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peas

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Everything posted by peas

  1. Thanks. That's exactly the sort of thing that I'm looking for.
  2. I'm heading to Sky Pilot tomorrow morning with the plan of climbing everything that I can in a two days before returning to family life. I've never been to the area before so I'd like to know what the glacier is like. Crampons? Axe? Can you just skirt around it? Will other gullies in the area be snow/ice free by now? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
  3. I hiked most of Washington in 2000 and climbed Glacier, Adams, and Rainier along the way. Send me a PM with questions since I don't visit very often.
  4. I have to put in a couple hours of trail work in order to meet some requirements for a trail running race and I'd like to know if anyone has any suggestions for trails that could use a bit of TLC. I'd like to be able to log a few hours here and there after work and I live and work in Vancouver. I also need to complete the trailwork by June 29, so nothing that's under snow at the moment. My thoughts so far are: - brushing out the approach trail to Mt. Harvey. I haven't been here for a couple years, so for all I know someone could have beaten me to it. - widening some of the eroded slopes on the Baden Powell between Grouse and St. Georges Any other ideas?
  5. Where did the snow start? i.e. where can you start skiing?
  6. I have chipped that bone or something similar on both feet, though it sounds like your fracture is much more serious than mine were. No casts or crutches, though for one of them they wanted to put a cast on after a week. It was feeling good by then so I opted out. I was walking somewhat normally after a couple weeks. One chip happened in the fall and the other in the winter so I was back climbing the next season. I think that I changed the way I jam since the chips and I get twinges every once in a while when I foot jam or do something else strenuous to my feet. My experiences are probably about as good as you can expect considering the relative seriousness of each of our injuries. Good luck with your recovery.
  7. I don't know what 24" bar means, but all we had was a 6" hand saw and we probably could have made it through all the trees given enough time and motivation. So if you have 24" of anything I'm sure you'll be fine.
  8. We walked from mile 2.5 on the Shannon Creek road on April 26 due to trees, but would have started at mile 3 if we brought a better saw. At that time, snow was patchy until ~0.5 miles to the trailhead and we had our skis on for the rest of the way (skinning across some bald spots here and there). I think that someone posted up some more recent conditions in the North Cascades section, but I couldn't find the post again. They got stopped by the same tree and had somewhat patchier snow. Sounds like the snow in the clear cut at the end of the road is going fast. Have fun.
  9. Try contacting Matt Gunn, who wrote "Scrambles in Southwest British Columbia". Cairn Publishing I know that he put some thought into liability while he was writing his guide.
  10. ok. Just called the ranger. Downed tree at about 1/4 mile. The road is snow free for ~1.5 miles from the Baker Lake Road. Thanks for the help.
  11. According to bivouac.com, the Shannon Creek Road is only 4.5 miles long and according to the National Forest website, the Baker Lake Road should be open to the branch with the Shannon Creek Road. So 4.5 miles is as far as I'm expecting to skin on roads. Is your estimate based on a more typical snow year?
  12. I went up Garibaldi via Brohm Ridge last year in late June and the snow line was at about the level of the gate. There's way less snow this year, so I expect the road will clear up sooner, but probably not quite yet. See trip report for conditions here Garibaldi NE Face TR
  13. Anyone have any info on the conditions of Shannon Creek Road? Specifically where the road stops and the snow begins. I checked on the national forest site and as of April 9 it's listed as "snow", which doesn't give me a lot of info. I'd like to head up Shuksan on skis via the Sulfide Glacier this weekend, so if anyone has any suggestions, info, spray, etc. let it fly. B
  14. A nice, simple one that is also useful in everyday life is a modification to the regular bow that you use to tie your shoelaces. Pretty much just wrap twice instead of once just before finishing the bow. The added friction of the 2nd wrap means that your shoelaces stay tied, but you can also untie them easily when you want. http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/betterbowknot.htm
  15. The pic didn't show up for my computer either but if you right click, copy the link url, then go to it you'll see it. The Chinese Puzzle Wall seems to get the most "OMG WTF is that thing" traffic around. Somebody has to go climb it one of these days.
  16. I'm a sucker for strong statements. I was there in early August of 2004 and we didn't have any snow or water on the descent. I remember some snow on the bivi ledges but my partner swears there was none. It was in the mid 30s in Chilliwack so we had a pretty thirsty day. Also if you look at the pic in the approach section of the McLane guide there is little or no snow. I have no idea when the pic was taken though. Last winter was pretty good for snow, so the conditions you found may be a little wetter than some years. It would be nice to go early and get snow on the descent, but I'd rather be thirsty on the descent than crushed by a serac.
  17. In my delerious, dehydrated state I kept thinking to myself that there must be water there earlier in the year or else why would so many people take the standard descent over the Crossover. Just so your question doesn't get hijacked by me, it would be nice to know about water on the Crossover while all of this beta is flying.
  18. I was also thinking about Matt's book when I was responding but didn't think you would be referring to it. There are a lot of details for some pretty straightforward scrambles but for the audience I think they're appropriate. His guide is great for hikers who want to climb mountains but don't have the information or don't want things as serious as some of the easier things in the Alpine Select. It kinda bridges people into Alpine Select type stuff. A gateway drug. More advanced users of his guide can easily ignore the details and shouldn't get too worked up about them being there. Is he thinking of making a change for the 2nd edition?
