skykilo

Nice work Bro. Those couloirs look sweet in your pictures! Glad you got that out of your system. Your plan had me a bit stymied though; I'd much rather climb it to know the conditions, especially since I've never climbed it to know what to expect in the first place. I don't think it's really fair to compare the Cascades to the Alps. I haven't skied in the Alps, so maybe I'm talking from my ass. But I don't think anything compares to vertical bushwhacking with skis on your back.

Yeah, now let's see that route photo Jens! Draw a line, draw a line. I think I can visualize it, but I want to see where the hell you went.

Yeah Mike, now can you just evict the dragons for us?! I'm pretty sure they didn't get their permits...

Here's a shot from Sunday morning.

You're worried about equalization and you don't have ONE fucking coat? Get a grip!

I want my Kool-Aid RED and my potato chips YELLOW, damn it! Shoes are much less appetizing without dye.

There's a lot more snow than that now. The blue ice in the fall line below Thumb Rock is gone. Maybe I'll post a picture tomorrow.

Nice shot gaper! STOKE!

Regardless of oil, there is enough coal to keep us running on fossil fuels for millenia. The Nazis made coal from oil during WWII when their oil supply was blocked. The technology already exists; it's only prohibitively expensive since oil is still relatively cheap. Ten times one's life span doesn't seem all that myopic. Not that I don't support each individual making all the little differences they can... Jon, surely you know sex with condoms is only marginally better than masturbation? Admit it, you like playing with your test tubes.

A fisty one? I think you meant feisty, or else I'd call you a sick bastard. Fisty might be appropriate though; a windslab high on Tahoma could rearrange your ass real quick.

I hear there's a bunch of police-state rangers there ready to dish $75 tickets for parking overnight without a camping permit. That's when it cost $15 for the pleasure of parking in the first place. Nevermind whether or not suckaz think you went high on the mountain. Plus I hear dragons nest up there. Yuck.

I was so inspired by the Steve House slideshow last night; I just had to go do something. So I went and skied your route. It was sweet! I had to leave another hooker for a deadman to rap off the summit, but from there I was able to link three 100' boofs via steep ramps. Sickest descent I've ever skied. I'm glad I was alone, so that no one else had to face such ridiculous danger.

Congrats, quality descent nice and close to home.

Too true. Skiing without bushwhacking is like sex with a condom.

Congrats E. Teach him to ski!

I'll respond to some sucker-ass commentary. It's like this. I'll be the first to agree that roped skiing and billygoat BS are highly contrived. But who goes to ski something with those kinda maneuvers in mind? Step 1: go climb the route (or the route next to the route). Step 2: determine that a ski descent is possible. Now you're getting after it. But maybe at some point making turns just doesn't seem safe any more. So you fetch your ax. Or you do some sidestepping. If you were on a huge alpine climb would you retreat just because you couldn't free part of it? I didn't think so. Step 3: spray hard and let the peanut gallery and some armchair mofos scrutinize everything and rampantly misinterpret words, actions and motives as they are so wont to do. It all makes for good entertainment.

benman represent! What's that line in CrackSniffer's photo? It looks good.

Don't apologize on my behalf, hoser!

STFU n00b!

Way to go use your skis Barry. Do you think you might have had better luck trying to skin up the ID?

from http://www.risktaking.co.uk/intro.htm Even other animals have been shown to take risks for social reasons; the underlying theory being that by taking risks that a less able animal would have to avoid they demonstrate the superiority of their genes and become more attractive as a mate. Interestingly some studies have found this phenomenon in humans too, with people who engage in high risk sports (e.g. parachuting) seen to be more sexually attractive.

