JoshK

Blake, are you just trying to do Fernow in a day or specifically do it in a day from Holden? If the former, it is definitely doable in a day from the phelps creek trailhead. I really enjoyed the hike up into leroy basin and up and over onto the miniglacier to fernow. It's a great peak in a neat area, definitely one I'd recommend. Seven Fingered Jack on the other hand...

No, as ketch says I'll just adjust my expectations next time and enjoy it for what it is. As it was I was hoping for fast travel and didn't get it. As we've discussed at length here it obviously isn't the best way to get to banff from seattle, but it at least it allowed us a loop so we could see new things the entire time. Unfortunately it was nasty weather the day we went east through chilliwack. I was hoping to see tomyhoi since I had been up there just 2 days earlier. So you expect a giant highway through a extremely low population area that traverses a bunch of mountains.

Good info Paul. We started learning about this in geology last quarter, and I found it very interesting. I'm sure you know this, but for the others on the board, an interesting Washington fact: 90% of the earths continental crust is limestone (is that the one?) where only a small portion is basalt. The oceanic crust is comprised entirely of basalt. Washington is interesting in that it's exactly the opposite of the rest of the continental crust. Something like 90% of the crust here is basalt, owing to the fact that a good majority of the state is on an old giant lava bed. Oregon and Idaho also have parts of this flow.

Whatever, that couldn't be further from the trip. I probably noted to my girlfriend 100 times during the trip stuff that I liked so much more about Canada than the various fucked up things that exist down here. I love it up there. The fact remains that TC1 sucks compared to the interstates, and that one I am sticking by! About the breakin, in no way to I label that as a Canadian problem. As I said, the way people treated us and helped out following that incident was just awesome. Lots of people went out of their way to get us fixed up quick and on with our vacation. I think the problem with out of province plates is something you'll see alot in any place, however. As I said, everybody we had to mention the breakin to said that they generally go out for out of provine vehicles, probably for the reasons listed above. What I would like to see happen is the US get rid of the southern half of this country and unite the north with Canada

Columbia peak has a somewhat canadian rockies look to it in that picture...with the horizontal banding of snow and rock.

Apparently if you fucking read, you would have seen that the entire point was to go through Vancouver. My girlfriend really wanted to go there as part of the trip. I would have gladly headed right through Idaho and up (the way we came back) and climbed ice for 6 days if it was my choice, but it was a trip for the both of us.

Anybody? Snowpack seems to still suck balls, so possibly some sort of ridge route or whatever. Just looking to get out, get up something and get some pics. If you are interested, PM or email me 2nite.

Jeff you may want to change your email so it doesn't read correctly or you are just inviting tons of spam.

Oh, yeah, that is totally understandable, I was just bitching about the constant stops in crap towns and the lack of two lanes the entire way. I've been spoiled by I-90 and I-5 I guess. Actually, I was wondering that...are we the only country that has a true **FREE**way system? I know any industrialized country has highways, but I have yet to see another place where you can get on a freeway and go nonstop anywhere in the country without having to stop inside a town, etc.

It wasn't visible inside the vehicle. Snoboy, interesting, but every other person we spoke to seemed to believe that out of province plates is generally the deciding factor between the junkie picking your car or somebody elses. We went trhough vancouver since we were doing a loop trip to show my girlfriend lots of different parts of the province, etc. I would never ever ever go on TC1 to get to the rockies again. That thing is a sorry ass excuse for a highway, and it as about as direct as going to alaska through china.

For next time I go to Canada that is...? Well, apparently the rumors of out-of-province (and probably out of country even more so) cars getting fucked with is true. We got broken into in Vancouver on the first night of our trip. What made it worse is the one thing the bastard stole was our MP3 player which was all of our road trip music. Major suck. The dudes at the speedy auto glass up on w. brodway were quite possibly the coolest folks ever tho. They did everything to make sure we were taken care of, the care was secure for the night and then fixed ASAP the next day. The said that with their backlog it would be 2pm but they would try thier hardest to have to done before noon. They called us at 10am and it was done. It's too bad one character can put a sour note on a trip but the rest of it was so awesome and everybody we met was so great it was easy to look past that. Anyway, I guess it's an excuse to do the MP3 player search all over again.

