kurthicks

iain that's the best explaination that i've heard so far. thanks for the pics. i don't get that view from my neck of the woods. i still think someone was enjoying some or something when they named it...

jlag, I was up there alone and just getting an idea of what's up there for when i do the Sisters Marathon later this summer. I only went to about 9,800' but i found the rock to be a lot better than on the standard SW ridge route. it appears that the rock quality (if i can call it that) decreases past were i was. there is no snow all the way up except for the Terrible Traverse, which is still covered. i saw some fixed lines up the Bowling Alley also. I did see some spontaneous rockfall coming from somewhere around the Bowling Alley as well. watch out and wear your brain bucket. Here's what the pinnacle looks like from the N. Ridge:

i have a cascades trivia question too... where did Three Fingered Jack get its name? I have yet to hear a reasonable answer.

sounds like you and your son had an awesome time. I was up on the N. Ridge of N. Sister on Saturday and eyed the route that you took; i've never gone up Middle that way, but it does look kind of enjoyable. It sure is nice to have a choss pile all to yourself this time of year, isn't it?

It appears that I lost a Black gore-tex jacket (Hind, i think) on South Sister on 7.9.2003. It also has a OR hat inside the pocket. It should be somewhere between the Newberry and Miller Lava flows. PM me if you found it, cause there's a reward...

Timmay- you found me out. I am one of those agency people...seriously. It's just a summer temp Ranger job that i'm doing and i'm not trying to defend myself (or the agency) at all. I'm thinking more about it from a personal history perspective and the limited interaction that i've had are mostly good ones with other Rangers. now that the cat's out of the bag... About the NW forest Pass, talk to Congress about it. They set it up, NOT the FS. in my District (Sisters) the forest pass money goes mostly for paying summer temp's salaries (e.g. me). We clear all the trails (they should all be open by Monday), restore campsites, give information to people, and some of us write tickets when necessary. I can't really think of a whole lot better to do for the summer than hiking and getting paid for it. i'm still trying to get ahold of my other contact about the survey stuff, hopefully it will come back to me by Monday when i get back in from the field. spray on...

I haven't heard of any recent beta, but here's our TR from about a month ago. things have changed a lot since then though...

no photos?

what kind of tactics have you witnessed before? the worst thing that i've ever encountered is a Ranger talking about Leave No Trace to someone with trash spread all over. I'm still trying to get more info about the research and it's importance, but my contact was out of the office when i stopped. hopefully i can get some more info later this week and pass it along

check your mail

the University of Idaho is doing research for the Forest Service funded by grant money. One thing they are looking at is "overuse" of wilderness on climbing routes (Hogsback, S. Sister, Adams esp.). I know the lady who is basically in charge of the program and it's not funded by Big Timber or anything like that. I'm really glad that you guys are being somewhat cooperative, they are grad students who are doing the research, not the FS! oh, one more thing, if you don't fill out a free wilderness permit you can get docked $100... i'm sure that i can pass along more info about the research if you so desire...

anna , you can always go up near the Eliot and stay to the left side (west) of the lateral moraine--on the way to the Cooper Spur route. there are some snowfields there that have no crevasses and are steep enough to practice cramponing and self arrest quite safely. just follow the trail from Cloud Cap to the big cairn and head up and left... you should find some good playgrounds within an hour's walk or so from the car. have fun. when are you coming to Smiff?

i'll go with you if you can do it on Tuesday? i was up on the saddle below the east face on Monday...it looks like fun in the Cascade sense of the word. watch out for the mosquitos around Jack lake and in the trees on the way to the meadow. here's what the meadow looks like:

going to climb the West Crater Rim tomorrow. leaving Timberline around 2:30am....

anyone? anyone? I'm heading to Hood on Wednesday, anyone want to join me for any route? I'm not too particular, but i was kind of thinking Sunshine, but will do anything other than the South slog. PM me by tomorrow afternoon if you're interested.

tim, I can hit up something from Aug. 5-7th. i was thinking sisters marathon plus B-Choss...in a day. what do you think? Let me know when you get the chance.

were you up there on Friday the 27th by chance? i have a photo of someone out there...

Anna covered most of it, but... We met at the trailhead and were on the way by 7am. Time to the PCT was about 1 hour 15 minutes. There are a few really small patches of snow on the trail up to timberline, but nothing to get worked up about. We took the left hand side of the ridge because the going is a lot easier than the choss on the right; it's easy class 3 scrambling on the left side. We hit the summit sometime around 10:15am, after a little coaxing to get Anna up there sans rope. She definately scrambled like a champ! The views were decent since we could see south to Shasta...but the views north are currently obscured by the Davis Lake fire near LaPine. We headed back down and had our summit just below Chicken Point. Then the choss sliding began on our descent to the PCT. We finally hit the trailhead around 12:45pm, just in time for a couple more s... here's the West ridge from the summit: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=1294 And the Summit Pinnacle from near the PCT: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=1293 oh, and go on a weekday because we didn't see another soul all day!

i don't really remember, but i think that Twight quoted Bubba in Kiss or Kill, but i'm not too sure. I swear that i'll get around to checking that someday...

Anyone want to head up to Prouty on Thursday(7/3)? I'd be in for either a one day push or camping up on the moraine tomorrow night and heading up early thursday... PM me if you're so inclined...

"In the mountains there are only two grades: you can do it or you can't." -- Rusty Baille "We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow "Pretty much the only people who ice climb are a handful of maladjusted geeks." -- Yvon Chouinard "Ice climbing not like anything else. When it is perfect, it's better than the best combination of drugs and sex imaginable. When it's bad, you die." -- unknown "It doesn't have to be fun to be fun." -- Barry Blanchard "They always tell you that you're supposed to learn from your mistakes? No, you're supposed to learn from somebody else's mistakes. It's a whole lot less painful." -- Beck Weathers, 1996 Everest survivor "hikers are the ones below treeline." -- From cc.com......

I've been to Youtlkut once a few years ago. we just went rappelling, but i rememer that it's all columnar basalt and i'd guess that it would be a lot of fun if it wasn't such a long drive to get there on mostly gravel roads. but i'm sure that you'd almost never see anyone there.

it sounds like it's open judging from the people that i talked to or saw yesterday while up on Hood. 2 guys did sunshine on thursday and i saw another guy wandering around on Snow Dome yesterday afternoon. I'd have to assume that they drove to Tilly Jane... who knows though?

done. you too...

that depends. sometimes i prefer the cell and sometimes the GPS. the cell works great for those "i'm going to be a little later than expected" calls home, but the GPS can be damn handy in bad conditions. I'll leave the GPS at home if summit day conditions and forcast are good, but take it and leave the phone if conditions are dubious. just my $.02