hefeweizen

Nice TR! I think that's a "hidden in plain sight" wilderness gym in the PNW. +1 for the ski mission someday...

Bravo! Great linkup. IMHO the most efficient route from the top of Acid Baby to Prusik would be to drop straight down towards Isolation Lake from the top of Asgard Sentinel and get on the trail. Eliminate all the dead end slab scrambling.

Nice John! We saw you guys on the Roan as we were walking out. We had thought about doing Center Stage that day but deemed it too hot for our tender toes. We did do the walk off, you definitely want to go west off the summit until it's obviously non-technical to descend south. As long as you do that it's chill.

Trip: Darrington - Flight of the Falcon 5.10b/c Trip Date: 06/18/2018 Trip Report: There is plenty of information available about this route, both on this website and in Cascades Rock. Nothing has changed regarding approach details or the route itself. Some of the "dry" creekbeds that are recommended during the approach had running water in them, but were drying up as we were exiting. Also, the entire basin below Salish is still snow-filled. The snow was soft for us and there was no need for ice axes/crampons. We did fine in approach shoes. We found the climbing to be spectacular, fun, and well protected. One note: if you aren't psyched on the "dirty 5.8 slot" that is described as the second to last pitch (pitch 8 if you want to summit, which of course you do) it can easily be bypassed on the climber's left by low 5th class, bushy, protectable cracks. Pitch 2, with Three Fingers Peak in background: The impressive Waterfall Basin, with the huge bivy boulder in the center: Gear Notes: Singel rack to 3" was good, 12 QD's, 2 60 meter ropes if you are going to rap. Approach Notes: A good sense of humor and attention to detail will serve you well.

Dynafit TLT 7 Performance- $500 -BRAND NEW in the box! -Size 26.0, BSL 283mm -2017/18 model, Dynafit's premier ultralight ski mountaineering boot Volkl Nanuq 185 w/ Dynafit Radical ST bindings, G3 skins, and Voile ski crampons- $450!! - a few seasons of use on the skis, but in good condition -mounted for a size 26.5 boot Text 206-604-3155 if you're interested in anything. Buyer pays shipping or pickup at Stevens Pass or in Leavenworth.

Still in the box with the hangtags. Size 26.0 $675 + shipping or pickup in Leavenworth or Stevens Pass 206-604-3155

My wife recently (two weeks ago) encountered the sign stating that a $50 permit was required. She sent Weyerhauser an email asking for clarification and cc'd the Access Fund. She received a reply from the Access Fund indicating that they were aware of it and they had an upcoming meeting with Weyerhauser to discuss a number of areas in Washington with similar signage. Stay tuned.

Trip: Mt Blum - North Glacier Date: 7/12/2016 Trip Report: North Cascades NP conditions blog

Also, there is a daily lottery (7:30ish) at the ranger station in Leavenworth. There is at least one permit for each Enchantment zone available every morning.

Here is a link to the North Cascades National Park Conditions blog (specifically a recent post with photos of Boston Basin): NOCA Climbing Conditions page

Bump for price drop.

Awesome! Looks like a worthy journey.

I probably climbed 20 pitches in these before I accepted that they are too small. They're pretty much brand new. Pick up in Leavenworth or we can work out a mail option.

I haven't taken a course from PAG, but they have a good reputation and I know they have quality people working for them. As far as location, Hurricane Ridge would be as good as anywhere else for an L1. The curriculum you will cover depends on simply being able to access avalanche terrain, a variety of snow stratigraphy would be nice but not necessary for an L1. As far as time of year, I would error on the earlier part of the season. You will get more out of the information you learn and be able to put it into practice more frequently this season if you take the course early in the season. If you take it late, you will have limited opportunities to practice the skills you've gained. Whenever you decide to take a Level 2, focus on a location where you can see a variety of snow stratigraphy and consider doing it away from the place you normally backcountry ski.

Trip: North Cascades - Torment-Forbidden Traverse Date: 7/21/2014 Trip Report: I haven't seen any recent info on this route, so I'll throw out ours. There is plenty of blow by blow detail out there, the best I've seen is on Steph Abegg's site. I'll spare you the agonizing existential crisis that so many seem to go through as they're writing these things. We left the car at noonish on day 1, planning to get as far as we could, bivy on the route, and finish it off the next day. Getting on Torment was pretty easy, there is a moat but it's quite reasonable, especially given what you deal with on the rest of the route. We climbed the South Ridge version, which was straightforward. The rap off the north side of Torment was only slightly problematic. We sent the first person (me) straight into the moat, which was easy to climb back out of, and then I was able to tension to rope enough to get my diminutive (although she thinks she's huge) future wife straight over the moat and onto snow. Some more moat shenanigans got us back onto the ridge crest, where we simuled to what Kearney describes as the first good bivy, which is just before the steep snow/ice traverse. Looking at the traverse from our bivy in the morning. As you can see in the photo, there had been recent avalanche activity. Probably during the nuclear hot spell mid-July. We weren't psyched on traversing the snow with the equipment we had (aluminum sharps, one axe each, no screws) so we followed the variation that Steph Abegg describes which stays on the rock, does one rappel to the south side of the ridge, and follows a long ledge system to a col where one can easily regain the ridge. While this helped us avoid the snow, it did take a while. From there it's all sunshine and unicorns, except that it was raining. Fortunetly the rock dramatically improves and the route finding gets more straightforward. We cruised across the aesthetic ridge, arriving at the West Ridge notch. It had stopped raining just long enough to sucker us into finishing the thing off by dashing up the West Ridge. Having never climbed this "50 Classic", I felt it would be a shame to come all this way and bail down the colouir. Plus neither one of us wanted to have to do the first part of the traverse again, so up we went in rain gear. We found a few of these "new" blue sling rap anchors on the way back down the route. I think we did 5 rappels, some down climbing, and some traversing. The West Ridge coulior was reasonable to rappel with one 60 meter rope. The moats in there are huge and the shrund-type feature midway up is likely fully open by now. We continued to plod along, enjoying the best weather of the day during our lovely hike out. Marblemount really needs a 24 hour food option. Gear Notes: Aluminums, 2 pickets, one axe each. Glad we had the pickets to protect some of the moat stuff. I wore mountain boots all the way to the notch.

