meganerd

Has anybody ever linked up the N Ridge of Forbidden with the N Face of Buckner? That seems like it would be rad but the catching point would be descending from the first peak climbed and making it conveniently to the second peak (both routes on N side, both standard descents on S side). If anyone has ever done this and enjoyed the trip, any logistics beta you could provide would be very helpful. I would think the most logical way to do it would be to do Forbidden first and somehow modify the E Ridge descent route to end up on the Boston Glacier. Is that possible/reasonable?

If you go in through Ruth Creek, beware in August. The region surrounding Hannegan Pass, particularly the Ruth Creek Valley has the worst black flies I have ever seen. I swear they're like half a foot long. eeeeeewwww!!!!!!

I get some pretty weird looks when I go hiking/scrambling in my VANS. This one chick at work thinks I'm completely nuts for routinely doing the Tiger Cable Line (during winter) with a 50 pound pack wearing Vans. I've also done the approach to Liberty Bell and gone most of the way up Ingalls in the things. They're so comfy! They completely suck ass at traction though. I suppose since I work at REI, I should really get some light hikers. Oh well.

I guess I wouldn't say the direct approach absolutely will not work. There just isn't as much snow as usual below Cascade Peak and the Triplets. I think there are still snow fingers that reach all the way from the basin to the pass. If you want to start skiing as soon as possible and don't mind a little brush, this may be a better option, but the trail really is pretty simple. If you take the trail, you wouldn't want to start skinning until the switchbacks stop and you break out of the trees onto the snow covered talus fields. Actually I think there was a short stretch of bare trail between the two fields, so keep that in mind. You should be able to skin from there to the summit. Yeah, it would be a good ski down. I don't know how well you know the layout of Sahale Arm but it's kindof upsy downsy in its lower part. I wouldn't go out of my way to bring mountain bikes up for the two miles of road, but if it's convenient, I guess it couldn't hurt. The only obstacles are a slide across the road before the BB TH which has a creek running over the road (!) and a snowpatch just before the parking lot. The summit pyramid is snowfree anywhere you'd ever want to climb it. Have fun and bring your sunscreen!

Yeah, I'm hardcore... Naw, it's actually a bit of a challenge to do it solo, in a day this time of year. Well, maybe not, whatever. It was super purdy though. -Road gated at MP 21. -Road almost snowfree to trailhead. -Take the trail, not the direct route to the pass. Trail is mostly snowfree first 2.25 miles, then followable to snowy talus fields leading to the pass. -Snow is consolidated but freezing level has been high, so it gets slushy quickly. -The sun is hot. -Moderately steep slope leading to summit pyramid is somewhat unconsolidated. Use caution. -Go up the W Ridge, not the S Face, stupid. -Dern good view from top -Big cornices on Boston/Sahale Col, but not as big as normal. -4th class scrambling solo is nerve racking. -E Ridge of Forbidden looks mostly snowfree. -N Face Buckner looks good, but it's been warm. -Looks like snow starts for Eldorado approach, somewhere near where the talus fields end, but not sure. -Lots o' avalanche action off of Johannesburg-Pelton Ridge, but normal slopes, snowpack is stable. -Made worst time ever today: 14 hours car to car. Good god I'm lazy.

Nope, not at CWU, I'm at CCC, hooray for me.

To the dude who wants to ski it... I climbed Sahale today (6/6) and there is something you should know about. Probably three big avalanches came down off of Mixup Peak right over the route from Mixup Arm to Cache Col. I think the snowpack is sliding off from the big slab near the summit. There is still more up there too, so get a real early start the first day and get through there before the sun hits it. The first slide I saw was probably at 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning, although it has been unusually warm at night recently.

you listen to crappy music

Yeah it was serious. He broke his femur right where it meets his hip, shattered his left shoulder, broke some ribs, punctured a lung, and of course got the general cuts and severe bruises associated with a 40 foot fall, including a big scary one on his head which bled ALOT (but didn't get a bad concussion ) I got a boy scout medal of honor or something for helping to save his life. Hooray for me. Actually on the thing they gave me, it says: "for demonstrating heroism and skill in saving OR ATTEMPTING TO SAVE life at MINIMUM RISK TO SELF." Made me look real good. He was pretty unresponsive and a little delerious until they flew him out (obviously in shock). He spent over two months in a convelescance home (thank god for good insurance) He's fully recovered now, or at least as close as he will come. He can certainly walk and we've done a little hiking together since, but his hip is still weird every now and then and he still can't lift his left arm more than perpandicular to his body. Overall though, the events following that accident accumulated to nothing short of a miricle and reaffirmed my then-feeble faith in god, or whatever benevolent being you want to refer to.

