Blakej

Anyone ever tried to ski up walkensaw via gray wolf ridge and can give some beta. Any idea when there will be enough snow cover?

Try the Greek ones they have some kick ass stews and a tin of cheese. One of the countrys still gives a little booze.

The current us military issue sucks. They are however working on new pack systems. I believe one from dana, kelty, and gregory but they will be designed with the military in mind so they will be heavy to withstand years of use and will have stuff that will probobly be useless like lots of pockets for things like air ground radios and carrying weapon systems. Plus they are super expensive. The MOLLE pack currently used by the Marines sucks and cost the Gov nearly 400 dollars. Best off just finding used or sale products from the Civillian market.

thanks for the info

Was thinking of skinning up and climbing pennicle as my first BC AT trip. Will be going with experienced people but does anyone have first hand knowledge of the difficulty of this ski I'm a comfortably an intermediate skier but I'd hate to get in too much and end up being miserable trying to slowly work my way down the who damn thing. Also anyone know what the snow is looking like lower on the approach. Be nice to avoid too much walking.

Good deal, sorry you didn't make the summit but it looks to have been a beautiful day out.

Cool I just got some tools and was wondering about the prospects in the olys. There is suppose to be a steep col on pershings that is steep hard snow/ice in spring and I think there are random reports of ice else where let us know if you find it.

Dont forget Mt townsend. It is a nice hike that privides both a nice view of the snow covered olympics and a great view of the sound if the weather is good. Be sure to stop at fat schmitties(sp) for a huge burger to top off the day.

From the views of them and the fact that the snow seems to be melting off a bit this past week I'd say go for it but I'm no expert. If ya want a partner pm me. The worst thing that can happen is you turn around cause you dont trust that conditions and atleast its a nice hike.

I've done both but they still don't do a hell of a lot more than give you an idea of what your looking at its surviving the learning curb in the backcountry I'm trying to do. Most of the stuff you hear about in your basic avy class or read about doesn't always match up with the overall picture you experience in the backcountry. Atleast thats what I've found.

Lets see so what I got is baby steps and don't be an idiot and drown in a shallow bathtub... Seriously thanks for all the ideas to add to my though process.

If you took up the route up I did from the Hamma Hamma there is a great basin (first basin in the description) to set up camp in. It didn't seem to have any danger of major slides and in winter would make for a beautiful base camp. It seems like most people I talk to do it in spring and early summer. I think spring would be the most enjoyable and make the bushwack better. Bremerton John has done it several times so maybe pm him.

sorry reentrant is more of an orienteering term. maybe wide couloir would have been a better way to say it.

Ok so to clarify better here is the situation that triggered the question. While doing a climb this weekend we acended a fairly steep (maybe 50 degrees at times) reentrant that was about 200ft wide. At times we would post hole through soft stuff to our knees and hit solid ground but as we got further up the slope the snow was crusty on top at times but we would break through to softer stuff and then more regularly straight up hard to kick steps into. There were some obvious small slide areas in the center which we avoided by staying close to the rock and shallower snow. The reason I though a block test wouldn't work is that I would hit dirt before I was able to get a decent size block to jump on. Secondly the inconsistantacy of the snow didn't seem like it would give an accurate depiction of the overall snowpack. I guess I could just dig to dirt and then jump and try this on each different consistancy of snow I found but I didn't think that would be very dependable at the time. Perhaps I was wrong. Though I feel pretty confident in the saftey of the approach we took and my partner who is far more experienced in snow travel was not concerned it did raise the question.

When snow is only 2-3 ft deep is there likely to be a significant slide? I'm assuming so. Also considering a block test wouldn't be possible in snow of that depth what is the best test for this fall snow we are experiencing. I noticed some small slides while out this weekend but even with the different consistancys of snow it seemed pretty stable but I hate to assume its safe by just trauncing around on the unexposed parts. Just doesn't seem too scientific. Comments?

Honestly I'm not sure where he got the idea I only mentioned that the other side was flagged a bit. I guess he just assumed there would be a trail to the alpine. Tough lesson learned for him.

I've got a room I need to rent on the edge of Silverdale and Bremerton. The apartments a 2br 1Bath. $325 plus half of electric. PM if interested.

It was interesting to say the least. That was the worst unavoidable stand of devils club I can imagine but once in the two upper basins it was fun working our way over the odd consistancys of snow. As for the jo jos I had to pass them up for the luxurious heated seats in chris's (partner)new VW. By the way Chris has pretty must sworn off the oly's now stating that he swears I told him there was a trail to the treeline.

We went for it via a approach from the Hamma hamma but had to turn around short of the summit due to time. Nasty ass bushwack through 2000 vert of devils club. Sucked really bad. The snow started about 2600ft and was 1-2 ft above 4000 and went from soft and fluffy to very hard. Crampons would have been nice for the upper 1000ft.

thanks for the advice. I'll have to keep my eyes on the market for a steal.

thanks I'm hoping the little bastards will be out of commision from the cold weather and rain.

I've been thinking about getting some of the fairly cheeper straight shaft tools for starting out(I'm mostly just interested in a little alpine ice and I'm told straight shaft would be fine) are the straight shafts terrible if I'm interested in getting into drytooling too. It seems like they might effect the direction of pull and make hanging onto a little edge a bit more sketchy.

Has anyone taken a look at pershings in the past couple days. I'm thinking of going for it tomarrow but I'd like to know if I should expect having to scramble over wet snowy rock.

I did said traverse from lena lake about a month ago and can deffinately attest to its sketchyness. Stepping in the little pockets and hopping our traction held was a bit unnerving but with crampons would have been very comfortable. I'm guessing when you did it it may have been a bit better for kick steps and at that time of the year I think most of the olympic snow was fairly well consolidated. Much more preferred atleast for me than scree or trying to scramble over the chossy mix of rock and moss you might experience now. However I'm no snow pro me saying it would be more comfortable doesn't mean safer.

Hey Stefan I still haven't made it out to Raineer to speak with you but what kind of medical experience and what kind of work do the medical types do? ie do they want guides with a good basic knowledge of first aid or does RMI hire people simply based on their medical experience for positions such as having a doc, nurse, emt etc on the mountain to give advanced medical care?