grinter

Trip: Eagle Peak, CA - not your usual suspect Date: 6/10/2011 Trip Report: Eagle Peak is the highest point in Modoc County at 9897' and has been enticing me with its snow covered slopes since I moved to Canby a month ago. A decent waether forecast for Friday got me out chasing my June turns. I started out from the Soup Springs Trailhead at a bright and early 9am and proceeded to slog 2 miles through patchy snow and sucking mud to the Wilderness Boundary and the low pass that allows easy access to the Mill Creek Valley and the first views of Eagle Peak and the Saddleback. A snowcoverd slope down to the rushing Mill Creek tempted me to pull the skins of and catch some quick turns, but I opted to continue my slog. As I approached Mill Creek the bridge I had imagined would grant me easy acces across appeared not to exist and I began looking for a fordable section. With a quick hop across a side channel and toenumbing barefoot wade through the main stream I made it across with no difficulties. I decided the best approach to eagle Peak would be from the Saddleback and finally clicked into skis as I ascended through the timber along Slide Creek. A small drainage leads to the NE where Slide Creek turns sharply west after flowing north from Eagle peaks shoulders. As I truly began to climb here I got some great views of the bowl I planned to descend. From the drainage I made a rising traverse towards the middle of the Saddleback trying to stick to openings in the trees and lower angled slopes. The slight descent along the Sadlleback to the final ridge on Eagle Peak was a welcome relief and allowed me to catch my breath before the final push. The final ridge was climbed with a series of switchbacks and some photos were quickly snapped as the wind and overcast skies were not making for a comfortable summit. Some quick turns through stunted whitebark pine brought me to the top of the bowl on Eagles NW shoulder where I was presented with some glorious turns on mushy corn for several hundred feet. I wound through several wooded "cliff" bands and skied the snowed over but rapidly melting Slide Creek until breaking out into a low angle aspen meadow. Here the snow got sticky and making progress required a bit of effort but I kept the skis on and linked some snowpatches as far as I could before finally relenquished and retraced my muddy steps back to the car. Approach Notes: Soup Springs gets you about a 100' higher and better situated for a snow approach then Mill Creek Falls but probably gonna have to wait til next year for this one

mad props, as baller as this climb looks, the best pic has to be the final deproach ski photo. The look on your face is total enjoyment.

DUCT TAPE

The gold standard in climbing gear.

I'm at Baker this season, so yeah lift accessed powder shouldn't be a problem. I'm just wondering if people that tour actually use wide powder skis with a rando binding or if they're generally just mounted with downhill bindings and saved for the resort days. The skis I'm seeing are generally significantly wider than the bindings. Also, does the rocker make skinning more difficult, seems like less pressure/contact with the snow. Might be null though as you're likely taking these out on pow days where you're basically wading through the soft stuff and contact would not an issue. Anybody still ski straight edges and laugh at all the sidecut fat skis? Thoughts?Concerns?Experiences?

So I've been watching a lot of skis go by my office window lately, and almost everyone of them is a superwide rockered twintips. I know the rocker and wideness help with floatation in the powder, but my question is are these skis just resort toys or would you put together a touring setup with fatty rockered skis?

is that 2135 cu in?

What's that? chairlift up Aasgard, you say? I think there is this mentality that if we do one thing to alter the wilderness it begins a cascade of slow and subtle degradation (notice we've allready gone from trail markers to alpine huts) that ends up turning our natural playground into the urban wasteland we seek to escape. I agree that this is a possibility, but if done properly recreational "improvements" to an area can be far better than everyone meandering around crapping where we please. I don't know firsthand, but i've heard Smith was a trashy place before the state park started managing it and it looked pretty darn nice to me this summer.

yes, our view of a natural untouched wilderness free of human influence is false. Native Americans certainly exerted large pressures on the landscape (burning grasslands to aid in hunting maintaining prairie ecosystems comes to mind), but their influences result from their actions to sustain themselves and while it might not always have worked out in nature's favor(extinction of the north american megafauna) I think it was certainly carried out with a more respectful and benevolent attitude than our current relationship with the land. We on the other hand do not gain nourishment(screw your hippy "I climb to live" mantra) from the landscape, we consume recreation and aim to conquer in our adventures. Our actions are not carried out with the thought of how to live in the wilderness, but with how to obtain maximum enjoyment and get the hell back to civilization. We are simply "traveling through" and do not concern ourselves with the stewardship required to live in and maintain a healthy environment. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the view that urban and natural environments are divided is wrong and thinking we should keep trail markers out of the wilderness to preserve their integrity is akin to thinking that interstates don't really need painted lanes because drivers will figure out where to drive on their own.

helly hansen enigma sure do wish I had $700

I like it, your photo certainly solves the problem, although I imagine all those and knots and the biner might like to get wedged in inopportune spots while pulling the ropes. This only happened after we exhausted our rap rings and were rapping directly off of the webbing (yes, I realize this is not ideal) I think normally the EDK jams against the rap ring and you have a setup similar to your photo without all the fanciwork. Its probably possible that the knot could get jammed in the ring as well which would be no good, but isn't that a potential problem with the above setup as well. Like I said before, I've dangled off of it on multiple occasions, it works, but there are issues and other setups that I would rather use.

I've done several raps with a 60m 9mm lead rope and 6mm perlon tagline. It hasn't failed on me but I do have reservations about the setup. I always use the eurodeathknot to join the two, just make sure to cinch the knot down really well and leave some tails. The different diameters make the knot look like its going to slip but I've seen it hold solidly enough times to trust it. I always set it up so the larger diameter rope is through the rap ring and tag line is pulled but there can be issues. The tag line can be finicky when thrown, after a few misadventures we started keeping the tag line coiled or bundled in a jacket and feeding it out as we rappeled. Another thing to note is that the 6mm will stretch and feed through your device differently. The last time I rappeled on this setup I watched the results of this while my buddy rapped. The tag line went through the device faster and the EDK slipped through the webbing so the tag line was loading the anchor instead of the larger diameter rope. It was a little spooky to watch the knot slide around. By the time my friend was at the bottom the EDK had moved ten feet and now the larger diameter lead line needed to be pulled. For the record, I prefer climbing on a twin setup if I want the option of full rope length rappels. equal stretch = not sketch

in Soviet Russia, rock climb you

Assuming you're in the Portland area check out the Mazamas. Up here in Washington theres the Mountaineers. If you're in college check with your recreation department. They often have outdoor programs that lead trips. Mazamas Some people don't like the club mentality but it was a great way for me to meet people and get introduced to mountaineering when I moved to Wasington. Read Freedom of the Hills Freedom of the Hills Being a fit active college student is really only going to help you on the physcical conditioning aspect of mountaineering. There's a lot of technical skills and decision making that can only be learned through experience and is often more important than fitness.