Stefan

I don't put up flagging....but I sure like to see flagging when I am out in the bush -- It makes me feel good to see that some other stupid fool was in the same damned god forsaken place as I was.

I was out at Winthrop this past weekend. I found normal snow levels out there....but what was weird was the snowpack which I haven't experienced before. The snowpack was about 2-3 feet where I was with a crusty layer on top. But below the crusty layer was absolutely no level of consolidation--it was all powder to the ground. They will probably plow the road from the east side this year without any plowing starting from the west. The west side crews will probably devote their time to the two major repairs that need to be done to the roads. The road will be finished plowing well before they finish the repairs. Just my guess.

The people who I would take up the Tahoma Glacier are in pretty good physical condition. They have never done any mountaineering though. I really wanted to know how difficult the angle was between 10,500 and 12,000 as Beckey describes in the book and if this is "too scary" for a newbie.

I have not been on the route and only have read Beckeys route description. Would you take a newbie / friend on the Tahoma Glacier route?

In my opinion....forget Rainier altogether. Go to the North Cascades. Do Dome, Forbidden, Logan, or Spickard.

Nice pictures. I do like them. If somebody does not really care, then why do they spend the time to post? Thanks for sharing Scott.

thanks for the info!

Wow. Going up the Barrier along that ridge from Terror creek in snowshoes. That must have been some kind of workout for about 1600 feet. Congrats.

Looking for times. How long on the approach to the lake from the trailhead? How long to the gap from the lake? Did you use snowshoes, skis, or decide to posthole it? Thanks for the info!

You are a bad ass. Wow. Colin, about where did you have to start wearing the snowshoes?

I know Centre is a mtnbike/hike combo. I am just trying to figure out when the earliest someone could go up Centre creek using the mtnbike. The elevation of the snow gives me an indication of similar areas to the east of Seattle and when they get freed up of snow with similar elevations in a valley and north-south direction of a road.

This reminds me Dru about Centre Creek. Dru, about how much snow is on the ground up the Chilliwack river road around Centre Creek/Nesakwatch? Or at what elevation does the snow start?

I do not have the 3rd Edition of this book, but I have the second edition. I do not know if the third edition has been corrected for this error I found. In the second edition this route title appears wrong: Bedal Peak--Northwest Shoulder The first sentence says: "Follow the trail about 3 1/2 mi. to the....." Which trail? Bedal Creek trail or Sloan Peak Trail? The second sentence says: "From the Sloan-Bedal Peak saddle..." Well, if you are on the Sloan-Bedal Peak saddle then you obviously SE of Bedal. If you are SE of Bedal then how can this route description be in the Northwest Shoulder route title?

As I was climbing the west side of Mt. Triumph at about 5800 feet (up the easy route) I layed my pack down on a large boulder. From here I took only the rope, some minor pro, and a water bottle to the top with my friend. About 400 feet above my pack and somewhat off to the south and about 15 minutes later we heard this incredible "WHACK" and then large crushing noises. I look down to see snow cascading EVERYWHERE around my pack, and over my pack -- kind of like those huge cascade ice falls you can see on Johannesburg from Boston Basin. A large snowfield on slabs/terraces was just released and we were about 15 minutes from being bombarded with large ice chunks. Amazingly my pack was never hit, but the snow did slightly move the boulder the pack was resting on.

Can a standard two wheeled vehicle make it on that north aspect of Darland Mountain to the spur road (now closed) to Green Lake?

I wanted an very early morning start at the Robinson Creek Trailhead out by Mazama. Due to obligations I wasn’t able to drive until 10:00pm the night before the climb. So my friend and I drove from home over Highway 20. It was raining banshees on the way until the first tunnel on Highway 20 after Newhalem. Then it was snowing big wet heavy flakes at an astonishing rate thereafter. The snow was so coming down at such an incredibly intense rate that I had to drive in the middle of the road from that first tunnel all the way until the hairpin turn—I needed to drive in the middle so I could follow the middle line. At Rainy Pass the line was gone due to the snow and my friend and I could only judge how we were doing by looking out my side windows towards the snow banks on either side. I went 15-20mph max the entire time. No cars were ever headed westbound at that time. I realized that I would have been in an accident if one single car headed westbound on my eastbound foray.

This peak is between Big Hump on the Duckabush River and the Brothers. There is no climbing information in the Olympics climbing guide. Does anybody have any climbing information for this peak? Any pictures? Any reports?

I know Mt. Goode is not in Vol II; however, if the authors decide to put NE Buttress of Mt. Goode in future editions, then that is fine, but please do not recommend the Bedayn Couloir as a descent as it says for one option in the first edition. The Bedayn Couloir is horrendous for a rappel--and I wish no one to do this descent route. The Southeast Ridge Descent as described in Beckey #2 is a much better rappel/descent choice.

I want to know about the streaker. Nobody is saying anything about that dude.

Interesting thoughts, but would Simon had enough time to do any of these options on his crumbling snow seat? IMO hindsight is 20/20. An accident happened before "the accident". I would like to know more about that.

Mt. Herman is not in the second edition of Red Beckey as its own separate mountain but is in as part of the "Table Mountain-Ptarmigan Ridge Trail" write up. It is a good winter outing. Here is how I would right up the route description. Before Herman's Saddle leave the trail at 5000 feet and then head towards the saddle west of point 5723. Drop down and then ascend to the SE slope of Mt. Herman. The final 200 feet is class 3.

Climb: Mt. Herman- Date of Climb: 1/25/2004 Trip Report: Mt. Herman January 25, 2004 USGS Shuksan Arm Why is it that the past 3 outings I have planned all have incorporated "Weather Storm Warnings" by NOAA? I guess I have the luck. Greg K., Paul K., Juan L., and John M. joined me on this decent romp in the woods just outside of the Mt. Baker ski resort. Our goal was to do Slate first and then do Mt. Herman, but avalanche conditions were too high to do Slate first so I thought we could do Herman, and then Slate avoiding some avalanche paths. So we left the upper most parking lot at 9:00a.m. and up the valley where Bagley Lakes lies. Soon after following the trail, we noticed some people up higher and they were cutting fresh tracks in the snow--we followed them all the way up to the ridge. These tracks helped us immensely but soon we were on our own as the people setting the tracks decided to ski down. We traversed the ridge staying to the south of point 5723 and then traversed down to the saddle immediately to the west. Snow consolidations during the day amounted to 12-36 inches of very dry snow on top of an icy layer below depending on the angle of the slope. During this traverse the skys cleared and the views were pretty good of our objective. From the saddle we dropped down slightly and then went to the SE slope of Mt. Herman. The SE slope of Mt. Herman was the steepest part of the climb and entailed probably a low class 3 type of climbing with icy snow conditions underneath the snow. We made the summit in foggy conditions (3.5 hours) and I decided to not do Slate Mountain. I was only going to commit to do Slate Mountain if we could see how we were going to get down the north side of Herman. We had the time to do Slate Mountain, but we needed to see what we were up against on the downhill section. Since we couldn't see anything we turned around and came out. We came out by going over the saddle west of point 5723 and then down to the trail. We could not start an avalanche the whole day becuase the snow just did not work out that way. It was my opinion that slab avalanches would be difficult to develop but a loose snow avalanche might be possible. 2.5 hours out. This trip is highly recommended for backcountry skiers. Stefan Feller

So Halva is a refrigerated product? Is that correct? Not like a snack bar?

Joe Simpson is on KZOK right now.

You will have many more trips like this. It's good you found out something about yourself though--in itself, that is the journey, and that is what makes a successful trip.