Dan_Miller

Official Word from the NFS: Eightmile Road No. 7601 is now open all the way to Stuart/Colchuck Trailhead.

I still have the sweater and a faily good pair of the heavier weight mitts as you've pictured above. It's very warm and quite windproof. It's major drawback is it's heavier than hell and quite bulky to stuff in the pack. I wouldn't part with it for anything, just as I wouldn't my laminated bamboo shaft 60 cm.Chouinard Piolet. Ah yes, Dachsteins and Kendal Mint Cake, two alpine staples!

Another Hwy 20 Opening Season essentially at a close, but not without posting the obligatory It's Open update from the Folks at WSDOT. Our thanks to Jeff and Dustin for their timely and informative updates. (All I do is simply post them here, slave to the computer on weekdays that I am. I can hardly wait for next spring's Hwy Opening Saga.) Everyone enjoy this great access to the Alpine that is now ours for a few months anyway. Be mindful of the snow and weather conditions especially given today's Special Avalanche Advisory. I hope to make it on to the Birthday Tour at some point early to mid next week. Unfortunately, family commintments make it likely impossible for me to make it to June 4/5 CC.com's Ski-In. I've little doubt all attendees will thoroughly enjoy Ski-In 2011! Hi all, Here's the official word! WSDOT Alert DATE/TIME: May 25, 2011, 12:05 p.m DESCRIPTION: SR20, the North Cascades Highway, has been opened. LOCATION: SR 20 from milepost 171 to milepost 148 North Cascades Highway START: May 25, 2011, 12:05 p.m. Est. END: Unknown OTHER: CONTACT: NCTMC (509) 667-2802 There are some new photos on flicR from Monday and I'll send out a final e mail when I get the pictures from today. Hooray! Jeff & Dustin

Today's (05/23/11) update from WSDOT's Jeff Adamson: Wednesday at Noon Hi all, Here's the announcement you've been waiting for: Washington State Department of Transportation - NEWS North Central Region – P.O. Box 98, Wenatchee, WA. 98807-0098, -- 509-667-3000 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 23, 2011 Contacts: Jeff Adamson, WSDOT Communications, 509-667-2815 (Wenatchee) Dustin Terpening, WSDOT Communications, 360-757-5997 (Burlington) SR 20 North Cascades Highway reopens Wednesday at noon WENATCHEE – Wednesday’s noon reopening of the North Cascades Highway marks the second latest since the highway opened 39 years ago. The latest ever was June 14, 1974, and the next latest, surpassed by this year, was in 1976 when it reopened on May 21. WSDOT maintenance crews will open the east and west winter closure gates on SR 20 to traffic at noon on Wednesday, May 25. The clearing effort took more than six weeks, compared to just three-and-a-half weeks last spring. Nine feet of snowfall in March and a record seven-and-a-half feet in April on the western slopes of the Cascades kept avalanche control technicians and snow clearing equipment on Stevens Pass until the avalanche threat eased and allowed the team to move up to the North Cascades. There, they found SR 20 buried in snow as deep as 75 feet. “The crews are really pleased that the highway will be open for Memorial Day,” said Don Becker, WSDOT Twisp Maintenance Supervisor. The noon reopening allows crews time to "sweep" the entire 37 mile winter closure zone for sand, rocks and debris between milepost 134, seven miles east of Diablo Dam on the west side of Rainy Pass 4,855 feet above sea level and nine miles west of Mazama at Milepost 171 below Washington Pass, elevation 5,477 feet. "It provides the margin we need so the first drivers over the passes make their trip safely," said Becker. "We had to rent a helicopter and do active avalanche control in the Liberty Bell Mountain and Cutthroat Ridge zones on Friday to bring down snow from those chutes. We couldn't open the highway and allow traffic below potentially unstable avalanche zones." It took Monday and will take all day Tuesday for crews to finish removing the huge piles of snow that slid down to the pavement. In the Liberty Bell Mt. zone on Monday, crews cleared about half the 650 feet of roadway that was covered with snow from 10 to 30 feet deep. When the gates swing open, drivers should find the road conditions bare and dry or bare and wet across the entire route. The forecasts for the next few days calls for high temperatures in the 60’s with a 30 to 50% chance of rain and a freezing level of 5,000 to 6,000 feet. The highway closed for the winter Dec. 1. It typically opens between the last week in March and the first week in May. The earliest opening ever was March 10, 2005. One drought year, four years after the highway first opened in 1976, it remained open all winter. Visit the North Cascades web page: www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/passes/northcascades and the North Cascades Flickr - photo site: www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/sets/72157623371473447/

