ski_photomatt

Snow shoes suck ass I forget what the elevation was really, but I bet the top part is snow covered. I do remember thinking it would really suck it we couldn't follow the trail. It was something like a narrow slot through the brush, that as long as we stayed on the trail we were ok, but venturing off would have been more difficult. I remember lots of meadows higher up too. Good luck.

It's not that bad (two summers ago). The trail is still pretty easy to follow when melted out. Lots of down logs which are probably the most annoying part. There is one stretch through a slide path or something that sucks. I dunno about packing skis in, depends on how bad you want to ski Dome. I'm personally waiting to ski it until the end of the ptarmigan traverse. The brush will be on the way out then, and I won't care at that point.

The ptarmigan traverse is a lot of cross country and glacier walking. I did it two years ago in september in 3/4 shank leather boots with flexible aluminum crampons. My partner was in full shank La sportiva karakorams. Anything else would be too much. If you are buying boots, I'd consider what else you want to do with them and don't buy a boot that you will quickly grow out of (experience wise). The best way to break in boots is go on a long hike through snow in spring time slush. The minor postholing is softer than walking on trail and easier on the legs. The boots get wet, soften and mold to your foot. Make sure you put water proof treatment on leather boots first though.

The car shuttle for this would be a real bitch. It'd probably take a day of driving Making the standard approach to Glacier Peak would allow one to skip climbing up and over it with many days of food and a full pack and shorten the trip somewhat. The traverse would more fun with skis I think, but I haven't investigated it that closely. I'd be intersted in going if you need a partner.

Kyle, we did use your snow shoe track in the beginning where there wasn't enough snow for continuous skiing. We were wondering about you throughout the day, especially later in the afternoon when the sun came out and started to heat things up. Good to hear you made it out safely We were about 9.5 hours highway to highway (then a mile or so of highway walking back to the car). I think it broke down something like: 2:15 to Easy Pass, 2.5 to Mesahchie col, maybe 1 hour down the glacier and up to Kitling pass and 2.5 hours out (including finding a log to cross Granite Creek), plus breaks. We moved slow across to the col and more than once spent time waiting for breaks in the clouds to navigate. We also had to wait a bit at Mesahchie col for a break in the weather to descend. In clear conditions or with knowledge of the route, one could do it quite a bit faster, if one were so inclined. It's a very reasonable day trip.

This an interesting loop around Kitling Peak, the high point of the ridge between Easy Pass and Mesahchie Peak. Kitling Creek is the first major drainage west of Easy Pass emptying to the highway. Mesahchie Col between Kitling and Mesahchie allows easy access to the Mesahchie Glacier at the head of Panther Creek. The loop ascends to Easy Pass, across to Mesahchie Col, down the glacier, up to the pass at the head of Kitling Creek and out to the highway. The traverse to Mesahchie Col is steep and at times somewhat exposed; we found it easiest to ascend nearly to the top of Pt. 7690 and traverse the corniced ridge. There was 6+ inches of new snow over the old crust making the steep sidehilling somewhat difficult. With ski crampons it would have been easier and safer, but we didn't have them. The descent of Mesahchie Glacier was very nice, stable, dry powder higher up and corn at the bottom. The 'schwack out Kitling Creek wasn't bad at all. We didn't see anyone else except for the climbers on Graybeard (nice job guys! ). The weather - unstable air with periods of strong snow and whiteouts alternating with sun and clearing clouds - only added mystery to the unfamiliar route. As we skied the Mesahchie Gl during a sun break, a dark, ominous cloud moved up Panther Creek, dropping hail on us shortly after reaching the bottom. Good times!

Nice ski Mark! When we skied Snowking in early February, I was shocked to see how sudden the transition was from completely bare ground to complete coverage, enough to ski. Most of the split in the snowpack did come from the warm, yet wet winter I think. I can't count the number of times I looked at telemetry data this winter with lots of precipitation but a snow line of 4-5000 ft. Some of the split is also due to our stormy spring too. It really takes sunny days to heat up the alpine and melt a lot of snow. The cloudy days prevelant since April haven't been melting a lot of snow up high, but the same days are above freezing lower down and melt back the snowpack there.

