needtoclimb

I'm up for it this Monday on skis. pm sent

May 3rd, this upcoming Monday. I have Sun/Mon off. Can camp at the trailhead Sun night, and climb Monday with a very early start. One long skin up, with a very quick descent.

Monday looks awful over here, so am going to do something east of the mountains. Thinking of heading up north Chiwakuam. (however the heck you spell it.)

My point is, why limit yourself so much? You are taking a very small portion of the population (those who lead-climb outside) and then placing huge restrictions on that...making the chances of finding a partner very small. Just go climb with whoever. If you don't get along, don't climb with that person again. By simply stating "looking for partners" without worrying about gender/race/sex pref/religion, you will get a lot more invites, and meet a lot more people, learn a lot more styles, etc. I am often looking for last-minute climbing/alpine/skiing partners due to my weird work schedule, so if you don't mind climbing with a straight guy, drop me a PM.

Ummm, yeah. I guess that because I like women, I can't climb with you. um, yeah, ok. Try Craigslist?

What's wrong with the army? Other than the fact it's not the Marine Corps!

Went up to do a hike up Granite (the one off of I-90) and reached the first avy chute no problem. It was an old slide so crossed it. I took a break and heard some rumbling. Nothing came down the chute, and it sounded like either thunder, or a low-flying plane. I thought nothing of it moved on, reaching the second avy chute full of fresh debris. I had been following tracks in the snow, and they stopped at this new slide. On the other side was two ladies coming down. They stated this slide wasn't here when they went up. I quickly crossed it and looked up, seeing where the slide broke off, and seeing a section of the slope still loaded. I hiked to the third, much smaller, chute and saw the very recent remnants of a slide. The small wiffs of snow still stuck to the rock as this slide moved right through this section and the debris field was farther on down. Again, no steps at all across it, so this slide happened just after the ladies cross it. I think both chutes slid while the ladies were hiking between the two, and I was taking a break at the first one. The slopes above were still loaded, so I called it a day and headed down. Just for info, those slopes are still going to drop down so caution there and other peaks, as obviously the snow hasn't all slid or stabilized yet.

Bump, and of course the obligatory spray.

I just picked up a pair of La Sportiva Nupste at Feathered Friends. La Sportiva isn't making this model anymore (the spatnik is taking its place) so the $500 boot is going for $350. Not sure how many they have left. This boot is a double boot, but not plastic. I tried several plastics and found that they still suck. The Nuptse is very comfortable (for a thick boot) and I just hiked up to Lake Serene in it and was fine. It might be overkill, depending on what you want your boots to do. I bought them for winter ascents, and steeper, technical ascents of the volcanoes, so it will do that fine. For a hiking boot, I wouldn't recommend it. Too heavy and not much flex. There are better hikers out there, but I think it is a great double boot.

Since this late dump of snow, anyone been up Rd 39 to the Coleman-Demming? How is the road?

You ski?

Looking for a partner for a ski ascent of either peak. Good weather is moving in and I want to take advantage of it.

Nice trip report. Teresa and I saw you guys coming down the road Sunday afternoon. We were headed up in the rain and met you on the road just past the gate. She was hiking a little ahead of me. Good work getting up there. As for current conditions, we spend Sunday night at the south end of the lake. It snowed most the night with very strong winds. We woke up and found almost all the tracks obliterated. We crossed the lake, punching through a lot. I would recommend snowshoes or skis. Our plan was to do the Coulour on Colchuck, and headed straight up the glacier moraine. All the kicked steps were gone. Without being able to find any pre-kicked steps, we had to make our own. It was some of the toughest hiking I have done in a while. 2 inches of powder covered a crust layer, and below the crust was about 1.5 feet of powder. The crust was just hard enough to kick onto, set 3/4 of my weight before it broke, post holing up to my knee. Without snowshoes, this quickly became quite irksome. It took about 1.5 hours to get from the lake to the moraine. On the moraine, the snow was deeper still, breaking through the crust and plunging past the knee. I know there are steps out there somewhere, but everything was filled in. We got to a little below the start of the coulour, and realized it would take many more hours at that rate to get up, and we still needed to hike out today. Not wanting to do the long hike out exhausted and in the dark, we headed down. Crossing the lake again to our tent, I punched through about every 3rd step. Teresa, being a bit lighter, managed to stay on the crust most the way across the lake, but I couldn't. The trail from the road to the lake is all hard-packed and quick, its the upper portions that were very powdery

You bring snowshoes, or is the trail packed down enough to boot in?

