JoshK

I did this with a couple of friends a few weeks back and we decided to take advantage of the broken LeConte to explore some unknown terrain. We dropped down to LeConte Lake (breathtaking), made a brief steep and exposed heather climb to reach nice alpine hiking above to Rimjob...err, RimRock, Ridge, and then accessed the eastern lobe of the glacier. From here we had to climb several hundred feet of bare glacial ice (fun in trail runners!) to get to the lower angle upper glacier and continue on our way. Our original plan had been to continue after the traverse on a long XC route, eventually exiting through the Lyman Lakes. We had only 4 days total though, and the glacier conditions overall cost time so we exited via the standard exit on day 3. It was, far and away, the most broken I had ever seen any of those glaciers. I had done this traverse in 2008, later in the month, and there was way more snow back then. We crossed many sections of slab where it was obvious it had been newly exposed this year after hundreds, or thousands, of years of being covered in ice. Depressing. On the upside, our re-route was the most enjoyable section for me and the varied conditions made the traverse more interesting than the normal trail and snow walk.

Sorry to hear this. Though a great thing about Europe is if you can't climb you can hop on a train (planes are cheap too) and go to an endless number of absolutely amazing places that will make you forget all about climbing. Scenery, culture, history, food and all of that.

No doubt. How did nobody jump all over this??

Ditto. Tom, Rad and a few others are speaking from experience, and I share the same conclusions. When camping in the near-treeless alpine (why da fuk camp under treeline on purpose anyway?) you have little other choice anyway. I guess you could carry a portable flag pole... Posting horror stories of Grizzlies in Alaska and using those to generate a hypothetical worst-case for shy black bears in WA wilderness is intellectually lazy. I'm sure those ursacs are great, but I'll stick to not using valuable pack space/weight carrying it. (might be great for critters tho!) You can dance on my grave when I'm killed by a bear sleeping with my unwrapped raw salmon in my tent. As for the OP's question, I spend a lot of time in the GP wilderness and have never had an issue with the bears. YMMV, so don't sue me if you have to flee the scene while a bear ransacks your camp.

Val, this is a great approach to Bonanza, and honestly I think the better one after you've done the Lady of the Lake once (it's worth it once for the experience.) Having been to Holden several times myself now, I'd just do the walk up and over Spider Gap now. I did the Spider Meadow-Buck Creek loop the other day and the trails were all in fantastic shape. As for Lyman->Railroad, I was last there in Spring of '14 and it was in great shape then. If I remember the cutoff to Holden Lake trail is about 15-17 miles from the Phelps Creek TH. A party in reasonable shape that doesn't overpack should be able to cover that faster than the extra driving to Chelan + Boat + bus shenanigans, saving time and money overall. Though the schwack up Railroad Creek makes an awesome story!

That's nice...a picture of the situation several weeks later. :-) You may think me a dick, but as I said, drawing the ire of a federal agency ain't my idea of fun. Disregard their sign and then leave a car (licensed under my name) back there for several days? Nah, not something that would pass my risk/reward evaluation. And as I said, I wasn't the only one. It seems pretty implausible multiple people would take that risk. Anyway, it's Friday night and the ladyfriend is soon arriving. I look forward to resuming this incredibly useful conversation next week!

Ha, I had forgotten all about that little adventure. Great memories indeed!! Sadly FW, you are wrong, and there was no posting whatsoever about "no vehicle access." Did they post something in the several weeks between when I was there and you were? Sounds likely they did. Was it in response to to what I did? Possibly, and I could care less either way. No harm, no foul. Since you brought it up...when I was there, there was only a jersey barrier across the old road bed itself, with a small "road" going around the side, which looked to be there to facilitate repairs further up the road. There was no sign saying not to go around whatsoever. Sorry, but I'm not dumb enough to blatantly ignore a sign posted by a federal agency and risk a major fisting by the man. I'll also add that I was not the only car back there when I parked. Your recollection on the ciggy butts is wrong too, unfortunately. Ivan may be a miscreant in other ways, but I can vouch for him not littering. He was carrying a ziploc bag of butts, growing constantly larger and smellier throughout the trip. In any event, I'm not sure how access issues in one national park got dragged to another national park, and then on to a road on FS land. FWIW, I supported the re-opening of the Suiattle River road. A long-since abandoned section of the Stehikin road in the middle of NCNP is an entirely different matter. As for the original topic, MRNP, I could care less, I never go there.