Unfortunately Girevi, the Suiattle River Road #26 will not be driveable to the Downey Creek Trailhead during your planned mid-July trip time. The Downey Creek Trail is situated 20 miles up the Suiattle River Road. Suiattle River Road is only driveable 11.5 miles (see text of the US Forest Service current notice on the status of that road which has been damaged for several years now, below): Suiattle River NOT CLEARED Closed to all motorized traffic at mile 11.5. Open to foot, bicycle and horse travel beyond closure. Many trees down beyond the gate. Reconstruction and repair work will resume in spring of 2011. Watch for equipment and construction traffic. Road is not projected to open to motorized traffic until fall of 2011 at the earliest. Paved/Gravel Two/One Lanes Although there is a bit of a road walk involved more than a few parties do walk the closed section of the road each season. I am unable to come up with any sort of shuttle service that you might hire to provide transportaion back to the car that you left at the other end of the Ptarmigan Traverse, whether that may be at the 11.5 mile point on the Suiattle Road, or at the Cascade Pass Trailhead on the Cascade River Road. I wish I could be more helpful in that regard. If others have any thoughts on a hireble shuttle service working in the Marblemount/Darrington area please provide that information here.

It's getting close! Today's update (05/20) from WSDOT's Jeff Adamson: Hi again, We expect to provide a firm reopening day and time on Monday. The avalanche control brought down significant amounts of snow at three locations. 200' wide by 15' deep at LB2, 200x30 at LB3 and 250x10 at the Annex (beginning of Spiral Gulch). Cutthroat Ridge chutes are lower elevation and the warmer temps between now and Monday (when it's cooling down again) will continue to bring down snow there as well. Monday, we'll confirm how long it will take to clear what comes down, finish the ditching, guardrail/barrier repairs, finish the emergency pull outs and the final deicing/sanding so the gates can open. There is finally light at the end of the tunnel! (If you're planning a bike ride this weekend with your skis or snowshoes on your back - keep in mind that the avalanche danger is higher when it's warm, so check with the NWAC, NPS or USFS for back country conditions.) Jeff Adamson adamsoj@wsdot.wa.gov 509.667.2815 PS- I understand the avalanche crew mounted a video camera on a tripod (that got buried in one of the slides) but if/when they dig it out - we might have some interesting footage to post on YouTube!

Today's (05/20) update from Jeff Adamson and Dustin Terpening with WSDOT: Hi all, From the west side, we begin with Dustin’s update: Wow, what a whirlwind week! It started with a bang and ended with excellent progress. Things weren’t looking so hot Monday morning when we found that monster snow slide at Ruby Mountain completely blocking the highway. But the good news is that we absolutely pounded that slide. We punched a hole through by Monday evening and had it all cleared by Tuesday afternoon. Because we made such quick work of the slide, Louie was actually able to run the snow blower all day Tuesday. We ended up only losing one day of snow blowing due to the slide. The east and west teams finally reached each other at noon on Wednesday between Rainy and Washington passes. We had a single cut through the snow all the way across the North Cascades Highway. The work then began widening and clearing fog line to fog line. It’s also going to take a couple days to put all the guardrail and concrete barrier back in place in the Ruby slide zones. And we’ve also got about two more days of ditching left. Things are wrapping up nicely. In case you’re tired of all the pictures of snow, then we may have something you’ll like instead. Rod Hayes, maintenance supervisor, was lucky enough to snap a few photos of a momma bear and her two cubs leisurely crossing the highway near the west gate on Wednesday. When I went up to the pass last week, I saw a bear too, but that one was too quick and I wasn’t able to get a picture. That was the first bear I’ve seen along the highway. Pretty cool stuff. Here on the east side, We sent the D-8 caterpillar home this week when we got through the Liberty Bell avalanche zone and on to Washington Pass. From there, the progress was amazing and by yesterday afternoon, the highway was clear from gate to gate. (Yes, there are still some more safety pull outs that have to be cleared as well as some de-icing and sanding to get the surface ready for you to actually drive on.) Today, while the good weather is still with us, we’re renting a helicopter and taking the howitzer up to do what we hope will be a final round of avalanche control. There is still a lot of snow in LB2 and 3 that has to come down before anyone can drive under them. With generally warmer temperatures forecast until Sunday, we’re hoping the combination of the control effort and another two days of spring will deliver stable conditions when it cools down again Monday so we can clean up what comes down and open the highway. The gates could swing open any time from Tuesday to as late as Thursday, depending on how much snow ends up on the road. (Just the two Liberty Bell chutes could dump as much as LB 1 did last week, which was another 70+ feet.) I’m drafting a news release with a hole for the reopening date. It’s possible that the avalanche and maintenance folks will be able to make a firm prediction for the reopening by the end of today. If so – I’ll send out the update we’ve all been waiting for! Jeff 509-667-2815 Dustin 360-757-5997

