Stumph

When I go "extreme shopping" I need to be flexible enough to be able to pick up my CinnaBun without spilling my Orange Julius. Spandex on men, fat or skinny, ain't much to look at either.

Does anyone has any info on the condition of the Johannasburg/Cascade couloir up at Cascade pass, and/or the condition of the route up Johann'?

What I was trying to say is that I will take a biner but leave a rap ring. Rap rings are safe, cheap, and lightweight, there is no reason to climb without a few on your rack. I feel that I go far to improve anchors and that scoring a biner now and then is OK. Another note, I was taught for safety to rap off of locking biners (or two opposite-opposed non-locking) not one regular biners. Regular biners run the risk of unclipping. Is that still the norm? And to the response to one or more piece or anchor webbing...If you are reasonable sure there is still some fresh webbing on the anchor it can't hurt to have an extra piece or two, but I have rapped/belayed off of one piece of 1" tubular on many occasions (through mult-anchors of course).

A carabiner left anywhere is free for the taking, it is garbage on the route. Any anchor with more than two rap-rings has extra that are are free for the taking. Except for bolts, any gear stuck in a crack is free for the taking. Any rap station which has so much webbing that you can't feed your own through has too much garbage on it. I always clean rap stations if necessary (replace the webbing, and leave two rings) an encourage everyone else to as well. Carry a small knife (AMGA approved), enough webbing, and enough rap-rings when you climb to be self-sufficient. And here is a side note, why don't those crag monopolizing, high impacting crowds known as "Mountianeers" justify their existence and replace more rap stations with chains and steel rings?

Skied the whole gulley last Sunday. We climbed staight up from the upper parking lot, skied the back-side, and ascended the gulley. This is a much better approach. The snow was sloppy, sluffy, and unworthy of the effort.

From the upper parking lot at Baker we crossed the river, traversed the snow fields on the NW side of Herman, and climbed up until we reached the bottom of the coulor. Essentially a bee line from the Baker Maintainence building. I imagine the snow is going to give out in a week or two and that approach is going to be difficult. Better might be to follow the advice in this thread and climb the south summit, descend the back side of Herman. That puts you in the cirque right near the base of Stoneman. We did ascend the route. That not only seemed the best approach, but allowed us to scope the route and note the burgschrunds. There are a couple of slots to steer clear of, most notably at around the elevation of that block of rock at the bottom, and some exposed rocks scattered about. The slopes above our high point looked great, open and free of hazards. I dug a pit at our high point and found ~4' of consistent sugar. The snow seemed very stable to me. This would be a good time to give it a try. Let me know if you are considering going up this weekend and want some company, I would like to do the entire run.

So me and my buddy made it to about ~100 feet below the "huminoid", which is actually a tree. ~45 degrees, some burgshrund, and fine snow. Oh, two more hours of time.....

I'm headed there Sunday, I will report back if I survive.

Two weeks ago it looked like it was in fine condition, no cornices, no bergschrund, and a nice long run-out. Of course we have been having a blight of summer weather so who knows.

Yeah, I am talking about the big nasty, not the Bagley Lakes face. It looks from a topo that the best way to reach to couloir is to head to into the Herman-Table Mnt basin, up that face (is it the south side, which is a nice ski), skirt the ridge to the true summit and then DOWN. Anyway, thanks for the input. What is the slope angle?

Does anyone have any information on skiing the coulior that come off of the west side of Mt. Herman (visible from the ski hill at Baker)? What is the best approach and what is the route like?

OK, busted for sure. You can't blame a guy for trying to earn a buck in this world. Give it a try www.geocities.com/supertskiwax P.S. I think that is "guerrilla" marketing.

PTFE (powdered teflon) ski wax for sale. Great for wet spring snow. 8gms $5 100 gms $25 250 gms $35 email gabrisch@hotmail.com prices valid thru 8-1-04 info and hype at http://www.geocities.com/supertskiwax

There is a guy selling cut rate "teflon powder ski wax" on ebay (%100 PTFE powder). I have had great luck with this wax for this spring potatoes we are having.

Featherd Friends in Seattle sells NoStickUm, a fluorocarbon ski skin wax. Good Stuff!