Good call, but there is definitely fat stuff that is in protected areas. Good to hear you are ok, that must have been seriously freaky. What climb?

Whatever...anything on that parkway is a hellavu lot more fun than any ice you'd find in WA right now. If the guy wants to climb ice I dont see why it wouldn't be a worthwhile trip. If PC isn't safe, you can certainly find something that is.

I got these "glacier glove" things that are basically neoprene gloves with fleece lining. obviously the dont breath for shit, but they are warm and sticky as hell. they seem to work pretty well too.

I have no clue what the avy conditions are here right now (seem to be very random from what I can tell) but I can definitely attest to the fact that polar circus, as seen through a 450mm zoom lens is FFFAAATTT. I saw a couple of teams on the weeping wall yesterday and that seemed to be pretty sweet as well. The last 3 days here it's been mild but not that warm during the days (was mid 20s to 32 on the parkway yesterday) and cold overnight. I'm not sure if any of these climbs benifit from melt freeze, but I have to imagine to some extent. Lake Lousie got a few inches of snow tonight and the temp dropped real quick...this made for fun times watching the major cluster fuck on the road up to the lake involving 1 stuck car, a stuck minivan, 2 stuck SUVs and a stuck tourbus full of japanese tourists. Definitely the highlight of my trip so far!

Im on a spring break road trip with my girlfriend through the canadian rockies. We spent a couple of nights in Vancouver then spent the last two in lake lousie. We brought some climbing gear as she said she had interest in trying ice climbing at some point. Yesterday we drove the parkway from lake louise to about 100 clicks south of jasper. We climbed for a few hours at tangle creek, a fun, right off the road beginners area. She had a good time trying ice climbing for her first time and I got to climb 4 pitches of ice on a vacation where I wasn't supposed to climb any, so that was a bonus! In any event, the torture of it all...the parkway is in FAT. at least every major climb I could see from the road and recognized looked awesome. From what I could see of PC it looked huge, so did most of the mt wilson climbs. Tangle creek was super fat and the ice was awesome plastic. It made for good conditions to sprint up and down the easy WI 2 and 3 ice. The torture is having to drive by all that awesome ice and not be able to climb it!

I don't know why, but from Winchester, Larabee looks like it's really big and really far away - the first time I went up there, I thought for a second that I was looking at Mt. Baker, which was plenty disorienting! But it's not as far as it looks - we were able to ski down into the drainage and then skin up Larabee (not to the top, but as far as you could easily skin) by mid-morning. You had the exact same impression as me, which is why I left it for another time. It just looked very large from that vantage. Oh well, that road will be passable in no time and I'll go do winchester and maybe ski down to the lake, that looked fun.

So Dru, from my camp, I could see the "light pollution" coming from the north. Was this Chilliwack or was I actually seeing the lights from 'couver? I'm not sure how big chilliwack is so I dont know how much light it puts off.

There is lots of good reading on this very subject in Al Franken's book. Unlike his right wing foes, Franken backs everything up with notes, dates, quotes, etc. very effectively. Anybody who thinks that it was Clinton who blew it and not Shrub really owes themselves a read of that book.

Yup, I was all by my lonesome. It felt like I had the entire range to myself The skiing in that area just looked endless. I could have camped up there for 2 weeks and not even begun to hit everything I wanted to. I wish I had time to go up Larabee but it looked like quite a haul from where I was at. Some of the big drainages coming down from the east of the approach road looked like they would be great skis too.

I know, I'm gonna cash in on that road sometime! I guess you are right, it's just the shock of seeing it across from such a rugged and interesting area.

Turns down from Winchester false summit. You can see the true summit just to the left of the false summit. There was also a real nice run down that.

The point is not that battery wears out and can't be replaced but the fact that it isn't field replacable. This is just fucking stupid. Myabe i'm the only one that actually likes to use my MP3 player for more than 1 day on a multiday trip, but this is why 98% of the players out there didn't fit my needs. The last thing I want to do is carry around the dead weight after day 1.

Also, of all the things I didn't think I'd see...I saw a pretty "in" looking ice line (maybe 1 pitch) up on a cliff on the side of yellow aster butte. That kind of surprised me considering the rather warm temps.

Now I see what everyone means about Canadian logging. From the Tomyhoi peak area it was pretty evident how...umm...liberal the canadian logging restrictions are.