Today's (05/17/11) update from Jeff Adamson and Dustin Terpening with WSDOT. Happy Syttende Mai All! (Us Ballardites know what this is all about.) Loading photo preview from Flickr There was a problem getting photos from Flickr. Try going to the web site directly: If the photos are private, you might be asked to sign-in. May 17, 2011 Dustin's update from the west side Remember how I said, “Come Monday morning we should be working our way down the east side of Rainy Pass?” Well, I have to revise that statement because we had a wrench thrown into our plans. On our way to work Monday morning, we ran into a BIG surprise three miles east of the gate: A natural avalanche 20 feet deep and 100-150 feet wide. The slide apparently happened on Sunday beneath Ruby Mountain. It was full of what looked like giant snowballs, mangled trees and rocks. I’m not quite sure how to describe the way it looks – it’s just something you have to see for yourself. (John Sculock's photo's detail this well, see above). Unfortunately, our equipment was on the other side of the slide. Gary Claybo hiked over the avalanche to get to a loader on the other side to start clearing it. However, our clearing yesterday was limited because visibility and stability. Needless to say, we’ll be focusing our efforts on this slide for a few days before we can get back to clearing snow further east. I want to take a quick moment to thank John Scurlock who kindly shared his photos of the slide with us so that we could put them on Flickr. I then saw them on the evening TV news last night. On a slightly different and more fun note, some of our photos showed up in the London Daily Mail. That’s kind of cool. Jeff's update from the east side We ended our contract with Pipkin Construction for the D-8 and got several calls as Winthrop residents saw the low-boy carrying it through town Monday afternoon. Yes, that's good news. We only need the D-8 until we're through the Liberty Bell avalanche zone, so the D-8 coming off the hill confirmed that we are now through LB 1, 2, 3 & 4, and now working on widening the single cut up to Washington Pass. (The rental D-6 is adequate for clearing the slide at Bridge Creek - milepost 159 or thereabouts.) We didn't know what we'd find on Monday morning after the heavy weekend rains: Did they wash out the avalanche chutes like LB 2 and 3 that still had a lot of snow in them; or did the dropping freezing level and snow Sunday evening fill them fuller? The answer is somewhere in between. The rain came, but it didn't wash out the chutes. It absorbed into the snow and now we've got even heavier and wetter (potentially more threatening avalanche danger) snow than we had at close of business last Thursday. Nothing is confirmed yet, but the avalanche crew is watching the weather forecasts for the warmest period coming in the next week because they may need to do helicopter avalanche control in order to open the highway, even after all the pavement is cleared. You all can imagine the uproar we'd cause if we kept the gates closed while the pavement is clear, especially from those who don't appreciate the avalanche danger from Cutthroat Ridge to west of Rainy Pass - note Sunday's slide. It only takes a few degrees or a couple hours of direct sunlight (or more snow!) to trigger a slide. That's why we'll try to empty them by placing charges via helicopter directly into the starting zones, if we have to. NOTE: for those who have complained we're not working 7 days a week to reopen – take heart – the forecast I'm looking at right now suggests it's going to be warmest Saturday and Sunday, so avalanche and maintenance personnel could be working this weekend. We will let you know if/when the chopper flies so you can make sure you're not out there on your bikes or skis while we're blasting the hillside above! As always, Jeff and I are available for your questions, concerns or comments. We're here Monday through Friday, during normal business hours. Dustin - 360-757-5997 Jeff - 509-667-2815

