Seamstress

We sold out!!! Raised $4,000 for the Volcano Rescue Team. Going for needed transceivers, probes, and rope.

Went up Wyeth Trail to North Lake a few days ago - a close neighbor to Defiance. Snow was deep by 3,000'. Summitted Defiance a month ago, but much low level snow since then. I'm afraid snowshoes remain a good idea. We went up Starvation Creek cut-off, and the trail was uneventful. We made fantastic progress coming down to about 2,500'. There was a looooong section of deadfall crawl. My cousin now hates me. Hopefully your legs are longer than mine and you can step over that more easily. We went from ahead of schedule to racing the dark.

25 tickets left

Gentlemen, your question is how to introduce her to the joys of climbing. If she needs that much maintenance forever, then this isn't your "partner". If after a few trips, she isn't insisting on carrying part of the load, bringing along some tasty treat, helping with camp, then your investment will not pay off. Find a new person to invest in. Now I carry my share of the load, and often more. I do most of the leading. I research the trips..... In this world, my work takes me away from my husband. The weekend climbs are the glue that binds us. There is no jealousy about climbing partners or trips. We enthusiastically buy all the new toys for climbing. If you want to climb with the boys and get grief from the girl every time your vacation or weekend doesn't include her, be my guest. We'll be the partners swapping leads one climb over, and we'll be keeping each other warm that evening. To each, his own. We also climb with other folks as a group, and that is fun. However, when I'm on the sharp end of something hard for me, I want my husband to be the belayer. That trust is priceless and makes me climb better.

Radical Reels, a selection of the best action films from the Banff Film Festival, will be shown in Battle Ground, WA on March 8th. Proceeds will benefit the Volcano Rescue Team, a non-profit organization that performs technical earch and rescue in the St. Helens/Gifford Pinchot region. The films feature rock climbing, base jumping, kayaking, mountain biking, and new sports.... I originally posted this under news, but the event really belongs here!! Sorry for the double post. Here's the trailer: Tickets are $15. How to buy tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/215892 and the film line-up: 1 All.I.Can: Perseverance (Custom edit for the Radical Reels Tour) 2 The Art of Flight (Special Edit) 3 Cat Skiing 4 Concrete Dreams 5 From the Inside Out (Custom edit for the Radical Reels Tour) 6 Frontier (Custom edit for the Radical Reels Tour) 7 Here We Go Again (Custom edit for the Radical Reels Tour) 8 Miller’s Thriller: Ski BASE (Custom edit for the Radical Reels Tour) 9 Narsicame 10 Reel Rock: Race for the Nose 11 Whitewater Grand Prix Full disclosure - I am on the Volcano Rescue Team, and we desperately need to develop some FUN fundraisers to buy technical gear. We all know that gear isn't cheap, and it takes several thousand dollars of gear to conduct a rescue at St. Helens, Adams, the Ape Cave, and the cliffs/canyons around the region.

Radical Reels, a selection of the best action films from the Banff Film Festival, will be shown in Battle Ground, WA on March 8th. Proceeds will benefit the Volcano Rescue Team, a non-profit organization that performs technical earch and rescue in the St. Helens/Gifford Pinchot region. The films feature rock climbing, base jumping, kayaking, mountain biking, and new sports.... Here's the trailer: Tickets are $15. How to buy tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/215892 and the film line-up: 1 All.I.Can: Perseverance (Custom edit for the Radical Reels Tour) 2 The Art of Flight (Special Edit) 3 Cat Skiing 4 Concrete Dreams 5 From the Inside Out (Custom edit for the Radical Reels Tour) 6 Frontier (Custom edit for the Radical Reels Tour) 7 Here We Go Again (Custom edit for the Radical Reels Tour) 8 Miller’s Thriller: Ski BASE (Custom edit for the Radical Reels Tour) 9 Narsicame 10 Reel Rock: Race for the Nose 11 Whitewater Grand Prix Full disclosure - I am on the Volcano Rescue Team, and we desperately need to develop some FUN fundraisers to buy technical gear. We all know that gear isn't cheap, and it takes several thousand dollars of gear to conduct a rescue at St. Helens, Adams, the Ape Cave, and the cliffs/canyons around the region.

