skykilo

Here's a picture from Sunday, probably doesn't tell you too much about (climbing) Ptarmigan Ridge though.

Looks like a cool adventure climb. The approach sounds pretty easy for that area from your description, or are you just tough mofos?

Yeah I'm about to hit the road for another cross-border ski traverse E; I'll call you from Hannegan Pass before I ski to the road. Remember this time, small denominations! (That oughta give BigBrother something to do on the holiday weekend...)

I met olyclimber and Alpinfox at the bar last night. What can I say? I was totally starstruck. It's so awesome these guys are keeping it real, chillin' in public with all the little people.

Johnny I'm loving your latex-produced $\beta$ -> .png avatar. Latex-using geeks are good people, damn it. Allow me to demonstrate my devotion. Cauchy's Integral Formula, BOOYAH MOTHAFUKKAS!

I like her skin tone and dark hair. Jolie's lips totally freak me out. Oh well. To each their own. (With a little luck?)

I think she looks better than Jolie.

That looks pretty cool. So where is Lake 22, right after Lake 21 I guess? Clearly somewhere off the southern part of the Mountain Loop Highway...

Shoulda went for the 'crampon-free' ascent. That woulda been $money$.

Somebody get Nick some skis; he's ready for action! Seriously, glad everyone's all right.

Prolly one of those reticent-hardman telemarkers on skinny skis

Just for the record hosebags, CAG I lists the FWA of SF Prusik as done by Kearney and partner in '72(3?)...

Cool man, way to work through the fear. Let's see if we hear about more couloirs later today.

Eldorado's always fun; too bad you didn't get Klawatti, it's a kick. Whiteouts rock! I really like the sitting on ?what? suspended between skis, looks like a great idea. Can you take it one step further and make a hammock with two pairs? Take a little rigging for skiing with your lady friend...

Impussible! Oly, are you a cunning linguist? I want to know how much chocolate was consumed. Chocolate is aid.

Scurlock took a really cool photo of what the wind left of our tracks, thanks John! Stomp the windlip, one turn at the top, sidestep on the rocks, then crank 'em...

Go skiing already Dru!

By little nuts I meant chocks; by big nuts I meant cojones. We didn't place any (little) nuts, but it would have been possible near the top bulge.

You like standing on top of shit? Don't make me remind you of a couple trips we did together, ha ha ha. I'll pull your card. There was snow, but we had to deal with lots of burned deadfall. I cleaned my hands with snow many times throughout the night during the approach; luckily I managed not to get any soot on my stylin' threadz. I think the Cache Col approach is probably easier. But without skis and in the summer sans snow in the valley, the Middle Fork could very well be easier, especially for Formidable.

What's happening Jonathan? I kept thinking about our trip. We were close. We probably coulda had it the same way, but it felt a lot better doing the dusk descent with a fat cache of overnight gear on the other side of Art's Knoll. We made a damn good run at it. As for the Middle Fork, it did the trick and it was cool to make a loop and see some new views, but it's definitely more work. Josh- good one. Je m'en fiche.

Justin- The gate's where it always is at mile 20. There is no gate before that. But I can't see anyone driving past mile 18 or so right now. Here's a view of Boston and Sahale from about half a mile above the gate.

Here's a route photo by Scurlock: There was more snow than this photo shows.

