telemarker

Castle Rock.

I'm not knocking the photo, btw. I think it's an excellent shot of my favorite crag.

I was organizing some books today and ran across this photo, and had to find out the story as to why the guy set up a hanging belay 5 feet off the ground on a short pitch of climbing. Interesting....

Mix It Up, best pitch on Sunshine!

Very, very cool!

Too bad it's such a slog to get to it. Maybe no one's bothered to even name it.

And Fred Stanley and Fred Dunham used to enjoy it before it was overrun with eastsiders. I saw Fred climb'n at the feathers a few years ago and he seem to be enjoy'n himself...maybe you should get out more. He must have been smiling.

And Fred Stanley and Fred Dunham used to enjoy it before it was overrun with eastsiders.

The Shukimmelwand! Tearing it up Dan!

Dude, climbing is serious business.

Damn well better.

NE Ridge Of W. Peak Silver Star

Next time, post your tr and never check back on it.

pm sent on BD 3,2, and.75 c4's...

Nice TR! I think I was right next door to you guys Tuesday. As for the first snowboard descent of NBC/N Face of Colchuck, I think Steepy bagged it last year in on helluva monster day. Check This Out!

Helmstadter owns Shuksan! Bout time you start your climbing trip!

I was thinking of AJ's helmet cam footage last spring of his crevasse fall. Freaky!

good stuff dude! I rapped in and removed what I could.

V, you should have brought your skis by the looks of it!

You bet! Looks like Aaron Scott had better conditions on Colchuck's north buttress couloir yesterday. You climbing saturday? Vantage could be warm.

Got any pics?

I'll be back on it in march then, if we get more snow in the meantime.

Trip: Mt. Stuart - Ice Cliff Glacier ski Date: 2/1/2011 Trip Report: Incredibly stoked to see Dan's ski descent of Shuksan, I felt compelled to take the day off Tuesday for a ski trip of my own, though on a much, much smaller scale! I haven't been up to Stuart this year, so my feeble memory sufficiently blocked out the miserable slog up to it. The skin was tedious from the trailhead, as the snow was steely ice pockmarked with postholing divots from the walkers. Several times it was necessary to sidestep up small, insignificant rises in the trail because the skins would not hold. Despite, the trail from the Colchuck junction was great. The coverage up mountaineer's creek is adequate to good, and the snow being so frozen solid, I made quick time (for me) up to mountaineer's basin in three hours from the road. I kept my options open to ascend/descent the Sherpa should the ICG not look good. I got a good look at it, and it appeared okay, though since I've never been on the ICG, it was hard for me to judge unless I just started climbing and assess as I went up. In short, the coverage is bony. I used Dan's beta and hugged the east side of the couloir, next to Ice Cliff Arete for my ascent. This should have avoided most of the crevasses. However, I encountered my first one low down when the thin snowbridge collapsed. From then on, I was careful to probe a few paces in front of me with my ski pole, which helped me find two more cracks with just the thinnest veneer of snow coverage, but enough to completely hide the opening. I got through these, and came to within a few hundred feet of the top, when my pole found another hole, this one being the final schrund, again with a 3 inch covering of sugar snow. I knocked the snow away, and noticed I couldn't see the bottom to this one, and it was overhung with sugar snow about 3 feet deep on the opposite side. No way in hell was I going to try to step across to that without a belay, and I was too tired to descend and end-run it to the east. So, reluctantly I called it good and would ski from there. The descent was good for the first 500 feet, but then after a sketchy short traverse over iced-up snow, I gingerly tied into my axe and threw the skis on the pack and downclimbed the rest, again on icy snow with narrow channels of powder. In my fatigued mind, with fading light, I thought it would be more efficient to jump over the ridge and traverse over to Stuart Lake for my deproach. This proved more troublesome as the entire slope was a sheet of icy snow too, forcing me to boot all the way over to the exit gully leading down to the lake. In short, we need more snow...But as a climb, the ICG is in good shape. The area looking very thin indeed. From mountaineer's basin. Ice Cliff Glacier. Final Schrund. So close! Damn. Precious little quality skiing. Fading light puts an period on the day. There are no fixed draws on the route.

Incredible stuff Dan!

FA on Midnight Rock in 2010? Is there such a thing? Hmmmm...