AlpinWeiss

Skiing some fun terrain in the Canadian Rockies, outside the Icefall Hut

Kangtega lies beneath a stupa en route to Everest Base Camp

When I lived in Georgia I always thought the Dixie Cragger was a pretty good guidebook. Perhaps a little outdated these days, but I recall it had plenty in it for Mt. Yonah.

Alpine: Scenic: Skiing:

I'm heading with my younger brother to the Dave Matthews concert at the Gorge this weekend and was hoping to get some climbing in as well. Has anyone climbed at Vantage during the concert weekend - is it a total sh*t show to be avoided at all costs or not too bad?

Trip: Mt. Baker - North Ridge Climb, Coleman Deming Ski Date: 8/15/2010 Trip Report: Inspired by recent trip reports of this route we headed up it on Sunday. It's a beautiful route with some great alpine aesthetics. The wildflowers are out in force on Heliotrope which makes for some pretty camping. I'll keep this brief since there are other TRs with more detail: The "Hourglass" couloir which provides the shortcut route to the face has a big bergschrund open these days. It's probably possible to get around it but it looks sketchy. We took another shortcut just a little further towards the ridge which involved a little loose rock but saved a ton of time over going all the way to the lower part of the ridge: Up high the ice was ok: some good stuff, some slurpee consistency. There's a pitch an a half (90m) of real ice if you go the left (aka easy) variation. From there it's all snow. We left at 4am, were at the base of the ridge at 7:30 and the base of the ice at 10:30. Summitted at 2pm and skied down on soft corn. The ski down the CD was great - I had been starting to forget how much I like skiing. We took off the skis for to get over a little rock on Pumice ridge but otherwise skied straight to camp at 6,000'. There's some fun skiing over little crevasses down below Colfax. Gear Notes: We took 6 screws and used 5 of them (3 on pitch + anchor) - depending on your confidence on ice you could take more or less. Picket anchor on top of 2nd pitch. Approach Notes: Skis + boots on the back = heavy

Trip: Colchuck - NE Couloir Date: 5/23/2010 Trip Report: My buddy Clint was in town this weekend and we wanted to get on some steep snow/ice in preparation for an upcoming trip to Peru. Since the weather wasn't great we headed out east to Colchuck. We left a map or any route description at home so the only beta we had was the very sparse Becky description we read before we left Seattle. I also left the watch in the tent to add to adventure. On our way up we heard from numerous people that a party on Saturday had been "ejected" from the couloir due to cornice fall. I'm still not sure how you can be kicked out of this thing without death or significant injury, but apparently they were alright. We had nothing fall on us and were fortunately under clouds for most of the climb, until it cleared as we topped out. We headed up the route and found deepish snow (boot penetration of 8" or so) and ice with a thin coating of snow in bits. Most of the snow was in good shape except for a few bits at the top with disconcertingly unconsolidated snow and nothing for good pick placements. We soloed almost the whole route except for the traverse out right just before the top which had some of the aforementioned marginal snow. We roped for the traverse and put in a knifeblade to protect it (pickets would be close to worthless). We up-roped and finished up the climb and short scramble to the summit. There aren't really any rest spots on the route and it's pretty consistent grade for the whole thing. It steepens for the last traverse pitch - Becky calls it 60 degrees, but it felt more like 70-75 to me. Descent down the Colchuck Glacier was uneventful. Would have been great skiing up high yesterday as I'm sure many folks can attest to. ~2/3 of the way up: Post Traverse: Our party topping out (photo courtesy of zoroastr): Gear Notes: Used one picket and 3 knifeblades (two for a belay), a 30m rope. Approach Notes: Mostly snow (would be mostly miserable to ski though) on the approach. The Lake was walkable on Sunday if you chose your entrance/exit carefully, but is pretty close to being done for the season.

I just skied the new Justice skis on Saturday at Crystal. I thought they skied very well, the rocker tip keeps you above the snow no matter what and they're completely fine on groomers/hardpack (although obviously not at home there). I haven't skied a dedicated powder ski like the Megawatts, but in powder I don't think the Justice will disappoint. I have the 175cm length (I generally like shorter skis) and they're very nimble, but I feel like I'm mounted too far forward at boot-center. It's no problem in the powder, but makes edging on harder stuff a little trickier. I'll probably have them remounted 2cm back or similar - something to consider if you get a pair.

I thought I'd ask the collective wisdom on the forum here for a recommendation. Thanks in advance! I started bouldering a lot more this past Fall and was feeling pretty good about my climbing. I didn’t have any “event” where I injured anything but right before the holidays noticed two of my fingers on my left hand got a bit sore even after just a few problems. I gave gym climbing a rest for a few months, but I still get pain in these fingers when I climb. It’s never sharp pain and really isn’t bad, but unpleasant enough that I figure something is wrong. I’d like to find someone to take a look. Does anyone have a recommendation? Andrew

Was up that was this weekend. You can drive easily to the junction with FS Road 9703 (just past 29 Pines). From there it's solidly covered in snow (well packed though) all the way to Esmerelda (8-9 miles). There were some folks in a setup 4Runner and studded tires that made it roughly 2 miles from the TH, but any normal vehicle wouldn't make it nearly that far.

