ptavv

It hit 47* at 7,000 ft yesterday. As of 10 am today it was already up to 47* at 7,000 ft. With an inversion that massive everything should be pretty soft and soupy up there. Be careful of rockfall though.

I climbed/skied Wy'east yesterday. The view down on the south side route was interesting. Quite a few climbing groups, one or two skiers it looked like. Seemed like most of the boot tracks we could see headed up the Gates. Old Chute looks primo to ski, Gates not so much. Anyone interested in skiing SE to E facing slopes, with the temps the way they've been lately, 9:30 - 10:30 is about the latest one should summit (we left the top of Wy'east at 10:00 and it was perfect). We did the route from Meadows parking lot. Skinned up to the top of Cascade. Booted up to about 9,000 ft where we put crampons on and booted up the rest. I didn't bring an axe, partner had whippets on his poles. A fall while climbing the face would have been a problem, but I felt comfortable with the decision. I should have taken more pictures from the top of Wy'east looking over the S Side, but here's the only one I took: Things have melted out quite a lot (pic of the way up, taken around 8500 feetish I think) Due to mostly wanting to ski, the hour of sleep I had, and the tiring stairmaster climb with pack + skis not many pictures were taken, sorry

Just figured I'd chime in. I climbed/skied Wy'east yesterday. The view down on the south side route was interesting. Quite a few climbing groups, one or two skiers it looked like. Seemed like most of the boot tracks we could see headed up the Gates. Old Chute looks primo to ski, Gates not so much. Anyone interested in skiing SE to E facing slopes, with the temps the way they've been lately, 9:30 - 10:30 is about the latest one should summit (we left the top of Wy'east at 10:00 and it was perfect). We did the route from Meadows parking lot. Skinned up to the top of Cascade. Booted up to about 9,000 ft where we put crampons on and booted up the rest. I didn't bring an axe, partner had whippets on his poles. A fall while climbing the face would have been a problem, but I felt comfortable with the decision. I should have taken more pictures from the top of Wy'east looking over the S Side, but here's the only one I took:

I was up on Wy'east yesterday (Saturday) and it was quite nice until some clouds rolled in around 10:45ish. Which was when the snow was nice and corned up for the ski down anyway.

clicking mt hood on the map is usually a good place to start

A few things. The resort is on national forest. Trespassing isn't really possible since it's public land opperated with a special use permit. They can get you in trouble if you try and use their lifts without paying for it and whatnot. They might be able to make a case for benefitting from their grooming without paying, but it's doubtful. When the resort is open they are given the right to govern open/closed terrain for the safety of their patrons. Meaning they can penalize ANYONE who is in closed territory, whether they are patrons of the resort or not. When the resort is closed, for all intents and purposes, you can consider the land the same way you would any other national forest land.

It's considerably easier to do this route from the main Meadows lot. Your starting elevation is considerably higher. Skin up Vista Ridge, then head up to the top of Cascade and onto Wy'east from there. For the descent, by the time the snow starts getting shitty, it's about time to start your skin up to the top of Shooting Star (from in Heather Canyon) and then the easy ski to the main base. It's much quicker, avoids the potential Heather Canyon fine (since there's no such warning from the main resort), and you get to skip out on a lot of cat tracking and pointless skinning at the start (you do have to pay for this with the skin up from lower Heather to the top of Star though). Just my $0.02. Also, this route was in great shape this weekend. You just need to get there early before the corn turns to mank.

I shudder to think what the glue on your skins has stuck in it...

I sport climb in my AT ski boots with crampons on and skis on my backpack. So really there's no difference to me.

No, I've had this sitting in my closet since I bought it and another (now well used) rope last year. I don't even remember what I paid.

Andorra isn't far away, and has some amazing skiing.

Unused, still in its plastic bag with the tags cinched tight around it. It's never even been unwrapped. $150 + shipping

There's absolutely no reason to limit yourself to touring/telemark ski lineups for your AT setup. For the most part they're only a slight bit lighter. Plus if you're looking to shave weight, those Mega Rides are pretty hefty. If you're going to go lightweight, I say do it all the way (ie Dynafits and Scarpa Spirits or the like) or not at all (ie Naxos/Freerides and Mega Rides/Denalis). You can likely pick up some cheap Naxo nx02s (DIN to 10) or nx01s (discontinued now, DIN to 12). For the most part I'd say broaden your perspective on skis. Also, I've skied both and vastly prefer Naxos to Fritschi Freerides. The Naxos are torsionally stiffer and have a much lower stack height. Both good things IMO. Here're my setup(s): www.vanillawinter.com/skis.jpg

I was up to about 7k feet yesterday skiing. I imagine it's about the same all the way up to the snow line from the last storm before this one (10k feet or so I think it turned out to be?). Here's my assessment (from an email I sent some buddies) as a backcountry skier: It's 6-8" of super light snow on top of a thick (2-4") raincrust, with dense consolidated snow underneath the crust. Didn't dig too much deeper since the crust is super bomb proof, slides will be on top of it, it seems unlikely that it is going to slide due to skier/climber activity (IMHO of course). The last snow event (that dropped the 6-8") came with pretty light winds, so there's the usual loading on lee slopes, but nothing extreme. As long as you're not above cliff bands or anything else, you ought to be alright. The snow on top didn't seem like it slabbed up on the few aspects I skied. That said, if you're skiing, manage your slough carefully since it doesn't take much to push this snow off the rain crust.

