philfort

Things might be more stable by Sunday, after two or three days of warm sunshine, followed by colder temps Saturday. Right now though, things are probably an avalanche-fest. Read the current forecast at http://www.seawfo.noaa.gov/products/SABSEA 30-40 inches of new snow since Saturday. yeesh. I was up near Granite mtn this morning, and while there was some nice skiing, the sun was quickly turning the stuff there into two feet of heavy mush.

http://www.ultrasupercool.com/Denali/denali.htm I think it's shameful that he has kids, and he going off to climb something as adventurous, crazy, and "out there" as the West Butt!!

I would recommend the DC or the Kautz, over the Emmons. The Emmons is reallllly boring, featureless 5000ft snow slog on 30 degree slopes (unless you do it late season when the crevasses get nasty). At least that's the way it was when I descended it last June - I think there were two tiny crevasses you had to step across. The DC is much more scenic. More crowded than the Emmons, but hey, what's the difference between 100 other climbers, or 60 other climbers. Never tried the Kautz, but I hear it's nice.

scottclimbs: Why did you make the same post three times?

I'll put in a second vote for the e-trex. It's so tiny and light. Of course, you should never *rely* on the GPS - always have a map and compass backup. (in fact, you really need a compass to work with the GPS for most navigation anyway). But I'll have to disagree with Rodchester. Need to get somewhere in a whiteout above treeline? GPS is the way - unless you don't mind wasting time. Repeatedly taking bearings with a map & compass will be nowhere near as accurate as zeroing in on a GPS waypoint (assuming the waypoint is accurate to begin with). A trip two summers ago comes to mind - arriving in Boston Basin in light drizzle with about 50 foot visiblity. We were planning to climb the N ridge of Forbidden, so we needed to get across Sharkfin col. None of us had been there before. We bailed, partly due to the drizzle, and the time and effort we knew it would take to reach the col - a mile or two of taking compass readings in 50 foot visiblity - how accurate can you get in that??? But with a GPS, we might have decided to continue on. We *knew* it was sunny above the drizzle (the cloud deck kept lowering, and the next day, when we would have been on the ridge, turned out beautiful & sunny), so the climb would have been a go! [This message has been edited by philfort (edited 04-26-2001).]

Goatboy, here's a picture of the top of the NW couloir from that wknd last October: Looked like a cool climb.

goatboy, oh, yeah, I guess that was us. Your mention of freezing rain made me think you guys went a different weekend. We did the climb on Saturday and camped high, then left Sunday morning - the weather was a little threatening then, but no precip. I guess that's another reason not to do the Sibley Ck approach - a little known fact, but the weather is far worse in the Sibley Creek/Triad area, than in Eldorado/Roush creek!

I went to climb the NE face of Eldorado last October. We approached via the regular way, and met another party in the parking lot that was going to climb the NW gully, approaching via Sibley creek, and coming out the regular way (they were leaving at car at the regular lot). We never saw any sign of them that weekend. Hmm.

Consider the Lowa Civettas too. Easy to walk in, a little softer than most plastic boots maybe, but I still climb water ice in them. They are fairly "low profile" (less clunky). You can get them at Pro Mountain Sports, or Feathered Friends...

To clarify the snowmobile sno-park permits thing (ORV tag, etc....). Snowmobilers do *not* have to *pay* for sno-park permits. They come "free" with registration, which costs less than 20$. (or else, registration is "free" with the sno-park permit, depending how you look at it). I think I paid $18.75. That's right, it's about the same price for a skier to buy a sno-park permit than it is for a sledder to register his vehicle AND get a sno-park permit. Sure, the snowmobile permits are only valid at snowmobile sno-parks. However, those are often groomed areas. Where trails are groomed for non-motorized users, these users must purchased an additional 20$ grooming permit, 40$ in total! PRetty funny!

