letsroll

lol, thanks for the good read. Needed that after getting stuck in portland for the weekend. Think Cooper spur ice will be had?

Hope I spelled that correctly. Anyway, does anybody know if there is good snow coverage from the TH to the summit? Want to take a newbie up there and get some turns in. I would figure with the snow from this weekend, but who knows? Thanks in advance. Letsroll

thanks for the info on Polallie ridge trail, will use it next time (with any luck next weekend . I hate going up the ski trail. Last year I should have used crapons on the ski trail it was so icy, sucked much A@#. Can't wait to ski the whole thing for the fist time.

Go to The Mountain Shop. Good Place or US OutDoor Store. I like The Mountain Shop however.

looked in the search and did not find anything. What works best for skins and twin tips?

In that case sign me up for a pair or three...lol

I was am looking for a fun ski, and riding switch was part of that. Cjoo1F you did bring up a good point and something I did not think about, using them as anchors. I was worried that what I was looking at was a bit pricy but after looking at those CJ I feel a lot better Ok so what about a better riding ski than the TM:X's, stiffer.

Was looking at skis this weekend and the store person told me about the Armada Jp Vs. Julien and the Armada Ant Pro skis. The Jp Vs. Julien seem to have a nice flex and stiff. But the Ant is fatter and appears to be stiffer. Coming from the Atomic TM:X's I am looking for a stifffff set of boards and twin tips (figure what the heck for the fun of it ). What are peoples impressions? Right now I think I am going to lean to the Ant Pro, hope my boots are good enough to drive those boards. Guss I better say that i am looking for a fatter board (augment my TM:X's) with twin tips that can handle cascade crud/hardpack and I am not going to hate life too much marcing them up hill. Yes I know they will be heavier than the TM:X but I am fine with that. Let it snow , Let it snow , let it snow

Speaking of Jefferson. Is the Jefferson Park Glacier route passible this time of year?

Where are you located? I am not sure of routes what are open right now, but might be interested in doing some climbing. I think most of the ice you will be looking for will happen later next month, i.e. eldorado.

Me too. Oct-nov. Guess I am going to have to change my plans on doing it in sept.

Ok so not getting on the traverse was understandable, but the next part just sucked. We opted for the 3rd option of doing shark fin tower. Hiked to the western edge of queens somthing glacier and the party of 4 (not your guys then) leaving a tie in spot for glacier travel. We met up with a large group of mountaineers and ask what the party of 4 was going to do.....Shark fin town. I figured they were going to do the same route as we were going to do (5.0 route) which is also the decent route. They would have taken a lot of time to getup and having to drive back to portland factored into it that did not sound like a good option so I put out doing Sahalie to my partner and we was less than enthused to say the least. Rather than take some one who is not into it from the get go I decided to preserve a still viable climbing partner and so we booked it out of there. That was the disappointing part of the whole trip. But what can you do?

You did not scare us too bad..lol. But after getting to base of the route I think it started to play a little in her head. Better to turn around than have mental problems on route. It was a good trip, learned lots. Was that party from the school a party of 4? If so they left camp just before we got to them and they were headed up Shark Fin tower.

Juan it was good to see you guys. After we ran into you to we headed up the lower part of the glacier. Crossing the moat. Heading up to the snow patch and after commiting to the route I checked out the time we decided to turn around. After talking to you two and the problems you encountered and how long you two took to get to the bivi sight we decided to play it safe. Bivi on the face of Torment did not look as fun as it was last time I did this route. This is what we did wrong (bad leading on my part), left two hours too late (sleep was good however ), over estimating how easy the getting to base of route would be, and over estimating (and letting her overestimate) her abilites to lead her through the scetchy parts. I will say this we had a great time up there. If anything this was a great conditioner in one of my favorite areas. We bivied in boston basin to a sunset and sunrise that can't be beat.

Clyde great job getting up there and getting some turns in!!!! Was not sure how far you would get to make hoofin all that gear worth it, but sounds like you got some nice turns in . The snow at that time I think would have been real nice, just starting to firm up. Way to git-r-done.

How far can you drive on cascade river rd. Can't seem to get ahold of Rangers. Is the gate open at the eldorado TH, and you are able to drive to the "small turn off on left at mile 21.7." thanks

When traversing the north ridge (that is what I thought everybody called it), the ridge you take to the summit from Wyeast, Reid headwall, Leuthold, Sand, elliot, and Sunshine. You can drop down to Queens Chair to Sunshine. It was a nice look to make, long, very long loop To make this clear this is on the way out.

