Jason4

I'm no ice climber but I know a frozen water fall when I see one. I'll just leave this here... Flickr

I got to put some miles on my splitboard over the weekend and thought I'd share some of my positive gear experiences. I went up to Heliotrope on Friday with a friend who had an older version of a Cilo 45L pack that he was happy with. I was carrying a very full and very old smaller REI pack that worked ok but wasn't going to fit enough for overnighters or even long day trips with alpine hardwear. I broke a buckle on my pack and decided that was enough of an excuse to get a new pack. I made it in to AAI before they closed and picked up a new 45L pack and shovel pocket that I was oggling on Wednesday. I got it out on Saturday with the same load that I was carrying on Friday and it felt good right away. There is definately a learning curve to using this pack and I still have some fiddling to do to figure out how I want to use the straps. For the load I was carry this weekend I simply pinched all but the top side clips together on both sides and then strapped the shovel pocket to the outside. With this configuration I was able to carry all of my day trip stuff and was able to strap my board on with the most stable carrying board pack I've ever used. There is plenty more room to add a sleeping bag, shelter, food, and alpine gear to the pack and still be able to carry my split board if I need to. I was a little concerned about the lack of pockets and access to the inside but it was never an issue. I'm satisfied that I can quickly get to my shovel and probe in the external pocket. I can carry my skins between the pocket and the body of the pack for the fun part of the day and I can fit everything that I want to get to quickly into the top pocket, it never flopped around and hit me in the back of the head either. So far I have somewhere around 11 miles on this pack over 2 days in the snow with touring gear and am very satisfied with it.

I'm not an ice climber but I did notice a lot of ice forming above Rainy Lake that would be worth exploring if the weather breaks again before the highway is closed.

Trip: Heather and Maple Passes - Date: 11/6/2011 Trip Report: To finish my weekend off I went out with a friend from SAC who wanted to ski Maple and Heather passes. He was out there a few weeks ago and said he wished he had his skis for the snow fields. I was a bit skeptical after my Friday trip to Heliotrope but I wanted to get out in the mountains and the weather was nice. We started out from the parking lot towards Heather Pass on skins but I was moving slow on my splitboard and the snow wasn't very deep. I quickly found a good way to carry my board in the pack and was making better time than Don was on his skis. We found a few exposed water ice crossings (at least a meter in length!) and quickly made our way to the top of the first pass. Somebody else had already skinned the entire way and once we got out on the open traverse above Lake Ann we could see tracks high on the ridge. We stopped for lunch around 130 near Heather Pass and enjoyed a quiet meal and shared a beer. Unfortunately the other beer fell victim to a hazardous ski crampon. After lunch we followed the skin tracks up to Maple pass on took a few turns on the south face and found rocks. On the way back up I learned how to deal with a stiff wind pack on my split board and it wasn't graceful. Once back at the pass we dropped down into the shade and found about 10 amazing turns without a single rock until we tried to traverse around the bowl that we were in to get back to the trail. We gave up on the traverse to the right when the talus field inflicted too much damage on my board and instead went left and back towards the trail on the ridgeline. Don chose to ski down some more of the trail which was more adventurous than I felt ready for (for the sake of my board). When the snow got too variable for skis we both ended up booting about 3 miles back to the car to arrive after dark at about 530. The suffer factor varied from "shoulder season" to a high of "awesome" and a low of "Trent" but it was a good day overall. We only saw 6 other people the entire day while we were out there which was a refreshing change from the previous two days. I learned a very important lesson: check the bases of your partners skis to get an idea of their tolerance for low snow conditions... Pictures to come after work. Gear Notes: Splitboard and snowboard boots. Approach Notes: Boots and skins

Trip: Table Mountain - Ski area-Austin Pass-Artist Point-Table Mt Date: 11/5/2011 Trip Report: Due to a long day Friday and big plans for Sunday I got a late start on Saturday but still made a good time out of it. We left Bellingham at 11, made a quick stop to drop off some goods for the NWAC benefit at Chair 9 in Glacier and got to the parking lot around 1pm. We made quick work of the hike up to the face of table and played around with some short and sweet turns in the new snow there but it was still pretty shallow. When we left we decided to follow some other tracks on the traverse past the buttress and into Bagley bowl. That was a bad idea. The first chute that we passed was looking pretty sharky so we went to the next one which didn't look much better. The third chute over looked more committed so we decided to make the best of the second chute. There was about a 40 foot rock band across the entire chute and thin snow below it. Two of our group downclimbed through the rocks and two of us pointed it and ran it out. We all clipped a handful of rocks below that on the ride to the lake but I worked my way left and got onto the tracked out and left over snow field where a lot of the spring avalanches settle out. The snow in there was good but short, low angle, and tracked. We traversed around the west side of Bagley Lake, up passed the interpretive center and out to Terminal lake. The snow on the road was fast enough to coast all the way out to the parking lot easily. Pictures to come after work. Gear Notes: Splitboard and snowboard boots Approach Notes: Enough snow for skinning the entire way