jason_h, as to why they should not be able to use the land to same extent as climbers, hikers: Snowmobiles infringe on others enjoyment of the wilderness. Mountain bikers do also, to a much a lesser extent. Climbing anchors virtually not at all. Therefore, snowmobiles should be the most restricted, mountain bikes less so, and climbing anchors not at all. There is no line, it is a gray area. However, I would like to add it seems that sledders can't really "police" themselves very well. All these hot-headed anti-snowmobile arguments from climbers, exist for a reason. They are people's opinion, based on what they've seen and heard. I've seen loads of trash left by 'bilers, I've seen them completely ignore the wilderness boundary in the Alpine Lakes, I've seen them zooming around inside the crater at Mt St Helens. This gives me a negative view of snowmobilers. It's not something wrong with me, it's simply the way they are perceived, and it's *their* fault - the anti-snowmobile sentiment is completely understandable. A few bad apples spoil the whole bunch. I've met nice sledders too, but those don't stick in my mind for some reason. Sledders need some serious PR work, and for that to happen, some of them need to clean up their act. Phil (PS: and what's with all the pro-snowmobile posts using Alpine Tom's "10w-40" remark to bolster their argument that snowmobilers don't leave very much trash? Presumably, what Alpine Tom saw was a bottle oil left by a sledder, and he just happened to refer to it as "10w-40". Unless someone's been driving their car up on Mt Baker :-)

But just because you got to the top, and back down safely, doesn't mean you've conquered the mountain. I'm afraid I'm with Joe Poulton on this one. ... I know, I know, it's just a word. But it has implications.

We can certainly guess and say, yeah, they were exercising poor judgement, but we can't know for sure. Maybe they knew what they were doing, and had assessed the slope for stability. Most likely not, but you never know. As for snowmobilers and trash - well, the title of this post was "WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT SNOWMOBILES ON MT. BAKER???", so I think it's appropriate to make comments about the trash they leave. retiredpop, I'd have to disagree with your assessment of the hiker vs snowmobiler trash, but hey, that's just my opinion. If y'all get a chance, and you're passing through Snoqualmie Pass, go check out the Gold Creek snowmobile sno-park once it melts out (maybe it already has?). You won't believe how much trash there is there (consisting of Coors boxes, beef jerky packages, and *2-stroke* oil containers). Absolutely disgusting! This winter I used snowmobile support to get into the Ingalls Peak trailhead to go skiing. Admittedly, I only recall seeing one piece of trash, a budweiser can, which wasn't bad considering the amount of snowmobile traffic. But what did piss me off what the disregard other sledders had for the Wilderness boundary (which goes along Ingalls Pass ridge). Perhaps the "No snowmobiling past this point" sign wasn't visible enough, or perhaps they chose to ignore it; whatever the case, there were a lot of snowmobiles zooming around right below Ingalls Peak, and around Ingalls Lake, well within the wilderness boundary. There were also lots of old sled tracks there. Thanks for reminding me of this, I'll go write that letter to the Forest Service I've been meaning to write. Favourite quote from a sledder arriving at Ingalls Pass, just shortly after we had skinned to the top. He turns off his machine, looks around, and says: "Where in the hell am I?"

Man, you sound like one bitter person. I'm sorry. Where did you hear that Andrew McLean used belays on the Mowich Face? The article in Couloir magazine certainly didn't mention anything about that. quote: I respect all the people out riding big faces on whatever gear they choose. quote: If you plan on skiing out on tele skiis think again or you might die. hmm. Hope you succeed in riding the NF safely. I'm sure you'll tell us about it.

Check out dbb's fall force calculator: http://students.washington.edu/dbb/index.html

If you donate to the Sierra Club, you will be inundated with "environmental" junk mail. They sell your name to everyone.

For getting across the Coleman... You might want to tromp a route over to the base of the ridge from your camp the afternoon you get there, so you've got footsteps to follow the next morning in the dark.

