JoshK

cracked, I think you are shouting into a vacuum. Nobody seems to be hearing the "good climber does not make good gear designer" point None of their stuff looks that original. I cant see paying that much money when you can get gear from existing manufactuers for less money that does the exact same thing.

At least this guy is getting props from her by her saying he is great in bad and whatnot. Lucky guy! Stupid kobe was so bad he had to resort to rape

excellent...the topo maps will come in very handy when I make my invisible ninja traverses across vast distances undetected

Im always confused by the timber/non-timber markings on the topo maps. They aren't always correct (obviously) and dont always correlate directly with safe tree cover or not. I bet in UT and CO it's even more difficult since what might be considered timber isn't thick enough forest to prevent slides, as opposed to good ol' PNW west coasts forests which slides generally wouldn't originate in.

The same could be said of Seattle. I can't think of a city more associated with fake-outdoorsie types who are more interested in driving SUVs and wearing north face shit for the image than actually going outdoors. That doesn't mean all the gear makers and climbers here suck tho. In any event, I have pretty much come to the conclusion that anybody can make quality gear these days. It's about the features and design that you like, such as fit, etc. Most of the work will get farmed out to a sew shop, and lets face it, sewing is not rocket science any more. the "hand made" crap is a joke. A machine can sew things ten times cheaper, faster and better than any human can. Pick the design you like, the features you like and the product that fits you the best and you'll be fine. Cracked is right on the money too, I might be a suck ass climber but I could design a much better product than a lot of the junk I see out there. Now if only had a big name to market it with...

For anybody looking for a cheap synthetic insulation layer: http://www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?storeId=8001&catalogId=40000008001&productId=47627188&parent_category_rn=22638576

In Montana you can still drink while driving too!

HAHAH! It was an off day, I swear We need to get out again soon, I've been lovin my new ski setup!

Anybody intersted in saying ta hell with the weather forecast and giving some skiing at WA pass tomorrow a shot? I busted ass all morning doing homework and reading and was rewarded with this lousy forecast

Sky, were you directing this comment at me??

OK, so check out the forecast for tomorrow. Who wants to guess what'll be like at Washington pass? I figure our random ass guessing is probaby as useful as the actual weather report. I know the report doesnt look great but I have been surprised at how calm it can be at WA pass despite crap weather on the westside.

Awesome! Snowking is a great area. I've been wanting to return with skis. Sucks to hear even more road walking is nescessary now. I dont think they maintain that road at all anymore, do they?

What is the rating, etc. on the route you guys did? I dont have a beckey book handy. I bet the crystal glacier is pretty spectacular from that vantage, eh?

You definitely make a point Matt, there are certainly climbers/hikers/backpackers who do damage to the environment as well. I think of one particular case when I saw these 5 jackasses playing frisbee in spider meadow last spring. The snow had mostly melted out and they were running over all the recently exposed flora while tossing the frisbee around. I don't know how many of you have seen spider meadow when it blooms but it's simply breathtaking. There are several signs telling people to stay the hell on the trail and not walk into the meadow because tramping over stuff, even before it blooms will kill the plantlife. Looking back, I really should have said something to those people. As I did I silently walked by wanting to punch them and shaking my head. Overall, however, I believe the percentage of environmentally respectful snowmobilers is a great deal lower than environmentally respectful climbers or hikers. I'm not sure if this is a good example, but take the trail into colchuck lake or snow lakes during the winter. I have to imagine these two get the heaviest traffic of any local trails during winter. In all my times going up either in the winter I have seen maybe one or two pieces of trash. Now, areas where snowmobiles are allowed, on the other hand, I have found oil cans, trash, beer bottles, broken snow-mo parts and, my personal favorite, bloody rags. This doesn't even address one of my original points, which is their effect on others. I may see 50 other snowshoers or skiers on the snow lakes trail but I can still enjoy myself. Doing that in a snowmobile area is next to impossible.

Hehe...nope, not mocking at all. I could definitely see how he mistook that for Eldorado. Thanks!

Great TR man!

Sweet pics! Can you see snowfield, paul bunyan's stump, etc. from that vantage? If so, do you have any pics?

Consideration aside, there is the simply fact that our activities (for the most part) do not infringe on, or effect the experience of others. No matter how hard you try to argue it a skier skinning up or skiing down a slope 200 meters from you doesnt have any effect on your experience. A loud ass smelly, obnoxious, polluting machine, on the other hand, does. They can be 1/2 a mile away and your experience will be effected by them. Yes, there are plenty of other places to go, I agree, but snowmobiles have no place in the alpine...none. Forest roads are one thing but the "recreation area" on mt. baker is just silly. This isn't even addressing the fact that one machine lunched into a crevasse puts more trach into the glacier then 1000 years worth of climbers.

