telemarker

Trip: Mt. Baker Coleman Headwall Descent - Date: 7/11/2010 Trip Report: Wahoo! It's official. I'm 50 TR's old... Ahh! Springtime in Washington, when ski season truly begins. Corn harvests. Steep, predictable edging. Leather work gloves that smell like sunscreen. Oh wait! It's summer. I was scrambling around for a partner for this weekend. Dan was just coming off his descent of Liberty Ridge, and ever the free-spirited nomad, apparently never listens to his voicemail. Scott McAllister, on the other hand, does return messages. Living in a gated community near Index, (and I'm not talking incarceration, but close), he was leaning towards a tour on Mt. Baker. What to ski??? Jason Hummel posted this TR on his site and I was sufficiently stoked. Dan and I had tossed around the idea of slaying the direct version down the headwall for a change of pace. So, of course the plan was hatched... Why is it whenever I tour with Scott, my LDL count doubles? Besides being a ripper split-boarder, a little-known fact about Scott is that he specializes in smoked meats, sometimes subsisting for months on nothing but smoked burgers. Okay, maybe an exaggeration, but this tour he was gracious to bring along some smoked salmon. I picked him up at his Index compound Friday evening. Scott moves quick, and tossed every loose item he owned related to camping and touring into my Exploder, including a laundry basket filled to the rim with a chaos of clothes and gear. I've heard that clutter is a sign of genius, so I wasn't too worried. But I couldn't shake the eerie feeling that we were Sanford and Son rolling north on Hiway 9, the inside of my rig making us look like your next episode of Hoarders. Arriving on Friday night at the Heliotrope T.H., we ate some of said salmon and promptly hit the sack, vowing an early wake-up time of whenever one of us decided to get up. The parking lot was full and busy, all night, which segueys to my rant...Why, in the dead of night, when I'm sacked out on the ground, do you have to look at me with your 1,000 lumin headlamp while I'm trying to sleep, every time you walk by??? We woke at the crack of 7am. A quick load of laundry later, we were on the trail up to some snow. I have taken it upon myself to climb routes before skiing them, but we were way too late to do that with the Coleman Headwall, given the exposure to rockfall and wet slides. It was already blistering out, so we decided to take the cheater way up and at least have a look-see from above. From below, it sure looked to be near impassable with bergschrunds and crevasses and ice. If we squinted and looked at the headwall sideways between our legs, we could indeed see a reasonable passage through the hazards. We summited a few hours later. Scott reclined and feasted on more smoked meat, as I went to tag the true tip of Baker. Being late in the afternoon, 2pm ish, I was alone on top enjoying fine views and windless condishes. We skied over to the start of the rollover on mushy snow that was not corn. It kept rolling over, and rolling over until we could see down the length of the route. What we saw wasn't reassuring, either. All I could see were gaping bergschrunds and wet slides that would happily deposit us inside them. And having not climbed the route, we had no idea if any of the 3 or 4 schrunds could be end-run. We detoured from the main headwall, and skied the Roman Nose area (?), and eventually contoured back around to below the Roman Wall, relieved that we were not part of the wet slides we had set off all the way around. Holy Josh Lewis, this TR is getting too long. So, I'll get to the smoked meat of it... We ran into Dan Helmstadter at the Graham Store/Bar, and decided to ski the headwall the next day, getting an earlier start. It went off well, with a few hickups in unexpected weather. The route was steep, glorious, amazingly exposed and worth every bit of effort to ski it! Scott rips the steeps on his board, and Dan is, well, Dan as his usual smooth self, who sniffed the line down the headwall around ice and schrund. He even aired it out over the last crack. Scott working his way up the ridge. The Scarecrow decided to join us for the descent. A marine layer moved in... So we waited... And waited... And waited some more until it started to look promising, three hours later... We busted the last 1,000 vertical to the summit, and quickly transitioned into downhill mode. Dan leading the way... Dan H. in slay mode. The route could be looked at as consisting of three pitches, with the upper headwall, the middle portion with an ice constriction, and the last 1/3 of long traversing over the final bergschrund, which yielded fantastic fall-line skiing! And as you can tell, big turns on a big headwall equal big smiles. All the way back to the car... The Route, photo by Dan:

Hell yeah Dan(and Co.)! Methodically slaying the demons, one by one! Looking forward to the next descent!

What a great climb and supercute ponytail helmet!

Nice TR and effort you guys!

pm sent re: Jetboil.

Great effort and photos Josh. Way tpo git it out in the disappointing conditions! That area is so cool! That perspective of Bonanza is always impressive.

Way to include the sandpiper in that last photo. A couple dudes base jumped from that a couple years ago. Crazy!

Yet another! Nice one Dan!

Nice Darin, and as always, great photos. From what I remember of the 2nd pitch, after attempting it a number of times 3 to 4 years ago, it had one fixed pin at the overlap just off the belay, and another fixed pin partway up the big corner. Those were the only fixed pieces. The super thin portions went clean with a ballnut and camhooks.

I was definitely a little disoriented, Scott! Back at the car,I suggested to Dan we go to Uli's for a couple beers.

