Thrashador

Pray for colder temps and wind. Was in and around Cle Elum, WA this weekend and the skeets near the Yakima River were nothing short of heinous. Those Cle Elum birds are small, speedy, and oh so stealth.

learned this lesson this weekend... gots ta pack the thing mo betta

tnx d00d.

Has anybody out there received a survey from the Univ. of Idaho Dept. of Resource Recreation and Tourism? Although it purports to be a simple survey of peoples climbing activities and preferences in OR and WA, it appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to get further beta on the efficacy of the Forest Service's Fee Demo Program. The intent of the survey was not made abundantly clear in the accompanying cover letter. I found out only after contacting the principals involved with the study.

Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile ¡Highly recommended! Btw, Tom Hanks just bought the film rights. Hopefully it'll be a great flick too.

No sé señor. Call the Hood River district office: 541.352.6002. They sure did a good job with the temporary bridge. Athough I sort of wish they would do away with the seasonal bridges altogether which might lower the phreak factor on the Timberline trail.

Bugs weren't bad on the north side at 6,200 ft. this weekend. We hung in a semi-wind exposed timberline site and fortunately the wind was always blowing at least some. Skeeters weren't a factor and the black flies seemed to be on queludes. Lower down and in the trees some folks we spoke with said the flies, though not skeeters, were pretty thick.

I carry both-plus map & compass- for redundancy's sake though more and more favor the gps. The wee Geckos work well and, imho, in terms of bang for buck are hard to beat. Am still using alkaline AAA batteries but am about to grab a few sets of nickel metal hydride rechargeables. Alkaline's are SO suck in the cold not to mention landfills.

Yeeemotherbleepinghaaaa! Naysayers... How bouts a pdx slide show?!?! Combined with some TG that'd be one wicked bash.

Who am I your beta biznatch?!?! But...since it's friday and I'm absolutely bored out of my freaking skull and sadly have nothing better to do than stare at the glass nipple here goes: we skinned the north ridge via pole crick. It's neither a trip for your average dog nor is that hard and certainly isn't technical. What stresses me about taking a dog this time of year is the heat. Mine's a black lab and I keep her relatively inactive during hot summer months. You might try heading up from the west side for a more dog friendly aproach though I've never done it and have never been on the mountain any other time than early spring. Early spring or winter are best imho so long as you steer clear of what few holes exist at that time. In other words, don't do what I did. I'm a lucky fuxor. Hope this helps. Have fun and take a shitload of water for both you and your pooch.

Dog In The Hole Blake and I are sitting on our packs on top of Middle Sister at roughly 10 am for the third Spring in a row, having brought our dogs Ike and Jane for the first time. We’re content to just sit, gaze, and ponder while the dogs-pink tongues extended to counter the warmth of their thick, black coats-watch our every move hopeful for one more scrap of food. The view from atop each of the Three Sisters is unlike that from any other high peak in western Oregon. What is most obviously missing is the checkerboard landscape that plagues this bountiful part of the world and is most pronounced during the snowy months; white squares represent snow-blanketed clearcuts and the dark second or third growth forest. Instead of a disheartening panorama of piebald forests, we are treated to a gin-clear view of a white wonderland containing two Sisters, the Husband, the Wife, Broken Top, Bachelor, Washington, Jefferson, Thielsen, Tipsoo Butte, snowy lava fields, fourteen glaciers, and hardly a trace of the chainsaw's handiwork. What a relief it is. On top of it all, there is no question in our minds that the seldom skied north face of Middle Sister is 'in' as we throw small lava rocks onto it from above. The tiny projectiles don't bounce and roll, they stick and float near the surface. During our past two visits the route has been boilerplate, blue ice. Fine for front-pointing your way to the summit but far too 'interesting' for a ski descent. The north face of Middle Sister is one of those drops that makes you swallow hard and think twice. You see no middle ground, just the first turn or two and then the Hayden Glacier 2,000 or so vertical feet below. This time around the face is in prime condition: soft enough to ski but not too soft to raise concerns of wet snow slides. The dogs, unfortunately, want nothing to do with this descent. Ike whimpers. Jane backpedals, turns and wags her tail as if to say, 'C'mon dude, let's follow the ridge instead.' It's not my turn for glory. It is my turn to wrangle the dogs, partially descend the ridge, and find a good camera position. I ski a few hundred vertical feet over wind-scoured Cascade crud topped with dollops of rime ice. Ike's whimpering mellows but the poor beast is still gripped. I find a spot from which to shoot and tell the dogs to 'take a break' which they do gladly; it's been a long climb and the skiing is a little dicey, not to mention that the golfball-sized gobs of rime don’t make an ideal running surface for padded feet. Not only are we now in a good place to document Blake's descent, but we're also in a position to traverse out on the face and ski the lower half. Before I can put my camera to my eye, Blake begins his descent of a line that I doubt many others have tried. The dogs' tails wag and their frames wriggle while my camera's shutter clicks and the motor drive hums. We ski the rest of the face one at a time, Blake with Ike and I with Jane. Blake makes turn after turn as Ike dutifully follows. I keep a close watch, holding Jane back all the while. 1,000 vertical feet below man and dog make an arcing left turn to move out of the face's deposition zone. It makes no sense for them to rest in a place on to which Jane and I could possibly release a fatal amount of snow. Blake turns and waves a ski pole. Time to head. I release granular waves of wet snow with each turn though none has the momentum to keep up. Near the bottom I spot Blake out of the corner of my eye. He's pointing at something and I can't quite make out what he's yelling. I'm almost there and having too much fun to care. As I glide over the three-foot wide opening of a crevasse located just above where the pitch starts to ease, I glimpse a snowbridge 10 feet to my right. I realize what Blake has been vainly attempting to shout and point out. I stop, turn around to face Jane who's charging close behind, and try to encourage her to run faster and keep her eyes glued on me: "C'mon Jane, good dog! Good girl Jane!" With little chance of directing her across the snowbridge, my only hope is that speed, strength, and wits enable her to soar and land safely below the crevasse. My heart sinks as she drops into the hole and disappears. 'What an idiot, I've killed my dog,' I think to myself. As I'm out of one binding and leaning over to release the other the dark day becomes light again. The first thing to appear is a little black nose followed by a furiously burrowing sixteen month-old Labrador frame. Then, like a pea on a griddle, Jane bounds out of the crevasse. Unscathed and unfazed, she barrels into my outstretched arms, tongue dangling and eyes longing for another treat. Jane can have all the treats she wants. I give her the three I have left together in one handful.

