JasonG

Just wondering if anyone has first or second hand knowledge . . .Thanks!!! Jason

Thanks much . . .

Do you have to do some fun river hiking to get to the Statlu Lake TH (or can you still get there with an 4WD)?? Some of those pictures look mighty sucky!! Thanks! JG

Thanks for writing this up Dan, and thanks to everyone for taking a gamble on a stranger. It was a fun trip with great company! In the spirit of the weekend, I want to let everyone know that "I may not climb hard, but at least I'm a member of the Mountaineers." And Juan- Cruiser also rhymes with boozer . . .Maybe there's a place for cc.comers after all. Cheers-Jason

Yup, it happened to my wife and we even had a parking pass! We just forgot to hang it in the window. I sent a letter explaining what happened, but it didn't get connected to the violation because the car was registered under her maiden name. Anywho, to make a long story short . .. we went traveling for two months and returned to find a court summons in our mail box, arngry voicemails from the US Attornys office asking why we didn't show up in court (in Wenatchee no less), and, finally, a letter telling my wife that there was a warrant out for her arrest!!!! We finally got is sorted out, but man, I love to see my tax dollars at work like that. Sheesh!

Just wondering what those who own a pair think of them. Warm enough for Canadian Rockies Ice? Is the thermo liner the way to go?? If you hate them, what else would you recommend? Thanks!

How hard is the pillar?? WI3? . . Thanks for any info!

We had this great route all to ourselves yesterday! Really, really safe (lots o' bolts), varied and fun climbing. Right now there is no snow on the approach after leaving the Icicle road. Watch out for ticks, and crazy locals looking to talk your ears off. It felt like 70 degrees in the sun yesterday. And this is still winter??

FYI . . . Should this be a sticky?? PHOTOS SOUGHT FOR GLACIER RESEARCH Researchers at Portland State University are seeking photographs of alpine glaciers in the Lower 48, particularly historic or current photos that show the terminus (snout) of the glacier with the surrounding landscape in late summer. Andrew Fountain of the university's Department of Geology, writes, "We intend to compare photos of the same glacier, but taken over different times, to infer the magnitude of glacier advance or retreat. This is part of a project to assess glacier change over the past 100+ years. We will make the data derived from the photos available to all using our web site: www.glaciers.us." For more information or to make arrangements to deliver photos, contact Fountain at Andrew@pdx.edu . Portland State is cooperating with another fascinating collection of historical glacier photographs at the National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology. These photographs are primarily of Alaskan glaciers but also include the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains, and Europe. Many of the photographs in this remarkable collection have been digitized and can be viewed online. Go to http://nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/photo_query.html to check out your favorite glacier.

My wife and I spent the month of November in the Khumbu. We went through BKK and flew Thai airways (highly recommended), and visited some southern beaches just before all hell broke loose. Nepal and KTM felt really safe, we only had a few tense run ins with Maoists on the trail (on the section from Jiri to Lukla). We paid our "donation" and were on our way . . . From what I gather, things are not terribly different today. This is the best website I've found for up to the minute information: http://www.raonline.ch/pages/story/np_mao0c.html Hope this helps!

Climb: The Brothers-Normal route to South Summit Date of Climb: 2/21/2005 Trip Report: Just a quick update for those interested in condtions of the eastern olympics. In a word: DRY!!!! My wife and I caught the ferry over from Keystone Sunday afternoon and made the leisurely drive to the Lena lake TH. We were a little disappointed at the mass of cars and the numerous parties signed in to climb the brothers, but shouldered our packs and set off anyway. We left the cars about 2:45 pm A snowless hike brought us to lower lena lake and gun toting locals. Quickly using the restroom (with TP!), we continued up in patchy snow to the normal camping spot in the valley of the silent men. We pitched out tent on less than 1 inch of snow, cooked a good dinner, and were in bed early. Setting out the next morning at 6:30 we didn't see much in the way of continous snow, a common theme of the weekend. The good news is that there is a pretty good climber's path to follow, meaning routefinding was real easy. An hour of hiking or so brought us to the main southern gully and the start of the normal route. From here you can see up towards the summit and we were shocked by the sight! Conditions looked like late July and not late February. No snow on most of the route, with only patchy snow in the gullies. So linking patches of snow and easy scrambling, we steadily made our way up the route, only slightly getting off-route near the top (we should have stayed farther right). Total time to summit was a little over four hours, arriving around 11am. What a view!! I had climbed the Brothers before, but didn't get to see anything. It might have one of the more expansive views of any mountain I've climbed: Candadian Coast range, all the Washington volcanos, Mt Hood, Puget Sound, downtown Seattle, Lk Washington, not to mention most of the major Olympic peaks. We stayed for an hour admiring the view and warm, windless weather, and were sorry to have to leave. Retracing our route back down, along with packing up and hiking out, consumed the rest of the day for us. We arrived just at dark at the cars, without the need for headlamps (it was close though). All in all, a fun winter weekend with the wife!! The only thing is, on warm days, make sure to wear your helmet in the main gully- we saw a good bit of rockfall! And you may want some body armor when traveling past lower lena lake -we had to yell "hold your fire" to some kids shooting (we felt) wildly from one of the lakeshores. Sheesh! Gear Notes: Ice axe, crampons, helmet Approach Notes: Patchy snow the whole way, never gets deep!