Your buddies story confirms it even more. Thanks Pilchuck. I do find it strange that he got charged for just walking down the road with his mutt though....is there more to that story? Had he driven down the road first so they had his license plate? Surely facial id isn't that far along. Maybe they had multiple cameras along the road. Do you know if it was it a Forest Service violation, county or state thing? Was he charged with "improperly walking a schnauzer"? This is funny. We are takign 3rd hand information like it is gospel. A buddy tells Pilchuck who tells us. Hmm, may a few things be missing in the translation? All stories have two sides. We are hearing one. The other side could be that a FS ranger stopped this buddy, talked to him, ID'd him (or got his license plate) and taken a picture of him. The FS truck could have a video camera in it, which the ranger can get a still-shot picture from. For me to take this buddy story at face value, I would have to talk to him and use my own judgement, not hearing it through someone else over the anonymity of the internet. Remember last winter when Sno Co sheriff towed a few cars from the Mountian Loop near Pilchuck? The OP stated how the cars were off the road, safely parked, etc. and then there are 5 pages of "oh my god, police are evil, government is bad! Poor poor innocent hikers who did nothing wrong are targeted." Then more to the story comes out, and we learn that these "legally parked cars" are actually blocking one lane of traffic, restricting snow plow access. Whether they needed to be towed or not I don't know, but the point is that there are two sides to every story, and the truth is somewhere in the middle. So far, like Tvash said, all this is from one article from one small-town newspaper, where one person finds one camera. It could have been there due to reports of poaching, illegal dumping or illicet drug grows, all forest service crimes which I am sure everyone on this site would agree should be stopped, caught and prosecuted. Oh, wait, having to think along these lines requires a little logic and isn't as fun as huge conspiracy theories. Guess I should just don my foil hat and join the paranoid schizophrenics that seem to run rampant any time one of these stores come out. "They are coming to take me a away, oh my, they are coming to take me away!"

Correction: Politicians love video cameras. That way they can say, "hey look, we are doing something about crime" without really doing anything about crime.

Is the road passable for a Honda Civic, or is a truck needed?

A few people have dropped, a few have joined. Looking for more who may be interested in Denali next year. A couple of us are planning on doing Adams Glacier route on Mt Adams on May 21-23. Also, the north ridge of Baker June 12th. Send me a pm if interested in getting in on these climbs for a future ascent of Denali.

Love your pictures, and how you did that avy one. Jealous, my computer and photography skills are lacknig.

Do you want to get into climbing, or do you just want to have climbed Rainier? If it is the former, get into Josh Lewis' teenage climber group. They are climbing a ton, and quickly gaining experience based on their TR's. If your whole goal is just to climb Rainier, go with a professional guide. Yes, it is expensive, but this is your life you are talking about. And very few people are going to drag two newbies up Rainier just to get them up.

Sorry, don't live in Spokane, but love your honesty. If I lived there, I would take you climbing. Hope you find a partner.

Hood does see a ton of traffic...in the summer. Remember, most winters here you can't even get to the base of most of the mountains as all roads are snowed in. Go to Hood on a nice July weekend, and watch the ant line. And by then, the avy danger is almost zero.

Thanks pdk. I was hoping for just that, and my truck can make it pretty far. I don't mind a few extra miles of hiking if need be, I just hate walking on perfectly clear roads simply because the FS gated it.

This is the road that leads to the road 2369 (or something like that) that leads to Adams Glacier, also known as the Killen Creek trailhead. Website for forest service shows it closed due to snow. Does anyone know whether the road gets gated, or is it an unofficial "close." Looking to to a late May climb of Adams Glacier, and wondering how close we can get to the trailhead.

I went up yesterday and rather enjoyed the skiing. A little icy on top, but still very doable. It's not something I would hike right now just to ski down, but you can't beat getting from summit to car in under an hour. I left the summit about 1230, that gave the lower half a little time to warm up. Stay in the small ravine skiers left of the climbing ridge, and the snow was better. The ridge was wind-blown ice, while the small ravine was better.