JoshK

Cool! That looks like a very fun climb and ski on a great looking peak.

We ended up going to the Hoh, and it didn't dissapoint. What incredible trees. We were also treated to wildlife, seeing a bear at short distance near the olympic guard station, complete with a deer 30 feet from the bear and people camped 30 feet further past that. The bear, the deer, nor the people seemed very concerned with any of the others. We came across a small group of Elk on the way back. The campsite was the best part of it all, in the middle of one of the massive gravel bars on perfectly flat and soft sand. Private beach, loads of firewood, views of the rainforest and a clear view up river to large snowy peaks beyond. Thanks to everybody for the suggestions. Oly, I may give the Dungeness a shot next time, as I have a friend who wants to do a low elevation overnight later this week. -josh

Queue up right wing disagreement and claims that the climate is not warming...

I had that happen to me on the trail up to Mt Adams Meadows. I was jogging up the trail to avoid the hellish bugs at twilight when I ran in to a clearing and let loose a stampede. I thought I was going to be trampled. The Hoh definitely sounds awesome. With the Hood Canal bridge out it looks to be about a 4 hour drive each way. Going to the Duckabush River would be about 2 hours, but it doesn't look nearly as amazing as the Hoh. Who knows, maybe it would be ok to suck up all the extra driving and just enjoy that as part of the trip. I imagine the stretch of 101 along the coast is pretty rad.

Despite getting just a shade less than average snowfall over the winter, the North Cascades as a whole are still holding a lot of snow. The Spring has been very cool and there have been several snow events that have "topped off" the snow pack. I was in the McAllister Creek valley a couple of weeks ago and there was significant snowpack down to 2800 feet. I skied out of Paradise at Mt. Rainer last weekend and the snowpack looks like mid winter still. My only advice would be to pay close attention to steeper slopes during the warm weekend as the mountains did get snow this past week. Enjoy the turns, it's a great spring for skiing.

Hey guys and gals, My girl and I are heading over to the olympics this weekend to do an overnight up one of the big river drainages. Due to her lack of ski gear, we're looking to stay in the low elevations and enjoy the big ass trees and some sunshine. The Hood Canal bridge is closed so we'll be taking the ferry out there and it would be nice to stay on the east side of the range to cut down on drive time. The only major drainage I've been up is the Quinalt (Enchanted Valley). Can anybody recommend another one of the rivers to check out? The only requirements are that the road is accessible, offers nice hiking and a good place to camp in the valley. Thanks!

I had my Marmot softshell jacket ripped off my pack while thrashing up through the woods on the Snowfield Peak approach this past week. It came off somewhere between Pyramid Lake and the first knoll at 4300 feet elevation. It is a simple jacket, size M, bright green and grey with a highly technical duct tape repair on the left cuff. I'm certain it's long gone (or a disgusting mess...) by now, but if anybody comes across it I'd be happy for it's return, or at least to know it isn't just a piece of trash in the forest. Thanks! -josh

Colorado has excellent rock climbing, but the mountains/alpine will be dissapointing if compared at all with Washington. It's an older, more worn down range and it features nothing remotely close to the steepness or ruggedness of the Cascades. The lack of glaciers, dense green forests and water also make the range feel "dead" compared to the Cascades. The skiing is also extremely overrated, just as the snow is. I felt the same way when I arrived in Colorado several years back. I ended up coming back to Washington after two years. My major regret was not taking more advantage of the stellar rock climbing. Don't make that same mistake - get out there and take advantage of it! Also, I'm not sure what the comment about lack of Starbucks is supposed to mean. Colorado blows anywhere(Seattle included) out of the water when it comes to posers, yuppies and toolbags. It's full of people that think hiking up "14ers" is climbing. Nothing is funnier than talking to a Coloradan who comes to WA and gets his ass solidly kicked on an approach and never even manages to see the alpine. They are a more soft-core bunch there, that's for sure.

Gorgeous!!!!

Everything I've read or heard about Stim led me to believe he was a truly cool guy. Talk about a full and interesting life. R.I.P. Stim.

Gotta love the Canuck Rockies. That looks awesome!

Cool, thanks for the info folks, it sounds like we should have some fun. I'm meeting a friend there to climb Monday->Friday, so hopefully no heat waves move in.

Has anybody climbed, or heard about conditions of, ice in Montana recently? I checked MontanaIce.com and the conditions reports were way out of date. It looks like it's stayed cold recently, but I haven't followed the weather or conditions there this year. thanks! -j

Ryan, I did drop down to the Columbia glacier after ascending to the saddle between Columbia and Monte Cristo peaks. I did not ski all the way to the lake but then ascended SW slopes on Kyes to the S ridge as you guessed. I bivied on a relatively "flat" bit of rock and snow shortly below Kyes summit so I could enjoy some afternoon sun and relaxation.

Yeah, this is a good point. I saw about 5 minutes of this show once and these people are so pathetic I had to turn it off. It's so sad it isn't even good for a laugh.

Great TR and trip. I spent 2 days in that area early Spring one year on skis and it is an incredible place.

