JoshK

"I have never climbed"... I just lie to get partners.

Can somebody confirm if I got the name tags right in this picture? thanks, -josh

Not to mention the general pain in the ass factor of crossing the nisqually once it gets broken. If I try this route again I'll definitely look into the approach you recommend.

Has anybody around here done a traverse of Ragged Ridge? Specifically, Cosho, Kimtah, Katsuk and Mesatchie peaks? If so, any beta would be much appreciated. thanks! -josh

Yeah, there wasn't a single crevasse visible on it the other day. In fact, if I hadn't been on the mountain before when the glacier was dry I wouldn't have even known it was a glacier. Go up and get on it soon; this is the best time. It's gentle but fun, so the hazard factor is quite low.

Hi, this is Greg on Josh's account...looking for current beta on the traverse.....from northwestern glacier to exit.....thanks, g my email is gsfranson@hotmail.com

Yeah, just like every other mountain in the area Baker cleared off around 5 or 6pm tonight. It got gorgeous around then, which, like I said, was coincidentally right when I got back to the car. At least visibility was good...the skiing was actually quite awesome on ruth. Cherish that record, it's one for the ages!

Climb: Ruth Mountain-Ruth Glacier Date of Climb: 5/2/2004 Trip Report: I skied Ruth MOuntain today. I guess there isn't much to say because it's not all that intersting but figured somebody might want the conditions info or sumpin. The road is melted out to within about 1/4 mile of the trailhead. I walked the trail for about 2 miles (snow on and off) then descended down to Ruth Creek. From then on the snowpack is nice and consistent and I just skied straight up the basin to the notch past hannegan pass then right up the summit "ridge" to the top. It's a great mellow ski. If you are on skis I wouldn't bother with hannegan pass at all, just go right up the creek and valley. As is typical, the sun was poking through making me hot the entire way up, then it clouded up so I couldn't see much beyond Shuksan. Of course by the time I got back to the car it was pretty much bluebird. At least I got some good view of Shuksan from the lower part of the road above the nooksack river. That's a great viewpoint. Gear Notes: Skis, Skins, Poles, camera

Me three. I'll haul in the BBQ and keg.

Aint it great having Mother Kanada take care of all your health care needs? Oh, the rascally communists! Cleary it's better to have your quality of healthcare be determined by your income like in the good ol' USA!

I've always been really happy with Discount Tire's service. I have boycotted Les Schwab since the stories about ol' Les giving money to white hate groups.

Somebody on here last year was talking about seeing a black bear walking across the blue glacier.

Who the hell is annabelle and why should we care? high altitude sloggers...

Somebody go climb it...hehe This was from day before yesterday. It actually looked like it had a reasonable amount of ice from the ross lake overlook. I wonder what it's actually like...

Holy crap...those look rather intimidating.

Oh yeha, that's right, we were talking about that. Yeah, that thing is a super bore. Their all-in-one weather page is cool but that is about it.

There is nothing that cc.com has that other web boards don't have...they all devolve into spray sooner or later, but there is still plenty of great info here and a good community. I've met, I dunno, 6 or 7 climbing partners here, all of them great people to climb with...I'd hardly consider the site useless.

I did the traverse last year in June with skis. I would say if you are going to do it that early in the year do it with skis. It'll still be mostly snow. I think in August or September would be better on foot since all the flowers should be exposed by then. It's true, coming out through bachelor creek with skis does suck ass, but a few miles of crappy brush is well worth all that skiing.

And I gotta say thanks to Sky for putting up with a gaper steeps skier! This was definitely one of my top 5 moutain adventures ever!

We took the same one they took before, which is also the one we used last week. I think it's the best way over to the boston glacier by far

Stupid bulk upload...ok, only one uploaded ok, so here is that one for now... http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=4620&size=big&password=&sort=1&cat=503

the silverstar "glacier" is hardly a good example of skiing glaciated terrain. You'd have to go out of your way to throw yourself in a slot on that thing.

Climb: Mount Buckner-North Face Up, North Face Coulior Ski Down Date of Climb: 4/29/2004 Trip Report: I figured i would jot this up while I am anxiously waiting for my pictures to download. Sky (skikilo) and I climbed the north face of buckner today and skied the north face coulior. This was the follow-up trip to a failure last thursday where we made it to within 600vf of the summit climbing the coulior and turned around due to high avalanche hazard. We were able to ski the majority of the coulior that trip, but we wanted to come back and nail it right. We left the car right around midnight and approached via cascade pass/salahe arm. I am now of the opinion that this is the best approach for the upper boston basin area when things are snow covered. The skin to cascade pass and up the arm is super easy and it is quite easy to contour around into boston basin. By the time we had reached the 8500 foot notch leading to the Boston glacier the sun had just started to shine. It was probably around 6am. A surprisingly not-that-bad ski down the boston glacier found us at the base of the north face not too much later. You are probably wondering why we chose to go up the NF instead of the NFC, eh? The schrund on the NFC straight up sucks. It runs side to side and we passed it last time on a very sketchy bridge that collapsed when I followed Sky across and had to scramble up the other side with him pulling hard on the rope. Not wanting to deal with that crap, we figured going up the face would be easier. We reached the summit sometime around 10am and realized we would have to wait a while for things to soften up. We took a nap until 12:30 and then started to work our way down the coulior. The top of the coulior (which is actually just the north face), is quite steep. Sky could probably estimate better than I, but it's steeper than the standard north face proper. This continues for probably 500vf and then you begin to neck down into the coulior proper. The coulior gets quite thin (maybe 40ft?) for a hundred feet or so then begins to slowly open up. Starting at the constriction we started to find fairly good snow...chunky powder. The ski down from that point was great, with a little bit of shitty ice here and there to keep things *very* interesting. Beneath the shrund (which can easily be shot across on skis) we found picture perfect powder for the last few hundred feet down to the flat part of the glacier. Too bad we didn't have that on the whole mountain. The skin back up to the 8500 foot notch went quickly and soon we were skiing down the quien sabe and the sahale arm, which was fast and fun with perfect corn. 18 hours and a little bit of driving later we were chowing down at Good Food in marble mountain Gear Notes: Skis, skins,2 whippets, crampons. Needed all this. Approach Notes: Road gated at MP21. Snow starts at MP22.5. Skin up to cascade pass and up arm very easy.

THe more you climb, the more you'll fail...that simple Dont worry about it anyway, the north ridge is better later in the year when it's more ice, less snow

I was under the impression the white river road was unrelated and that it only opened when it melted out. I may well be wrong.