billbob

Badass TR, John, thanks for sharing! I STILL have that old Chouinard ice tool for ya...

Ivan, thanks for your patience and help. I'm casting the blame for my slowness on the heavy boots. Yeah, that's it, not my lack of fitness!

There's nothing quite like warm snow on top of ice to make for a slow descent. Add one exhausted climber. Next time I'm bringing a six-pack of beer up to the hogsback. Where's the snowpack?

delayed pic

Wx looks iffy for Sunday AM, see Intellicast Pacific Satellite

Really? Wanna sell some back? We can meet up around 1am in this abandoned warehouse, it's safe and quite sound-proof...

I'm heading up the SS tonite, looking for a partner...

In Egypt they took my spare change from my pants pocket, I was still wearing them. In Puerto Rico they took the lighters from the rental car. In Taiwan they took my credit card numbers. In China they took my money and ran out the door whilst I was showering (long story, found the girl in the same bar next night). In the US they took my stereo system, cash, cd's and drugs twice but left the radar detector?, the third time they just took the entire car. In Canada the bastards took my beer and left everything else (clothes, mostly). Moral: Canadian vandals have no ethics whatsoever, so whatever you do, do not leave beer in plain sight !

Which would you most like to climb with Ivan: This slippery 800' monolith? Or this icy windswept volcano?

There must be a ton of ice on the steeps after all the recent rain and high freeze levels. Heavy snowfalls and hopefully adhesion of the snow/ice interface are eagerly awaited by the crowds. Gotta wonder if avi potential will be significant in the near term after the eventual snows arrive...

We sure hope conditions are good, heading up that way tomorrow. Expecting thin snow, mostly ice...

Wolfgang gets stronger by the day, we are amazed at the toughness and tenacity of this guy!

Ah, but a higher class of peeps (as opposed to perps) can be found at Club Sport in Portland. You may also find that the typical vehicular traffic moves in a much more intelligent fashion compared to that of our northern neighbor... C'mon down sometime!

Just hope the forecast for this W/E holds......

- Looks like they are definitely required for this route

PM sent

Timberline Lodge has weather sensors at the 6,000' and 7,000' levels, although the upper level sensors are currently under repair...

Was walking around Crater Rock yesterday 4am-ish and noticed pretty substantial cracks in the ice slab, was wondering if anything was set to slide off into devils kitchen. Looks strange up there, not Hogsback to speak of, the whole way up I didn't see more than a trace of snow, just a ton of ice. Glad you made it back safe and sound !

...not to mention the crevasses at the bottom of the W side, prolly not filled or covered yet. Definitely requires the serious alpine start to minimize objective hazards. Temps at TLine were below freezing yesterday and last nite, warming a bit today, should freeze again tonite. We are heading up the SS tonite/tomorrow for a bit of ice climbing above the hogsback.

HW Tilman is IMHO The Man.

My bad, just read your old TR where you climbed it Nov 1 !!

1. Ascend SS, downclimb Cooper Spur, descend to Eliot glacier 2. Hike up through Elk Cove/Coe glacier / traverse left and descend to the mid Eliot glacier 3. Hope they open up the TJ trail by mid-late winter Others?

Seems a bit early in the season for TNF to shape up. December, maybe?

Key Words- "On a glacier..." Actions taken may depend on whether crevasse falls are a real possibility. Assuming you are talking about a full-on white-out as described above, where visibility is restricted to the end of your ice axe and compounded by terrain, wind, ice, snow, etc., and where crevasse falls exist, you are in a worst-case scenario. Given the challenges of crevasse rescue in good weather, imagine how you might do it in the severe shit and then think hard about the chances of surviving the shit storm by sitting it out vs. risking your life navigating around the man-eaters.

Can't say, signs are posted at the TH to stop hikers going up. As PaulO reports above, they are presently concerned with controlling damage to the TJ/CC areas since they were scorched. Tree falls may make skinning up problematic as well. Sounds like the Forest Service doesn't much care about people above the tree line.