Climb: Mt Formidable-Northwest Face Date of Climb: 3/12/2006 Trip Report: So. I have work to do and I wasn't going to write a trip report. But all I can do right now is stare at the wall and daydream about a never-ending mountain face of blower pow. So write I will. Nice slideshow Friday night, Mike. I enjoyed it. I was going to stop drinking after the Patron was gone, but j'ai eu soif. Drank way too much. Plans for the one-day Sunday were perfected and ready. The only problem was if I moved my head it hurt real bad. Chorizo, eggs and medicinal herbs from the downstairs roomies finally cured me around two. So I grabbed Ross and we were cruising toward the North Cascades shorty after four. Credit is due, so I must acknowledge that Ross was talking about this route over two years ago when I first met him and we skied Buckner. My interest was finally whetted when I got a glimpse of the Northwest Face while heading up the Middle Fork to Spider last month. Couple that with this dynamite photo from John Scurlock and we were ready to go. Finally high-centered to no avail at mile 16 on Cascade River Road, we dug. Half an hour of digging, reverse, forward, digging and reverse and forward and we had the car on the side of the road pointing toward civilization. We skinned the remaining mile to the Middle Fork circa 8pm. Deadfall worse than normal bushwhacking was the boon of the night. We were relieved when Klenke's words rang true; Cleve Creek drainage is open and pleasant. From about 2,700' we were able to cut into open slopes and traverse into Cleve Creek. The moon was nearly full, the night was young and I was elated that every vertical foot we climbed from this point would be repaid with turns in powder. Somewhere partway up the drainage we had a snack and slept until we were too cold. As my old friend Don Quixote likes to tell it, snatches a nap, as they say, resting on his lance and with his feet on the stirrups as knights-errant did of old. Formidable and froid restricted our repose. Soon the full moon that obviated headlamps also cast aspersions on our access. How to get onto the face? The gully on the right looked like a one-way ticket to nowhere. The slopes we'd hoped to use on its left were snow-dusted rockslabs. Cliff bands barred the way on the left, but there was a chink in the armor on their right. With encouragement from Ross I skinned to the friendliest-looking spot. There I found thin snow over rock, giving way shortly above to thin ice over rock. I wasn't thinking clearly and wanted to sneak through the spot without any gear shenanigans. So I removed my skis, put them slightly above me into some snow and tried to get up the difficulty with naked ski boots. Halfway into the affair I lost my footing, fell into the snow below and knocked my skis down the slope. Ross caught one. The other? Stop. Stop. STOP! It stopped at the bottom of the slope and I proceeded to fetch it. While I was retracing my skin track, Ross put his skis on his pack, donned his crampons and made the moves. What followed the moves was a very spicy traverse on loose snow over rock above an ever larger cliff band. Through a scary windlip and now to the business. Up, up, up... approximately an hour before dawn our efforts put us in a bowl below an ice bulge. I was kicking steps and had avoided the accumulated snow in the bowl's middle, but at its top was faced with a dilemma. Cross the top of the bowl below the cliffs or retreat to a different route? My sphincter was clenched so tight it could have cracked a carbon nanotube, thinking about cutting a slab out of the bowl and riding it to Cleve Creek, so we found a way to retreat around a rib to some trees. From there we were able to skin. Above the bowl and cliffs, things were looking good. Ross skins at dawn. We were at the base of the upper face by 8:30. The snow here had ripples, evidence of wind-scouring. We were encouraged. Booting up the face varied from boot-top powder to knee deep swimming. Prolific self-congratulations ensued. Picture yourself perched above cliffs, between rockbands, on a gorgeous steep face filled with powder. Yeah. Things got tricky at the top. Sugar snow over steeper rocks. We did some really cool booting along the North Ridge with stimulating exposure. There was a good spot for making the change about 15 vertical feet below the summit, so we left the skis there. Sidestepping the 60-degreeish knife-edge ridge at the top seemed passé. I've side-stepped so much in the Cascades already. Twenty-five hours after waking up with a hangover, Sky climbs the final bit of ridge to the summit. Washington winter wonderland As far as the descent, suffice it to say that it was the best non-stop, fall-line powder run I've had. 5,600 feet to the Middle Fork with a couple pauses to rest the legs and utter platitudes like "Fuck yeah!" A nice boof into powder at the bottom of the face over the bulge at the edge of the cliff band, where I lost my ski so early in the morning. We hauled ass through the Middle Fork's death-shwhack. Sausage sounded good. That's a lot of powder! Gear Notes: Thermos full of sex-shot Americano CRITICAL

Anything left? (Really I just wanted to get Dru off the main forum page. The reign of terror is over!)

How many 14ers in Colorado start at 6k, one? (Pike's Peak.) Seems like most of 'em start at 10k. Here's a summit photo from yesterday for Grissle.

My old Roots CDs got stolen after a house fire six years ago. All I have now are DYWM and Illadelph T_{1/2}.