What variation of this system are you using out of curiosity?

Here is the direct link to the Emmons route conditions from the climbing ranger blog.

Lowell- You are correct. This is on the NE glacier on Snowfield. We descended from one col east of the main one (east of the summit) on that side. A beautiful fall line! Tvash- Yes, we descended through that basin. It involved the obvious long skier's right to left traverse, some engaging downhill turns, and a sidestep or five.

Trip: North Cascades - Isolation Traverse Date: 3/23/2013 Trip Report: Not a typo, we were capitalizing on the fine conditions the Isolation had to offer these past few days as well. I think Forest's comment when we met them at the rappel was, "They're gonna have to rename this thing!" It was great to share beta and conversation with some fine folks out there. We pretty much followed the classic route that Skoog describes here with a few small variations. We opted for the Sibley Pass approach to the western edge of the Eldorado Glacier that Nelson mentions. While quite long, it did afford us a higher start than skinning up the CRR. We were able to drive about two miles up the Hidden Peak (Lakes?) road and skin from the car. Our first night was on the Eldo. The next morning we continued on the normal route. Great skiing conditions abounded on pretty much every turn. The beauty of this traverse is that just following the route gets you great fall line descents, and that's not to mention the abundance of ski lines just a pack drop away. We chose to check out the NW cirque off Pyramid as well, and found heads up turns in great snow. This was our other deviation from the route Skoog describes. It would have been a comfortable 3 day trip, but we stuck around on the Neve for a day to enjoy some great skiing. All in all the exit was very smooth for a North Cascades adventure. Thanks Phil, Ryan, and my lovely lady Sam for the great trip. Approach Notes: Sibley Pass approach is long, avalanche prone, and very scenic.

I have two of last year's BCA Float 30 packs. They are in great shape, I'm buying a bigger one to carry all my bombs. $400 each. (retail for a Float 32 with cylinder is $725) See this post for photos. PM or 206-604-3155. Located in Leavenworth, but I'll be at Stevens Pass on Saturday and Sunday, and periodically to the Wet side in the next few weeks.

It seemed like the other true north faces in the area had a similar amount of snow above about 8 grand. There was a rather large furry creature that I threw some rocks at.

Trip: Mt. Goode - NE Buttress Date: 9/12/2012 Trip Report: This is one of the coolest mountain climbs I've done. If you're looking for strictly "multi-pitch traditional rock climbing", don't come here. If you want alpinism, this route delivers. Especially this time of year. There's plenty of info out there, I mostly wanted to let folks know that the upper half of the route has a meaningful amount of snow on it from last Sunday/Monday's system. A survey of nearby north faces showed the same above 8,000'. It's probably not going to melt this year. We cruised the lower half of the route quickly, but we were significantly slowed down on the upper half by snow. We bivied on the summit which is one of the best bivy sites anywhere. Climbing the Goode Glacier. Upper third of the route. Beautiful sunrise on the summit with smoke filled valleys below. Gear Notes: Small alpine rack to 2", we were happy to have two ice screws and an ice tool each for dealing with the Goode Glacier. Approach Notes: We went in via Lake Chelan/Stehekin, which I feel had several advantages over the Hwy 20 approach. -shorter -no penalty elevation loss -allows you to carry-over and descend out the Park Creek drainage, rather than either an even longer hike or dealing with the Goode/StormKing Col. -you get to see the unique commuinity of Stehekin and eat at the bakery.

When I did the North Ridge a few weeks ago, we went in on the afternoon of day 1, over Long's Pass, and bivied at the bottom of the Cascadian at the enormous campground near the Ingalls Creek trail. We did the route on day 2, descending the Cascadian to our bivy and cold beer. The 3rd day, we woke up early and hiked out. Back in Leavenworth by noon. Although this itinerary technically took 3 days, it's still only 48 hours. It was pretty comfortable and avoids the backtrack up to Ingalls Lake, which I've done before and been bummed. Descending the Cascadian while there was still some snow in it made it pretty nice, way less scree.

Mt. Rainier conditions by NPS climbing rangers

Bump for a few more photos added.