dotter

Trip: Mt. Maude - N. Face Date: 3/24/2010 Trip Report: Trip: Mt. Maude, N. Face Ski Descent Trip Date: 3/23-25/2010 I’d been drooling over Scurlock’s photo looking down the N. Face of Maude for a while. With a weather window and Spring Break just getting going, I decided to give it a go. I tried to get an early start Tuesday, which was complicated by the previous night’s celebration to the end of the quarter. “Spring Break, 2010. Whatcom County ed. Show us your tits!” I also had to cut skins and get bindings on my new Dynafit Stokes (which, apparently you can eff up, even with the idiot proof, DYI binding inserts). Loaded my sled and was on the road to Fish Lake by 1230 and skinning by 1800. Reached camp in the upper Leroy Creek basin around 2130. My planned 0600 departure time got pushed back by couple hours and by 1000 I was on the col between Seven Fingered Jack and Maude. The snowpack was a huge concern, with reports of buried surface hoar lingering from a few weeks ago. Encouraged by reports of improving stability on N slopes, I poked around just below the saddle. Finding moderate, resistant planar results within the top 10 cm and hard, resistant, planar results on a layer down 40 cm. There was no natural activity and all the test failures I produced did not seem to have much energy. It seemed like surface sloughing would be my main concern. I traversed out further onto the face, now seriously exposed over some very large cliffs. I dug another pit and found even less energy in the snowpack. This was my turn around point. If I kept going, I would be committing myself to massive unsupported faces for an extended period of time. I proceeded on what was probably the most harrowing traverse I have ever made. I felt absolutely tiny and vulnerable in this terrain. After dropping about 300’ to 7,900’, the bootpacking began. No need for crampons, since I was wallowing through balls deep powder. Two hours later I was 40’ from the summit ridge, which is guarded by very large cornices. In reading some trip reports, I kept reading about” the Death Cornice” on the N. Face of Maude. I’m not sure exactly which cornice was being referenced, because there are quite a few this time of year and they all looked quite deadly. To gain the ridge required sneaking between two spines, up a desperate, 55 degree gully of facets. I ended up digging a trench with my Whippet to find something resembling solid snow and eventually crested the ridge. On the summit I saw Scott and Erik’s tracks down the SW side (click here for TR) from their one day endeavor the previous weekend. My plan had been to cut a chunk of cornice onto my line, but given the fact I had just spent 2.5 hours on the face made me feel pretty good about stability. Nonetheless, I buried my skis, self-belayed to the edge of the summit and found myself staring down my line: a deep, 45-50 degree couloir that dropped 500’ before opening onto the lower faces of Maude. Across from me was a perfect entrance that required a 10’ rappel. For shits and giggles I dropped a chunk of cornice that just tumbled down the slot, leaving a trail of potholes in the soft snow. Looked like good skiing. I rapped in off a 24” chunk of buried bamboo and some 6mm cord. The couloir skied great, I had minimal slough to manage and was able to link turns all the way down. After exiting, I made a traversing descent to the east, picking my way through cliff bands. I decided to ski to the base of Seven Fingered Jack and access the col from there, rather than skinning up my down track and exposing myself to the lower cliffs again. This added 1,000’ of fun skiing… and not so fun slogging. I made it back to camp around 1700. I considered packing up and heading out, but the isothermal sludge that had developed through the day would not have been fun to manage with a full pack in the dark. Rather, I cooked a leisurely meal and turned in early. I was back to my car by 1230 the next day. I can’t technically claim a winter descent since I missed the vernal equinox by a few days. But, it was an amazing ski in winter conditions. Still having trouble getting pics to load to this site... sorry. A few on TAY: http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=16140.0 Gear Notes: Ski Stuff, Dual Whippets, bamboo, 40m 6mm, quick link Approach Notes: Sled to Phelps Creek TH, Leroy Creek to SF Jack-Maude Col.

You have Forest to thank for the track. He broke all day, the guy's a beast. That must have been Liz and Chris you saw. We just missed you in that case. Glad you got out to enjoy the day.