Friday's (05/13/11) update from Jeff Adamson and Dustin Terpening from WSDOT: Hi all, The week began with a forecast for warm temperatures, and as the mercury rose the snow began sliding. By 2 p.m. Monday, it was 50 degrees at 5,500 feet and the snow was sliding at Liberty Bell Mtn. and Cutthroat Ridge. Before the snow started sliding, the crew had finished the clearing below Liberty Bell #1. However, the slides put an end to any more work in that area, and the new slides behind them in the Cutthroat Ridge zone is where they concentrated their work (if anyone was going to get back to Twisp for dinner)! Even more slides reached the highway on Tuesday – more than 20 feet deep in a couple locations in the Cutthroat Ridge zone. There were more below Liberty Bell Mtn. too that put off any work there for the day - the crew was plenty busy cleaning up Cutthroat and the Annex – again. Everyone got home late Tuesday as a 100-foot wide by 25-foot deep slab avalanche slid down onto the Annex, which is just below Spiral Gulch (locate on the map). (Sort of our own fault in that the slide included a lot of snow that we had pushed off of the Liberty Bell chutes down into the gulch!) Due to some scheduled training and other commitments, some of our team members from other Area 3 maintenance sheds got to spend a day or two revisiting winter, and some of the regular Twisp crewmembers found themselves operating different pieces of equipment. Jason Newman (Twisp) took over snow blower duty, Lonnie Fenton (Brewster) ran the loader, Scott Reagles (Twisp) was at the controls of the D-6 cat and Glen Jones (newly selected lead tech for Okanogan – congratulations!) was driving the grader. Tuesday also brought Seattle Times photographer Mark Harrison to the gate. He got to spend the day taking pictures of avalanches, walls of snow, our cool equipment and our hard-working crewmembers. Reporter Jack Broom filled in the rest of the story by phone with Becker, me, Dustin, the local chambers of commerce and others for a story published on Thursday. (Check out the Time’s story – they posted Mark’s pictures and also the video he shot.) By 8 a.m. Wednesday at 5,000 feet it was overcast, raining and about 43 degrees, which prompted the avalanche team to start control work in the Liberty Bell zone earlier than anticipated because visibility was declining. The howitzer successfully triggered a huge slide at LB#1, almost equaling the 75’ that was over the roadway there when crews started clearing it last week. Shots into LB#2 and 3 brought down more snow, too, but nothing like LB#1 which Don Becker described as “Spectacular!” Needless to say, the entire crew spent the rest of Wednesday and Thursday working through the Liberty Bell Mountain zone. (Locate on the map) By the end of the week (Thursday p.m.), we were through LB#3 (MP 163) and making a single cut up to Washington Pass (MP 162). With the forecast for a weekend of precipitation, on Monday we’re expecting to find more snow on the pavement we’ve already cleared and more in the avalanche chutes, too. (Locate on the map) Here’s Dustin’s Update from the west side I decided to get away from my desk and get a firsthand glimpse of our progress on Thursday. Boy did I get lucky and pick a gorgeous day to journey up the mountain. It must have been 65-70 degrees at the top of Rainy Pass; I was in a t-shirt the whole day. I even got a little sunburn. Considering the kind of spring we’ve had, I didn’t even think about taking sunscreen. I attempted something new this year: I took my (personal) Flip video camera and decided to try a video report. I played “reporter” and did a few stand-ups along the way. For those of you who might find these updates a little long-winded, you might enjoy this video version better. Our lone snowblower (run by Louie Crookshank) has reached the top of Rainy Pass. I got a few nice pictures of Louie in the blower launching snow off the highway. He said that the snow isn’t flying as far as it usually does because it’s wet and heavy. Come Monday, we should be working our way down the east side of Rainy Pass. It was back closer to the gate where the work was really buzzing. Multiple dump trucks and loaders were running up and down the highway clearing ditches. Let me tell you, they were moving a lot of dirt and rock, and had a lot more dirt and rock to move. The ditches along the upslope side of the highway are chock-full. Jeff and I have fielded a lot of phone calls this week from people itching to cross the highway. The question we were asked the most, “When are you going to open the highway?” We had the same answer for everyone, “The hope is by Memorial Day, but we don’t have a target date yet. As soon as we know, you’ll know.” It’s very difficult to pin down an opening date at this point. Yes, from the looks of the map, both teams appear to be very close to one another. They’re less than 6 miles apart, but the 6 miles between Rainy and Washington passes pose a lot of challenges (like being 4,900 to 5,500 feet in elevation). The biggest obstacles this week (on the east side) were all the new avalanches in places where we’d already cleared the highway. It was like we’d take one step forward and then two steps back. Stay tuned – Tootsie says she’ll have the cinnamon rolls ready as soon as we call – not likely next week, but hopefully before the 26th. Jeff & Dustin

