They will leave you alone. In short... Never payed never will.

Assuming good weather and that you are in semi good shape there is no reason why this peak could not be done in three days. These would not be particually dificult days either. What you want to do is camp on Easy ridge just before you drop down toward Inperfect Pass( I think thats what it is called). Out and back to the summit the next day and then pack up camp and out the next. Get reallly good beta on the Imperfect pass thing before you go.