  19. I think it's great that there are select guides with detailed information, but it's probably not necessary to cover all of SW B.C. and Washington with alpine select style detailed descriptions. The coverage for B.C. at least seems about right. I don't have any experience with the select guides in Washington. I kinda approach alpine climbing like climbing in Squamish. Alpine Select == Apron, Peak 8380 == Zodiac Wall. You're going to have a much different experience depending on where you go and if you know where Peak 8380 is you should know where to climb to get the experience you're looking for. If you couldn't care less about not knowing about Peak 8380 then you're probably having a good time anyway. One of the bigger beefs about instruction manuals that people can't get around by "ignoring the bolts" is that they lead to more crowded alpine climbs but I think that the current guide book situation and the realities of access around here won't lead to Diedre type line ups on many alpine climbs. Maybe also related to a couple other things: - I love the guidebooks for Waddington, the Selkirks and the Bugaboos plus Alpinist. Though I'll probably never use most of the details in these books, it's nice to have them for bedtime reading. It's a little hard to get worked up about some Beckey or Fairley guide descriptions - This isn't meant to be chest beating, but... In the McLane guide some of the alpine grades seem to be soft on the climbs that novices are more likely to get on. I don't know if that was intentional, but I think it's a good strategy so that people don't get in over their heads. - Some more modern routes do require more description compared to older routes that are pretty much covered by the route name. - Some of the approach info in the McLane guide is pretty out of date and have thrown a wrench in the plans of quite a few weekends. It would be nice to have a free website for getting updates. - If the original post is actually to see whether or not Dru should publish/get involved with a 2nd alpine select, if I'm true to my comments above, then no. But I sure wouldn't mind if he sent me his detailed route descriptions in private - The original post is more likely in response to Jer's description of the Crossover Descent information. I think for something like this where it could save a lot of people from doing the soul crushing regular descent it is worthwhile, though I would never have the patience to put something like that together.
  20. I went nuts listening to the creek on the descent and probably drank from the same mossy cliff. My fingers went instantly pruney as soon as I touched the water. Funny to hear that someone else had the exact same experience. The whole descent was like Tantalus from Greek mythology.
  21. The Labour Day Buttress was pretty fun, but the climbing wasn't as good as it looks (I thought it looked pretty stellar). More of a "for the line" climb. Worth more attention than it has received though. The hardest climbing I found on it was a short 5.7 hand/fist crack. Other than the NEB I haven't done any other routes in the area, so I don't have anything else to add.
  22. The road is blocked close to the highway, so you have to drive farther north and take the Callaghan turnoff. Take your first left off the Callaghan to get back to the Brandywine system. (From Bivouac) I don't have any info on the road or trail conditions.
  23. Thanks for the report. Looks like a cool route. Do you have any more info or a reference for the 2nd ascent?
  24. I figure that 12 hours is about right on skis. Could go faster by a couple hours pretty easily. Could go slower pretty easily too
  25. Trip: Mt. Garibaldi - NE Face Date: 6/23/2008 Trip Report: Not much of a trip report, more of a conditions/info report with some pics. A friend and I skied and climbed up the NE Face of Garibaldi from Brohm Ridge on June 22 and 23. Continuous snow started a little lower than the gate (~1350m). We took about 3.5 hours to get to the bivi that the McLane guide suggests, a rocky ridge just before you hit glacier. In the morning there was a nice crust from an overnight freeze which made travel up the glacier easy. We ditched our skis and roped up at the schrund, then followed tracks from a party who went up the day before. The schrund at the left hand side will be passable for a while and there aren't many open crevasses on the rest of the glacier. Really nice views from the top and lots of peaks to the East that I couldn't even begin to name. We could see all the way to Baker pretty clearly. The party from the day before had 10m visibility in fresh snow on the summit, so we felt pretty bad for them. We thought about heading over to Dalton Dome or checking out Atwell, but the chossy gully from Garibaldi down to those peaks turned us around. That doesn't look like a very fun route and it looks as though you have to get there pretty early (or in winter) in order to have it snow filled. We got in some nice turns since the sun had mostly melted off the crust. It took about 4.5 hours round trip from camp to summit. The ski out was nice and we managed without skins, since the slushy snow was sticky enough that we could ascend gentle grades without skinning up. From camp to car took about 2.5 hours. This is the 2nd time I've tried Garibaldi. The first was on foot at about the same time of year, with similar conditions a few years ago. On the first trip we ended up walking around in a cloud for a while then going home. What I learned from both trips and from the party (on foot) that we ran into on the way in is that skis are the way to go. We took about 24 hours car to car with a camp in between, so I'd try to skip camping next time to make it faster, lighter and easier logistically. The Tantalus Range at sunrise. Garibaldi and Dalton Dome at sunrise. Mark skinning up high on the Warren Glacier. The Table and Garibaldi Lake from up high. Atwell from the summit. Apparenlty this ridge is the easiest way to the top. Looks pretty doable except for the last bit. Mark downclimbing into the schrund. Sick turns. Gear Notes: skis, rope and ice axe. brought pickets and didn't/couldn't use them.
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