Trip: Mt. Shuksan - White Salmon Ascent- Hanging Glacier Ski Date: 3/6/2010 Trip Report: Trip Date: 3/6/2010 Route: Hanging Glacier, Mt. Shuksan. Ski Descent (Will add pics to post later. For now links below should work) http://picasaweb.google.com/danotter/HangingGlacierMarch72010# http://picasaweb.google.com/danotter/HangingGlacier# The trip came together as many do. Chris and Liz e-mailed me early in the week, saying they were thinking of coming up Saturday to ski the White Salmon. Aaron was on the fence. I had snapped a photo of the Hanging Glacier a couple of weeks prior and sent it out as motivation, hoping to plant a seed that would turn a White Salmon trip into something bigger. Aaron was in. The weather window was perfect. We had a team of four, so we could split up if we wanted to go for different objectives. Friday night I got a call from Forest. “I heard you’re going to ski the White Salmon tomorrow. Can I join?” I told him that our plans had evolved. We had talked about skiing the Hanging on a previous trip, so of course Forest was in. “OK, we’ll pick you up around 3am.” Chris, Liz and Aaron showed up Friday night. I asked what time they wanted to get going. “I was thinking early” said Chris. When I suggested a 2:45 departure, he said “I was thinking early as in like 6”. It didn’t take to much convincing that it would be worth it to get an ueber-alpine start. Just in case, I made eggs for everyone in the morning in an effort to ease any lingering resentment. We arrived at the White Salmon lot and unloaded the car next to a red van with skis and a pack next to it. If the occupant of the van is reading this, we apologize. Upon lining up our skis, we realized we had an appropriate quiver for the day’s objective: 4 sets of Shuksans and a pair of Bakers. We descended the clear cut below Chair 8, sideslipping the first half, then donning ‘poons to handle the mossy down-climb through the woods. Within an hour we were at the valley floor and skinning. It started getting light as we approached the bottom of the White Salmon. After we cleared the debris and the slope angle began to steepen, the snow turned to boot-deep recycled powder- perfect. The higher up the White Salmon we climbed, the greater the temptation to simply ski a 3,000’ powder run. But then I would look up at the Hanging and regain my focus. We kept waiting for the snow to develop a sun skin, but apparently it was protected enough and the snow stayed good all the way to the top of the White Salmon. If the Hanging was holding the same snow, this was going to be good. We cruised up Hell’s Highway and up to the summit. This was my first time on the summit of Shuksan and it was great to be able to ski off the tippy top. There wasn’t a breath of wind and the snow on the south side was getting baked pretty quickly, so we ripped our skins and skied off the summit pyramid. Chris and Liz were at the bottom of the gully. They decided to head down the White Salmon to enjoy the powder. I was jealous. Forest and Aaron are workhorses and I was struggling to keep up with them. From the bottom of the pyramid we took a high traverse to the left across the Crystal Glacier. With minimal sidestepping and booting, we popped up and over onto the top of the Hanging Glacier. And the snow was good. Really good. Probably the best snow I’ve skied since November. We accessed the broken up portion of the Hanging on the skier’s right side and made beautiful, fall-line turns down the gut of the glacier. Skiing below massive seracs, exposed to a fatal fall over an ice cliff is a lot less nerve-wracking when you’re skiing hero-powder on a bluebird day. One more leftward traversing pitch later, we were next to the terminus of the Hanging Glacier and we had to make a choice. Do we drop left and exit through a chute and down a slab off to the side of the Hanging or do we drop right, and take the more aesthetic line right under the ice cliff? We chose right and I dropped in first. I side-slipped a ways and crossed to the right side of the ice cliff, trying to get a view of what was below. All I could see was rocks covered in ice. It didn’t look good. Maybe we could rig a v-thread, but it looked as though we would have to rap again lower down. The entire slope had ripped out and the only snow left was on the far right and it looked thin. The exposure was too much for me. I called up to Forest and Aaron that I was thinking of coming back up. But a little voice kept creeping into my head: “What if it does go? We don’t know what the other side looks like. Maybe that doesn’t go. What if this does go and you make the wrong call?” I had an internal debate, the glacial wall towering 100’ above me, pressure building every second. Finally I said “I don’t feel comfortable making this call, guys. Unless someone wants to come down and check this out, I’m coming out.” I feel bad for being indecisive and exposing another member of our party to icefall. This was a learning experience for me. Aaron skied down further than I had been to where the rocks rolled over into nasty, icy gullies. After a minute poking around the snow on the right he called up “I don’t like it. I’m coming out.” To save time, Forest took off down the left hand chute to rig a rap if needed. I waited for Aaron. A few minutes later I heard Forest yell “It goes!” A few more minutes had passed as I watched Aaron climb up towards me, when I heard Forest call “Come down here” “Aaron’s almost here! Two minutes!” I replied. When we finally skied down the chute 45 degree chute and saw Forest with his skis on his back. He had hit a patch of ice, tumbled, lost his poles and climbed back up to warn Aaron and me. We proceeded to sideslip down the 50+ degree slope, trying to avoid knocking snow on Forest. As the slope mellowed we made a few last nice turns down the apron. After a fruitless effort looking for Forest’s poles we schussed to the valley floor and prepared to do some extreme moss cramponing. While transitioning, Chris and Liz showed up and we all slogged up the final slope together. Time: 12:30 car to car Gear Notes: Gear Notes: 3 x 30m rope (to maintain flexibility of group), 2 screws, glacier kit, crampons, axe, second tool, skis, ski crampons. Approach Notes: Approach: Dropping the clear cut below Chair 8 is the way to go. Descend snow on right side of clear cut as long as is comfortable. Switch to crampons and head through woods, tending right, but not too hard.

