Wauhaukau_Trau

The best option if you can in a crevasse rescue scenerio would be to use a runner and tie a "Clove Hitch", not a girth hitch (clove hitch eliminates the torsional forces on the ice axe or picket from the fallen climber) near the center of the dead man ice axe. obviously on an ice axe you may want to cheat the runner a bit closer to the head of the axe since that the head has more surface area and greater friction when dragged through snow, and the last thing you want is for it to start slipping or spinning out. Secondly if you have a second anchor the ice axe works much better than a picket (because it has rounded edges) for keeping the rope from digging into the lip of the crevasse, so I usually would try to use a picket as deadman-anchor in a crevasse fall situation, unless tools were all I was carrying.

The route to the climbers left is the Mt. Ruth Ridge route and I would definitly recommend it as an option for late season (after August) climbers and those who don't want to rope up. Only drawback is it takes longer and usually you need to scramble up the boulder fields, (not as much fun as the snow/ice).

The White River road is scheduled to be closed from Mather Y (where it connects to 410) on or around Oct 12th. WR Ranger Station will be open till the 11th of Oct. So it will be open at least till then. We got 2 inches of fresh two weekends ago at panhandle gap/Ohana Park, but it probably melted especially low, so you're gonna need to go pretty high (at least to the 9000' notch) to get some decent turns especially since freezing level was around 11-13 thou last week. Casey Wilson Backcountry Ranger MORA

I must agree w/ Clivus Dynafit TLT 4 is the lightest weight dynafit boot that still performs well skiing, but keep in mind that pretty much any AT boot (including the Dynafit TLT 4) will impede your french step, so you will expend more energy in moderate terrain, since you don't have the ankle flex found in a regular Mtnrng Boot. Dynafit makes some shorter AT boots that are great for climbing but they look like they would make the skiing really tough.