Let me get this straight.. your roomate was ticketed. He is a lawyer and you are asking for legal advice on cc.com about his ticket? I personally wouldn't send any money for a ticket that didn't indicate an amount. I remember reading some stuff about fighting these tickets in court a while ago which may or may not be relevant. Try Wild Wilderness for links.

It's worth a shot. I dunno if the person answering the phone has any say in deciding whether to accept a faxed copy. They may have been having a good day or whatever when my friend called and it's possible they might decide at another time to make you pay. Or they might just be an underling of some sort, following orders and tell everyone the same thing. I personally think it's easier to park just on the other side of the trailhead pass needed sign (1/4 mile is the official distance) and avoid getting a ticket in the first place. I've never gotten a ticket doing this, even in Nazi ranger district at the Stuart Lake trailhead last fall.

I have a friend who got one of the official looking $50 tickets, called the phone number listed and told them they had the forgotten the park pass at home by accident. They faxed a copy of it and the fine was waved.

I read the book, extremely interesting especially towards the end (not the K2 part, but his last writings). The description of his final climb, solo, of the north face of the Matterhorn in winter and then the two last chapters about a solo climb on Mt. Blanc and the trek to Patagonia many years down the road are required reading. These last two in particular - climbing to the top of Mt. Blanc in the predawn and marveling at the sunrise across Europe from the summit and his farewell to the mountains from the top of a remote peak in Patagonia are beautiful. Bonatti was a bad ass guy. The stories together paint a wonderful picture of the man and include many feelings every climber can identify with.

It depends on how large of a print you need and what sort of quality you expect. Fuji has a nice digital printer called the Frontier that is starting to pop up in all sorts of places, from Walmart and Costco to reputable, dedicated photo labs. It can output quite sharp prints at 300dpi up to 10"x15", provided you have enough pixels, or at lower resolution if you don't. The prints are good, reliable and cheap enough, I'd suggest seaching out a place that uses it for smaller prints and prints from digital cameras. Hell, it's also probably your best bet for smaller prints from film too. Unless you specifically need an online service, I'm sure you can get them printed locally in just about any medium size US town. Look at Dry Creek Photo for a list of places using them. If you start messing with your photos in photoshop and want some basic color management check out the above link for color profiles (a kind fellow in Oregon has been making ICC profiles from Frontiers for free and posting them on the web..). If you need larger prints from high res scans, I'd suggest West Coast Imaging or a local lab offering larger printing services. West Coast Imaging offers an economical printing service on their Lightjet if you provide the files. Good Luck.

That sucks about your friend Matt I was up there mid-June (solo ski too, it's a good place for it) last year and didn't see any cracks. I think there's a photo in the Becky guide of the glacier in late season, fwiw. The ski from the summit directly down to the creek if there is enough snow (instead of returning via Hannagan Pass) is excellent. As are the views.

Man, I'm stupid. I thought it was Thursday night Glad a friend set me straight this afternoon. I'll bring some brownies. And some for my nalgene.

I'll be there. Put me down for a chunk of cow.

I have certainly noticed my skis drying out after not waxing them for an extended period of time. One pair did get to the point where it looked like it was beginning to affect the health of the ski, but these were so old and so destroyed, it didn't matter. I take more of a utilitarian approach to ski tuning. Do what is necessary to keep the skis from getting damaged. I'm not looking for super high performance from my skis. If you ski the lifts a lot, then tuning has it's advantages. But I only ski the lifts when there is new snow; when the areas are hard packed I'm in the backcountry. In the spring, if the snow is hard and steep enough to notice dull edges I'll be inclined to (a) crampon down if it is exposed and a fall could lead to a disastrous slide, or (b) survival turn down to softer snow. All skis get abused somewhat. Early season tours. Late spring woods skiing to get back to the car over moss, twigs and other tree droppings. Sticking them on a ski rack and driving to the pass over wet, sanded highways. I concentrate on making sure nothing major is going wrong and leave it at that.

Nice pics guys. We were planning on skiing the south side of Black but decided otherwise when the route from Heather Pass looked less interesting than I had remembered it. We decided to see if it was possible to access the basin below the Lyall Gl from Maple Pass. Turned out to be straight forward. Skied some powder on those north facing slopes and back to the highway via Rainy Lake. A nice, scenic tour. I was surprised to see at least one huge, rapidly melting, frozen waterfall above Rainy Lake. Now the Olympics are taunting me through my office window: "come ski me, come ski meeeeee!" they seem to be chanting.

