philfort

quote: Originally posted by forrest_m: harder. the problem is that paramarking works fine in most area conditions. it's only in softer, off-piste conditions that it's a recipie for face-plants. What's paramarking? Is that parallel turns on tele skis? That works fine in deep snow...but if that's all you wanted to do, why tele?

Went to Washington Pass yesterday. The skiing was fantastic - the sun came out, the snow was deep and dry, we had the whole place to ourselves, the larch trees still had most of their leaves. Did I mention the snow? It was deep and dry. October 25th, WOW! Not the absolute lightest stuff though, and trail-breaking was ridiculously hard. I'm sure by the weekend, a skin track will be established though. It did not seem to be wind affected at all, just soft stuff all the way down. Lots of snow slough avalanches when the sun hit the cliffs. There was about 2.5 feet of snow by the road at the pass, and about 4 feet up in the basin below the Liberty Bell group. By afternoon, it had warmed up enough that the snow down by the road was wet.

Climbing geek costumes: I had a friend that was a climbing route. He dressed in old grey clothes, drew cracks on himself, and attached chocks in various places. Another friend went as a huge camalot, made out of cardboard. His head was somewhere in the middle of the cams.

Appears to be piling up nicely in WA pass: http://www.seawfo.noaa.gov/products/OSOWP9

Where's the best spot in washington pass for early season skiing? i.e. smooth underfoot, and high enough that it already had some base before this storm....

wow! good job. Sounds kind of epic. Sounds like you guys had a lot of bad luck too. Two questions: 1) Why did you have to leave your 80' rope at the 40' waterfall? Ok, just one question, I answered the other one myself.

I think it's pretty tame, you can probably climb it any time of year. I've been to the base of the route twice. Once to climb it, but we got "weathered off" as soon as we stepped on the glacier, and once last month for a search. Both times I've been there, there was only 1 other party in the area. So, pretty solitude-y, and it's a beautiful area. Great views of the Klickitat from Sunrise Camp. Nice approach too. You need to pay a fee to park, since its on the Indian Reservation (that is, assuming you do the approach from the Bird Lake area, and not the south spur). I forget how much it is. I wouldn't worry too much about glacier conditions, unless you're a beginner. You can probably avoid most crevasses, and overall its not a very broken glacier. I think it would 'go' anytime. Oh yeah, I see medic566 said parking sucked. It won't now (after Labour Day). When we were there for the search last month, the only cars in the lot were from the searchers, and the 1 other party we saw. There wasn't anyone else around. Oh yeah... the road is rough. But not too bad. [This message has been edited by philfort (edited 10-18-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by EddieE: I was a Tom Clancy junkie for awhile. It seems kind of eerie to read that stuff now with all the shit going down - it's like right out of any of those books. Here's what we did to the Tom Clancy novel (SSN) I brought to Alaska (we ended up lounging around so much, we read all our books, so everyone was 'forced' to eventually read this one): It was the worst novel I've ever read. Moral of the story: Don't try to read a book that's based on a video game.

quote: Originally posted by pope: Medium/large format photography. Any hot tips from the pros? I would second Jon's suggestion of buying overseas. I've bought two MF lenses from Hong Kong, at just over half what I would pay for them here. Didn't have any probs with duty or customs. If you want something you can take into the mountains with you too ('course, then you're gettin' back into your discipline), consider a medium format rangefinder. I've got a Mamiya 7, which isn't much bigger or heavier than a typical 35mm SLR, but the slides are four and a half times as big.

Was anyone up around Heliotrope Ridge/Coleman glacier area last weekend? Snow report? A co-worker of mine reported about 2 feet of snow above 6000ft west of Stevens Pass. Must be a similar amount around Baker?

The previous party we'd heard about that attempted it, found their rope not long enough to make the rappel into the notch (in truth, maybe they didn't know they had to downclimb a pitch first?, because the rappel isn't that long), so they retreated back down the ridge. On the retreat, someone broke their arm, and their rope got chopped by rockfall. It took them 19 rappels to get off the ridge, all through the night into the next morning. Guess it's a good place for an epic....

quote: Originally posted by plexus: Phil, Friend did that route up Fisher this year. They got to the False summit and turned around when they noticed the decent gully had absolutely no snow in it. So go on good, or at least average, snow years or you have a LONG downclimb ahead of you. Hmm... the snow gully itself, where you rap into it (you don't enter it from the top), was pretty moderate in angle. It was only two or three hundred feet of 35-40 degree snow for us - I wouldn't think it would be a problem without snow, nor would it affect the length of your downclimb.