Ya know, I really don't see what the big deal with the permits in the Enchantments is. I probably should shut my trap to preserve my strategy but I've been able to get a permit without a reservation each of the last four summers (or falls). I just show up at the ranger station at 7:40 for the lottery. Only once were there more people than the alotted five permits would allow. We lost, but picked up a forgotten reserved permit when it expired at 9:00 AM. No this wouldn't work on a Friday or Saturday, but on weekdays, it's the shit. Also, about the shitty leavenworth rangers, I do have one positive story about them. Four years ago, my dad fell about 40 feet off one of the cliffs above Snow Lakes and seriously fucked himself up. Partly because of luck, and partly because of the heavy ranger presence in the Enchantments, a ranger walked by within 20 minutes of the fall, just as I had stopped most of the bleeding. She called for help and the forest circus put out a pretty impressive effort to get him out of there as fast as possible. As it turns out, when the helicopter airlifted him out, he was just going deeper into shock and probably would have died if we had been forced to stay there much longer, almost certainly if we had stayed the night. They actually sent up some rangers to help out and take the packs of myself (carrying all of mine and my dad's stuff) and the other people who helped out in the rescue (I was just 15 then and I guess they thought I was feeble or emotionally damaged or something. Whatever, it was nice). They also gave us Snapple at the trailhead and drove me to the hospital in Wenatchee and made sure that I got on the ambulence plane with my dad (It was about midnight by that time), which wasn't really necessary but was successful in showing that they cared. I know this post has been completely irrelevent and I'm probably against commercial guiding in the Stuart Range (I don't know all the facts), but I just get tired of everyone only seeing the bad side of the forest service, although what a large backside it is.

Did ya take that picture from your front window? Bastard living in Chilliwack with all the cool mountains and such... I must say thought that the view from Tomyhoi into Chilliwack is annoying though: logging trucks and Canadians everywhere...

Trail snowfree to Stuart/Colchuck junction. Patches to lake. Easy to follow. Mostly covered around lake. Lake almost ready to melt (no walking across). Route in good condition to col. Didn't make it past for reasons outlined below. In short, I suck. For the three people frequenting this site with a reasonable attention span, here is a more entertaining report: Ok, I'm going to fucking shoot the weatherman. (Not seriously people, please take a little sarcasm). Forecast: 85 degrees and sunny in Leavenworth. Reality: 65 degrees and raining with ominous humidity clouds clinging to the walls of the Icicle Gorge. Hmmm, not so good. Well at least the trip started off promising. In fact, as I was sitting in class yesterday morning admiring the best day of the year so far, something inside just snapped so I skipped my evening math class to head over to Leavenworth and try to get up to Colchuck Lake before sunset. As it turned out that's exactly what happened. The snow on the trail is melting very rapidly. Patches start at the Stuart/Colchuck junction and the coverage only becomes consistent a few hundred yards before the lake. The trail is never difficult to follow. I arrived just as the alpenglow was shining on Dragontail and Colchuck. Neat. Through a little quick scampering about and a lucky find, I picked out a small dry campsite perfect to set up my little bivy/tent. I don't think I saw a melted out camping spot big enough for a full size tent. Keep that in mind. Had a pretty warm night in my sleeping bag and bivy sack but woke up to high but apparantly thick clouds in the morning. What the crap? This wasn't supposed to happen. On some days I would have just turned around and headed down right then (I'm a fair weather climber) but I was fairly determined today. Then I saw the one glimmer of hope needed to initiate a full hearted attempt: a single pink sunrise ray hitting the bottom of the high clouds. So I was off. The trail around the lake is mostly snow covered (NOONE is going to walk across the lake now) and would be a little difficult to follow if there wasn't a beaten track (which there was even on a Friday morning). As was expected, the snow was reasonably firm but with soft spots great for post-holing. As soon as the trail broke out of the trees onto the open avalanche slope/ boulderfield beneath Colchuck, I took a hard right to avoid the worst of the boulders which present somewhat of a hazard being half covered with snow. I made my way quickly up in good snow conditions to the low point in the old moraine of the Colchuck Glacier. Beyond this, once the route started climbing again toward the actual glacier, my energy really started to wane and I realized for sure that I had not brought enough water. I eventually ended up reaching Colchuck Col just over 8000 feet at the head of the glacier but it took me forever and I was completely out of water and getting somewhat cold (I had been going sparingly on the water for some time. The weather looked as though it was getting worse instead of better although Rainier actually appeared to be completely under the clouds still. Also the third class scramble up from the col had some snow on it, so this combination of factors forced me to turn back. It feels kind of stupid considering that the summit was only 600 feet higher, but it still feels like the right choice even now sitting in my nice warm house, so it must have been. The descent was fairly quick as I glissaded about half the route. Most people would be comfortable glissading the whole thing but I'm very wary of steep glissades when I'm by myself. This route does approach 40 degrees for one section. Just before I reached the lake, I finally found a creek coming from a small basin not frequented by anybody and took water from it unfiltered because I did not want to use my iodine tablets. I hope I don't regret that. Just as I reached my camp, it started to sprinkle. Again, what the crap? I was moving slowly because I was wearing my burly Nepal Extreme boots for some reason and it took what seemed like forever to reach the trailhead. A little past the junction it started raining steadily but still fairly lightly. Annoying still... Oh well, at least I got a good workout. Listened to some good ol' Slayer, Morbid Angel, and Dead Kennedys classics on the way home to calm my frayed nerves.