OK, figured out the pic posting thing. If you look really close at some of the images you can see tracks. [img:center]http://cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/500/medium/IMG_1209.JPG[/img]

Thanks for the heads up. I'm new to this whole posting deal, so thanks for bearing with me.

yep, 100mm. Nice catch

While shadowing a Level 1 Avy course Saturday at Baker, I kept looking across the valley at an enticing peak. My feet finally got so numb I decided to shirk my professional responsibilities and go skiing on Sunday. My objective was the pyramidal face east of Goat Mountain. It doesn't appear to have a name on the Topo! map set, but it is an aesthetic peak to any skier's eye. If anyone knows a name for this tour, please let me know. I left the car at Goat Mountain TH around 5:30 am. For lack of a last minute partner and the presence of a bomber snowpack, i decided to go for a solo mission. I encountered consistent snow a little under 1,000' up (forgot my watch, so no exact numbers) and switched to ski boots. The snow was firm enough and there were a few tracks, so the skis stayed on the pack until I emerged from the tress and the snow became punchy. I was treated to great views of Shuksan NF and nice alpenglow on the Bakerhorn. Some mellow traversing east on skis brought me to the base of the face. As usual, the pitch was shallower than it appears from head-on from Baker, but still looked like fun. I booted up the W ridge and encountered strong winds and great vies on the summit at 10:30. A firm wind crust with thin rain crusts in spots made for easy climbing, but I still put on my crampons. I was able to "ski" off the summit, which basically entailed side slipping water ice and navigating between fully rimed-up trees. The face is split into two main gullies that each choke down to their own exit. Both sides went, so I skied the central rib, looking for the softest wind buff, before side slipping 50 degree ice out the skier's right exit. I didn't have to be back in town until 3:00, so I decided to take another lap and skied the left gully, making it a more consistent, fall line run. Again, the exit was bullet proof ice, but manageable (though I wish i had something smaller than 100mm [edit] underfoot). By cutting a high traverse back towards Goat Mountain, I was able to avoid putting on skins and encountered some nice recycled powder on some of the lower, protected slopes. On the descent I was lured off the trail into an open snowfield. This saved me a few minutes initially, but then entailed some heinous schwacking to get out. I ended up about 1 mile down the road from the TH. I had ditched my shoes on the trail, but didn't have the time or energy to hike another 1,000'in ski boots to retrieve them. Car to car time: 8.5 hours. Gear Notes: PM Gear Bro 179 skis, Whippet (big fan), ski crampons, alu crampons, fatty thermos of coco w/ butter, 2 L h2o, Gu, cookies. Not sure how to post pics. Any help?