mattp

You mean I was right to ignore a similar message I got about a month ago? Phew.

I have slept in my pack more than once. In wet weather, maybe an extra tall garbage bag pack liner would be a good thing?

We think you're special too. (That first one IS really cool, and I like the mukluks...)

If the trail is established via Source Lake, it is probably just about as fast to go that way.

September has been pretty rainy the last two years, but usually it is one of our sunny months.

Yes, helmets are a good idea. Holds blow off with no warning even on popular routes out there and your belayer is probably standing at the base of the dihedral directly below where you are going to send your misplaced hold.

I think there is a new guide coming out which will include at least some central Washington areas.

It is not hard to find awesome pictures of New Zealand.

With deep snow making trailbreaking hard work, and with potential concern for avalanches, there is strength in numbers.

Gotta say, this looks like it could be fun:

This one doesn't look summer to me, either, but the South Face of Mount Cook looked all icy and rimy when I climbed it, so I said hmmm.... "maybe." I don't know where Mt. Brown is, or whether it may be a relatively high mountain. The first is a picture of White Dream, which has approximately ten pitches of WI III or maybe IV on it, followed by about a thousand feet of lower angle alpine ice. (I think is rated AI V or something like that). I'm pretty sure it is customarily done in the summer. Here's another shot:

You can do both. Go to New Zealand AND climb ice. I believe this is a "summer" photo: And this may be a summer climb, too:

It is not a complicated matter to custom fit your boots so they better hold your heel down. Take some blue foam and carve it into shapes that will fill extra space above and/or below your ankle bone, or add a foam tongue inside the existing one to clamp down on your foot from the top (this is the easiest solution if it works). Don't just cut square edges on your inserts, but taper them at the sides. It will take some experimenting, but you can get a really good custom fit by fooling around with different shapes, taping temporary inserts in your boots, stomping around the house, and adjusting things. If you get a configuration you like, you can then seal it in place with ripstop repair tape or equivalent.

As long as the roads hold out, winter access is shaping up pretty good.

At what elevation did you start to encounter a real snowpack? You said it "quickly" became very deep, but was it sparse or bare to 3,000'? Higher? I have not been out enough to really know, but it seems we may have a thin snowpack at low elevations. City Light shows less than average overall water stored in watershed This could be a good year for winter ski and climbing access.

It will not slow your development of technique to go enjoy the scenery at Paradise or Hurricane Ridge. Enjoy!

This is largely a repeat of my post in the Partners thread, but here goes (in case anybody wants to know about the snow): There was little snowpack at the lower elevations on the West side, anyway -- maybe as much as 18" at the hairpin below the climb up to the pass on Highway 2 where the "back side" descent from Cowboy Mountain comes out. An the central Cascades, at lower elevations below 3,000 feet, it didn't look to me as if there is much of a snowpack. However, the snowpack higher up was pretty good, and above 4,000 feet it was very good, with a good solid base of at least 4 feet. In the open, about three to four feet of new storm snow overlies the base and, while under the trees it was a tree-bombed mess below maybe 4,500 feet, there was still probably five feet of snow on the ground and the snow cover was good enough that there was relatively little problem with climbing over logs and undergrowth. Higher, in the open, it was bottomless deeps, and though the transition to heavier snow was not far below the surface there were no crusts or other nastiness. Above 5,000 or so, there was plenty of wind-effect with evidence of loading from multiple directions on open exposed slopes, and there had been a fairly extensive slide/slough cycle before this last storm cycle. On open slopes at 5,200' a hasty pit revealed no great variation in the newer snow, though it was generally lighter toward the top. A slab layer perhaps 8" below the surface that was detectable on some of our kick-turns did not cause the alarm bell to go off. The old rain crust from a week ago was about 4 feet down. Ski testing revealed an overall stable snowpack though the wind-loading up high was worriesome. The snow was pretty damn good -- resembling powder skiing though a little heavy. ---------- It was fun skiing with you guys! If you think THAT was good, come back when it is REALLY GOOD. I've skiied Lichtenberg in better conditions more than once and some of the other Highway 2 tours - Jim Hill, Nason Ridge, etc. etc. have some great terrain.

Hurricane Ridge and Paradise both offer gentle terrain and you may be able to talk to a ranger about where to entertain yourself if you go there on weekends. To learn how to ski, though, the price of three or four days or evenings (maybe even six), at a ski area, in a relatively short time-period will be worth it. Start on the groomed slopes, then move to the ungroomed or chopped up stuff on the edges of the runs. If you have to climb up the hill for each try at skiing down, it is a lot of work to get enough runs to figure out how to ski. It takes a lot of repetition to develop even fairly medium ski skills.

Here is a pre-made leash that does what I think you describe. It is easy to tie one out of unsewn sling that will accomplish pretty much the same thing, without perhaps the carabiner attachment point that you see hanging just above the hand loop.

Above 4,000 feet it was pretty good, with about three to four feet of new storm snow overlying the older though under the trees it was a tree-bombed mess below maybe 4,500 feet. Higher, in the open, there was lots of wind-effect with evidence of loading from multiple directions. There had been fairly extensive slide/slough action previous to this last storm cycle. A hasty pit revealed no great variation in the newer snow, generally lighter toward the top. Ski testing revealed an overall stable snowpack though the wind-loading up high was worriesome. Damn near powder skiing, though a little heavy.

For a trip like that which you describe, packing efficiently will also be important. There are people who can put the same pile of gear in literally half the pack that some others can.

That's kinda what I expected, Rat. On paper, it looks like a cool area kind of how I think Nason Ridge is pretty cool-but maybe not "special."

Isn't it only 3:00 pm up there when it is 4:00 pm here? The cams were dark at 3:00 or 3:30 pm local time.

It must have really blown its stack today. The webcams are almost entirely blacked out - or is it just dark early?

Sounds like a great trip! In the summer, weather may be an issue but avalanche conditions probably will not be a great concern on any of those peaks. (Ice avalanches have killed climbers on both Rainier and Baker in the Summer, but that is a different sort of avalanche hazard than what we generally think of when we talk about "avalanche conditions," and it is not the sort of hazard you can avoid by waiting out a temporary high hazard condition. To avoid ice avalanches, you generally seek to avoid travelling below seracs, but most climbers will take a certain amount of calculated risk here and indeed the standard route on Mount Rainier was not abandoned after a dozen people were killed in one ice avalanche there about 20 years ago.) It sounds as if you may not yet have looked very deeply into the routes on the peaks themseives. If so, consider that Glacier Peak may best be approached from the Sauk River trailhead, as the road to the previously normal Sitkum Glacier trailhead is washed out miles from the end. This means a longer hike, and the best route may well be via a route that the guidebooks will not note as "standard." Also, I bet the "standard" route on Mt. Adams is probably most often climbed as a day trip -- you should have no problem doing so. Good luck.