Ok so the photo did not pop up so http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/show...=500&page=1 Does the photo need to be in GIF format? I used JPEG. Thanks OlegV, I ran out of pics on camera and did not get photo of route ;( I started very early. You can see my route taken. The regular start was a huge moat so I climbed the rock on the climbers left to gain the snow and traversed right to get back on route. Feel like I need to defend myself a bit. The snow that morning was solid, I was there very early and the sun did not start to rise till I was about half way up the route. After taking a break at the base of the route I felt like the objective danger was low (i.e. rock fall) and did not see any other than three small rocks from above and that did not start till well after the sun was up. Now the amount of rock I sent down is another story. My original intent was to check out the route and keep going to cooper spur or Sunshine (depending on how I felt and how things looked at that point). If it was any later or earlier in the morning depending on how you look at it I would not have gone up that route in fear of rock fall. The rock fall did not start till later and I was on my way down the queens chair on my way to sunshine. That afternoon there was constant rock fall and I was glad to be on my way out of there and out of danger. Yes I will not be doing this route or any other like it till winter when there is a lot of ice, besides there are too many alpine rock routes to be doing now. But with that said I had a blast!!! Now lets see if the photo will pop up

Norman Clyde were you leaving the trail around 5 pm or so? I saw only one guy with skiis that day. We talked. You had the atomics with the dynafits.

I have been looking at the Grivel Air Tech crampons and looking to buy, till I realized that these idiots did not make them up to size 13-14. I know most climbers are smaller but my foot size is not all that uncommon!!!! So I guess I am going to have to lower my standards to aluminum crampons, unless anybody has ideas on how to retrofit these suckers for larger feet? Seems aluminum does not work very good on steeper snow, and you have to be really carefull you don't hit any rocks by accident.

Have not been able to post in a while, why I don't know but yippie I can now . Thanks for the help. I think I am going to go with the non-slr camera first then last upgrade to the digital SLR when I have more funds . This looks to be a cheeper and a good way to start.

I thought about what you said and talked to my partner and we opted to still do the climb, we are up for a possible adventure if things don't go to plan . I figure at least it will be a good adventure. I have lots of alpine snow experience, but not a lot of alpine rock (route finding) experience. But what the heck got to do it some time. The level of rock climbing (max 5.6 on the west ridge) sounds right at my level trad level and this looks like too good of a climb to pass up. After looking at the other post and doing some other re-reading I think the only question I have for you is this, where is there water on this climb. Sound like I will be able to refill at the taboo glacier, but what about on the ridge and on the west ridge. It looks to me we will have to melt snow for water on the ridge for the rest of the climb. As it stands right now I am going to fill up at the taboo glacier with about 4 quarts (one nalgine and one camel bladder) with the option of melting snow near the bivy ledge. We are going to get started around 3:30 -4 am and if we are moving good on then we will try the entire route in one day other wise we will get up there and have lost of time to rest for day 2 . Thanks for the help/advise. Can't wait to try this sucker out!!!

did not see the other post for this trip. Questions answered.

I was up there about a month ago, and going up was steep scree hell. I think we got off route and had some really scary steep scree next to cliffs. On the way down we took a snow field on your left hand side on the way down. that make the decent nice. I would not advise doing back down this route. It would take way too long.

Looking at doing this route this weekend. Tried it last but group was too slow (we will not get into that one ). Anyway this time I am leading it and only taking one other person. Little nervous about route finding (first alpine rock lead). So I have a couple of questions from what I remember from last year. Did you do the Southeast Face? If so then, How large and easy is it to cross the burgshurnd on the Taboo glacier (last year it was starting to really open up). I am going to go fairly high up the glacier before getting on the face. Also when you say it was scary crossing the snow on the North side of the ridge, what made it so? Should I take a couple of pickets. I am fine on steep crappy snow, but partner may not be. Also alpine leather boots going to be fine for the rock or should I think about taking rock shoes for the west ridge. Also where did you park? Can you drive and park at the spur road? I am going to take a light rack of two sets of nuts, set of tri cams and hexes. and several douple runners. The west ridge decent is back down the route, correct? Thanks for help.