Water

2nd. Appropriate boots for mentioned volcanoes in mentioned seasons. Make sure to waterproof them good for longer/slushy conditions. beeswax or one of the sprays. I realize this was from the plastic boots you used prior, but I've generally found (never have had a blister from any boots myself) that putting mole-skin when one feels a hotspot is like getting your coffee cup out to bail out a boat once it has slammed into a rock. does about squat at that point. I have seen demonstrated throwing on some moleskin well ahead of time then outright covering it with athletic tape. Just an angle as heel slippage can be a common problem in a lot of boots when going uphill. cheers

you are a beast. your trips and the lines you ski are so impressive, they are definitely inspiration to push oneself towards goals. i read your TRs feeling like a 10yr old in the presence of a superhero. bravo

moose pass/valley. loops back around north then east of robson beyond aldophus lake. but, it isn't maintained so great, much like the north boundary trail it is more intended for horse packing. I think there are some bear lines in a spot or two. could be a good time but i spoke with a handful of folks about it prior to my trip and it sounded like a lot of brush and river bars and multiple fords. that said feck is entirely correct. When we did a portion of the NBT we only saw two berg-lake campers squating at the adolphus camp spot (stupidly with their tent under the bear-bag hang pole between two trees.) and then 2 guys from ontario a few days later who hike the trail every few years. If you were adventurous there is all sorts of exploration to be had there. I would love to go back and have 2 weeks..

Seeing Mt. Robson is entirely worth it. Berg Lake is a phenomenal spot. Solitude--absolutely not there! You only have 10 days, so this is out, but one year we did part of the North Boundary Trail--More of a Jasper thing than Mt. Robson but starts at the BC/AB border there just north of Berg Lake--none the less its like 160km with no exit points really so..hehe Though my opinion with the solitude is you can find it even in the most busy of places if you're just willing not to stand where everyone else is--you can find your peace. But then again some people's idea of solitude is not seeing anyone/barely anyone at all.

Your life may not be your career but your career can/will have a huge influence on your life. You want to aim as high as you can, not for just good enough. Consider life has a way of making it that aiming for your best puts you somewhere good enough for you and aiming for just good enough gets you somewhere short of that. Even if you maintain some 'big' salary is not your goal, having the best degree may be able to help you dictate better where you work/live in order to maintain happiness from those other life items you love. spoken from someone who is a case study in not making decisions career-wise yields decisions being made for you.

the cost of repeatedly fixing the busted lock/door is going to suck. "Yea I dunno, door was broken when I got here a few hours ago"

I'm partial to Dick Proenneke's cabin after spending a week at upper twin lake when I was 12 years old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke Went again with my father and cousin at 18 and the feeling was still the same. still is today. hell of a place.

thanks couloir. that he slipped down into white river maybe supports the futility of any electronics preventing an accident. A tool. damn. absolutely heartbreaking news. devastating seeing his website with his family and everything.

fun thing to do is take an unopened bottle of gatorade or any other type of drink, important that the seal has not been broken. If you carry it in your bag on a cold day it will get super-chilled but because it was bottled around sea level the pressure in there is higher and lowers the freezing point. I've seen some cool stuff where you open it up and it almost flash freezes, going from liquid to being a slush in mere seconds. pretty cool

goggles with replaceable lenses. Clear or yellow for the cloudy days and a darker one for sunny. will suck sometimes from fogging but will entirely keep that skin protected, yeah? I am betting the wind does that skin in as much as the temperature.

Friends of Trout Creek (FB)

i bet nobody is at the office. Bird Creek is on Mt Adams Yakima area which is closed in winter. July is your time frame probably. http://documents.clubexpress.com/documents.ashx?key=xGNMBuUN0o8OH3CXRY4Jog642Wqr%2bpbIeI95y1d%2fqb2WWnSTsMhiSw%3d%3d

not trying to get into the pee pee match here but just adding my 2cents/opinion: I have a handful of different puffies and I'm always happy I have a hood and often wish the ones that don't had one, even if I have warm hat(s)/balaclava/beanie/etc and other stuff that is hooded with me--a hood is always beloved by me. don't try to buy a jacket for 1 mountain and trying to make it work for 3 others at various spots around the globe, cross those bridges when you get to them, in the scope of it a few hundred bucks for a jacket now vs for then.. and as mentioned using two is not a total wack idea. I have climbed in mont-bell tec down jacket once during single digit temps and low teens in the cascades and it was fine--but it was sunny, zilch humidity, and we paced ourselves very well. I even had a event shell on top of it. Maybe the pits were damp but I don't know, but it was needed even while moving to keep me warm. For climbing (most of the time a single day affair down at hood) I just use a softshell and a base layer with a nano puff pullover as my insulator if I need it (rarely do) as I know I can sweat the shit out of it and not worry too bad. Plan for the majority of conditions but be hedged for worst case. Just another hat in the ring but for 'summer' on rainier personally I think you can use down or synthetic equally, just use half a brain about it. If you sweat like a sasquatch and heavily plan on using it to insulate you while you do are exerting yourself at full capacity, don't get down. If you're mostly planning to use it at rest stops and around camp then down is okay, or if it just gets used near the top and you're coming down that day you're fine. I dont have a problem really getting down damp if it is for a day/if i know it will be sunny later/etc. If the weather is utter crap chances are you won't be going up in it anyways.