I agree with MattP. I finally "tuned" my skies a month or so ago after putting in 100+ days on them, and that was only because my skins were getting so old and the glue so nasty it had left lots of sticky stuff on the bases. A little base cleaner and a simple hot wax and they were good to go. I actually prefer the bases a little sticky and un-waxed: performance isn't an issue going down hill, and the little extra friction is very useful skiing out through woods and up tiny hills where I can make very shallow stitchbacks without skins. When freshly waxed, they feel a little too slippery. I will say this though: if you hit a rock and take out a part of the base next to an edge it is a good idea to drip some p-tex into the hole, otherwise snow melts and freezes in it, or you can easily blow out the edge on another rock. You can buy a p-tex stick at a ski shop for a few dollars, light it with a lighter and drip the burning p-tex into the hole. It doesn't burn cleanly and will only last for 20 ski days or less (shops use something akin to a hot glue gun from what I understand to get the p-tex real hot and cleanly melted), but it will protect the edge.

Is this the one? Road 6024 - Barclay, updated 04/23/2003 The road is closed to vehicle traffic .4 miles up from Hwy 2 due to washout. It is about 4 miles from the washout on the road to the Barclay Creek trailhead. Road updates for most of the roads in Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National forest are at http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/conditions/road_conditions_report.shtml

NWAC has a remote weather station set up at Washington Pass reporting temperature, precipitation, wind speed, ect.. hourly. NWAC wa pass station Use it to make guesses about weather at higher or lower elevations.

What time does the party usually get started?

Ah, come on! It's April in the Cascades! The freezing level overnight was 3000ft and the skiing Wednesday at 5000ft was pretty dam good. Down low it was heavy, but up high it was certainly better than many other days this year. The backcountry in the afternoon was still nice, positively mid-winter skiing. I'll be the first to admit I have a somewhat higher tolerance for questionable snow than others I've met, but the skiing up high (and certainly all the way to the bottom of the double) was good Wednesday.

Alpental was sweet both yesterday and Wednesday. Sure it got a little heavy in the afternoon, but it is nearly April after all. Wednesday was a little less sunny and a little colder. Plus the backcountry gate was opened Wednesday afternoon for some very nice freshies for the handful of skiers who stuck around. They were borderline sick. (the scale goes sweet -> sick -> epic. Faceshots == sick)

I've also parked there earlier this year and previous years without a problem. We got the impression Saturday morning that this was something new since 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' has started. The lady twice mentioned the bombing/war and said they were under extra tight security. Freezing level was ~3500ft or a tad lower (snow on trees) at Stevens Saturday morning. Driving back from Alpental Sunday evening it had dropped to 2000ft. It was cold last night, I bet skiing today is dope.

We did. Saturday broke trail with Ned_Flanders and another friend through 2+ft of heavy snow at Lichtenburg. We were a little surprised to see so much new snow. Going down was even somewhat of a chore. Even with so much new snow, you could still feel the underlying old snow I found some remnant freshies at Alpental Sunday, some of them in fact quite good. Where did you go? FYI: our original intention Saturday was to ski Arrowhead, but when we arrived at the DOT plowed pullout near the train tunnel exit, a security guard waved at us and we walked over. She said this was 'private property' and trespassing was prohibited. I said we were going skiing in the National Forest on public land, she said your car may get towed. Evidently terrorist concerns have led the government to place a security guard next to the DOT maintainence shed and tunnel outlet, and perhaps, at least temporary, close this parking lot to skiers. This is also the Henry Creek approach to Jim Hill. She looked quite surprised that anyone would want to park there and go skiing and we got the impression she had not been told what to do if skiers had arrived, whether to let them park and go or tell them to move along. I asked whom we could contact and ask and she simply said 'we are under code red, I can't say anything'. We perhaps could have parked there without any consequences, but we didn't want to take the chance of having our car towed or alarm anyone needlessly. I'd imagine those concerned with security are a little sensitive nowadays, prudence suggested we go elsewhere.