For those curious: http://www.avalanche.org/av-reports/proc-show.php3?OID=1503574

Here are some pictures. The links go to the big sized ones. http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=4304&size=big&password=&sort=1&cat=500 This is Glacier basin from the approach. Monte Cristo Peak is in the center. The obvious "U notch" to the left of the peak is the one named "U notch" in Beckey's book. The small col just to the left of the main summit structure is the north col, where I came down. http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=4306&size=big&password=&sort=1&cat=500 This is the upper pride glacier. You can see my lower tracks clearly and my upper tracks are hard to see, partially due to the large amount of slush I brought down with me. http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=4305&size=big&password=&sort=1&cat=500 Keys peak from Monte Cristo's summit. Getting up and down from this summit was definitely the sketchy crux of the trip.

HAHAHAAH. What a jackass. Thankfully he's ok so we can make fun of him all we want. The fact that they are allowed on the actually glaciers on baker is ridiculously stupid. If they dont get it out and it ends up getting encased in ice for hundreds of years, that is pretty damn funny

Caveman, do you know when that pic was taken? What was going on that they triggered a slide with explosives but caught a "victim" in it??

Man, I think you, of anybody I know, are living proof that there are *never* too many places to see or mountains to climb!

P.S. I would be curious if anybody knows if any of this stuff was a first ski descent. I can't really imagine it was, but who knows. In particular I would be curious about the pride glacier and monte cristo's north col. P.P.S Here is a map: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=4302&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1

Climb: Monte Cristo Area-Columbia Peak, Kyes Peak, Monte Cristo Peak Date of Climb: 4/11/2004 Trip Report: I had been back in Monte Cristo once before when I went backpacking up to Silver and Twin lakes. I was really taken with the area and thought it had some good potential due to it's steep terrain and relatively short distances between attractions. I had never been up to Glacier Basin so I figured a little exploration on skis would be in order. In short this is an absolutely awesome area for ski touring, but I am pretty sure it has a short season. Due to the nature of the terrain I bet it wont be too good for skiing later in Spring. Day 1: Attempt to Bike up Monte Cristo road, constantly getting on and off bike when I bog down in snow patchs. At about 1 1/4 miles, I get frustrated and chuck the bike in the woods and pray somebody will steal it. As luck would have it, after about another 1/2 mile of snow, the road is basically snow free the rest of the way to monte cristo. I started up the glacier basin trail and left the trail and headed right up a slope as soon as the trail entered into the open. I was able to skin from this point up to the col (pass) between upper glacier basin (the wilmans glacier as beckey calls it) and the columba glacier. I think this is referred to as monte cristo pass, but I am not exactly sure. I eat lunch here then back track a few hundred meters and climb up to wilmans gap, which takes me down onto the '76 glacier. From here I make my way over to the west rib of Columbia and climb to the summit. No difficulties aside from a few somewhat sketchy sections where there was only a few inches of snow left over rocks. A quick ski and skin gets me back to Wilmans gap and then down to Monte Cristo Pass. A Short, moderately steep ski over the Columbia glacier headwall (for lack of a better term) takes me down to the flats of the columbia glacier where I skin up to the south ridge of Kyes peak. I make my way up to about 6700 feet where I see what will make a great bivy site. I decide to call it a day here and save Kyes for tomorrow morning. Day 2: After one of the best nights sleep I have had in a while, I skin up the remaining bit of the South ridge of Kyes and tag the summit. From here I ski a short ways down, rounding esst then north to get off the south ridge and onto the pride glacier as high as possible. I manage to get within about 100 feet of the large wall of Keys summit. I ski down the pride glacier (AWESOME ski!!) to about 5400 feet then skin up to the north col of monte cristo peak. From here I boot back up a steep coulior which gets me to about 100 feet of the monte cristo summit. Here was the crux of my trip. That summit block is pretty exposed and with ski boots on and bits of snow and rock I really took my time. The summit of this peak has awesome views. After booting back down from the summit and coulior I ski down Monte cristo's north col. another AWESOME ski! This takes me right into the top of glacier basin where I ski down and out. The flat section of glacier basin sucks and requires me to resort to some skinless skinning. I guess spring is here, both Kyes and Columbia I found the summit registers on, which I haven't seen in a while. I was the first one to sign the register since september in both of them. On Columbia I accidentally signed it the 10th since I had no clue what day it was Gear Notes: Skis, skins, a light axe, very basic bivy gear