JasonG

Thanks @Off_White! And, just to keep the party going, here are a few more photos I forgot to include! In case you're wondering, Sir Sanford is a beast! I really need to climb Sir Donald and Uto this summer: So, so many rad mountains in the Selkirks. Waldorf Towers, Whiteface Tower and Serendipity Spire (I think):

A shameless photo nerd reminder: Click on the first photo then scroll through to get the best image viewing experience. And not on your phone people!

Trip: A week at Fairy Meadow (Bill Putnam hut) - Pythias, Damon, Enterprise, My Little Pony, Pioneer (ski peak) Trip Date: 04/18/2018 Trip Report: Last year a bunch of my friends and I won the lottery! Well, more accurately, Bingen won the lottery and invited us to share in his prize- a week at the Bill Putnam hut up at Fairy Meadow. Wisely, he convinced to us to spring for a cook for the week, a luxury on top of the helicopter ride for us and our gear to the hut. And what a week it was. Storm, sun, wind, and fantastic food- It was my first taste of the more refined side of backcountry skiing. We had the whole hut for our party (20, including Patti the Mo's Mountain Cuisine cook). Each day the weather gods were consulted and plans hatched for whatever objectives seemed reasonable give the avy conditions and visibility. Some days this meant tree skiing below the hut. Others were spent chasing 10,000'+ summits ringing the valley dominated by the Granite glacier. Views down the spine of the Adamants are quite impressive, along with far away views of Sir Sanford (highest of the Selkirks) and Sir Donald (Sentinel of Roger's Pass). The hut is carefully situated at 6,800' meaning that a huge variety of ski terrain of all complexities is right outside your door. Steep chutes, mellow glaciers, treed glades and everything in between are comfortably within reach in a moderate day. We were moderately successful with weather, having one bluebird, three OK, and two storm days, managing to ski or boot up Pythias, Damon, Sentinel, Pioneer (ski peak), Enterprise, and My Little Pony (glaciated bump above the Unicol). All fairly easy, but each with it's own uniquely spectacular view. You're only limited by the conditions and your imagination at Fairy Meadow....Just don't be late for appetizers at 4pm! View across the Gothics Gl.: Skiing late season powder below Friendship col: Go big or go home: Heckling people on the "practice slope" right above the hut: Sauna Fairy, she points the way to cleansing warmth: Hut diversions (High Country Christmas is now at the hut for your reading enjoyment): Sentinel keeps watch over a trio battling high winds near the hut: Cycle Peak across from the hut: Granite Gl. Icefall: Skinning up to the Granite: on the Granite below Unicol: S Summit of My Little Pony: View of storm clearing on Austerity and Ironman: Shoulder of Colossal above the Unicol: Skiing the very mellow Granite Gl.: Skinning over to another part of the Granite under Pioneer Peak and the Stickle: The Stickle! Heading to Friendship Col on our best day of the week: Almost at the col, Gog and Magog above the skinning skiers: Friendship col: The Black Friars from Pioneer ski peak: Ridiculous peaks all around: Mount Columbia (?) in the distance: Adamant and Austerity: Our tracks on Pioneer: Adamant North Face: On the summit ridge of Sentinel. We fixed a line in case the slope slid: On the Gothics Gl: Skinning over to Enterprise under the watchful eye of Adamant: Just below the summit of Enterprise: We tried a different way back to the hut, coining the term "Adventure Suck Tour". It worked to cross the lower Granite this season with a 4m snowpack, but don't count on it every year: Bye bye Fairy Meadow, until next time: Gear Notes: Harness, rope, ski crampons, axe, whippet, rando ropes, avy gear. Plenty of beer/whiskey. Hire Mo's Mountain Cuisine for your cooking needs! Approach Notes: Alpine Helicopters out of Golden

Any particular reason you didn't want to rap it? It really saves a lot of time and energy!

Thanks @olyclimber. @Alisse you'll find that the article is pretty dated. Head to WildSnow to find more up to date articles on backcountry ski gear.

Thanks for pointing that out @Alisse. I'll bring up with @olyclimberand @jon

Nice work! I remember that as being an ass-kicker of a day with mostly bad snow conditions. Sounds familiar! Hard to beat the views though. My guess is the NW couloir is a wallow right now but would be good to hear from that party, whomever they are!

Yeah, there isn't a great way of getting pine needles out without stripping the glue. Picking them out works fine. And you don't need to worry too much about it. They'll still stick with a bunch of crap in them. And ski straps can be used if they are failing while you are in the field (that is a good indication time to re-glue). To make it simpler I have two primary pairs of skins. One for mostly winter use (glue that tends to stay pretty clean) and one pair for spring when I get a bunch of garbage in them. Because I end up using the spring pair less I re-glue on about the same frequency. Every other season?