Trip: Heliotrope Ridge - Standard Date: 11/4/2011 Trip Report: I took my first trip to Heliotrope Ridge on Friday with a group who knew the area well. We left Bellingham before 7am and made it to the trail head about 830. The last couple of mile of Glacier Creek road were snow covered but I was able to make it all the way to the trail head in my Audi wagon with Blizzak snow tires. When we arrived there were only a few other cars there. Somebody had started skinning from the parking lot but we chose to hike instead. The Grouse Creek crossing was a little bit exciting, mostly climbing up the other side (and back down on the return). It looks like there is an easier crossing 50 meters down stream from where the bridge is washed out. We started skinning when we hit the moraine and made pretty good time getting up to the snow field but rocks were common on the way up. It was sunny with a stiff breeze at the bottom of the field and still air at the top of the ridge line. Surprisingly it was more comfortable at the top than at the bottom! We got two laps on the snowfield before we turned to descend to the car. We rode down almost to the top of the moraine until we started hitting too many rocks. We all decided to boot it out from there. I found some thick water ice under the snow on one of the traverses to the top of the approach trail. We started to descend on the top of the ridge in a half walk/half boot ski technique until I ventured off the ridge to the left and found easier going in the deeper snow, I could control my rate of descent much better that way. We made the long slog out to the cars and left at about 330, in time to get back to town by 530. All in all it was a great day but I'll wait for more snow before making that walk again. I'll post some pictures if I have time after work. Gear Notes: Splitboard and snowboard boots, happy to have a puffy sweater when we stopped to eat. Approach Notes: Next time I'd make the approach in my mountaineering boots instead of my snowboard boots and stash them in the trees at the bottom of the moraine.

I'm not too familiar with the LTD Fury but with a size 45 you'll definitely want to be riding a wide board, especially with a mountaineering boot. If you have 2 inches of toe drag and no heel drag then your bindings aren't centered, you should move them further towards your heel. Maybe you were thinking that I asked if your stance is centered? I'm actually kind of curious to see how the Spantiks ride but I think I'd be more apt to spend the money trying to convince a good cobbler to modify a good pair of snowboard boots before I'd try to snowboard in a good pair of climbing boots. If you're fairly new to snowboarding and really want to do a lot of mountaineering with your split then you should should probably just sack up to hard boots. I put some time in riding on a pair of Koflach Superpipes when I was 12 (before I knew they were cool!) and don't think I can give up the soft boots at this point but AT boots would almost be able to do what your Spantiks do for you but also allow you to ride plate bindings. I don't think you'll get enough response on the heel side to do that with your boots now but I could be wrong.

What board, what size boots, and whats the binding setup? From your posts I'm guessing that it's a DIY with the Voile DIY plates and some other bindings mounted on there. I think you'll be able to get a big improvement from centering your bindings as a first step.

It's kind of like a bivy sack for those unexpected nights in the wild. Three pack for climbing with multiple partners or longer adventures?

It's a great shop and business that's about a mile from my house. If I didn't already have the job that I do I'd be tempted. Just don't tell any more people about Bellingham.

Summer is the nicest day of the year in the PNW. I was in Squamish over the weekend and found dry rock in the 5.8-5.14 range, most of the routes were hard 5.11s or easy 5.12s. There was a tall, high quality 5.10 that stayed dry until the wind picked up a bit. This was in a steady drizzle on Saturday and it was the only dry rock I saw on Sunday. You should be able to find info in the Squamish guide book.

I've driven from Bellingham to Yellowknife in a Kenworth and one of my coworkers went all the way to Taktyuktuk (sp?) on the Arctic coast. The roads really aren't bad but wait until you see the cost of a gallon of milk! And I made my trip in February and I think he went in March.

Haha, good timing. This has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm just finishing up an 8 month assignment in Europe and have managed to save a good chunk of money and pay off all of my debt. I miss the mountains more than anything right now. I'll be between projects when I go back to the division that I normally work for in the PNW and it would be a good time to take a break before I get buried in more work. I need to figure it out quick and come up with some fun plans though.

I came here to say "Ninja Slipper" or "Camel Toe". Sorry to hear about the industry in-fighting.

I just flew from Seattle to Amsterdam this morning with a chalk bag in my checked suitcase with no problems. I hadn't opened the package yet but I tore off the header to pack it easier and made sure the header with the product info was packed next to the chalk ball that was tucked into a chalk bag. I'm a little more apprehensive about flying home with my well used bouldering chalk bucket. Even if I get all the loose chalk out there will be powder everywhere. I figure that's what trained dogs are for and if they light up on my climbing chalk then I probably paid too much for it...

I never had the privelage to enjoy time in the mountains with Dallas Kloke but I spent 9 months learning math from him in high school and was very shocked to hear about him passing away in a climbing accident. The one thing that really stuck with me from high school in the 13 years since is a single caution that I learned from Dallas: "There are bold mountaineers and there are old mountaineers but there are no old and bold mountaineers." It sounds like I have missed out on a lot of other wisdom from him outside of the classroom. He will be missed by all.