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Just ice-cliff glacier with a visiting East coastie friend. I have some pics if you're interested.

From the stuart lake trail on 5/5 the NW face of dragontail looked like it had much snow and lots of ice - ie. TC runnels still looking very white and filled. At this point I think the first warm temps are only going to make things icier on that face.

Too early? No. For the NF routes I would look to be climbing them as soon as White River TH opens - pending good weather and conditions. As far as the "snow slog" approach. Are you trying to avoid walking on snow? Kinda hard to avoid on Rainier. If White River is open many people will be heading in to climb Lib Ridge = tracks. Even more people will be hiking into Schurman = mega tracks into glacier basin. You'll have a good chance of having a boot pack all the way to the Carbon so I'd lean towards leaving the snowshoes behind unless there is lots of new recent snowfall (and if that's the case then there might be other issues to worry about). As for June conditions. Hard to tell although I think it's looking like we might have a season like last, where there was plenty of snow on the NF routes into July (enough for folks to ski Lib Ridge), as opposed to the warm spring we had in '09 where there was lots of bare ice by the end of May.

Have a friend who's interested in the N side of Hood soon. Only time I was there it was much earlier in the season, low snow, and we could drive up to the start of the Tilly Jane trail. Was wondering if anyone had any info as to the driveability of the road right now - where the snow is at, how far could a chained FW car possibly go, where is the best place to stash one's beer, etc? Only info I found was on the Mt Hood NF site which just mentioned the road as "closed". thanks!

I think this has been covered in other threads but just another reminder when using a skinny tag line and also feeding it through the ATC - the thinner line will travel through the ATC faster than the fatter line. If you let it slip through the knot on the rap point will keep moving down and you will reach the end of the skinny line much quicker than expected. If rappelling through a small point (rap ring, chain-link, or a knotted loop on a rap-sling) make sure to put the thick rope through the rap point and tie a big-enough joining knot to have it jam against the point. If you can't do that or are unsure that your knot will jam then tie an overhand on a bight on the skinny rope and clip this to the thick rope, like this:

I've used a 5mm tag line a few times now. Most times it has worked fine with 9.*mm and 8.*mm ropes. Tied with EDK, backed up by another EDK inline. One thing that was learned fast was that I could not toss the tag line like you would a thicker rope (rope!). Instead I've flaked the rope at the rappel anchor and had the 2nd to rappel feed and tend the rope to the 1st rappeler as needed. I would imagine that you'd get the same result or better if you had the rope flaked with you and fed it as you rappelled. I've used the 5mm tag line for ice cragging this winter and on Infinite Bliss.

Trundling with balls [video:youtube]

just amazing!

Heard part of your story about this trip, cool to read the whole thing. The climb looks awesome!! Great read!

I saw a sign/billboard for these guys when we were driving away from Robson past Valemount - this town is as close as you can get to the park, ~30min: http://www.robsonhelimagic.com/ edit: Looks like Yellowhead also bases out of Valemount

15 or one before last looks like Canary

That looks like an awesome good time!! Nice work!

Wow, real great set of pictures!

Funny, we had no idea there was a contest going on. Good luck suckas, we got Odin on our side!!

Those are some really nice pictures! You guys don't mess around!

Nastia... something else Nice job you two!!

Me like

Nice!! That's it, I'm there!

Only once did we see a party on a climb we wanted to try out, and we just walked a few hundred feet down the canyon and climbed some other awesome climb with no one on it instead. I wouldn't say it was crowded, but as expected from a developed popular ice climbing area. It seemed like traffic was concentrated to a handful of classic routes.

Thanks V for the report Just wanted to reiterate how awesome Norway is for ice climbing. I once thought the CA Rockies were the final stop for an ice climber looking for the biggest, baddest lines. The amount of visible and accessible huge 400m+ lines we saw just driving around made me think otherwise. Rjukan was just a small slice from a huge pie. On the walk over to Trappfoss we passed at least 6 ice lines - 3 5s, one 4, some 3s, one 6. All could be linked up in a long day if you so wanted to. This was just one area of this canyon, in one area of Rjukan. Everything very accessible, all very fat, many beautiful lines. The hardest part of this trip for us were the drives to different areas. Not because they were long, or slow speed limits, winding... it was because you see so much ice so close that it just becomes painful after a while to keep passing flow after flow and not climb it!! And we're not talking just dinky flows from roadcuts, we're saying consistently seeing big put-weeping-wall-to-shame ice. Again, we only saw a very small portion of the country. Having started my climbing in the granite state I will agree that Norway is as much a winter wonderland as NH. Consistent cold temps, low humidity make wonderful fat ice climbing and a good lengthy season! Not much snowfall but what falls stays dry and sticks around. Climbing ice in Norway is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend a trip

Nice send, dudes!!

Right on Dustin! I would venture to say that it would be in excellent condition this weekend. http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.48194469821279&lon=-120.83106994628906&site=otx&smap=1&unit=0&lg=en&FcstType=text

The cat laps it up! Nice going, Kev-o!!

Nice, Josh! +1 for skiing off

I'm not entirely convinced it is recent and there is no date posted. I'd call the NPS station in Marblemount to double check. Always in favor of talking with the rangers for up-to-date info, although I would certainly take the bold red writing mentioning yesterday's date as pretty intentional and recent... as of yesterday