alpine et

Early morning huck off Granite Peak

Banks lake deep water solo (simple B&W conversion in LR)

I'll take 2 16 BD express screws...

Trip: Mt Hood - Southside Date: 2/10/2013 Trip Report: Headed up with my wife to climb Hood in the weather window this past weekend. Skinning was real easy up to Palmer lift. Right above the lift there was plenty of icy bumps that made it quicker to just boot it up. We learned later that if we had gone further climbers left we probably could have skinned efficiently all the way to Hogsback. Being our first time, and still dark, we just threw the skis on packs. We went up the Old Chute, which had plenty of traffic on it the last few days, with fairly solid steps for the most part. There were a few 10-15' sections of frontpointing required, which was OK on the way up and spicy on the way down. Not bad, just slowed us down more than planned. 4" light snow on bulletproof wasn't too much fun. Skiing was great when icy chunks could be avoided, which was usually easily enough to do. A bit scratchy above Hogsback, nicer skiers right on the way down and the groomer cruiser run on the way to the car was excellent. Great trip to a beautiful and unique (to us) summit! Gear Notes: The norm. Approach Notes: Drive, walk up ski area.

.....and if you somehow still have either bugs or knifeblandes left... I'll take those... Erik

Bivy on Granite mountain proves worthwhile:

a busy day in the pearly gates

great... thanks for the info!

Anyone have knowledge or a better guess than mine regarding conditions of North Fork Sauk (forest road 49)? I believe this is the road that was further opened later this past year south of Darrington allowing somewhat closer access to Glacier Peak. The trailhead is at 2045 ft, so I was hoping that meant we might get somewhat close....From Darrington you take a forest road south to what is marked on the topo as Bedal (~1280') then turns east. Would appreciate any info from anyone venturing out that way. I have seen this site with FS road info, but it's just listed as "snow" and not cleared, so not sure how bad it might be for a Subaru...I'm guessing not good, but was hoping for some good info! thanks!

Camping right at the snow park is the norm, I've found. Campfires and drinking are excellent ideas for Saturday, I know of nothing else. If you want to escape the crowds you can always walk your camping stuff in (45mins? 1hour?) up to Chocolate Falls and camp in the flats there. You'll have views of the mountain, which is nice.

So I need some time swinging tools at ice, and need to be able to do some toprope before I take to leading. What are good destinations out of Seattle to daytrip top rope ice? I've heard Alpental valley has some possibilities, though I haven't seen much about conditions recently. I'm guessing the inversion destroyed most things up there? Perhaps just need to wait for it to be colder for longer again before ice in our backyard comes back? http://www.nwac.us/weatherdata/alpental/ thanks for any thoughts... Erik

Amazing, thanks for sharing!

not much to scrape off the roads... it is rather warm up there! http://www.turns-all-year.com/woptelemetry.php?id=timberlinebase

yeah, very busy. I believe we were second in line, but weren't sure if we were really going to have a go at it (a little over our head) so we checked out the route, let those behind us get on and traded in for the consolation prize... chunky variable snow on the north face to snow lake. Conditions on the approach held great snow in the AM, but rather sun effected my PM. Here's a shot of the beginning of first pitch. [img:center]http://cascadeclimbers.com/plab/uploads/22119/20130113-IMG_5242.jpg[/img]

oh nevermind! just noticed the author probably incorrectly wrote 2012. thanks for making me look at that again!

I was hoping for some recent information. I saw that TR too, and didn't realize for a while that it was last year (2013 now). I expect we'll find similar conditions, and ice tools and screws will turn into training weight, but figured I'd see if anyone had been up there...

...bump? anyone been up recently?

Anyone know how far you can drive up the Cascade river road... assuming AWD?

remember if you take too long getting down, the road to paradise is closed on tuesday and wednesday now, so may as well just do a carry over and ski down Lib Ridge. It's not an ice climb if it's covered in 10' of pillowy powder, right??

...weather is forecast to be moving in around 10AM on Saturday per the UW model. It looks to be a decently strong front, especially if you're above treeline, solo. be prepared to bivy...

Anyone know status of getting to these trailheads currently? They seemed low enough elevation that snow might still allow driving most of the forest roads up to them... Winchester Lookout Ruth Mtn Forest service hasn't updated their info since the snows have come: http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/mbs/alerts-notices/?cid=stelprdb5150431

These types of resources are great for the general weather forecast, but only constitute the minimal extreme events that can occur at elevation. It's entirely possible to have a perfectly clear outlook and have a rather severe orthographic driven weather event. This would be very likely on mountains like Shasta or Hood or SW Olympics which don't have much disturbances upstream.

I've got $150 or so for this purchase... hoping to find a decent pair of fritschi bindings out there.... anyone cleaning out the garage? the snow thus far has been terrible, might as well sell me your bindings and cut your losses. Erik

Seems that folks are discussing a tradeoff at the belay to having uneven half ropes. Granted I haven't used this system much, but if the difference is only 2m, can't both climbers tie in with a bit of extra after the figure 8 and thereby making the ropes fairly even for climbing, and then as long as you've ensured you've threaded the long side through the chains, as has been suggested, you could get as much as you can out of the rap?

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