Fairweather

Ha, I didn't even know that was a thing. My bad, I didn't understand the motivation. Sounds like fun no matter what ends up getting skied.

Have you considered Cooper Spur? I've down-climbed it many times. It's also a big fall, but for whatever reason, I never thought too much about it. One of my favorite solo routes. Leaving your skis at the bottom of Cooper Spur's "Chimney," summiting, down-climbing, and skiing down from there would give you about the same amount of vertical on skis. Of course, it's a bit more of a traverse if you're starting at Meadows. But not much more than the traverse to Wy'East from Timberline. (??)

I never saw tracks or shared the route with another party. But that was decades ago, maybe it's more popular now. Re skiing the route, well, I'd say if you down-climb the chute and the traverse, and ski down from there then it's hard to lay claim to skiing the route. Still a great day on Mount Hood! But not a ski descent of the WyEast route, IMO. Laps on the Newton Clark would be more enjoyable for an old guy like me.😀

I've climbed this route four times, always in winter. Yes, the last bit leads you out in a rising traverse above the Black Spider before you enter the Wy'East Chimney and climb up to the summit ridge. The initial traverse is left arm uphill if you're kicking side steps--the weak side for most. Otherwise you can face in. I'd say the traverse is 40-45 degrees, and the chimney might even approach 50-55. (Probably just a bit steeper than the last bit at the top of Cooper Spur Route.) I recall belaying the upper chimney at least once when it was hard packed. The entire traverse and chimney are fatal falls as the Spider is just below you. I've never down-climbed the route; always went down the south side. IMO, the route is steeper than Leuthold and Cooper Spur. But not as steep as the upper part of Sunshine. But that big drop just below is intimidating, I recall. One more thing: Crossing the White River Glacier is no big deal. Well, it wasn't in the 80s 90s 00s. Crevasses were few and obvious. Not sure how much of that glacier is even left now.

Klenke. Seriously. Going tough places that nobody's ever heard of, where almost nobody goes, and coming back humble.

Cancer sucks, it tried to kill me a few years back. Still, at the end of the day, there is no "it." Just some bad code that never got edited and went to press. No malice; not even aware of its own existence. Condoriri! Time falls away But these little wonders These small hours Still remain

Black Ice Matters!

No, but it may have had "certain features" that rendered it really scary to REI shoppers.

It has all the elements of a Seattle Tragedy.

Just a rumor--totally unconfirmed. Sources are saying it was an older model MSR Sumner with an illegal rubber-coated shaft. Again, no confirmation on this. Early reports incorrectly claimed it was an orange fiberglass Stubai with a glide ring and a "snap link" still attached.

Historically, there seems to be a correlation between politically-motivated murders and ice axes.

Lock up your tools, old guys! Sheesh. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/say-what-now-woman-pleads-not-guilty-of-fathers-ice-axe-murder-over-leaving-lights-on-election-results-video/ar-AA1uG8WC?ocid=BingNewsSerp

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I've never had a social media account. No FaceBook, no Twitter, no blogs. Not then, not now, not ever. Spent a few months on NW Hikers back in the day--before they banned me. 😁 Used my real name too. Lo, my years in the wilderness were spent mostly in the wilderness. Forward, why the drip drip echoes here? Why all the empty row houses, wind-blown papers and climbing ivy like one of those syfy shows? Where'd everyone go? Ivan the stormtrooper? The fat goatee light bulb guy? The chocolate commie? The Seattle ambulance chaser? Minx? The 8-year Greener grad? RBW66? That hairy Canadian guy. The dope-smokin' arborist? Was it really age? Are their testicles mummified at the bottom of some unnamed couloir? or trapped in some woman's purse? Hopefully they're running rivers, at least. Times change, I guess. Both here and in the mountains. But what the hell happened? Was it Covid? All the Woke bullshit? Declining sperm counts? (It's a national crisis.) A final surrender to PNW groupthink? I don't like it. But my wife hasn't left me, my dog is still kind of happy to see me. I think. I still wake up hard and my vote still counts. For now. Cheers.

I don't want to talk If it makes you feel sad I've been gone the better part of a decade--and return only to find Spray has gone silent; gentrified. Forty eight pages--flapping in the wind. Is this a NW devolution? Where's the mojo? The spirit that once drove Spray also drove us into the hills--and back here to tell our tales. And brawl. The mountains look different in the PRWA these days, for sure. Bureaucrat weekends, full of rules. Little white squares. Feministas and cucks. Not the way it used to be. Libtards on Parade.

Wow, the Sitkum Glacier is almost gone. Good memories there.

Your dog loves you more than your wife! Proof: Lock them both in the trunk of your car for 1 hour. Then open the trunk. Which one is happy to see you?😂

Musk fired thousands of liberal censors at Twitter. And rightfully so. The only "alternative viewpoints" that were being censored at Twitter were conservatives. They even banned a presidential candidate in 2020. Famous Musk quote: "turns out you don't need a lot of employees when you're not busy censoring everyone." What X has become is a virtual free-for-all, true. But that's the price. I see plenty of crazy stuff both left and right. It's just amusing that mid-wit Democrats somehow think they're the smartest kids in any room they enter. This whole free speech and democracy thing isn't working for them. Arrogance. The FBI? Comey? McCabe? Strock/Paige? Sheesh, they've been political since J Edgar Hoover. We did just fine without them for the first 150 years of the Republic. We'll do just fine when they're gone.

Nonsense. When you hear Democrats say "misinformation' or "disinformation" what they really mean is "anything we disagree with or doesn't fit our worldview." The solution to bad information is good information. Unfortunately, New Left Democrats and "progressives" see regulation and censorship as their preferred solution. It's a big reveal. And when they claim "Russian bots," again, they're just seeing a bogey man or walking away for an argument they just lost. As for the billionaires, well, do you mean George Soros? He's buying up hundreds of radio stations across America. Not to mention local prosecutors. Bill Gates? Or the other billionaires who financed Kamala's campaign? Mark Cuban? Oprah? They raised almost double what Republicans did. And still lost. Because, it turns out, voters understood they were the real threat.

Democrats: "This whole free speech thing could get out of hand."

Exactly right, Jason.

His free speech beliefs and anti-censorship efforts. The horror! You were right in 2015--don't go soft now, amigo!

Now THIS actually aged pretty well.

This was a topic worthy of discussion. Your dismissive reply makes such a discussion much less likely.