JoshK

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

Holy crap this thread is funny OK, I guess I can consider myself as much of an expert on this log crossing crap as anybody can. My creditials are as follows: 3 eldorado approaches in the past 2 months, 1 in december, and one late last summer. In summary, those pictures aren't even remotely representitive of what it looks like now, as others point it out. The october floods did a huge job on that section of the river. It doesn't look similar at all, and the crossing is much much different than before. Paul and others have done a fine job describing how the river can be crossed now (it aint rocket science), and I will simply concretely state that, yes, it was the octoboer flood that completely changed everything.

I'm jealous the bikes worked for you guys. My attempt to bike to Monte Cristo ended up as a total failure as the road was mixed snow and dirt. Ironically about a 1/2 mile after I abandoned my bike nearly the entire way after that was snow free, despite the higher elevation.

Oddly enough I have had the best ski season I have had in years and I only rode the lifts once. Quality over quantity I suppose.

The last rumor I heard is you can drive to within a mile and a half of the road end. I wouldn't let this stop you. Even with the full 8 miles (4 each way) tacked on, you are only talking an extra 2 hours total.

hehe...

SKIING!!!

What a jackass. Somebody turn him in for not paying his sales tax.

OK, that's good to know. I figured it wasn't a huge deal but thought it would be interesting to know as I almost never filter my water. I'd rather not find out ten years down the road that I gave myself cancer or something

Obviously a lot of places in the cascades were ripped apart to mine for various things a century ago. Are there any recommendations on drinking stream or snow melt water from these areas? Would crap still be present in the water?

BWAHAHAAHHAAH!!

Who in god's name thought pastle colored candy would be remotely appetizing? Yecch...

Umm, yeah, we sort of *need* the rain here and there. There is a reason it doesn't look like a shithole like Los Angeles up here. Go there...no rain, and nothing good to look at either.

That's cool, looks much better than triple couliors. I like the tiltovision on the last pic to increase the steepness of the angle in the picture.

I manhandled my schedule into only tuesday/thursday classes this quarter! As long as I do my reading while recovering from climbing or skiing I'm good to go!

Hmm...well, I'm kind of a fan of small packs. I just figure it forces me to pack light and small. I did our 4 day inspiration-forbidden traverse in a khamsin 38. I guess I was just curious cause I can imagine doing much skiing with such a large pack. I guess you were thinking more of approach traverses to climbing objectives huh? I really like my seratus icefall. I think it's a bit smaller than you wanted tho. At only $149 canadian it's hard to beat on price!

Doh, I'm kind of dense I mean, c'mon, that was like, I dunno, 5 days ago, you expect me to remember that? hehe Check your PMs.

Oh yeah! Sporting the nice red burn!