JoshK

Great TR. Wow that crux section looks like some volcanosketch for sure. I hear ya on the north ridge, I had the horrid idea to go up that thing once, it is really a pile for sure...

What if I can get a motorized vehicle up to source lake? Then can I measure my C-2-C elite supar #1 speed record from there?

Very nice! I remember doing Glacier in a long day years ago when the once proud White Chuck River Road was still pasable. I didn't sense smugness from him at all. Quite to the contrary, I have noticed the same smugness from others he mentioned on occasion when doing an easy/moderate mountaineering route and they give you "where is your rope" or "you know you need gear" or some such hassle. Some times it is fun to go fast, some times it is fun to go slow - both have their merits.

Arnold says...

Nice job! I love Glacier Peak, despite the walk it requires.

Real climbers go without water on this route, just saying...

The chances they are doing any sort of their own forecasting are slim to none, imo. Pretty much every weather forecasting service out there just adds their own "formula" on top of NOAA or other governmental agency forecasts. I go direct to the NOAA because I'd rather have the forecasts that are messed with the least.

What a sad and seemingly mysterious situation. It says on the 2nd it was "near whiteout" conditions - was it snowing hard, or just cloudy? Apparently any signs of tracks were wiped out or not visible? I know on the 3rd the upper mountain was clear visibility since I could see it from 100+ miles away.

Thanks! Did you make it over to the Maude/Fernow area? Though only a few miles away, from my vantage the weather looked a lot better over there.

Trip: Chiwawa Basin - Chiwawa n' Fortress Date: 7/3/2010 Trip Report: I've wanted to explore Chiwawa Basin for years. On my White River to Holden tour in May we had planned on crossing over but bad avy conditions made us change our route. With a few days of marginal weather I decided to give it a go, figuring it's at least a "little bit east". In fact, both Fortress and Chiwawa fall right along the crest, which became evident over the course of a few days where it was generally sunny to my east and generally cloudy right on top of me and to the west. The trail past the turn off to Buck Creek isn't in the best shape right now. Lots of new growth and recent wind and avy debris cover the trail, and there is a lot of mud and water. Large snow patches started below 4300 feet and I was shocked to find complete coverage at the Red Mt/Chiwawa Basin trail junction. A center part of the main meadow has melted out, leaving it a swampy, nasty mess at the moment. Fortunately you can cross the main river down low and skirt the west edge of the meadow on snow. Unfortuantely I didn't discover this until the way down. As it was I resorted to taking off shoes and fording a river six times during this trip. After leaving the lower meadow the rain/snow mix began to fall. I bivied in the upper meadow around 6,100 feet and enjoyed pretty much constant precip and wind for the rest of the night. The wind and clouds continued well in to the next day, but by late morning it looked like their might be some clearing. I had been considering just going home, but I figured I'd head up a bit higher. Around 7,600 feet the clouds finally broke. Sure enough, everything to the west was completely covered in clouds, and it was clear to the east. The upper part of Chiwawa Basin and my bivy were in the cloud "waterfall" that was pouring over the crest. I skinned up Fortress to just below the summit block. It was getting pretty late and I still had to get up Chiwawa so I quickly turned around, and skied a descending traverse back towards the Fortress-Chiwawa saddle and back in to the muck. Thanks to the soft snow I was able to skin nearly to the top of Chiwawa. My original plan had been to ski down the north side of Chiwawa on to the Lyman Glacier, then go back up over Spider Gap and out Phelps Creek. From the top, clouds were obscuring the col to the north of the summit that drops to the Lyman Glacier. It was well past 5pm now due to my late start so I decided to retrace my route and simply return back down the southwest slope of Chiwawa and enjoy another round of swamp fun. I took some photos, clicked in to my skis and dropped back over to the main slope. The snow on the upper mountain was pretty heavy from roasting all day so I made a big cut across the face which set off a nice slide that lasted a good 5 minutes. With control work completed I enjoyed my few hundred feet of sunny turns before dropping in to vertigo-land again. I skied to 4800 feet before taking off my skis to cross the river. Sure the weather sucked, but 3,650 feet of vertical, summit to basin, in July...yeah, I'll take that. More pictures at

Glad they are ok, and best of luck with a quick recovery and getting back out there. But how dare he speak ill of the mighty Mt. Si!

Wow, looks like some incredibly solid scrambling. Gorgeous pics, but too bad about the logging scars.

Does anybody have a pre-rockfall picture from that same location? It would be interesting to see them side-by-side.

It's true. I only wish I hadn't forgotten my camera the same day he forgot his boots and gloves and had to buy roller skates and oven mitts from a travelling gypsy on the way to the trailhead.

I doubt it'll be too bad at all. I know they summited with a few groups, and I believe all the guide services are currently going up the ID route, so from my armchair, I would imagine they'll be a booted out path.

Skis. My friend who guides up there says it's currently a perfect descent from summit to Paradise. May god have mercy on the souls of those who slog it sans skis!

thanks alot castle!

Gotta agree that this article was nothing more than an "lol." For a guy who is supposedly educated and has lived here for decades, his English writing skills are terrible. That's on top of the fact that the article is baseless and hardly even makes sense.

Right on! When Tvash and I were up in Glacier Peak Meadows he mentioned you had headed off on a long trip up in the Gunsight area. We too sat in the tent for over a day, completely stir-crazy and bored out of our minds. We wondered what it was like for you up there! Glad to see you were able to at least squeeze in something and it sure looks like you got your adventures worth!

I know somebody was asking about this last week...did anybody get a look at the Ingalls Creek valley and the south side of Stuart this past weekend? I'm most interested in potential ski conditions for Cascadian or Ulrich's.

I carry my DSLR on almost all of my trips. I brought an extra battery on my most recent long trip (6 days) but ended up not even needing it. I didn't even bother taking out the battery at night, but on a cold trip at altitude I probably would. With that said, I was happy to pay $25 for an off-brand spare battery to just carry, knowing I wouldn't be at risk of losing power and carrying around two pounds of dead weight. If I were you, I'd say bring an extra battery for the piece of mind you'll have and you won't have to worry about babying the main battery as much.

In general, I'd highly recommend skis for any slog style climbing in the North Cascades right now, if that is an option for you and your partners.

Looks like some good weather tomorrow. I want to climb during heat of day if possible to top out and get some sunset photos.

I have heard the road is open to the Esmeralda trailhead now. Check out turns-all-year.com, there are several reports from the area and snow pack still looks pretty decent. I imagine there is still plenty of skiing on Stuart's south side, but it may be melting out down low now. Just be careful, with these warm temperatures, slushalanches may be a concern, especially on the higher peaks.

I wouldn't say conditions are "bad" per se, but they certainly require people putting their goal in perspective. Skinning up a moderate, well consolidated slope at mid elevation is probably fine (albeit boiling hot), but traversing under some steep cliffs at 8,000 feet that are still holding snow is probably not. Though I imagine trying to slog through any sort of snow without skis this weekend could be a special form of torture. The original poster's advice pretty much sums it up: "dont be stupid."