in the above pic the bright dot towards the bottom is the top of the magic mile lift/start of the lift that goes to the top of palmer. I believe. just across a shallow gully to the right (East) is silcox hut. silcox is not where the top lift appears to terminate, thats just the top of the palmer lift.

from http://www.nwac.us/weatherdata/timberlineupper/ it looks like the wind dropped to about nill for much of the southside after midnight once it swung around to be from the north, then it looks like maybe it started coming around from the east now that we have high pressure and some off-shore flow for a day or two. would love to hear how that jives with anyone who went up

Nice TR. Well documented. For some reason I find myself going to north a few times a year...Myself and two friends climbed it on the 10th of September (day before ya) and met up with one guy on his 3rd attempt. Just the 4 of us on Sat and it was pleasant. I took some pics of the interesting rocks (red and bluish), wondering if it is any influence of iron/copper? Anyways the moat sure was choice, eh? I would dispute that the SE ridge is not used so much--indeed it is the only way I've headed up each time. Veering to the north side of the ridge in a few spots is cool and you get to walk under some really cool gendarmes, and it is obviously as tracked on that side as the south (pick your own adventure). ran into group of 10-12 mazamas in July and they moved slow and kind of held us up for a while, though let us pass once they finished setting up a fixed line early on where the S and SE ridge meet the 'summit' ridge. the group size and being on north (and not middle) seemed incredibly ambitious/naive given everyone but the leaders moved with very little confidence. And one student yelled at me for littering because my buddy threw a banana peel at me and I tossed it down the mountain. lol. an orange peel!!! my wilderness experience is RUINT! sorry for the tangent!

i think this is awesome. you can close the forum but it'll still be icy hot when it comes back!

I always have some basic of extra gloves, sit pad, shovel, plenty of food. this winter just decided to bite the bullet and bring along enough for a more comfortable night out, even during a basic day snowshoe in the woods with wife or friends. Reactor stove, first ascent peak vx jacket, some monster mittens. I consider it training weight.

1) someone else more knowledgeable can probably clearly answer but my guess is that is is probably 'not allowed' but if you're sharp with it you can do this, biggest risk probably being another party uncovers it (as you know muir in the summer can be a zoo of people) or an animal (fox or raven) gets into it. a) having a clear note with it would hopefully prevent pillage b) store it securely, well under the snow. 2) 6400ft at sunrise is the highest paved road in WA. WA experts can weigh in probably you can get to 7k somewhere but I doubt 8k. From the perspective of seeing more and experiencing more of the NW, hitting South Spur of Adams or doing Hood would be awesome. But the merits of informing yourself about your own climb by doing any pre-hikes going to Muir is probably exceedingly more valuable to your team. You will pick up the week-of beta while there, from a variety of sources, and will gain the beginnings of the irreplaceable first-hand knowledge/experience (and thus confidence) of at least the lower section of the mnt. Just speaking from experience but my first time seeing/climbing any volcano it always seems the most imposing, even if I encounter more challenging conditions on a later climb. Doing the start of it can give a lot of confidence.

academically speaking I'd carry a weather balloon and a canister of helium obviously. go light and fast, except for that gear and some food. if i fall in, I'll float out!

I'd 2nd the Adams route but if hood is still in shape (really just depends on the weather/snow both this spring and acutely during the time you'd be here in July) then that could be a go. Hood being marginally more technical but personally I think less of a gruel to hit than Adams southside. But my vote would be for solo Adams south spur. easier to spend time at elevation (you can hang out at pikers at 11k till sunset even. I'm no expert on acclimatizing but I'm not sure going up adams 2-7 days before rainier actually will help your blood chemistry and all that to an appreciable degree, but, will certainly tell you if your fitness, packweight, etc is dialed in--its an excellent 'am i capable of this?' primer without much skin on the line.

if you fall make sure to e-rest yourself.

I have the couloir-hard to beat the size/weight/etc for glacier and alpine or whatnut. but in hanging in it just a few minutes doing some CR practice/pulling on the rope, did myself some nitfy chaff/bruising, way easier than I would have expected. So, heed the 'hang in it' aspect if you're going to be using it that much. For instance I don't even consider it as a 2nd harness for me or a friend for indoor TR'ing.

i still dont know wtf is the diff between old chute and mazamas chute but 'think' i know after this weekend, it being the first time in many forays over a few years that I heard anyone demarcate the two. going up from 'hot rocks' veering to climbers right, that way, was well tracked semi-steps, of crudish dry snow about 2-5 inches deep over a layer of hard ice. so that bit of snow over the top helped imo. downclimbing was okay i guess a 2nd tool coulda been nice since i was only able to get the tip of my ice ax in for upper body anchoring whilst i was kicking below to secure my feet, but, meh, just concentrate and it was fine. there was someone who was doing their first climb and they were sketched out there and uber slow. i think the other spot where bkb0000 went down had a bit more snow--its where the skiiers/boarders were descending 10-20 ft before strapping on.

well i would move slow if i had 2 backpacks on! Didn't even see that till i zoomed in on the pic at home. no criticism of your pace intended. from the HB the slope about 15 foot higher from where you were looked more like a shelf than a steep traverse-seemed like it might be easier. glad you were okay--when someone called out that you were motionless and 70ft lower than when we last saw you, we all looked and were ready to book it over there. that part where you were is in the lee of the ridge so i think the snow was probably was deeper like on the east side of crater rock. i think the inversion didn't help so much with the projectiles.. it was right about 32 in the shade, even around 1pm, but, in the sun about 45 degrees.