Stinkydog

I think for "geezers", it's useful to take a bit more time on the approach and in high camp to conserve energy and acclimate for summit day. On the Emmons, spend the first night at Glacier Basin (and maybe think about Camp Curtis, although that's pretty close to Schurman). For the DC, camp one night on the snowfield around 8500, and then high camp at the Flats the next night (or two).

I abused the crap out of a couple of Kelty packs, over a span of 3 kids. The ones with the aluminum frame... The first pack eventually failed at the plastic hinges where the rear set of legs swings open to hold the pack up when it's on the ground. I think the bottom section of the legs got kicked a lot, as the kids got bigger. A friend gave me theirs as a replacement, and I still have it hanging in the garage. They held up over many hundreds of miles and trips overseas including bigger overnight backpacking trips where they were overloaded with extra gear or a bigger kid. I'm of the opinion that the most important quality in a backpack is the way it fits your body personally - but those Keltys worked great for me.

Yeah, a couple stinky climbers trying to hitch a ride with nice clean tourists is challenging enough in a non-pandemic year BTDT... Probably could stash a bike somewhere at Paradise, then draw straws to see who gets to ride back up the westside road

Cool report. We did the Edmunds (Western MF) exactly a year earlier and the conditions on the CMF were definitely sketchier. Lots of stuff coming off those upper rock bands. In 2017, we were foiled by the massive bergshrunds and had to retrace our steps back to Mowich Lake. Which meant climbing back UP that 1200+ feet of Ptarmigan Ridge - it was like trying to climb a massive pile of broken bowling balls, or one of those trash piles from Wall-E.

Trip: MT Rainier - Edmunds Headwall Trip Date: 07/13/2018 Trip Report: Two of us did the Edmunds Headwall on Friday. We started @Mowich Lake late Weds, bivy'd near Echo Rock. Lost our elevation dropping down from Ptarmigan Ridge to the N. Mowich Glacier (which was in good shape and easily navigable) and headed up toward the Mowich/Edmunds divide to the high camp at 9800 feet. Got up early Friday and made it onto the headwall proper. It was a straightforward climb up the face to the flat nose of Sunset Ridge. From there we took the right variation up through rock bands / hourglass to the ridgetop and then up to Liberty Cap. Hit the Emmons trail back down to Schurman and out to White River. We'd tried this route last summer but got turned around at the bergshrund/moat around 10500 on the left/east side of the saddle shaped rock formation. This year it was passable but required some creative free climbing up about 20 feet of a mix of glacier ice, water ice, and rotten snow. Another week (or less) of warm temps, and this will probably not be doable. The Edmunds face itself was in good shape - the lower 2000 feet was very firm (even with freezing levels at 15000+) and no rockfall before noon. No suncups to speak of either though so it was mainly front-pointing and use of the pick. The top section was suncupped which made for better travel, but has seen a lot of afternoon melting off the rock bands with the warmer temps (even though the route doesn't see sunlight until after 8am probably - we were heading up Liberty Cap by then). Overall it was a great climb. Using the Mowich Lake approach makes for some nice hiking up from Spray Park, even though it means driving that crappy road a couple times. The Ptarmigan Ridge screeball descent (about 1300 vertical feet lost) is not great fun... but it is a lot more so than the ascent, if you have to turn around like we did last year. It's a great side of the mountain to be on this time of the year - lots of good scenery, very few people, and fun routefinding. Gear Notes: Normal glacier gear + extra screws/pickets 2nd tool was nice Approach Notes: Mowich Lake -> Spray Park -> Lower Ptarmigan Ridge -> North Mowich Glacier -> Edmunds Headwall -> Liberty Cap -> Emmons/Winthrop -> Camp Schurman -> White River

Black Diamond Viper hammer w/ Android leash and tool kit. 2008 model. It was stored & carried in a gear bag a couple times, but never used. Has just a few scratches. $150 shipped to lower 48.

I dunno, but can you pick up some halfway decent vodka along with that OJ?

How is Adams Glacier in late season? I've only looked at it through binocs in Sept.... obviously the N Ridge descent could be a pain in the butt, but if a spouse was willing to drop a car or run shuttle to the south side trailhead... ???

Nice work! I just logged in to CC.com to ask if there were any LR reports from this last week or so of nice weather, and here it is Would be interested in seeing a gear / weight breakdown - I always seem to end up with 10 lbs in food for a 3-day climb (and usually don't have much left over .

The Kautz ice chute is still a snow climb as of today (7/13). We watched a couple parties walk right down both steps around 5pm on Weds 7/11.

I can appreciate the 3000 ft/hr ascent rate and it sounds like you guys are great skiers. I think you dodged more bullets than you realized on the trip. You got lucky with the conditions, coming from out of state. There are a ton of local people on this site who have seen "12 hour" car-to-car conditions on Rainier, as well as "48 hour" Paradise-to-Pebble-Creek conditions. The fact that you totally missed Paradise and ended up down on the Nisqually (the bridge?) is understandable-yet-disconcerting. I would not be bragging about a "speed record", under these circumstances. I think it's a good trip report, but needs a little more humility.

I like the Betamid (or Beta lite) with the BD bathtub floor. For 3-season camping on snow, or for 'bluebird weather' winter camping. Great shelter for summer climbing (on snow). It holds up decently in winds (use guylines, and bring earplugs). Obviously won't handle a ton of precipitation (rain or heavy snow) but in those cases you'd be packing up and heading down anyways. Big advantage: it has a ton of room (compared to BD Firstlight, etc.) for cooking and gear storage. I wouldn't bring the Beta on a real expedition, and wouldn't want to sleep in it in the backyard (no bug protection), but it definitely has its place.