North aspects in the Baker BC were sweeeeeeeet today! Anything else was a major crust fest. Just a little update for those who might be headed up . . .

Thanks for the info everyone. The weather has made the decision a bit easier . . . Mt Baker BC skiing it will be!! Cheers Jason

Just wondering what some of those more local than myself think of conditions in the Whistlerish backcountry right now . .. Any opinions or direct experience??? Thanks!! Jason

Anyboby want to get out skiing (I'm actually on a split) around Table or Herman this weekend?? The roads might suck, but the conditons should be nice. I'm in Mount Vernon . . . Shoot me a PM if you are interested. Thanks!! Jason

Oops . . . That should be INGRAHAM glacier. Gotta keep things spelled right since Mike is checking in. And to answer your question Mike, I was a little bit confused by the new sleeping arrangements at the shelter. It seems like the bunk space has been reduced (now you sleep parallel to the long wall) and a new door added on the south side (unusable in winter). Is this to make it less crowded/more like the original design?? We didn't have any company in the shelter so it worked out perfect for us. Winter climbing on Rainier would be much tougher without the shelter! One last note . . . We roped up at the start of Gib chute and stayed roped up to the crater and back down to Cadaver Gap. We unroped for a short bit down to the Cowlitz, then roped back up for the walk to Muir. We punched legs through several weak bridges during the day and were real nervous we were on heavily crevassed terrain (snowpack is still pretty meager). Oh, and if you're climbing Rainier in the winter, I found out that a face mask of some sort is pretty key. That wind is cold!