Today's (05/06/11) update froms WSDOT's Dustin Terpening and Jeff Adamson (the West and East side guys). Hi all, Monday is the beginning of week #5 and the eastside crew has cleared both lanes to Liberty Bell avalanche chute #1 (MP 165). If you consult a calendar, you will note the incongruity that it’s trying to be spring in the rest of the world. For instance – yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, Sunday is Mother’s Day, there’s a bunch of spring events here tomorrow including the 49'er Day Parade in Winthrop, the Sunflower Iron and Relay Trail Run in Mazama, the Colorama Parade in Grand Coulee and the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival Grand Parade in Wenatchee. Or is it still winter? On Tuesday morning, Avalanche Tech Brandon Levy dug a snow pit above the big lone tree in Spire Gulch (about 5600’) and found 16 feet of snow to the ground and that the pack was still very cold -5 Celsius and very firm. He said it looked as though we will need our traditional three days of warm temps to be able to possibly get some more snow to come down out of the chutes. He was sure about the snow in the LBs but was also concerned about CR 6,7,8,10. By Thursday, he got confirmation. Yesterday, we had two natural slides on Stevens Pass (Old Faithful #3 & #4) that put about three feet on the shoulder and part of one lane. On Monday, if the forecast is accurate for the freezing level to rise to 8,000’ in the North Cascades, Mike (Stanford – Avalanche Chief) says he’s going to have to do control work with the portable howitzer on Liberty Bell #2 and #3, before he’ll let anyone work under them. They’re not the only chutes that still have unstable snow in them. While snow was sliding on Stevens, it was also sliding back in the Cutthroat Ridge zone that the crew had already cleared. Most of the snow just filled the safety trough above the roadway, but enough came down between CR7 and 8 that it got to the road and required some snow blower attention to “re clean”. Speaking of snow blowers – it hasn’t particularly slowed the progress - but it’s kept our mechanics occupied – this was another week of replacing shear pins on the spinners as we’re still finding a lot of hidden debris – rocks and wood - buried in the snow below the avalanche chutes. The calendar has also had an effect on this year’s reopening in terms of sunshine (more direct) and daylight (begins earlier and ends later). This past week (as the flickR photos show) was cold, overcast, foggy, windy, and it snowed several times as well. At the same time, when the sun did come out – since the angle is higher and more direct, it gets hot in a hurry, both for the crew and those unstable snow accumulations in the avalanche chutes. The hope is that the chutes will warm and empty on their own (as Brandon noted). The downside is that when it warms up too fast, we’ve had to delay work some years and pull the crews off the road due to the avalanche danger. We really, really don’t want that to happen – but that’s exactly why we can’t predict a reopening any closer than “mid to late May”. By the numbers – from the east, the highway is cleared shoulder to shoulder to LB#1 and LB1 itself is 90% cleared (almost ready for the Kodiaks to blow it clear down to the pavement). Caterpillars and the snow cat working ahead have cleared about 70% of the accumulation at LB#2 and about 20% at LB#3. With the snowfall since the assessment in March, the depths in the Liberty Bell zone have grown from 60+’ to 75’, which is the deepest we’ve encountered in the last dozen years, at least. (We found 70’ there in ‘05, when it took 6 weeks to reopen). With that, I’ll hand off to Dustin, with the west side update: Hey all! Apparently, my last update wasn’t so bad; Jeff decided to let me write some more. What a nice guy! After this week’s work, we’re now just two miles shy of Rainy Pass. Louie Crookshank made it to milepost 155.5 in the snow blower where the snow is approximately 5 feet deep. Surprisingly, the snow on this side is “soft” this year, according to Gary Ward. Most years, the snow has layers of ice and/or hard spots, but not this year. So far, it’s been soft all the way to the bottom. The soft snow actually makes it easier for the snowblower to cut through. While Louie was out ahead in the snow blower, Bob Hopfield and David Dillinger (better known as Goob) were back a ways cleaning and clearing ditches with front-end loaders. The ditches on the upslope-side of the highway are full of dirt, rocks and debris. We’ve got to clean them out so that they drain properly and keep water off the highway. According to Gary, some of the rocks that fell throughout the winter are half the size of cars. Those tend to leave a mark (!) where they land. A few sections of concrete barrier were damaged and need to be replaced. Along with ditching, Bob and Goob worked on clearing rocks and trees still across the road at Ruby 8 (near milepost 138). Up until now, we had just punched a hole wide enough through that slide to get the snow blower past. We had no major issues with equipment this week, just a few minor things: One dump truck tossed a belt and another had an oil leak - nothing that couldn’t be fixed. It snowed several times this week, but we didn’t get any major accumulations. And by the looks of things out my window right now, it’s probably snowing up there right now. There’s no snow at the gate, and you won’t find any until you’ve got 10 miles or more beyond it. This is Jeff again. Regarding recreational access for snowmobiles – from the east side, I’m told that unless you plan to run on pavement for the six miles from the gate to Spiral Gulch, you’re not going to be doing any high marking below the Spires – sorry. One more note. Nancy Trucano who runs the Cascade Loop Assn. put a North Cascades picture (Diablo Lake) on the cover of the 2011-12 Travel Guide and you can get all 68 pages (including the cover) for free from their website: http://cascadeloop.com/index.php?page_id=367 She’s also posted each week’s update and some photos on the Loop’s web site so – yes - I’m shamelessly promoting one of our partners! info@cascadeloop.com. The challenges continue... Jeff Adamson adamsoj@wsdot.wa.gov (509) 667-2815 Dustin Terpening (The Dustin) terpend@wsdot.wa.gov (360) 757-5997