Boys, step aside. Find a somewhat athletic honey and introduce her to climbing. Turn up the angle, but keep down the difficulty. The slabs can feel too insecure. Get a classic easy route with real holds she can wrap her fingers around. Smith has a bunch - like Spiderman, Round River, The Cave Route. By venturing beyond the Dihedrals, you are guarenteeing some space and alone time. Be sure to have all the niceties that may not carry often - an extra layer, some hand warmers. Bring some sweetness for your sweetie - a shared piece of Godiva chocolate at the belay, her favorite peanut butter cookies, etc. Take pictures so she can remember the day and celebrate the summit. Camping in a car - forget it. Be a man and pitch a tent. Lay out the thermorest and tuck her into a warm sleeping bag, rated 20 degrees less than yours. In the morning, get up first and get the coffee going. Make a great warm breakfast for her. In the evening, treat her to a nice dinner, perhaps at a lovely Italian restaurant that accepts people in "casual clothes", serve great food and still won't decimate your bank account. Think North Conway's Bellini's , Redmond's Sully's. For those of you with good jobs, take the leap into the land of bed and breakfast. These small, quaint establishments provide homey creature comforts guarenteed to generate warm feelings with the ladies. Make her enjoyment a priority and don't whine about "your sacrifice" of the day. Nothing will get you dumped faster than the idea that you are only climbing with her to get sex later. My first big climbing trip was with three male friends. Two dropped out at the last minute. So one fellow and I shared the bunk room for four. We did a fun, multi-pitch easy route, Standard, at Cathedral Ledge in New Hampshire. We took a dip in the Saco River post climb to cool off and clean up before dinner. We had a great dinner at Bellini's and the rest is history. A year later, we were married under Cathedral Roof amd had the reception at the B&B.

Add to the mix - it amazes me that folks climb at places where there are raptors, putting up FAs, and keeping it "secret" because they fear climbing will be closed to protect those birds (or whatever). Effectively it just keeps the weekend warriors out of their way and keeps various landowners in the dark about their activities. That may have been an effective strategy for a lightly populated area with very few climbers. It isn't an effective stewardship approach for a growing number of climbers and birds...conflicts will increase.

The 48 hour rule won't work all the time. It may be unusual in the Cascades, but we do have some persistent unbonded layers out there. I often choose to travel in avalanche terrain during early morning hours when the slopes will be more stable, and be off early. I also may choose ridgelines and spend very little time in actual avalanche paths. I may choose to perform tests on the desired slope before skiing it. I may remain in the bootpack and not venture into the pristine snow. There are many ways to manage risk. That doesn't reduce the risk to zero. I am very conservative, but I do realize that the risk is not zero, and it may be more risk than others are willing to take.

Most ironically, the fundraiser for the NWAC - VertFest - was held that weekend at Alpental. It is a travesty that they aren't in operation for a longer part of the ski mountaineering season and operate on such a shoestring budget. People can not abdicate responsibility for their safety, but people are in fact using their reports to help them make decisions.

Haven't seen a good analysis yet. Further south, the Cascades generally had a significant ice layer formed by a rain event at the end of the last big storm cycle, followed by cold. Note the numerous climbing accidents in places where climbers generally unrope and feel safer - Crater Rock on Hood had three accidents in the previous week including a fatality. Actually, I still see two significant ice layers in the snowpacks round here with sow not bonding. Keep checking the NWAC where a report should eventually be posted.

