MisterMo

Better late than never? At this exact instant it is dry and a fuzz glowery. No stars. I think it's supposed to hold until sometime Saturday, but in April you never know.

That's an excellent question to which I do not have an answer. Why a helmet would cause a greater sense of invincibility than release bindings I don't know either. You are right; if a person is in situations where burial is increasingly likely...might as wel have everything going for you.

My bike mainly. Wasn't climbing.

Y'know your post inspires me to wonder how many of this year's tree well deaths would have been prevented by such a device. As far as being buried in a slide, you're apt to have some other problems not addressed by an avalung. This will be more true the wetter the snow you're buried in. There's a school of thought that holds that helmets make skiing less safe because they can create an illusion if invincibility; I wonder if the same could be said about avalungs. I don't mean to diss ya if you use one; these are just thoughts that come to mind.

Things are tough all over. I dragged myself from a warm bed & trundled down the street...fuzzy slippers and all...to snap this: Then it was back to the house for a leisurely breakfast and fun all day. Several white vans at the LTW parking lot. Homeland Security? Harborview psych ward field trip?

Are the Gold Bar and Skyko X Barbies near release? Seems like you have most of the pieces.

Ahhh, the Great Pacific Northwest....birthplace of the metaphor, home of the "mellow" lifestyle. Just like Marin, only wetter. Feel the love

The Desolation Peak LO photos have my vote for otherworldliness. Awesome stuff Mister Scurlock. You are a talented and generous man.

Yes............the edit button. Ahhhh, the ravages of time.

Nice flattering fotos, both yours and stillcrankin's. Figuring on going in there late summer. I was going to be content with lugging food & booze; now it looks like a rope, a rack, and about 50 CF cards will be needed as well. Stillcrankin: Red Fred has your route on Amphitheater Mtn., not Cathedral proper............were there two?

It looked like the road was blocked by snow just after where you turn off so you would have to walk all the road. Don't remember how many miles of road. I think Hannegan Pass is 5 (?) miles of trail plus another mile or so to Ruth. It's a trip that begs for skis and low avy hazard.

Things seem stable enough to me right now that it might be a good weekend to ski into Ruth.

Nice post. [this is where i would normally link some crappy old scanned pic from 1958 or something but i'm not going to]

I wuz past there Tuesday on the way to Baker & I doubt you'd get far at all. I was tempted to swing up & check it out on the way home but we were running late. Hopefully you'll get better info than this..........

Okeedokee, Sad but true,I just never, ever go down the valley after about noon on Sunday any more. But if you have to: You can indeed go down Reiter Road. Take a right at the stop sign before SR2 and follow May Creek Road around behind Gold Bar to hit SR2 at Mike the Barber's From here to Startup you are really and truly fucked as there is no alternative bridge across the Wallace River. Entering Startup you can take a right for a circuitous detour that brings you out on the Basin Road at the Saw Shop. From Sultan your choices are two-fold. Left at the first light takes you south across the river thence west to come out on 203 just south of the Lewis Street bridge in Monroe. Right at the second light takes you past the golf course to come out in Monroe at the first light. Woodinville/Duvall road is often a better choice than 522, but all choices are frequently hell. If things are truly grim Jack's Pass is a pretty alternative from Sky to Index. Now, the price you pay: Everybody puhleez drive like slowly, sanely, and safely on such of these alternatives that take you through residential neighborhoods especially through Index. Cars come an absolute maximum of fifth here in Tiny Town, after kids, pedestrians, bikes, and dogs, and we very much intend to keep it that way. And don't tell anyone else; it's a secret Much to late for that How I know the highway's plugged is by traffic levels in front of the house.

Okeedokee, Sad but true,I just never, ever go down the valley after about noon on Sunday any more. But if you have to: You can indeed go down Reiter Road. Take a right at the stop sign before SR2 and follow May Creek Road around behind Gold Bar to hit SR2 at Mike the Barber's From here to Startup you are really and truly fucked as there is no alternative bridge across the Wallace River. Entering Startup you can take a right for a circuitous detour that brings you out on the Basin Road at the Saw Shop. From Sultan your choices are two-fold. Left at the first light takes you south across the river thence west to come out on 203 just south of the Lewis Street bridge in Monroe. Right at the second light takes you past the golf course to come out in Monroe at the first light. Woodinville/Duvall road is often a better choice than 522, but all choices are frequently hell. If things are truly grim Jack's Pass is a pretty alternative from Sky to Index. Now, the price you pay: Everybody puhleez drive like slowly, sanely, and safely on such of these alternatives that take you through residential neighborhoods especially through Index. Cars come an absolute maximum of fifth here in Tiny Town, after kids, pedestrians, bikes, and dogs, and we very much intend to keep it that way.

Thanks. I never can remember that stuff.

Help me out here just a fuzz if you've got a minute. What approximate MP is: Sibley Creek Road turnoff? Mineral Park? Eldorado Creek route start? Gilbert's Cabin?

It is basicly perfect out here this AM...as in stunning.

Hear hear.... Today was nice AM, afternoon was squalls and sun breaks. Forecasts I have seen are saying the same tomorrow and then sun and dryness Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.

You misunderstand, or choose not to understand.......... I stated some things were different; I didn't hang a pejorative on it. There was and is no waah about it.

No doubt about it. My point was and remains that the experience will be much different than it was when there were, say, 100 routes on 200 mountains and there was vastly less information to be had. This is not to demean current efforts in any way, but if you take, for example, the Munday's epic up the Homathko as the square one of Waddington area climbing then everybody since has built to some extent on the sum previous knowledge and experience and, in a sense, had it much easier.

I'll play, and try to behave myself. At the time I started climbing: There were about 6 routes on El Cap (a number I did nothing to increase) Ascents of any of them were a big enough deal that successful parties got their names in the mags. The best maps of BC's Coast Mountains were a quarter inch to the mile with 500' contours.........and the cartographers had winged it a bit here and there. John Clarke had yet to begin his onslaught, and huge chunks of the range had never or only rarely felt a human footstep. Even in the Cascades one could, with a bit of research and scheming, find and stand atop some bump that had never been climbed..............not a major summit but an unclimbed one nonetheless. New route possibilities seemed limitless. Those sorts of realities lent an air of...Jesus, I'm lost for an exact word here...but how about maybe mystery or exploration to climbing and mountaineering. I think it's a lot harder to get those same feelings today. Maybe it doesn't touch very well on your safe world question but to have caught even the tail end of the never-to-be-repeated pioneering era was really very cool. I miss that sometimes.

That is one of several photos that hung on the wall of Shelton's Cafe (Hotel Tyrol)in Leavenworth in the late sixties. Don't recall/never knew who took them; interesting it should pop up on a Squamish page

For the routes that are not trivialities one might think that sticky shoes and modern pro should have made them easier, as you state, not harder. On the other hand I can tootle over to 8 mile, drag my aging fat ass up Classic (which I've got wired for life I'm pretty sure) and delude myself that I'm not a brakeman on the Lazy, No Pep, and Wobbly...and there's nothing wrong with that. Not too far off topic, a bit of related silliness was (and apparently still is) the whole measure-your-dick BS about certain areas having "harder" or "easier" ratings. Once upon a time Peshastin gradings were oft said to be a point or two on the "easy" side and climbs up at Squamish were couple of points off the other way. An excellent and enduring essay on the topic is Bridwells "The Innocent, the Ignorant, and the Insecure" in an old Ascent. An excellent commment in there about how asinine it would be if everybody's watches kept time at a different pace...