Here's today's (05/02/11), WSDOT update from Jeff Adamson: Hi all, If the pictures suggest it's cold and a little wet – so begins week #4 at the west end of Cutthroat Ridge. It was a bit above freezing when the crew got there. It started snowing about 10 a.m. and continued on and off after that. Wind wasn't bad – 10 mph or less. The crew and equipment was spread from CR 8 to CR 12. Farthest up the road (?) was Gene (the contract operator from Pipkin Construction) in his D-8 caterpillar, cutting down the huge pile of snow below CR-12. Scott Reagles (Twisp Tech II) was in the rental D-6 and Duane Wolley (T-III) was operating the Kodiak snow blower on CR-11. T-II Jesse Gurney was in the excavator, T-II Tyler Miller was in the other Kodiak and Ryan Smith (Okanogan Tech I) was in the loader widening from CR-8 to CR-10. T-II Jason Newman was scraping the floor (down to the pavement) with the road grader, Mike Stanford (Avalanche Chief) was in the snow cat, Deed Fink (Twisp Lead Tech) and Brandon Levy (Avalanche Tech) were on avalanche watch. Here are the pictures so you can follow the program: www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/sets/72157626170712679/with/5681426240/ Two more things that you may be interested in: Dustin did some checking on our FlickR site and found that a whole lot of people liked the photo Cliff Schwab sent to us that he took of Spiral Gulch on the Friday before we started the clearing: Amazing stat #1: Your Hairpin Curve photo is ranked 4th all time on our Flickr site. This is quite the achievement when you consider we have 14,129 pictures shared. Amazing stat #2: The photo just broke 10,000 views. 10,000 views in less than a month! That’s amazing. Most of our photos are lucky to break 100 views. It also has seven comments and 13 favorites. The other interesting tidbit comes from Stevens Pass: In the 60+ years for which we have records, this was the snowiest April ever. As of 4/28, the total was 86" (we may have picked up another couple Friday and Saturday). For the Season we're at 45 feet which is above normal, but way below the record which is nearly twice that. Everybody is feeling good about the progress made from both sides last week and we're hoping for more of the same, this week. Jeff Adamson adamsoj@wsdot.wa.gov (509) 667-2815

Hearty congrats to all, Alpine Dave, John Freih and Dylan Johnson for a very worthy objective and an award well deserved. Many years ago my climbing partner and I camped on that arm of the Baird Glacier, essentially underneath the South Face of Mt. Burkett for 15 days and barely saw it. Gives some idea of the potential horrendous weather at times in the Stikine Icecap area. (That stunning route was way over our heads, both literally and figuratively, and not our intended objective.) I can hardly wait for the TR. Smash and Grab gentlemen!

Really good to have you aboard!

"Ueli" You know, the fast guy!

John and Fred (a Westsider and an Eastsider)thanks for the timely additions.

