dmTabke

Went from Chinook to Crystal last year, it was a great tour. 7 small summit long the way, hope you got good skin glue. A nice TR Kyle made from our day. http://www.whereiskylemiller.com/?p=1348

Can't push it farther back, but I skied the NW Couloir from the North Shoulder via the same line in Gaston's illustration last May. Nice work, Gaston. Sounds like you're understating the scariness to me. That traverse up high is rad! I would suggest that the North Shoulder is a very logical place to consider the line's starting point.

Some of the tape actually got me lost! I retaliated by placing a few strategic pieces leading into the middle of a huge plot of trail side Devil's Club.

Myself and two friends did a day hike last weekend up into the Brothers Wilderness in the Olympics. It was upsetting to find three large groups camped at "climbers camp," and the extremely over-flagged and cairned trail. When there are three seperate groups of perhaps ten people tromping a very obvious trench into the soft hill from which there is no way to deviate (Devil's Club, cliffs...), are huge pieces of survey tape really necessary every 20'? I think not. Take also into consideration it is a burn area up a single drainage for a short distance. It isn't complicated terrain with thick brush limiting visibility or mobility. Furthermore, wilderness regulations state that groups of 12 or more are prohibited. The groups there, as I understood, were two of Mountaineers', and one university group. Since their groups technically were separate, I suppose it could be argued they weren't violating the group size regulation, but the impact left behind would say otherwise. Maybe the groups could have communicated amongst themselves, and stronger climbers could have occupied the extremely developed campsites at Lena Lake (with outhouse). This would have required starting a couple hours earlier for their summit bid, but that would be a small price to pay for the lessened impact. Also, while resting near the deserted camps before a steep climb into the upper basin, my group noticed some unfamiliar scat. Sure enough, ten minutes later up the trail, I came across a large mountain lion. I accidentally snuck up on it and was no more than 8' away as I came over a bank of the creek, but it vanished like a cloud of smoke when it noticed me. Amazing! I assume it was poking around the climber's tents while they were away. For everyone's benefit, consider ways to lessen your impact.

Drove the Mowich Lake Road yesterday to check stuff out. Road is closed due to a minor blow-down 1.5 miles from the park entrance. Aside from a few very minor patches of snow the road is completely snow free to the entrance, but then become substantially snow covered there. It seemed like with a mountain bike you could get a few more miles out of it before giving up, but don't take my word for it. I hiked down to South Mowich River Camp, snapped a pic of Mowich face on the way. http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h164/dmtabke/_MG_6745.jpg

Trip: Hozomeen Mountain north peak - northeast face ski descent Date: 5/17/2009 Trip Report: Made the long drive from Seattle to Vancouver (to pick up Sky) to Ross Lake via Hope and the Silver Skagit Road, the goal to attempt a ski descent on Hozomeen Mountain. We were hiking up the Skyline II trail by around 430PM. Switched smoothly to skis at ~5,500' and continued up the Hozomeen Ridge trail into the night. At 11PM we took our "alpine stop" and set up our bivouacs at a large col at 5,700' about .5 miles north of the US/Canada border. We were joined by Andy at around 3 or 4 AM (!!). He rode a 30km mountain bike race near Squamish in the morning, but insisted on trying to find us anyway (!!). Left bivy at about 6AM and we could have been a lot earlier. The ridge linked effortlessly into the climb, a great route! As Sky said, May is the time of "Slurpy Death," and we cowered in the shadows of the climber's left side of the face as the early rays cleaned the loose snow off the rocks and snow to the right. Climbing crux was about 20 feet of low angle ice and rock. Water was percolating, and luckily we had a a thermos of strong coffee to soothe the resulting cravings. Skied from summit and were able to easily and safely (??) trigger wetslides off the afore mentioned sun slopes, which took out a lot of snow and left the route's two exposed spots looking a bit safer. We made quick work of the down climb and were soon decompressing back at camp after our stressful grapple with the Slurpy Death. Packed up and ran home, cars by 645PM. Sky scoping from the international boundary. Crux. Sky. Note debris. After skiing, we gain the ridge to the left (Hozomeen Ridge trail) which is followed over several high points until linking up with Skyline II and descending the most clearly distinguished gully near the top left of photo. Scenic trail! Gear Notes: 24oz Tecate Can x2