philfort

Someone on ttips reported 2 feet snow last wknd at Artists Pt (5000ft) which is only a few miles away. Looks like the Ruth-Icy traverse is between 6-7000, so from my armchair I would guess there would be a good amount of snow.

Bring skis...

thank god he left out most of the secret ski routes.

damn!

So Mike's face is the left side of the prominent bump on the right (the one that has bare rock visible on its south (right) face).

Looks a lot like the picture of Half Moon in the Beckey guide.

-NFNWR, Adams (haven't done it yet, but everyone who has says its great) -Slot couloir, cool run for such easy access. -Boulder Glacier, Baker (or any route on Baker) -SW chutes on Adams, though it sucked when I did it -birthday tour, WA pass nothing very suprising here, but then again this is "must skis" (fun skis with relatively easy access), not "cool shit off the beaten path"

Some Baker freshness today:

or

There's no noticeable shutter lag, and the good/modern ones like the D70 turn on instantly - so they really behave just like a film SLR in terms of responsiveness.

Then it's time for me to again post an image of how bad early skiing can suck... October 25 2001, at WA pass:

Looks like today will have better weather than tomorrow, but oh well, too late now

I'd like to take advantage of the last of the nice weather days on Friday . Either ski Baker or shuksan, or something else interesting. Or an easy alpine climb or scramble (one hand is injured, not sure I could do anything "handy", like a lot of belaying ).

I got some schoeller WB400 pants from beyondfleece.com, which have worked pretty well. I stay drier with them than with my old gore-tex pants. And they are inexpensive, and you can customize them with the features you want (e.g. full zip, crampon patch, etc...) Best for coldish weather, since they are quite warm.

There's no skiable snow between Paradise and Pebble Creek. Above Pebble creek (7200ft) it's fine, since you're on permanent snow for the most part, so no suprises, although there are crevasses only a couple hundred feet away from the main path, on skier's right. Just follow the cow path. :

Yup. The Paradise was smoother, but not powder where I ventured briefly onto it lower down. The Muir was better...

I was up there today... Pebble creek area seemed to have the most snow, calf-deep in the morning, but melting fast. Up higher it was powdery, but windblown into (deep) little ridges with mini cornices, with patches of old hard snow every 50ft or so. Looked nasty, but turned out to be much better than it looked, and actually pretty fun (glad I was on a snowboard). St Helens was spewing steam all day, which was cool...

I'd love to see what Bush is writing on his pad of paper...

...bush is getting schooled... The confused look on his face (and his quickly blinking eyes) when Kerry is talking is classic... And did I hear Bush refer to Iran as Armenia?

I thought Cheney did a better job, even though he's an evil prick. Edwards seemed nervous, and kind of immature, not really VP material. He seemed to miss a lot of chances to refute some of the bullshit Cheney was spewing. Pretty funny when the interviewer asked them not to mention their respective presidential candidates, and Edwards couldn't stop mentioning Kerry!

It's supposed to be airing again on KCTS (ch9) right now...

There is a whippet (ski pole) down there joining it too... if anyone sees it this fall, its return would be appreciated

Garfield? Granite?

thanks for the info!... damage done to the gear will now depend on snow quantity/quality