Thanks Dan for an outstanding descent! Additional Porn: The slog up the moraine. The upper the face. Summit is just behind the cornice above. Dan getting ready to carve up the upper Spur. Committing to the N/NE Face. Confident turns on inspiring snow. Reflecting half way down on a real classic!

Spray first, research later! Love it!

any beer I find, I'm drinking it because I worked just as hard as you did...maybe even harder and I deserve it.

Anyone interested? Weather looks pretty good. If you're in the area... PM or call: 509-699-9810 Fun stuff! John

Hey halifax, how about an aanswer to the questuion instead of a smug-ass response?

I guess I should ask specifically: 88 degrees or 89 degrees?

Hey you ski shop dirtbags! I got some ski tuning materials to sharpen my edges for spring steeps. What angle should I bevel the edges for the ice/corn season? Any other tips you can pass along would be most helpful!

Thanks Ron! You're right, this line sort of caught me off guard in its seriousness, but it was fun nonetheless. Mid-winter this will be a real gem of a line!

Hey! Thanks for sharing the photos, and nice chatting with you guys up there!

I didn't really think so at the time.

I agree. The snow from about 5,000' upwards is in excellent condition! In fact, i've been surprised all season for the east side at least, at how good the coverage has been as compared to last year. Go ski Stuart!

Thanks Scott! Man, dust off your splitboard (oh wait, you haven't stayed still long enough for it to gather dust this season!), let's hit some fun stuff soon.

Trip: 8 Mile Mountain North Couloir Climb/Ski - North Couloir and around... Date: 6/5/2010 Trip Report: Not wanting to pass up on one of the rare perfect days we've had in this perplexing spring skiing season, Tom Janisch and I toured around 8 Mile Mountain. This peak has tons to offer in regards to ski touring. It has faces on all cardinal points of the map. I've skied its northeast face a couple times, and Tom has been on the fun south slopes. After an earlier tour this year to adjacent Peak 7828, I noted with interest 8 Mile's steeper north face. So, I stewed all season waiting for a nice spring day to go have a look-see. View of the north side of 8 Mile Mounain, taken from Grindstone Mountain a couple years ago. Left arrow is the approach, middle arrow the couloir, and the right arrow the exit. With all the snow virtually melted out to 5,000', Tom and I hiked to then around the north side of 8 Mile Lake to near its end, then bushwacked north until we broke out in the northeast basin below our target peak, where we found...continuous snow! In fact, the coverage is still quite good up there. We skinned up to then jumped over a notch to where we could enter the couloir, where the firm snow allowed a speedy ascent to the summit. It's funny how some couloirs look prohibitively steep, then are disappointingly mellow, e.g., Cannon Mtn. Couloir. Well, 8 Mile Mountain's North Couloir was the opposite. It looked steep on photo, and in reality, it was a bit steeper up close and personal, and consisted of frozen corn that refused to soften in the warm temps. We hung out on 8 Mile's summit plateau, and soaked up this gorgeous day in our backyard. When it was time, Tom wisely decided to downclimb the steepest portion of the couloir. He stated he would call up to me as soon as he was out of the way of my incoming sloughs of hardened corn. I met some other climbers on the summit and we had a good chat about the other groups we knew of on nearby peaks. With what seemed like an eternity to my anxious mind, I finally heard Tom's go ahead from below. I locked in and slid out onto the frozen steepness. The couloir was steep from the get-go, and icy. It doglegs about 100 feet down, so that added to the committing feeling of this obscure route. I side-stepped the first 10 feet, then made a nerve-wracking turn in the frozen shit. A couple turns more and I was thankfully in softer snow. At the dogleg, it turned icy again, and at its steepest I had to self-belay with whippet and ice axe at a constriction where only the edges of my tips and tails were keeping me on the slope. Below this small portion, the skiing remained consistent, and consistently hardened until I reached Tom basking in the sun. We skied down to the Trout Lake basin, traversed South to the west basin o 8 Mile Mtn., and climbed out and over to the south slopes of peak 7828. From this notch (seen in the photo, right arrow), we had a mellow corn run down to 8 Mile Creek. The valley bottom, surprisingly enough, held great coverage and we were able to ski nearly back to 8 Mile Lake, thus completing our own little circumnavigation. My GPS Sez: 18.7 miles 7,800 vf Max Speed 21.2 mph Tom breaking out into the wide-open basin on the northeast side of 8 Mile Mtn. Looking north towards Mt. Cashmere. Tom powering up as only Tom can do. Looking back towards Cannon Mtn. and Enchantment Peak. Janisch traversing over to the north couloir. 8 Mile Mtn.'s north couloir. Tom in the couloir. Tom in the upper couloir near the summit. Summit of 8 Mile, looking back north. Can't remember the name of this peak. Maybe someone can help me out... Tom heading back down... On better and safer snow! The couloir above Tom. Traversing into 8 Mile's west basin to our exit notch. If you don't look at the sagging cornices above you, do they really exist? Peak 7828, where Tom, Will Terrano and I had toured early winter this year. Big Tom surfing the mushy south slopes. Tom reflecting on a pretty damn good day in a pretty damn good location.

Nice loop! The snow on the north side of things in the area was good, at least on 8 Mile Mtn. It was firm, to say the least! You probably would have been okay on the ne couloir.

I guess it's your rack then.