Yeehaaa! Wish my pops had taken me up there when I was twelve.

Yes, we're all talking about the same spot. Why walk when you can turn?!?!

I was up there saturday morning with my pooch. I'd love to see the picture though. Post it perhaps? Happy Independence Day. Now go blow some shit up! I've got a huge watermelon waiting to be carbonized.

I doubt they were Hood River Valley locals. I had just finished a quick tour of the Snowdome and was enjoying a pilsner fueled descent of Cloud Cap Rd. Driving up hours earlier I'd had the pleasure of seeing four deer and one black bear. The deer were pretty pokey early in the morning. The bear, on the other hand, was hauling major ass to somewhere. On the way home I spotted a more curious species: a man and woman mountain biking up the road on a weekend. Rubes or gluttons for insane punishment? Who would want to withstand lungfull after lungfull of seriously thick choss dust? The man, grinning, seemed fairly pleased with himself. The woman, however, looked really pissed. And not at me or the other cars leaving 100 yd. trails of thick, billowing dust. Hey, if you two by chance are reading this try riding the Gumjuwack trail. It's also a pretty stiff uphill and the bonus is that cars don't fit there!

Website works but is massively swamped. The phone registration won't work until July.

Better to have poons and ax and not use them than to not have them and need them. With clear warm weather odds are the snow will be comfortably soft most of the way except for possibly the last bit to the false summit and above. A little wind can change all that up high even on warm days however.

Worked till noon, then watered the garden a bit, visited a Wilco store-my first visit and btw great deals on plants as opposed to spendy urban nurseries-to buy a steel trough to plant a whopping hunk of bamboo in, and am now about to ride till dusk in Forest Park. Summer in Stumptown does not suck. Sadly though, last night two twenty something cyclists were killed and a third critically injured. Apparently the perp is a two time dui offender in 2003 alone and was driving all heatbagged with a suspended license.

Now if I could only get there from my trophy home atop cloud cap rd. life would be so much sweeter! Anyone out there done an up and over winter/spring tour: Timberline to Cooper Spur resort or thereabouts via the summit and the sunshine route? Seems interesting under the right conditons.

Haven't been yet. There's another 'cloud cap road' thread around here somewhere...seems like it should be open pretty soon.

Wow, what a trip. Cheers,

Way feasible. Though I agree with JoshK: why not leave Seattle the night before, car camp, and do the whole thing in a day with a light pack?

Oh yeah...

Beck, may ride 'em this weekend if my binders from BD arrive. Adams sat. and possibly Shasta mon. weather depending...

Hmmmmm, "overheard from a Mazamas group."