I heard about that @Off_White, it was a good run! The Body, the Blood, the Machine is one of my all-time favorite albums

must.....not....post.....dave ....matthews ....lyrics....

Darin, as usual, is spot on with advice in his post. Another technique you can use at the final gluing stage is to put down parchment paper on the new glue and heat up with iron to float it out to a thin consistent layer. Let cool before pulling off the parchment paper! The key is to not over-apply glue. A thin layer is key.

Sweet! Got any photos to share? How much snow still at the car?

I have old purple ascensions that I've had for 16 years and which are still my main pair of skins. They've outlasted two splitboards and are now on their third. I re-glue them ever couple of seasons and don't do much else @Alisse. They have a few slits from skinning over rocks but otherwise work fine still, fuzzy and all.

That's been my experience in both in Canada and the US where grizzlies are present. Another selfish reason of mine for wishing the money was spent on road and trail maintenance instead.

Ha! I should say ugly for us softies. Just really terrible breakable crust over old debris. In the grand scheme of Cascadian suffering it was a paper cut. And you are welcome to join us anytime @lunger! Say the word and you'll be on the email list for extremely moderate adventures.

This was his first tour ever in the Cascades!

Love it! No TR is too old, I'm glad you came back to this. And, "dry skiing"....

That is an incredible time @mike_1, and so casual sounding! In a (half) day sounds like a lot of fun. I need to go back when I don't have to walk the road to the TH. Plus, I had to bypass the runnels as they were too thin. Thanks for the reminder to return!

Thanks everyone! If you're a photo snob like me you may want to click on the first photo in the TR and then cycle thru them using the arrows. This shows you much higher resolution versions than what is visible embedded above. You need to see them at their full frame glory!

You're right @KirkW, we should just all kill ourselves now.

Good point @genepires, but I think less people are also needed if we shrink our war machine. Less weapons to maintain. Of course, as @Dannible pointed out, things aren't simple to re-program at the Federal level. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who works for or has worked at the Congressional level on the most productive path. I suspect that it boils down to # of voices and seniority of your leaders in DC. i.e. the swamp.

It's true, defense spending dwarfs all other sectors of discretionary government expenditures (when you exclude SS and Medicare/Medicaid, which are much larger than the miltary). No matter the administration. Obama: A few less bombs would go a long ways on the forests.

Trip: Goat Mountain - SW route Trip Date: 03/31/2018 Trip Report: The last hall pass before our Canadian Hut trip was put to good use this past Saturday. Goat has mocked me for decades as I've gazed north from the ski area and tours out of Heather Meadows. No longer! In the winter a Goat tour starts pretty low. So, with the cold breath of the GRAVEDIGGER on our backs, we skinned from the start of the Hannegan Road a bit over two miles to the start of the Goat Mountain summer trail. Toiling upwards on a fine day we ran across cougar tracks from the day before, a few minutes before Shuksan burst into view at treeline. Those would be about the only tracks we would see until we gained the Twin Lakes Road on the north side of Goat. Sefrit: We reached Goat col about 4-5 hours after leaving the cars and started to skin the final 600 feet to the true summit of Goat, which is the eastern one marked on the USGS quad. Soon, however, we realized that skis were going to be a liability with the wind slab cooking on the south aspect of the peak and dropped them in favor of booting to the summit. The proved to be a smart move, as significant wet slides swept this face below the ridge between the time we ascended and descended. We were able to effectively mitigate the hazard by sticking to the ridge in the trees and rocks. Tomyhoi watching us on the ascent: The summit was glorious on this still spring day and we spent a half hour snapping pictures and admiring the view. Unfortunately we couldn't linger long, since half of our party waited at the col and we had a long slog out the Twin Lakes Road ahead of us. Downward! The final few feet to the summit: Southern Pickets: Ruth and Triumph on the right: Sefrit again: Nooksack Tower: Tomyhoi again: Seahpo and Jagged Ridge: West Goat: Then it was time to ski! The lower we got the worse the snow was (and it didn't start out that great), until it was horrific breakable crust. At least we had nice views of Goat: The happy(ish) crew, minus me, before things got really ugly: One last look at GOAT: Gear Notes: skis, ski crampons, light axe if going for true Goat, a slogging attitude. Approach Notes: Hannegan Road to Goat summer trail to Goat col to Twin Lakes Road to ruin.

How do we effectively advocate for more trail maintenance funding @Dannible?? I've written my electeds several times but they never even respond on this particular issue, likely because I'm one of the only ones who has ever brought it up. Get the big outdoor retailers involved like BD, Patagonia, REI??

More trails! If you look at old maps, there are hundreds of miles of trails that have been abandoned. Clear 'em out and publicize them!