Car-to-car is definitely doable. It took us about 5 hours to get to LC, w/ skis. With basic camping gear. Figure another 3 hours or so to the top if the upper slopes are firm. There's no way I would attempt the hike in boots right now, unless the freezing level drops to ~5000 feet and you're leaving the car at 1 am.

We went up this past Fri & Sat (6/1-6/2). Road was easily driveable to within 1/4 mile of the Goshen Creek trailhead. Probably will be at least a week or two before it's open to Morrison Creek. There were 6 or 8 bare spots to cross but otherwise the road was nicely skiable. Weather was lousy (nasty wind, frequent rain & graupel) but we had a brief view of the summit on Sat morning and booted up to the top of Piker's while the clouds built again. Couldn't see more than 20 feet and the burgers in Hood River were calling so we skipped the slog to the main summit. The hill between Lunch Counter and Piker's was pretty good styrofoam for cramponing and will probably turn into decent corn on the lower slope if/when it gets some sun.

Hmmm maybe you're on to something... old guys do tend to spend more extra days at Schurman and Muir and haul up stuff like steak, eggs, and bacon for breakfast to gorge themselves on. The younguns just make do with a couple 2oz tubes of Ultra Max Power Gel and a Red Bull.

So what's the deal with the new annual pass prices? Does a 25 year old guy really cost $13 more than a 24 year old in terms of rescue risk, etc.? $43 is a weird number. Sounds like a Walmart price.

There's a post about 2 weeks old on SP indicating that the road was driveable to 1/2 mile past the Wicky Crk shelter. I've checked a few other sites and haven't found any more current beta... am curious myself.

To me this looks like it could be the cream of the current crop of 'tough' cameras, but we'll have to wait to see some real-world results. I used 5 of the Pentax "W" series cameras (starting with the 33WR) over the last decade. One quit working; the other 4 were lost in various 'mishaps'. I noticed that as each newer model crammed more pixels onto the sensor, IQ suffered - the usual story with P&S cameras. I really like the new Nikon P&S, as far as getting bang-for-the-buck image quality. But the funky touchscreen is just not usable in the mountains, especially with gloves on. The Panasonic Lumix TS3 & TS4 are fast to power-up and have great IQ, but the waterproof case seems to be unreliable. Might not be a deal-killer in the mountains, but I'd like to take the thing kayaking or snorkeling too. I still like the design of the new Pentax WG, but they really lag behind on IQ. Haven't really seen the Canon D20 yet. For now, I just carry a lightweight DSLR setup (or a cheapo compact P&S) in a bag on my pack strap, and try to keep the thing as dry as possible.

One thing to keep in mind if you're not a local is... you're gonna be there to enjoy the mountain, not just climb it. I'd spend an extra night at Muir or Ingraham Flats (either on the way up or down) - just to hang out, hang out and meet people, feed the birds, practice some self-arrest and crevasse rescue, overdose on MSG and sodium from your Mountain House stuff, enjoy a sunrise the next morning... Check out some crevasses, watch the icefall/rockfall/avalanches (depending on conditions). No sense in travelling hundreds (or thousands) of miles to climb the mountain, and then crank it out in a 24-hour-or-less car-to-car grind.

No kidding. A few years back at Camp Schurman, we had some pretty fierce winds one night. Woke up the next morning and noticed that 4 of 5 tents belonging to a certain popular guide company had blown away. In their defense, they were on a summit attempt at the time, but still.. Bad part was, one tent had obviously traveled about 100 yards downwind, in a direct line right over our own camp. It left several strange furrows in its wake. Upon closer inspection, we found a couple of football-sized rocks tied to its guylines - not enough weight to actually hold the tent down, but certainly enough to really mess up our friend who was overnighting in a bivy sack... the kite/rock literally bounced over him, and landed about 10 feet on the other side of his snow-block wall. He had a good night's sleep though.

I have an old 85 cm steel axe that has come in handy on a few winter/early spring river trips. When there's ice along the banks, sometimes you need to self-arrest from a kayak or canoe

Don't forget to compensate for the hangover from the drinking after the RMI eval.

Part of the problem is the commercial message of "if you have the right gear, you can go anywhere", that we seem to be constantly bombarded with, every where we look. A good example is another article on that same website (http://explore-mag.com), talking about essential gear for surviving an avalanche. Yeah, it's great that you've got a brand new $400 transceiver with instant Twitter feeds. But how about THE most important avalanche safety element - simply staying away from the dangerous slope in the first place? Glossy magazines and websites aren't going to give you this advice - they want to sell the probe/shovel/beacon/avalung/dog booties/whatever. Cool gear & the latest technology will not make up for common sense and experience.

Cool, I wonder if that was from sometime in August last year (2011)? Based on the big jog in the route above the DC, and the photographer's description of the Mt. Hood fires? Gotta love those Tiki torches along the conga lines.

This is an essentially new Viper hammer (bought it and tossed it in the gear bag for a season but never actually used it... it has a few scratches on the shaft from being carried around). Plus a new BD Viper Android leash and the BD ice tool wrenches. Reduced price: $180 shipped (WA, ID, OR, or MT). Or $170 + actual shipping to other states. Might be willing to take partial trade for a 50cm BD Venom hammer or 57cm Venom adze. PM me if interested. [img:center]http://cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/516/BlackDiamondViper.jpg[/img]