This past Saturday, my friend Matt and I skied up to Snowy Lakes below Tower Mountain, in the Washington Pass area. In the late afternoon, we left in search of some north-facing powder slopes - the only viable option was the northwest face of a 7100ft ridge about 1/2 mile south of Snow Lakes. As we approached the highest point on the ridge, the sun was low, and providing really nice light on the bowl we wanted to ski. I told Matt I'd stay where I was to get a picture of him descending the powder. He continued skiing to the top, on the "windward" side, just below the corniced ridge. I saw that there were a few cornices along a far rib parallel to the fall line, and thought there might be some cross-loading of the slopes. Matt indicated he would definitely evaluate the snow pack before heading down. He didn't end up having to. I was fiddling with my camera, when I heard him yell something. I looked up, and the saw the entire slope below us was disintegrating. Matt was standing 30 or 40 feet above the fracture line. The slab broke into chunks and sped down the hillside, over cliffs, through trees, in a cloud of snow. I've never seen a "real" slab avalanche before - it moved with horrific speed! A person would have no chance in that. It was all over within seconds. We saw the debris flow a good distance across the flats at the base of the 700ft slope. After recovering from the shock, Matt very carefully made his way back to me, and we tried to get a better look at the slide. We headed back along the ridge towards camp, and were suprised when we saw the fracture had propagated over an ajoining ridge, and taken out a significant portion of the next slope over. The crown looked about 18 inches deep, and probably 3 feet deep in places. Using the terrain features, and the topo map, we calculated the size of the slide. The fracture line was 300 yards wide, and the slide travelled for about 1/3 of a mile. The aspect of the bowl was mostly NW, some N. The cornice overhung the opposite side of the ridge, which was interesting. It seems there was some cross-loading going on. When we got back to camp, we moved our tent, which was at the bottom of a treeless south-facing gully :-) The next day, we also noticed some instability on the relatively flat, suncrusted slopes around Snowy Lake. Twice we heard big whoomping noises. Needless to say, we stayed off any steeper slopes, and didn't get much skiing in. Be careful out there...

Conditions are still pretty winterlike up there now. We were a few miles west of the past and the snow conditions were a foot of dry powder on top of a foot of slushy snow, on top of a firm crust. I think they got a bunch more snow last night (avie report said 4-8 inches on the east slope), and it looks snow showers and cool temps from tomorrow through the weekend.

Dru, the problem with your classification of the ratings, in my opinion, is that it is subjective, based upon the skills of the party that climbed it. Knowing that a first ascent party "4th classed" something that would seem like low 5th to me, isn't very helpful. The whole point of a rating should be to attempt to classify how difficult something is, regardless of who rated it. I would hope the people who "4th classed" a route, know that they are comfortable climbing 5.3 (or whatever) without pro, and rate it accordingly.

Out of curiousity why are the following bad: -triple aaa batteries -you can't replace the bulbs (they won't burn out in the lifetime of the headlamp - they're led's) I admit the tikka does feel "cheap".

for what it's worth, in one of the articles I read on the king5 website, has one of the guys' moms (Nancy Hess) saying "He does not have a lot of food, he did not take his big pack, they're both not experienced... A year and a half is just not much experience for mountain climbing" So maybe the reporters just reported it wrong.

for what it's worth, in one of the articles I read on the king5 website, has one of the guys' moms (Nancy Hess) saying "He does not have a lot of food, he did not take his big pack, they're both not experienced... A year and a half is just not much experience for mountain climbing" So maybe the reporters just reported it wrong.

Is the Leuthold couloir commonly skied? Is it really "just" 40-45 degrees? The picture of it on the cascadeclimbers front page makes it look like a good ski descent.

I was "in the area" yesterday afternoon, but just skied up to the Cutthroat Pass area. The snow was very slushy (reached 5600ft). Didn't get a clear view of any climbing routes west of the pass, because it was cloudy, very warm, and sometimes raining hard. It turned to snow in the afternoon, as the temperature dropped sharply. There didn't seem to be too many cars parked at the trailheads. It was only partly cloudy east of the pass. I did see some fat blue ice right above Cutthoat Lake. Has anyone here climbed that? It's in a horrible position avalanche-wise, and it's a little far to go for what looks like a half to full pitch of not-very-difficult-looking ice, but it sure looked in good shape.