Today's (04/29/11, 4:12 pm) update from WSDOT's Dustin Terpening: I attempted to place the photo links to Dustin's update email, but when I click on the links they appear only as pop-ups. I'm at somewhat of a loss as how to make them appear in a new window. Nothing in there of particular interest in my way of thinking anyway. You can go to WSDOT's North Cascades website to view them if you're so inclined: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/]WSDOT North Cascades Highway Clearing Hi all, It’s Dustin, from the west side, bringing you an update on our snow-clearing progress. I won’t even attempt to be as witty as Jeff, but I'll give it my best. He’s set the bar high and I’m afraid it’s unreachable. Like many of you, I definitely enjoy reading his updates. I’m sure this comes as no surprise to any of you, but we’re still getting snow. Yup, it’s almost May and we’re still doing avalanche control in the passes. Fun times. I just got off the phone with Dean Hills, maintenance superintendent out of Wenatchee. His quick diagnosis of the equipment is that it’s all running well. No major hiccups. (Knock on wood.) We’ve only had a few minor issues with a switch here and an exhaust pipe there. Hills said that we’ve nearly finished cutting through the Cutthroat Ridge avalanche chutes. [img:right] [/img] We’re through CR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. The two full-size snowblowers have a little work remaining at CR 10 before they’re through, and we have about an hour’s worth of pushing with the D8 cats at CR 11 and CR 12. Once the cats have finished pushing and cut the slides down to manageable sizes, the excavator and snowblowers can punch through pretty quickly. Then it’s on to what we call the Annex – the area where avalanches from Liberty Bell reach the highway a second time. Hills believes we should reach the Annex quickly next week. We’re finding a lot of debris in the avalanches so far. While it’s not too much of a problem for the cats and excavator, it is a problem for our snowblowers. The debris breaks a lot of sheer pins on the blades of the snowblowers. Each time we break a sheer pin, we have to stop and replace it, slowing us down. For a better idea of what a sheer pin is, check out this picture first, and then look at this close-up. A bigger bucket for the excavator is supposed to arrive on Monday. We’re bringing it in from Euphrata – it’s normally used for ditching. Supposedly, it’s twice the size of the normal bucket. That’ll help move more snow more quickly. As for the west side, Gary Claybo and Gary Ward tell me that we’re all the way to milepost 152. We stopped using the loader-mounted blower Wednesday because the snow was getting too deep – more than 5 feet deep. We brought in a full-size snowblower from Stevens Pass on Wednesday and put it to work. Gary Claybo says the full-size blower should speed snow removal up a bit. However, Gary Ward thinks we’ll get slowed down once we reach milepost 155 because there’s a fairly large slide there. (You’ll have to forgive me, I didn’t get the name of that slide zone. I know, Jeff would never let that happen. Can we chalk it up to a rookie mistake?) We got a few new pictures from the west side this week. [img:right] [/img] Have a great weekend. Not to worry, Jeff should be back next week. Dustin Terpening 360-757-5997

Today's (04/26/11, 11:12sm) update from WSDOT's Jeff Adamson: Hi all, Lots of activity Monday: Day 9 – April 25 (Week #3) The eastside crew started working west from Cutthroat Creek through the first of the three avalanche chutes in that zone (CR#1, #2, #3). Don Becker says “Pipkin’s D8 cat got here at 0800 and was sent off ahead to begin working CR#6. The Wenatchee excavator got here at 0930 and was put to work with Duane Wolley in the Kodiak snow blower on CR#2. Scott Reagles was operating the D6 on CR#5. Jesse Gurney was in the excavator. Mike Stanford was driving the avalanche crew’s snow cat, cutting down CR#1. Jason Newman was in the grader, clearing shoulders and pavement. John Finklestein and Brandon Levy stood avalanche watch. (check out the new photos). I'm not here Thursday and Friday, but you'll still get updated on the week's progress - just from a different perspective - from Dustin (my wetsider, uh, westsider, counterpart in Burlington...)! Jeff Adamson adamsoj@wsdot.wa.gov (509) 667-2815 I've gotten lots of "when will it open" e mails. Truthfully - we really don't know. If the weather, equipment and crew health all cooperates, it will open before Memorial Day. If not, it won't. It's just entirely too early to make a dependable prediction.

JasonG and goatboy, this is exactly why CC.com is so valuable in its timliness and the immedicancy of the information we are seeking. Thanks for responding. I need to read TAY on more like a daily basis. Even NW Hikers.net frequently yields timely information. Isn't the interweb a wonderful thing?

What Mr. Perkins says is spot on. I've climbed it twice in very early may and didn't struggle too much if any with the brush.