Being anywhere near avy prone slopes in WRC or on Wy'east right now is insanely stupid. It's pouring rain all the way up to like 8,000 feet, on top of a snowpack that has at least three different rain crusts in it. The precip is supposed to switch to snow with high winds in the coming days, leaving lots of loaded slopes on top of a rain crust. Give this snowpack a bit to consolidate before you start planning any missions...

Not true. We rode up the Cascade and tried skinning from there and a patroller became apoplectic. Obviously. If you ride a lift you're NOT ALLOWED to leave the boundaries. It's a liability issue. Meadows is legally responsible for you, even if you leave their boundaries, after you've utilized their lift. On the other hand, if you had skinned up to the top of Cascade and then headed over into White River, there would be no issue. If you were clever you would consider riding the lift up, skiing down Texas Trail to the trees, putting skins on, and then skinning up the 150 yards or so. That way everyone wins. Except this is still technically wrong and you should definitely not do it.

You can still ski down to the old snowpark, and cross Hwy 35 to the White River East snowpark. Or you can use the BSA lodge parking lot. There are plenty of options for a car shuttle drop off point if you want.

You're permitted to ski in Meadows' special use permit area as much as you please, provided you stay in the areas that are open to all skiers. For instance, if Superbowl is closed (as it is most of the year, until they open the cat shuttle from Cascade to the top of Superbowl), you are not allowed to ski it, whether or not you've purhchased a lift ticket or used a Meadows lift. The reasoning is that Meadows needs to be able to enforce closures to all people (customers and BCers alike) within their terrain. There is a Hood River County ordinance (the precise one escapes me) that permits the sheriff to fine you if you violate resort closures but are not a customer. On the other hand, you are allowed to skin up and leave the Meadows boundary at will, as long as you didn't use a lift, and do not ski any of the closure areas in the resort.

Meadows patrollers would be incensed if you skied into Superbowl from Wy'east. Whether it was safe and stable or not. Which is why the typical ski out is down White River canyon, to the snow park at the bottom, where you've setup a car shuttle. Not that I've ever done this ski descent or anything...

You can get fined by the HR Sheriff if you descend into any of the territory which belongs to Mt Hood Meadows (top of Superbowl) while the area is closed to Meadows skiers. Which would pretty much only happen if you were to trigger a slide that came down into their territory or something, but the point remains. I think the hassles of dealing with the patrolers at Meadows and whatnot are why most people leave from Timberline.

All my typical partners are bogged down with work, or have already taken off for the holidays. I just got a new touring rig and really want to get out and put it through its paces, and we've gotten a fair amount of recent precip. Anyone interested in a White River Canyon tour starting early Friay AM? Open to other suggestions on where to go as well...

I'll ignore the personal dig about what sort of training I need and tackle the bigger issue here, I'd just caution you to not presume you know anything about my experience, knowledge, or preparedness. It's obvious that the first, and most important, step towards avalanche saftey is avalanche avoidance, but there's absolutely no reason that I can think of, or has been proposed, that beacons are a hinderence. If you have the time to be in the back country climbing/skiing/mountaineering, you have the hour or so per season to spend reacquainting yourself with your beacon. I haven't proposed any sort of reliance upon beacons, but it seems that beyond being an important team self rescue tool, it can be a tremendous aid to SAR teams, whether for rescue or recovery. I'm honestly stunned at how offended the tone is in many of these posts to even propose that climbers would equip themselves with beacons.

Unless the beacons are giving you a false sense of security (possible, but totally mental, and something that needs to be avoided), I can't imagine that you'd have been "better off" without them. They're small and unobtrusive, so I don't really understand what negitive effect they could have beyond the mental aspect. Would you care to elaborate? After I got buried last year (not in the PNW) I began skiing with mine nearly every day, in bounds and out.

Yeah, I understand that SAR work in a resort is completely different. I was just stating that they're often used in situations where it's very unlikely that the victim was wearing one. This is done because it is so helpful and time saving in the unlikely event the victim was wearing a beacon. Beacons aren't heavy, nor cumbersome. I was just wondering if they were standard climbing gear or not. Seems that the answer is "mostly not."

I know that SOP for first responders to any sort of avalanche in bounds at resorts is to search for beacon signals.