Aftyer I filed my complaint, I inquired about the contract requirements. This is what I received: The contract generally requires that snow removal not commence until there are 6 inches of snow on the ground, and snow continues to fall. We try to avoid situations where snow has fallen, and rain is expected immediately thereafter. At least 2 inches of snow are to be left on the surface to avoid damaging the parking lot surface. Marble Mountain is a challenge every winter due to the extreme amounts of snow that can fall in a short period of time, and we have often cleaned off the lot, only to have it buried again with the next several hours. Due to budgetary limitations, we have to make the allotted dollars last as best we can through the entire winter season (December 1 through March 31). In the last couple of years we have worked with the two winter recreation advisory committees in an attempt to increase funding for areas like Marble Mountain that can receive large snowfalls. Unfortunately, the snowmobile program was forced to reduce snow removal for the 11/12 winter season due to severe budget reductions, and this has hampered our efforts to address problem areas.

The recommended book is considered the "bible". The overall approach is beginning to change to focus assessment on the specific dangers inherent in the snowpack that day which leads to efficient testing. Yet, you still can't go wrong by trying a comprehensive approach. I researched airbags awhile back. The survival rates quoted were of victims that were not initially killed by trauma in the slide - if I remember correctly. That's why they were so high. Survival doesn't mean that you weren't hurt. No, there is not a 50% risk of dying in a fall of 12 feet. The last comprehensive compilation of heights/fatalities that I read showed almost a linear relationshuip between feet fallen and death. Now you may have a 50% chance of living from a 50 foot fall. However the chances of you walking away are very slim. At 90 feet, the risk of dying is close to 99%. There is the odd event where someone lives in a horribly long fall, generally by happenstance of the impact zone. A couple of skydivers have lived when their chutes did not open. I have taken a couple very long falls on very steep, hard snow. I cartwheeled 640 feet down a hard snow chuite and walked away with bruises and abrasions, and everything stripped off my pack, my goggles stripped from my face, etc. I see so many mountainerring accidents where people slid much shorter distances and died. I was very lucky. I can't imagine taking that fall in an avalanche, getting beat up by the blocks of ice tunbling with you. Believe in that little voice that says, "Maybe this isn't a good idea today". That little voice and an optical illusion scared me to death a couple years ago, and I turned around . Two days later I returned and saw a 2 mile slide and avalanche debris piled 60' high in the deposition zone.

We had some snow last week. The holiday weekend arrives and guess what? The road to Marble Mountain was unplowed. RVs, trailers, cars are stuck everywhere trying to get in for the nice new snow. We even had a one legged man out there pushing and shoveling to get in. The rescue team was in the filed all day Saturday, and some of us returned Saturday evening to find tha plow hard at work, 5 PM on Saturday. All the cars in the lot got buried by the plow. I am amazed that he hadn't done this right after the last storm and before the weekend. BTW there are fewer sno parks open this year as some counties aren't plowing the roads that get close to the access roads. SO there should be plenty of funds to cover tha parks that are operating. Also this has been a low snow year thus far.

Camping options abound: 1) Near parking lot - noisy 2) Below, adjacent to Chocolate Falls in the trees at 3,800'. This is the best spot to be out of the wind. Tree wells are huge in this area and are useful for many purposes. 3) If there is no wind, I see people camping just above Choclate Falls @ 4,000' near the intersection with the Loowit going west. 4) In the last stand of trees at the toe of the flow, 4,500'. This makes the most sens if you are trying to shorten your summit day.

Watch the weather for a couple of weeks before you go out and look at any trip reports. In March, I have done the Worm Flows in brilliant sunshine and a nice boot pack. I have also seen bottomless snow and endless post holing in miserable conditions or a shiney sheet of ice Excellent adventure. Most likely you will want crampons and an ice ax. If you need them at 7,000' and you don't have them, that's a lot of work for no summit. With a good boot pack, you can walk up the Worm Flows in 4 - 6 hours. The descent can be 3 hours of walking - or 2 hours with glissading (conditions permitting) or a fast hour + of skiing. Keep you fingers crossed for firm snow all the way up, and corn snow developing as you enjoy some lunch on the summit, and great spring skiing/glissading conditions all the way back to the car. March and Spril are my favorite times to climb this mountain on a bluebird day.

