Alasdair

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.

Here are pictures of the trip wayne is talking about. This is the Traverse from west to East. Over Easy Ridge and Perfect Pass. I have pictures of most of the route here. Keep in mind that the river crossing will be considerably more dificult this year that it was in these pictures from last year. Let me know if you need any more info. nwclimber.com

I never pulled all nighters in college like most of my freinds did. So when I finnaly did stay awake for an extended period of time it effected me quite significantly. I did a 30 hour push (with about an hour of rest at some point) a few years ago getting off of a mountain. Although I was strong physically I definatly had mental issues. Basically I had issues with the prossessing of sound. When partners would talk I would hear them but not be able to prossess the information until later. I would store up several sounds and then prossess them all at the same time. All the while I was fully aware that I was doing this but without the abitily to do anything about it. After getting back I read up a little on sleep deprivation and this experience seems to fit in exactly with what the papers said. Audio hallucination is one of the first things that happens. I dont remember any of the other symptoms. There was an artical in either Rock and Ice or Climbing a couple of years back on this topic that you should read. I dont recomend doing this unless you have no choice.

keep in mind that the travese from red sadle can be farily steep and very exposed to rock fall from above if you choose to climb to the summit after doing one of the south side routes. Here is a link to some pictures of the whitewater gacier route which also ends up at red saddle. There are several pictures of the snow slope and the traverse. http://www.nwclimber.com/climbing/trips/jefferson1998/jefferson1998.htm

Im with RBW. It is fucking cold up there. If you are doing the west but then take all the shit you can drag, everyone else does.

OK, I was browsing some sites on the web looking at rainier pictures when I came across this one. Is it just me or does any one else find this to be a fairly bad place to stop at take pictures? This is directly below the ice cliff on Kautz.

You get caught you can pretty much kiss all of the rights you have when getting arrested by a police officer goodbye. Keep in mind that the border patrol can pretty much do what ever the hell they want to you including take your car. I know of at least one person heading into canada who got caught and he basically is not allowed back into canada. I would guess the consiquenses far outweigh the benefits of not having to bum it from some punk kid.

Does anyone know if the road to Hannegan Pass trail head is accessable this time of year? If so, All the way to the trailhead? Any one been in to this area this time of year? What is it like? I am thnking about Ruth Mountain or Icy Peak.

I highly recomend easy ridge. On the way to mt challenger. I was in that area last summer andit is an amazing place to take pics. This page will give you an idea of the area. Easy ridge pics are mostly at the begining. I will label them a little later today. http://www.nwclimber.com/climbing/trips/challenger2001/challenger2001.htm

Luna?

It always mistifies me when I walk past roped groups on glaciers in the middle of summer where all of the crevases are open, and one of them has to say "where is your rope, You are on a Glacier you know" Alex, do you think it is really impossible to garantee safety by climbing something like the sitkum glacier without a rope in the summer? Are you a mountaineer? Or just a member of one of those groups that I pass everytime I ever get on a Glacier in the summer.

"Mountaineers who on almost every climb lead you along at the kind of pace that discourages you from stopping to relieve yourself, let alone stopping to actually take a picture" Are you kidding? In my experience they bairly move. If they moved any slower on glaciers they would acctually move away from the summit due to the speed of the glacier.

I always take a cammera with me on every trip. I use one of three cammeras the most common is my Minolta maxim SLR. Relativly cheap auto focus body with a good lens. The reason I use this is because if you are going to take good action shots your cammera will get beat up (because it will be hanging around your neck most of the time). I have a Nikon FN2M fully manual cammera also. I dont use this as much. I also use a point and shoot (again with a good quality lens).I definatly do not agree with the manual cammera in winter idea. You end up taking crappy out of focus shots. I took both the point and shoot and the minolta to Alaska and had great results with the Minolta. When you are in very cold condtions The veiw finder will fog up the instant you get your eye close to it making impossible to get good focus. Never keep your cammera in your jacket when it is cold. Keep it in a plastic bag in you pack or around your neck (keep the batteries in your pocket and take a lot with you). Simply put I would get an autofocus SLR and not belive that they dont work in the cold, they do. You can go to www.nwclimber.com and navigate to the Mt. Foraker page and see pictures shot with the Minolta (there are some point and shoot pics in there too). All of the earlier climbing pics are shot with a point and shoot. You see the obvious qulity difference between the two cammeras. As far a film... Fuji Velvia slide film is what I use. Very sharp and good color. Enlarges great. Print film enlargements suck. and always are grainy as hell. OK thats my 2 cents.

Here is a web site for you guys. I have a ton of pics on here. I almost never update the site, and half the layout is stolen from other peoples sites. In otherwords enjoy it for what it is. www.nwclimber.com enjoy!