Since this seems to have turned in to a discussion on the merits of walking out with SAR help, I'll throw in another uninformed armchair commentary. As you said Dane, life is a series of choices. Whether or not to resuce yourself or rely on others is just another decision to be made, likely with pros and cons on either side. I don't believe there is necessarily anything more righteous, burly, admirable or "stylish" about getting out of a situation alone as opposed to with a partner, bystanders or official SAR - it totally depends on the situation. Relying on others or asking for help from your fellow man (or woman!) is no sign of weakness, it's an essence of humanity. The victim of this fall made the decision he felt best making in his situation. Most of all, I'm really happy to hear these long fall resulted in relatively minor injuries. Oh, but to disregard everything I just said, I will judge the people Layton mentioned...sounds like your typical Utah/Colorado pussies. I wonder if they enjoyed a nice 3.2% 'mormon special' beer while they waited. I hope they stay out of the Cascades, they are not worthy.

Holy crap. My hands got sweaty just looking at that...

It still amazes me how the previous generation's hardmen climbed difficult routes with tools like that. I have trouble enough climbing ice with the newer generation of technical tools. It leaves me in awe of these badasses. I imagine the use of highly technical modern gear would have allowed these climbers to climb even more difficult routes. I would also imagine there are "top climbers" today that may not have competed with some of the old-school hardmen if they were limited to old technology. I hope the recent party feels like "tools" (pun intended) for claiming the FFA of something freed 35 years earlier with far less in the way of tools and technology, and doing it slower.

Hi tazz, thank you for the info. It does look like the north slopes would be the way to go. I was eyeing that side anyway since this would be a ski objective and that side looks like it would hold some good turns.

What is the status of this oft-changing approach road? i know it has beenovergrown and impassable at times passed, and also apparently permanently closed at some point? I am interested in going to Big Snow Mt, but have no idea how much road travel this may require. Any ideas? Thanks!

That's what she said... ( sorry, couldn't help it. :-) )

On the way out we managed to reverse off the side of the well packed snow on the road in to the bank of icy crap snow, high centering us and putting two wheels off the road. Thus ensued the multi-hour procedure of come-along winching, swearing, pushing, shoveling, and wheel-spinning. The final addition to our successful extraction attempt was the front passenger floormat, placed under the rear wheel. Dave shouted "The floormat conquers!!", which provided lots of laughs in our exhausted state.

Trip: Gold Creek Valley - The Conquering Floormat Date: 2/8/2009 Trip Report: On February 8, David Kratsch and I climbed a nice water ice line in Gold Creek Valley, just east of Snoqualmie Pass. The climb itself is in a Northwest facing cleft on the Western slopes of Rampart Ridge. I have noticed the line several times in the past, but never in a condition that seemed appealing to climb. When David mentioned he had seen a rather fat looking line in that area, I figured it must have been the same one I had seen before. After packing up gear and heading to the pass to climb the NE Slab route on Das Tooth, we decided five minutes before the exit that we should go satisfy our curiosity and inspect the mystery line up close. It turned out to be a good decision. We began our approach at the Gold Creek Sno-Park. The climb can be seen on the Eastern (looker's right) side of the valley at the top of a steep avalanche slope. The lower section begins as a fairly wide curtain which eventually narrows at the top and enters trees on the left side. We split this in to two pitches (roughly ~50m each), belaying off trees on the left side of the climb. Using the trees for belays does require deviating a bit left of the most ideal line, and screw belays could avoid this. A few hundred feet of steep snow or snow covered low angle ice leads to the bottom of the second tier. The upper tier widens again in to a curtain before narrowing in to trees on the left again. The first upper pitch ascends moderate but very fun ice up to a small lower angle ledge midway up. We belayed off ice screws here. The second upper pitch featured the steepest ice on the climb and some slightly unnerving manky ice which was seperated from the rock. On both of these upper pitches you have some latitude on the difficulty of the line you want to take. Overall the ice quality was decent but featured some pockets of sketchy rotten-ness right where you don't want them. The descent wasn't particuarly fun. We only had one rope so we made a series of 30m rappels, one of which was off a pretty thin pine. We both rapped gingerly to avoid giving the young tree any extra incentive to rip out of the hillside. On all but the last rappel the rope came just a few meters shy of the next tree, requiring a few moves of exposed downclimbing. All and all, I'd rate this as an excellent moderate ice climb for Washington standards. We were shocked to find such a fun multi-pitch ice climb only 2 miles from I-90. It has been a great year for ice in the Northwest, so perhaps it is rare this line forms so well. After some comparing of pictures, Tvash and I established that he and his partner climbed the lower pitches last year. Other than that, i cannot find any previous mention of this line anywhere. I'm leery to label anything this close to a major freeway a first ascent, but at the very least, this climb is a lot of fun and certainly worthy of a name. I bet 2 or 3 weeks ago this thing would have been in perfect condition. Hopefully it'll stick around a bit longer. "The Conquering Floormat", II, WI3+, 200m Gear Notes: Ice Screws - We used stubbies up to 17cm. The ice in most spots would have taken full length screws. Approach Notes: Park at Gold Creek sno-park and ascend north through Gold Creek Valley by any number of roads, trails or XC routes. The falls are the obvious and largest line on the right side a few miles up the valley.