Wait wait, your bitch about the NCNP "locking" people out is that the road is no longer usable up to Cottonwood camp? Why the fuck would anybody who purports to enjoy the outdoors want an old road regraded underneath Park Creek Ridge?? That is literally the heart of NCNP. Should they reactivate that plan to force the road over Cascade Pass too? Jesus man, the access is great and you can get to some amazing terrain, largely undisturbed. You make it seem like armed guards are keeping you of the park.

I know, NCNP should get off their asses and put up a restaurant and tram already!! Why must one of the last remote areas in the lower-48 stay that way?? Europe has already proven you can place humanity on every square inch of the alpine, so let's get our act together. Seriously though, I'm actually curious wtf you are talking about? I spend nearly all of my outdoor time up in the N Cascades, a large % of that in the NCNP. I have never been locked out of anything, nor unable to do what I wanted to do. If we are talking about washed out roads or something...well, that's what mountain bikes and not being lazy are for. Or is there something else in particular I'm not aware of?

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ted-the-caver

I discovered a substantial winter cache at one of WA state's historic fire lookouts recently. If it's your cache, I'd greatly appreciate getting a hold of me via private message. I do some care-taking and maintenance at the lookout in question, and am certainly not looking to scold or anything of that sort. I am asking out of curiosity and the possibility that you could do me a very small favor when you return for it. I'm not sure when it was left, but FWIW, it's in good shape. Again, I'd greatly appreciate a private reply if you see this! thanks! -josh

I was in this area early in the summer (during that awkward few weeks between summer climbing and spring skiing) and did scramble peaks. I knew there was a ton of larch and returning in fall would be worthwhile, but I am now 100% committed to do so. Incredibly beautiful, and your pictures are fantastic!!

The book is really well done. I just submitted a review on Amazon. The price is definitely not too high; that is a ton of material for a very reasonable price.

As an aside when looking in to avalanche safety issues, keep in mind how much this differs in region. A good class should teach you about these differences of course. As you allude to, gaining "mountain sense" for the particular area you want to spend time in is absolutely crucial. The only way to learn this is experience and travelling with people who know their shit. It's far more important than classroom avy classes and knowing how to classify a snowpack as Q1c347T45 or whatever. I'll always trust somebody with decades of experience in the mountains and no formal training over somebody who has taken some classes and has only been serious in the backcountry for a couple of years. It all comes down to decision making, and that is only formed from experience, and lots of it. I've lived in both Washington and Colorado and the difference between a maritime and continental snowpack is huge. Similarly large differences exist within these meta-types as well. If you are able to, seek out some friendly, knowledgeable locals to head out with and ask them to verbalize signs they are looking at and what is going in to their decision making. As for the glacier travel, as others have said, this is a far more simple affair than avalanche safety. If you know your knots and some basic rescue techniques that should get you most of the way. You can go find an easy to access area to practice these techniques safely and probably have the skills you need at that point.

BackCountry Navigator PRO is an AWESOME app. I absolutely love it. The guy who wrote it (lives in S WA I believe) did an absolutely fantastic job. Since I downloaded the app I have no longer taken my piece of shit Garmin GPS anywhere. The phone's screen is a billion times better, the maps available are million times better and I no longer have to carry one device for GPS and another for music/reading, etc. Better yet, you can download a huge variety of maps from various services, generally for free, which are far better than the garbage maps Garmin will sell you for a lot of $$. The app is easy to use and allows you to select ares to mark for download (either in to main cache, or map packages you name) to your device memory or SD card. You can then create seperate trip databases, under which you can store your routes and waypoints. You can change colors of routes, name them, track stats, etc. Essentially everything useful the Garmin did, but better. The only thing I miss from my Garmin is the sun & moon charts, which I'm sure I could find in another app. If you do plan on using the phone for GPS navigation, it's important to recognize the limitations of the device you are using. I have a Samsung Galaxy 5 which I have found to be the perfect BC phone. Why? 1. It's water-sealed 2. It offers swappable batteries (I bought two spares) 3. The battery life, even without using a spare, is farbetter than an iPhone 4. It allows you to insert an SD card (64gb card for half the price Apple rapes you to upgrade from 8 to 16gb) I don't know much about your specific android device, but you should have some of the above benefits and you can get BC Nav Pro. So, in summary, I'd have to disagree completely with the assertions that a Garmin device is a better option to an Android phone. Carrying two devices when one does the same job, and better, makes no sense to me. Then again, if I had an iPhone, I'd probably be stuck with the Garmin as well.