Der_Wanderer

Stunning shots. Nice work, boyz.

Whoa. I need to visit CC more often...or get a "Crazy Pickets Traverse" RSS feed. Tom and Sean, this was impressive. Well done.

Awesome. Makes me really miss the Pickets. I see Wayne has a show coming up too...hate to miss it.

Stunning!!! Nice job. Brings back great memories.

Yeah, I can vouch for the Wiley Ridge approach. It's reasonable. Keep in mind that when I say "reasonable", I'm talking "Picket's reasonable". It's still an axe kicker. Long, lots or schwacking (though never heinous), and the routefinding can be tricky. My advice is to study any approach as much as possible...maps, google earth, beta...have a vision in your head before starting.

Damn funny TR. Thanks.

Well, I'll be looking forward to the Pickets Traverse TR. Nice pics!

Kick axe, homes! Impressive !

Oh man, Wayne, you actually did it. I couldn't believe you'd actually go do it when you mentioned it at Colin's slideshow. -TSW

It's a great route. You guys smoked it.

Kick axe. Will be there.

I just climbed it on 7/25. It's not iced up. I didn't bring crampons. There is snow, but I was able to circumnavigate all of it but one teeny section where I just chopped a single step. I'm guessing it's even easier now. I soloed the entire route and rapped down whenever I could. The nature of the climbed described by folks here is accurate. Have a good time!

Thanks for sharing. Nice TR and pics.

Pictures...who knows when? Maybe tomorrow. Have to drive all the way down to Factoria to get my slides developed. the digital age was upon us years ago, but I continue to play the role of ludite. Video on the way too.

lol

Gad. I don't even feel like I'm worthy of saying, "Kick Axe Job!"

Wow, Michael, great job. Yesterday, I cranked out a *short* teaser trailer to the real thing which I still have to finish. In the spirit of your post, here's my tongue-in-cheek poster: I hope you all enjoy it. Turn the sound way up. It's a soft classical track that gets loud at just the right times. There's also a little aerial suprise at the end. Slesse Teaser Trailer Theron

Dang, awesome TR! Congratulations. Loved seeing the same views(like the blind corner pic! wasn't that awesome?) that we saw a year ago. And glad you were able to use the same landmark terminology on Fury!

Thanks for sharing!

Preshate, mvs. Missed you up there.

That's purty cool. Nice job!

NO! The glacier is passable and the entire route is in. Date of Climb: 7/17/05 Trip Report: MVS, RobertM, and I went in and tackled the face over the usual three days. We hiked all the way to Ouzel Lake on day 1 arriving in about 5.5 hours...pretty stiff approach! We crossed the Depot Glacier from the west about two thirds of the way up. Crossing was fine...looked even more crevasse free higher. Down low (which is clearly visible from the valley below) is very broken. There were some short steep sections of icy snow to reach the base of the ice apron. There are good belays in 'shrunds along the way. The conditions were a bit sloppy in places; we ended up going straight up the middle and hugging the ice on the right for periodic ice screw placements, pickets were useless in long sections, but good at belays. The traverse above the apron was tedious and slow, crossing from snow to rock and back. The final steep snow face was pretty easy - more deep kick stepping with better snow conditions up high. The final scramble is pretty exposed but solid. We lounged on the summit for a while (30-45 minutes). The descent wasn't all that bad, mostly just slipping on scree and talus and plunge stepping. We returned via the Redoubt Glacier which was easy. We were back at camp about 14 hours after leaving (5am). Go 'n get it soon. Gear Notes: light rack: 3 ice screws, 3 pickets, 3 hexes, set of nuts, 3-4 cams varied widths, lots of slings. Approach Notes: Depot Creek was overflowing in spots and we got sprayed good on the slabs in front of the falls. The wet slaps were slick as ice in places (I wore plastic boots) but the holds were all there - kinda hard to take your time while getting pelted by cold water though. The ascent up the falls is steep and tiring. When arriving at the campsites in the bogs at the top of the falls, cut directly across in a beeline to get to the opposite side of the valley to avoid the marshes. There's a nice trail (hard to follow in spots) right on the edge that will take you to a long moraine slog up to the lake. We thought about camping under the face but didn't want to fool with crossing numerous streams and the West Depot Glacier looked broken.

Can anyone comment on the current conditions? With the low snow year, is the glacier already busted up?

Eeek. Makes me skeered. Way to go.

Hey, I 'preshate the feedback. No foolin'. Thx.