Climb: Spider Mountain-North Face Date of Climb: 2/8/2006 Trip Report: Seventh try's a charm. I couldn't ignore the brilliant forecast so I sent an APB to the bros a week ahead of time. It's been snowing, snowing, now it's time for going... BIG. We left Seattle Monday night about seven, which is about right on target when you tell Ben Kaufman to be ready at five. Some stupid snowboarder (redundant?) had suggested approaching via the Middle Fork. I gave him a severe tongue-lashing for suggesting such heinous bushwhacking. But as we drove Cascade River Road I thought about avy conditions and the fact that a Middle Fork approach avoided any possible windslab action in Pelton Creek Basin. So we parked at the gate to the old Middle Fork road. Four AM found us skinning through the trees near 3k in the Middle Fork valley. I wanted to hit the route Tuesday because of possible inclement weather Wednesday, but we had to sleep. We slept next to trees, shivering in fear anticipating the next tree bomb, wet in our bivy sacks from the constant barrage and hoping to keep our gear dry enough for the next two nights. Daylight allowed more rapid progress up the valley Tuesday morning. My skins started retaining painfully heavy amounts of snow as we entered the open basin at the head of the valley. The views of Middle Cascade Glacier were nice; it looks like an awesome ski descent. Weaving through the lower parts of the cirque, finding a good route to skin took a long time and it became clear that Spider was not in Tuesday's cards. We stopped to make camp at about 5k, directly below Art's Knoll. We dug a large snow cave and slept for eleven hours or so. The next morning greeted us with a whiteout and approximately two inches of new snow. After lots of coffee and a little whiskey, I felt ready to make an attempt despite the clouds and wind. Sky enjoys a motivational breakfast. My instincts took us right to the notch between Hurry Up and Art's Knoll. The wind was howling and we couldn't see a thing. We dug a big hole to sit, shiver, and wait for the sun. Helios kept trying to penetrate the clouds and we decided not to wait. We skied into Flat Creek. Approaches can be fun too. The weather finally started to clear. There were a couple of mammoth crowns on Spider, but everything felt very stable and I was confident the slides were from Friday night's windy, warm storm. Our final conclusion was, "If it goes, it's gonna go huge. But it feels good. Let's just go up there and see what we see." We skinned nearly to the bergschrund. Switching to boots, the time was 3:30pm. Shenanigans at the bergschrund found me using my skis to cross it like Ben Manfredi and I did at the uppermost bergschrund the first time I skied the Price Glacier. Ben and Dave crossed in boots. At least I could have dropped them a rope if that hadn't worked. Ben and Dave climb Spider's North Face with Johannesburg in the background. Sunset approached much too rapidly. I sped up the face as quickly as I could. Above the big cliff all I wanted to do was haul ass to the top. Dave was concerned about skiing the steep face on the wind-buffed powder and he stopped not too far above the bergschrund. Ben couldn't quite keep pace despite the fact that I was kicking the steps. I really wanted to get to the top and ski the face before dark. "Hurry up you lazy bastard!" Spider's summit and sunset I made the summit ridge just in time for spectacular sunset views. The true summit was maybe fifty feet above me just up the ridge, but skiing the route was the only thing on my mind. I was ready to ski when Ben reached the top. I handed him my camera and got to business. I guess I was in a bit too much of a rush; I realized after the descent that I had skied the face without locking my ski boots into descent mode. Sky after stomping through the windlip First turn was gravy. The snow on the face was perfect. It had been wind-buffed enough not to sluff. With each turn it just exploded and caught us in a pillow. I had one turn on the whole face where the pillow didn't explode for me. Ben was on cloud nine. He hasn't been on a big trip in a long time and he couldn't have asked for more. We skinned to the notch with headlamps and moonlight. Ben and I spent a lot of time looking at Spider's massive northern face and talking trash. There were no problems finding the cave, which I had feared while ascending in a whiteout. The small bit of new snow made for a really pleasant, high-speed skiing surface. GS turns put us at the cave with big smiles on our faces. Ben and Dave approach Cache Col with Art's Knoll and Spider in the background. Dave enjoys a little powder on the Cache Glacier. The exit via the Middle Fork sounded like ass, so we skied a loop over Cache Col and Cascade Pass. There was enough snow to ski the road past mile 17. We only had to carry our skis the last half mile to the car. From there it was beers, grins and groupies. Ben's thinking about dropping the real-estate gig for life as a ski-mountaineering rockstar. Approach Notes: Full Cascades grab bag

That's good advice Matt. I also recommend straight-shafted ice tools if you find them for sale used. They're a very nice compromise between performance of today's true ice gear and the benefits of being able to plunge the shaft of the ax to greater effect (which it is so often nice to do in the Cascades). Now I have a small question, Matt. Would you ever say 'shizzle' in conversation? I'm just curious.

I'll have to do some tests. Thanks.