There's a set of stairs at the end of Fulton Street (down to Dexter) just South of the Fremont bridge... pretty decent length. Also I thought this list was useful to visualize so I compiled it into a map (I left out anything south of QA or West Seattle): http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&encType=1&cid=22AEA83DC07DF071!126

Nice work on the art! I'd love to get a poster.

As someone who's been up Stuart a few times after cold rain events I can say that it's pretty likely that there will be some fairly significant rime ice on the west ridge, it'll probably get worse as you swing around to the north side of the mountain for the final pitches. I can say that from the col by Long John Tower even with ice challenges you can rap/downclimb the route with a single 60m rope. So you can likely get up there without things getting too committing.

Yep there were a couple of sizable icebergs in the lake down there. The snow finger to West Mac was in okay shape - didn't go up too high, but it's easy to move onto the rock when the snow peters out. Big fan of the new Cilogear 60L pack too, carried great up to camp and stripped down well for the climb .

Trip: Southern Pickets - WR, West McMillan and East Ridge, Inspiration Date: 9/2/2009 Trip Report: My buddy Clint was in town from California and the weather in the Bugaboos looked a little menacing so we changed plans and headed to the Southern Pickets with a week’s worth of food and a bunch of gear. We made short work of the approach in 7.5 hours with 55+ lb packs and setup camp Monday evening. The next day we scrambled up West McMillan Spire to get a lay of the land and scope the approach to Inspiration. We reconn’d a route that looked like it’d go up the glacier to the approach to inspiration and found a good way between camp and the glacier for the approach. Inspiration from W Mac, you can see the crux pitch below the false summit That evening we met up with another party that had come in to do the E.R. of Inspiration as well. We got started at 4:30a and led the way through the approach over wet slabs and through the darkness and fog (this added some excitement to the morning for sure). Pretty soon we broke out over a sea of clouds and headed up to the glacier. A little bit of bare glacier ice and a narrow ramp got us up to the upper glacier where we weaved through crevasses to the base of the rock. The moat was most easily passable on the right side of the gulley and I took the first lead weaving around and finding the easiest terrain to a large ledge (I made full use of double-rope technique here). After gaining the ledge it was easy scrambling on grassy ledges, loose rock and scree for ~2.5 pitches. There was almost no pro available here so we simuled on a full 60 meters. The gulley comes to a head below a large chockstone and we set the belay 50 feet below that. Clint led an airy 5.8+ pitch left and up to the ridge proper. The next pitch was 5.7 and blocky, but had some stout moves in it to reach a ledge below the crux. From here the crux pitch looks magnificent! I continuous 5.9 handcrack bisects a steep (85 degress per Beckey) face leading to the false summit. Clint took this lead and did a magnificent job. I followed with the heavy pack full of boots and ice gear on my back which certainly made the pitch more strenuous. From the top of the crux a full pitch on easy ground leads around to the right of the belay and up to base of the false summit, another wildly exposed pitch goes around the South side of the false summit. From here we simuled along the ridge (easier if you stay to the right a little off of the ridge proper) to the summit. Despite the summitpost beta, the descent is straightforward (double ropes almost certainly required) with good anchors. 5-7 double rope rappels (plus a few short sections of easy scrambling) got us back to the glacier. We heard the weather was coming in Thursday so we bailed on a longer stay in the range and hiked out to spend the next few days in sunny Central Oregon at Smith Rock. East Ridge of Inspiration is a stellar route! Gear Notes: Double Ropes Single rack to #3 with doubles of #1 and #2 (could have used a double of #3 too if you want) Approach Notes: Steep!

Think we ran into you guys on the way up. We found the camera on the approach to camp. I'll send you a PM with contact info.

Didn't find any Trangos on the way in . Definitely don't regret the approach shoes - wouldn't have been worth bringing the boots for a short easy ice step and the approach shoes dry quickly enough. If I did it again I'd either bivy on the summit or carry-over. The descent back to the Goode Glacier is really long.