Southwest buttress of Colchuck? [This message has been edited by philfort (edited 10-15-2001).]

Dave and I, and two others, climbed the SE ridge of Fisher Peak last summer. It's extremely obvious and imposing from highway 20, but not climbed often (there's a mandatory rappel off the false summit, where the only rap sling was marked "1991", faded to white and crusty). The rock is really pretty loose, but the route has some extremely exposed, exciting ridge traversing, especially the downclimb from the false summit to the rappel spot - quite spectacular and scary. Most of the route is 4th class (simulclimbing), with several mid 5th shorter sections, and a little bit of 5.8 climbing out of the notch after the rappel. Expect a longer, more serious climb than the Grade II 5.5 rating that Beckey gives it. Took us 7 hours from camp to summit (about 1400ft ascent), and 3 hours down (via loose class 4 down-climbing on the S face to a snow gully).

I have no idea about the Enchantments, but there was about a foot at the 6000ft level around Rainy Pass, so probably a little less in the enchantments?

Thanks for your suggestions. I'm buying a randonee setup for climbing mainly - it sucked having to carry two pairs of boots on approaches to climbs in alaska! And I've had to do that here several times too, or else go with snowshoes. Snowshoes generally suck. So skiing performance is secondary. But would be nice. I saw a super cheap lightweight ski made by Hagan, and I thought maybe I could have it both ways - get a dynafit setup with stiff boots that would provide good skiing performance and would be ok for ice climbing, and then try to find a 2nd-hand silveretta and pair it with the Hagan ski for a super cheap combo, and put my climbing boots in that, for when I want a low cut boot where i can flex the ankle. Then I saw the dynafit mountaineering boot (if that's what it is). That would be a good sol'n too. 2 pairs of boots, one pair of skis. Supposedly some of the telemark companies are designing a new "nordic norm" that will eliminate the toe tab (by attaching to the boot at the ball of the foot) - interesting.

[This message has been edited by philfort (edited 10-12-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by Matt: Many years ago Chouinard (Black Diamond) used to make a plastic piece that could be fitted on the toe of ice climbing boots to allow them to be used in tele bindings. Anyone have this accessory? Ahh,, some kind of strap-on, eh? Never heard of it, but it's hard to see how that could stand up to the rigors of today's equipment. I bet I would break it right away. Not because I ski hard or alot, but because I have a penchant for breaking tele gear. (I destroyed 3 pairs of bindings and two pairs of skis in about 3 years - When I broke my CRB toeplates, Voile replaced them w/o question, but asked for the bindings to be sent to them, because they'd never heard of them breaking before)

Ok, I realize this is a long shot, but has anyone heard of the Dynafit "Mountain Lite Tech 4" boot? (not TLT4) I see it listed at barrabes, and one other european site, but nowhere in north america, and it's not listed on life-link's dynafit website. It _appears_ to be a mountaineering boot that's compatible with dynafit bindings (it's a lace up, no buckles), but they only have a few sizes, leading me to believe it's no longer made or something. Anyway, anyone heard of it?

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF12/1257.html

Washington Online Weather says: "New snow on Wed.: Central Cascades at 6000' & above over 15" of new snow" yowsa! wonder if that's a typo... And I will argue that last year's dry winter made for some great skiing. When the freezing level rises high, and it always does, if it precipitates, it ruins the snow everywhere. But if it stays clear and sunny, then the north-facing slopes retain their powder. I think almost everytime I went skiing last year, we found powder.

quote: Originally posted by nolanr: Watch out for the killer bees alongside the trail near the TH, they were stinging people left and right. Also, near the Coleman high camp, people were having problems with scorpions in their boots, left outside overnight. Times ain't what they used to be...

I forget if it was last year, or the year before, but the feature film at the Seattle showing of the BFF was one about 2 kids travelling across the US to go to visit the basketball hall of fame! c'mon!!??? what crap is that? They legitimized it by saying it was about adventure or something... And every year there is a film about people paragliding in weird paragliders around chamonix. ok, enough BFF-bashing...

quote: Originally posted by offwidthclimber: http://www.stevenspass.com/webcam/webcam.htm Ah yes, that looks like high-quality wet, "transparent" Cascade "snow".

I was there a month ago. Best bet for crossing the glacier was to hug the rock wall below the east face. Some rockfall potential, but it was straightforward.