ALl the data that you talk about is easily accessible. What I haven't taken the time to do is locate all the data on a common format. Here's the last reported ski resort data: In the winter of 2009-2010, out of the nearly 60 million snowsports participants, 25 skiers and 13 snowboarders died, according to the National Ski Areas Association. Of the 38 people who died skiing or snowboarding at a resort last season, 30 were males. A majority of them were under the age of 40. If you can turn that into deaths per skier days and find the same statistic for other sports, you could compare the risk. THen you could look at how to mitigate the risk.

I am a coward. I put my crampons on at the seismometer, 5,700'. Then the rest of the climb felt casual despite encountering an icy step here or there. I thought that the terrain was hardest from 6,200' to 7,200'. The steps pounded in for the last 1,000' were pretty secure. I often climb this alone. However, you will always find others on the route on the weekends. Mid week can be a little lonely. There was about 40 - 60 people on the mountain Saturday. If the wind was not blowing, it would have been a fast ascent. The wind made me consider turning around, but I could brace against it without falling over. The route is a crappy ski right now. There is very little loose snow. There is an ice layer just below a smattering of snow. Even though it was warm on Saturday, the snow never got soft except below Chocolate Falls. Glissading was a bad idea for most of the route this weekend. We need some fresh snow. So it definitely took longer than normal on Saturday fighting the wind and needing to ski very carefully or walk out. SOme folks were reported overdue on Sunday. My guess is that they expected to be home before the SuperBowl and didn't expect conditions to be as firm as they were. Normally the route is 4 - 5 hours up and the descent time depends on your mode of transportation. Count on 3 hours walking, 2 hours with a lot of glissading, faster time if you are a good skier/rider with great conditions. Most people leave Marble between 7 - 8, depending on conditions. With no worries about avvy right now, you can leave 8 - 9 and still be back well before dark. Never hurts to take a headlamp! The route is well pounded in, though it goes up the last bowl quite a ways before cutting left to Monitor Ridge.

Test your set up before you go. I used Spantiks, 40 below overboots, and BD Sabretooth pro which has a strap that connects with the front welt bail. WOrked great.

Mr. Kim was in great shape - no injuries. Two other people spent the same two nights out, off route and overprepared for a day hike but bot prepared for overnight. They came out with no ill effects. It was a great day. The four on the mountain right now have the right gear, and hopefully they will be fine. I've spent several days at Muir in vicious winds - and did just fine. That's not uncommon. I'm hoping for the best.

WOrthy cause and a fun event. I'm racing.....and supporting the NWAC.

The lot at Marble was clear on 1/1, though the rockfall was quite a nuisance on the road in. Submitted a complaint to the Winter Staff. Everyone is using just one side of the road to save their cars from damage. Expect a war with some snowmobilers this winter. Many snow parks won't be accessible in SW Washington because of lack of plowing funds for Skamania to even access where the snowparks began to plow. So Marble and Cougar will be quite busy. THe last couple of years I have noticed increased conflict with snowmobilers. Excuse me - they come in with RVs pulling trailers and a truck and live in the parking lot for days. Why can't they conserve on space by hauling in their snomobiles with the truck and leaving their RV in the RV lot in Cougar OR camp on the snow like the climbers do? They slashed tires in recent years - including on the cars of the rescue team folks out training. I'm a little old lady and had some liquored up dude screaming at me for parking near the climber's route trail. This is just after we finished rescuing a snomoler who crashed and was severely injured. No, I don't have to park in the unplowed overflow lot.

Writing my report now. I go over to Marble a lot for winter workouts. I have not seen it plowed at all this year. I believe they are using the same lousy contractor as last year, the year of only one lane being plowed. This contractor also left the lot unplowed as they were awaiting repairs on their equipment a couple years ago.....

I drives me crazy to see folks willing to do the work and foot dragging on allowing it to happen. The County should be moving ahead with urgency before all the willing help gets tired of waiting, finds other projects to do, etc.......

Much depends on the weather. I've seen snow caves last all season.