I can't recall any reports on that route (or any route for that matter) on Shuksan this last winter and recent Spring. I probably keep track of such things as well as most anyone living in Seattle, at least. It will continue to snow up there all of this coming week, (freezing levels/snow levels down to 2000 ft on Tues/Wed. Of course read the Last of the Season sowpack reports on the Northwest Avalanche Center website (good prognosis of the upcoming week if you really scour all the material on their Mtn. Weather report page. If there ever was a year (in the last number of years) for the heinous brush in the White Salmon Creek drainage to be quite well covered this is it. Your choice of a spring for the ascent is a good one. Tons (and I mean tons) of uncolidated snow at present will make it necessary for good flotation to avoid a wallowfest. The best place to get the most up to date info (lacking a recent TR, may be contacting the Mt. Baker Ski Area, Pro Ski Patrol avalanche control folks, (the ski area may remain open for a couple more weeks on a weekend basis). Or contact American Alpine Institue in Bellingham (they're certainly closest to your objective). Hope there's something contained here of benefit lacking anyone's direct experience. Anyone else with thoughts on this?

Today's update from WSDOT's Jeff Adamson. They are making good prgress despite breakdowns and continual snowfall. Hi all, Days 6-7-8 (end of Week 2), April 19-21, 2011 The clearing effort grew and increased in productivity with the addition of the D-6 caterpillar and the giant Kodiak snow blower from Stevens Pass. By Thursday afternoon, the highway was cleared fog line to fog line to Cutthroat Creek at Milepost 167, which translates to 16 miles for the first two weeks. Not everything went well this week – Wednesday saw some delays with a flat tire on the road grader and then an air pressure issue with the Kodiak. Both were dealt with pretty quickly considering it takes a trip back and forth to Twisp just to fix a flat tire. Don Becker, the Twisp Maintenance Supervisor who oversees the reopening effort every year says it was cold and overcast Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, it snowed all day. The Westside crew has cleared the highway, fog line to fog line all the way to MP 150, about two miles beyond the Granite Creek Bridge (which is the boundary between the west and east regions, as if it mattered to anybody but us!) Snow depth where they’ll start Monday is about 5-1/2 feet. That crew is working with a loader-mounted snow blower, a loader and a plow. (3 new photos, posted) They cleared about ten miles from the Diablo Gate east, the first week. This week they started at MP 145 where there was about 2 feet of snow, but the clean up of the Ruby Mountain slide, as well as all the pull outs limited progress to five miles. When work resumes on Monday on the eastside, the avalanche crew has to be there to monitor slope stability as the crew begins work below the first of the major slides at the east end of Cutthroat Ridge (CR #1). Assuming it’s safe to work, Pipkin Construction’s D-8 caterpillar and operator, along with the avalanche crew’s Pisten Bully Snow Cat and an excavator from Wenatchee, will join the D-6 cat, the Kodiak, the loader and the grader. (We may need a traffic control plan…) Don included 7 new photos (That’s Jason Newman fueling and driving the grader). Two more notes – Winthrop’s 49’er Days celebration is scheduled as usual for the first weekend in May (6-7-8) and while the highway won’t be open – you’re invited to drive around and be assured it will be as much as ever. (Note: This is only the 3rd time in 35 years the highway wasn’t open for 49’er Days). You will also want to check out the changes Dustin and I made to the NCH home page – it cleaned up the left column and put the camera thumbnails in the right column. The weather stations, forecasts and links to the recreation agencies now have their own page. Despite the forecast for more late-season snow, we remain optimistic that the opening will proceed smoothly, (and I’m not even going to respond to the e mail I got about whether we can have the highway open before the legislature adjourns…) Jeff Adamson adamsoj@wsdot.wa.gov (509) 667-2815

All my best thoughts go out to David's loved ones. I do well remember his TR's, informative and engaging. Cautious all.

Very good work Dan! I strongly suspect it was highly enevitable that the route be skiied. The evolution of alpinism. Were the NE Buttress of Chair Peak somwhere near Chamonix I have no doubt it would have been skiied some time ago. However, my comments do nothing to demean your fine skill set, and you guys noting that the conditions were there to make it reasonable for you to do so. When I climbed it some years back I wouldn't have thought (at that point in time) that it was a potential ski. My how things have changed. Congrats and all props to you two. Almost makes me want to run up there tomorrow to just check out what tracks may remain. Keep at it Dan!

I'll take the occasional NPS repeator versus the untold masses anytime. There is another one on McGregor Mountain's summit. There may be others, but I can't recall encountering them in thirty five years or so of climbing in the Park. Haven't been up on Copper Ridge, perhaps there's one there as well.

Thanks for the local heads-up Sol! We were thinking about heading over there, and will be very tick wary. Hate those little blood suckers.