Climb: Mt. Rainier-Gib Ledges Date of Climb: 12/28/2004 Trip Report: Well, as they often say the "third time's a charm". At least it was for me on my several year quest to climb Mt. Rainier in the wintertime. Even with good forecasts in seasons past, all of my previous attempts had been thwarted by high winds, avalance danger, etc. So, with some time off of work and a great forecast I once again madly tried to convince every climber I knew to join me for a Mon/Tues attempt on the Gib ledges route. Sunday came with no bites, so I enlisted the help of the cc.com to find me a partner, and was not dissapointed. After some last minute phone calls, the plan was set- I would meet OlegV and Justin RR at Paradise at 11am Monday. I had met nor climbed with either, so it truly was a pretty cool feature of the website to be able to plan a climb on such short notice. Plus this would be both Oleg and Justin's first time trying to climb the mountain. Monday morning found us in the Paradise lot, as planned, sorting gear and eyeballing the lenticular sitting over the summit. It was windy, and I was dreading another failed attempt, but I kept my doubts at bay and continued packing. Leaving the cars around noon, we followed the well beaten path to Muir, arriving at about 4pm to cold temps and moderate winds. Melting snow and cooking dinner occupied our exciting evening- we were in bed around 7pm. Up at 3am and away around 4, we were soon breaking trail up the Cowlitz to the start of the ledges. A bit of windslab made us nervous, but not so much so that we thought sticking to the tedious ridge around the beehive would have been better. Crossing the ledges was exposed, exciting, and generally great and secure climbing- as others have said, it is a really fun route. We traveled unroped for speed (there isn't much pro anyways), but didn't see or hear any rockfall (we crossed before the sunrise). I've heard that Gib chute can get really wind-loaded, but yesterday it was firm and icy-perfect cramponing. It was at this point that we were treated to a beautiful but cold winter sunrise-full of color, but not much warmth. Thankfully the winds were rather mild, only 10-20mph. Above Gib Rock, the upper mountain was scoured and icy and generally in perfect climbing shape. Justin started to slow from the altitude and elevation gain and opted to unrope and wait at about 13,500', which was unfortunate, but at least he got to experience all of the actual climbing. Oleg and I hurried upwards, arriving at the crater rim around 10:30am. It was cold (I don't know what the temp was, maybe single digits??) but not too windy (maybe 10-15mph). Due to the shortness of daylight, our partner waiting below, and our general feeling of this is good enough, we opted out of the traverse over to the highest point. We just grabbed a bite to eat, shot a couple of pictures, and marveled at the view. So even though the purists out there will say we didn't climb Mount Rainier, it was good enough for me. Leaving the crater at 11am and reversing our way back to Justin and Gib Rock, we decided to head down the Ingrahm and through Cadaver Gap rather than descend the ledges. Under good snow conditions, I think this would be almost as fast and probably safer, but for us it was a wallowfest. Mostly knee and thigh deep plunging, although at least it was downhill. The icefalll proved a little tricky to negotiate (we headed down the right side), and we had one instance where we did a short rappel off an overhanging lip of a crevasse (an ice horn served as a handy anchor). Cadaver Gap was reached shortly thereafter, and the descent down to the Cowlitz was easy and uneventful (no windloading and perfect plunge stepping). A final slog brought us to Camp Muir about 2:30 pm, where we drank, ate, and packed madly (gotta beat that early winter sunset). Away at 3:30, we were treated to an amazing sunset (bad weather looked to be approaching) on the hike back to Paradise. We arrived at the cars a little after 5pm, just barely avoiding the need for headlamps. All in all a fine adventure with a couple of guys whom I'd never even met the day before. I would definetly reccommend this climb for anyone who is looking for a little wintertime adventure on Rainier. It is fun, direct, and has quite a bit more interest than the more standard slogs. Jason Griffith Gear Notes: Ice axe, steel crampons (alum. would've worked fine), helmet, 8mm 30m rope. Brought a second tool, didn't use. Approach Notes: Boot track well established to Muir. Some wallowing to be expected on the Cowlitz and coming down the Ingrahm.

So my trip last week didn't pan out. I'm looking to try things again this week and the weather is looking fine without much wind. PM me if you are interested! Jason Griffith

The long range weather forecast is looking mighty fine!

I have some time off next week, and it looks like high pressure may be in order. If anyone is interested, please shoot me a pm. Thanks

So . . .. I have had a Voile for about 4 years of so and really like it. But so far, I have mainly stuck to wintertime BC turns (using normal softboot snowboard bindings). Towards the end of last season I got a pair of plate bindings for it and started using my plastic mountaineering boots for some climb/ski combos. I found out that they pretty much suck for snowboarding, and it is hard on the boots. I also found out the the skins that come with the setup (not full length) don't normally stick real well when they get totally soaked in spring snow. So that leads me to two questions for those wise old BC types that might be perusing the site . . . 1. What is a good lightweight AT boot (I'm willing to pay for a good one with a thermo liner) that people would think would work for snowboarding? I'm thinking something that is fairly flexible by ski boot standards . . . 2. Fat skins that would work on twin tip boards. The waist width of the ski is around 150mm . . .. Or should I just re-glue my existing skins and hope for the best (they work fine under cold winter conditions) Thanks for any and all advice!!!

A friend and I went in last October before the floods and it did indeed suck. Much of the time is spent in a brush tunnel, but you won't find any crowds (we didn't see anyone the entire trip). After leaving the Chilliwack trail we couldn't find much of a climber's trail to Ruta lake, on the way in or out. Beautiful area though . . .

Wayne- No snow from the flapjack side?? Thanks for any info, thinking of taking the wife up there in the next few weeks. Good trip??

Just wondering if you need an axe or crampons this time of year. Thinking of heading up for the nesakwatch enchainment and would rather not carry the extra stuff. Thanks for any info!

Fern- Is that why this thread is in the BC forum? Dru- Thanks for the info. With all the rain last fall I was wondering about washouts and such (having never driven the road myself), but I guess the road is just fine.