Thanks for the help ya'll, I could still use any info for the area that anyone is willing to write down. Also, about how would the Hornli Route compare to popular scrambles around here? My understanding of it is that a large part of it is at about the level of the last 150 feet of Sahale but with a few harder sections thrown in, protected by fixed ropes. And also 4000 feet vert. compared to 150 Am I about approxomately right in that estimation? Sahale was my first climb and I did that solo and felt just a little uncomfortable, but that was two years ago.

Hey thank you to the two of you who responded to my post about partners for the alps. I think I really want to go in July though. What I'd like to know is whether it would be worth it to head over there by myself and try to find climbing partners once there. I'd imagine I could find SOMEBODY to do SOMETHING in Chamonix and possibly Interlaken and Zermatt, but has anybody been over there and witnessed the situation first hand. Also, would the Hornli Ridge on the Matterhorn be reasonable to "solo" given good conditions? (considering there will be a couple hundred other climbers up there as well) No, I'm not willing to pay for a fucking guide. I guess even if I couldn't climb every day, I couldn't complain about hanging out and hiking/scrambling/hut hopping around the alps for a month in summer while all you other bastards hate your jobs and look foreward to weekend jaunts to Washington choss-heaps.

Actually I had been up in the Shuksan Arm/White Salmon Creek area that morning when some weather came in and I got bored and cold and headed down. I just drove up the Glacier Creek Road because I was bored and wanted to feel useful. The snow was good and hard over where I was (no snowshoes needed) but the area probably got some snow today, so who knows.

Believe it or not, it was actually in better condition last year than the year before (in early June). Even still, I had to drive my Pontiac Grand Am through a field for a short distance to get around a tree. That was interesting. I think that's also the trip where my liscence plate got ripped off.

Although Horseshoe Basin Pasayten is not a climbing objective, it's a nice early season hike. Has anybody been up there recently? Is the road open to Iron Gate? Is the trail getting somewhat close to melting off?

Yup, was just there today and that still seems about right

Set out today on a tentatively labeled solo attempt on the N Face or White Salmon Glacier Routes on Shuksan. Knowing success on either of those would be unlikely for me, my "aspirations" were really just an excuse to get out and do SOMETHING. I've never done the approach before, so I couldn't really start till first light (probably too late in the first place). I decided to go high for the traverse over to the White Salmon Cirque (so I could abort and head to very nice looking Shuksan arm if I felt like it). I witnessed a very nice sunrise from near the top of the White Salmon Ski Lift (#8?). Shortly thereafter though, I topped out on a low ridge and could see to the west where dark brooding clouds were racing toward me. Also at the same moment a cloud bank came over Shuksan Arm and enveloped me. Hmmm, solo on N Face of Shuksan in a whiteout? Bad idea. It was looking like it was going to rain (or possibly snow) so I headed out satisfied with my sunrise pictures. On the drive down I decided to feel useful and checked out some local forest service roads. -Ruth Creek Road: blocked by small avy just before Hannegan TH. -Glacier Creek Road: blocked by snowpack about a mile before Heliotrope Ridge TH. -Lower Baker Ski Area appears to be closed (?) -Snow was hard enough to walk on w/o snowshoes (at 6 AM) and avy danger looked very low. -Shuksan approach has good snow on it now though lower sections will probably melt out much sooner than normal this year.

In eric's trip report for Hoodoo Peak or something he mentions that Libby Lake is the highest lake in the state. WRONG BIOTCH!!! It is edged out oh so slightly by Tranquil and Isolation Lakes in the Enchantments, Tranquil being between 7760 and 7800. Ooohhh.. who's wrong.. hahahahahhhahhahahhaha Yes I'm very very bored.

Hey, what's the weather been like up at Washington Pass the last few days? Is it good enough to solo Silver Star on Friday and not get myself killed?

Has anybody headed toward the Gardners from the other side (Wolf Creek Trail) out of Winthrop lately? I went in that way last year in June and was surprized that the trail and route was completely snowfree while everything else at that elevation was completely covered.

For anyone who is interested, Mailbox Peak "trail" no longer has snow on it, at least for now. "Woohoo" says me in running shoes.

Just in case anyone is interested, Barlow Pass (and the entire Mountain Loop Highway) is open, and not because it has been plowed. There are still snow patches in the forsest around the pass, but those will be gone very soon not allowing a cold, wet weather system (it's only 2800ft but usually holds winter snowpack MUCH longer than this). I would have liked to head a ways up the Monte Cristo Road to see if it was bikable but it probably still has patches on it. The road to Goat Lake trailhead was completely snow free as well and, according to some people in the parking lot, the trail was very very nearly snowfree. I remember when I was still in Junior High and backpacking with my dad back in the day (1999), we couldn't get in to hike Goat Lake until JULY!!!! Hmmm...April 19 vs. July, that's a little weird.

there are potholes, but they're not heinous (as of a month ago or so). My 95 Ponty did fine. I wouldn't be a bit surprized if it is snow free which is just insane for right now.