Trip: Mt. Goode - Northeast Buttress Date: 7/4/2009 Trip Report: Thought I'd finally post a Trip Report up here rather than just reading them: Last year Ty and I talked about Mt. Goode, but I decided I wanted to watch things blow up in the sky over Seattle instead. This year we were both on-board for the arduous trek in to my second nine-thousander which can’t be seen from any road (Mt. Logan being the other). Goode and Storm King: We got an alpine start from Seattle on Friday and started hiking down the PCT from Bridge Creek trailhead. A quick 9 miles and almost 2,000 feet of elevation lost took us to the North Fork of Bridge Creek (3hrs). We hiked up the North Fork to about 1.5 miles past Grizzly Creek (Grizzly Creek Camp is partially washed out and the trail is brushy past there). We forded the North Fork without any problems and ascended a snow slope to the approach slabs. Easy but exposed climbing up slabs lead up to header/alder slopes and into a bivvy site at 5100’. The site was nice, but infested with mosquitoes (as all of the North Fork seemed to be). Fording the North Fork of Bridge Creek: Another alpine start (4am wakeup) started us up more slabs and onto the Goode Glacier. Navigating some crevasse issues and climbing some glacier ice in aluminum crampons on sneakers (exciting) we got to the base of the NE buttress. We soloed the first pitch to the buttress crest (4th / easy 5th) and not knowing what was around the corner roped up. We ended up simul-soloing many, many pitches of 3rd and 4th class (~1000+ ft). As the buttress sharpened we started putting in some gear and simuling up easy 5th class on the wonderfully exposed buttress. The climbing here is truly excellent; very similar in style to the West Ridge of Forbidden, but A LOT more of it. Following the beta we moved right off of the buttress and into the “Black Amphitheatre.” This was supposedly the crux of the climbing (5.4) but I didn’t notice it getting any harder or easier. From the large grassy ledge we took the right arête which had some of the best climbing on the route. It’s hard to go wrong climbing on the buttress as there are many different options all of which are easy – we opted mostly to stay on the arête proper for purely aesthetic reasons. We simuled the entire route never feeling the need to pitch anything out – it’s very consistent in grade throughout (except the easier 3rd/4th sections). Getting to the Buttress: The "crux" Fantastic Ridge Climbing: I accidentally lead up to a false summit so we downclimbed a short section (25ft) and then headed up to the true summit. We made it to the summit at 1:30pm. After a short break taking in the views (you could actually see the boot-track up Eldorado from the summit) we simuled down one pitch and then made three raps until we could traverse to the “Black notch.” From there a short and easy but very exposed traverse and downclimb took us to two more rappels into the SW couloir. After that, we downclimbed a lot of loose dirty rock to a snowfield on the south side. It was a long traverse around to the Goode-Storm King Col. At the col we cleaned a lot of old nasty rap slings and added a new one before making the rappel down to the far west side of the Goode Glacier (lots of loose rock on this rappel). Some glacier routefinding took us down to the slabs and heather and back to the bivvy. (8.5 hours up. 6.5 hours down). Hiking back to the Goode-Storm King Col It’s a helluva long hike out after that. All in all a spectacular route and a magnificent mountain. It’s well worth the long approach and all the mosquito bites. More pictures up here: Gear Notes: We brought nuts, a pair of hexes and .5-3 cams. If I were doing it again I’d leave behind the #2 and #3 (some beta indicated the #3 to be very useful, we only placed it once or twice) Al Crampons, Approach Shoes, and Ice Axe Approach Notes: Long and Hot along the PCT; Lots of Mosquitoes in the North Fork. We forded the North Fork without any problems.

Thanks a lot for the info guys. It sounds like mid-June is getting a bit late for Foraker. I'm going to see if we can swing earlier in the season, but unfortunately commitments in the real world may get in the way... We'll see. Once again thanks a lot. I'll be sure to post a trip report if I do get out there.

Appreciate the offer (sounds like you were planning on Infinite Spur?). Here are a few of the things on my mind - half of which don't apply / you'd think of differently if you were descending the route, but I figured I'd throw it up anyway: 1. How long did you plan on fro the route? (did you just go with the AK standard 3 weeks?) 2. What was your plan of attack for the ridge? Alpine style straight from the Kalhitna? A double carry to the summit of Crosson? The route seems to be fairly committing given that retreat involves climbing all the way back the ridge, up Crosson, and back down the steepest parts of the route - how did y'all amange this risk? 3. What time of year did you go (we're planning mid-June)? How were the crevasses along the ridge? How were the 'crux' pitches up to Crosson (icy or just snow)? 4.Any other thoughts / comments? Thanks a lot!

I'm planning a trip out to Foraker to climb the Sultana ridge this summer and was wondering if anyone on CC.com has climbed it before. I'd love to hear some beta and ask some logistical questions, etc...

The real interesting part is here: http://www.xrez.com/yose_proj/yose_deepzoom/new/XRez%20Xtreme%20Pano/index.html It looks like it's just a map of where they took the pictures, but if you zoom in (use the scroll wheel) thumbnails appear and you can zoom near infinitely into the thumbnails. It uses Microsoft's "DeepZoom" - definitely the coolest application of this I've seen. I can see climbers on Royal Arches and the Nose