Alex

nice

I have an old ITent I might be willing to part with. I also have a near new 2-door Eldorado, but I am keeping that one. The ITent is a single door ITent, which I bought used late 90s. The door netting is somewhat busted but the door itself still works. The floor is pretty worked, but the walls are still good. Let me know if you are interested and I'll dig it out of storage.

re: Alpental Falls. With this much new snow one has to be really careful if one ventures up the Snow Lakes trail and in the Alpental Falls vicinity, any further left than Alpental Falls proper, as Phantom slide and the terrain above is a real av hazard. In my experience Alpental Falls itself is not threatened. Practice Gully will be out now, it's only good before the first real snows. With the coming cold, the Alpental Falls itself and maybe Chockstone should bulk out and freeze much better. I have not been up the valley to look at Flow Reversal or any of the other stuff by Source Lake yet this year. With this much snow, av conditions dictate the choices more than anything else.

are they really calling that 10a now? ok I like your star photos its fer sure a nice area but such a long drive from anything else, it will always been a place for road tripping..

that is a really big three day trip! great job

looks great!

Which route did you do on the first Sella Tower, was it Trenker?

When I first tried climbing Boston, long back I think 1999, I thought it was terribly junky and backed off. Then, I went to the Canadian Rockies a few times and got more used to true junk rock, and now I think I'd be up for it!

that shit is so gnar i would have turned tail too! seems like a really nice outing

Lassen is a considerably smaller hill than Shasta. When I was working in southern Oregon I had similar problems findind good objectives. Roughly South to North: I wouldn't discount the Sierra. There are a ton of nice peaks that you can contrive a reasonable outing??? Thielsen is a walk-up / scramble. Its kind of just a hike. Go to the Sierra. The Sisters are closer to you than anything else snowy except Shasta and provide some very reasonable somewhat snowy walk-up routes. S Sister has a very basic walk-up/ski down kind of thing. You can combine Broken Top same day. Its a reasonable day. Middle Sister is also a walk-up. You could do S Sister, Broken Top, and Middle Sister as a reasonable weekend trip. North Sister isn't a walk-up especially the summit so I would refrain from that one, although it's a nice climb with a partner. Jefferson via it's S side is also moderate but has a long approach so your mileage may vary. Hood as mentioned is a One-Trick Pony via the South Side, however it isn't the most insignificant thing and is a reasonable undertaking, requiring you know how to self-belay with 1-2 axes and self arrest, as the downclimb from the summit can be icy and error prone. Still, it was my first ever solo, and many people solo it every year. There are other routes on Hood that can also be soloed (like Cooper Spur) however I would do the S Side first to familiarize yourself with the standard descent. S Side of Adams is a very commonly climbed and skied solo. There is another route on Adams, the NE? ridge? which is a non-glaciated walk-up, and is commonly used as the descent for the Adams Glacier. I have only gone down it, but it seemed very moderate. St Helens is also a walk up, commonly climbed and skied. Almost all these volcano routes are best descended with skis, so if you have good ski skills and there are people around (it's bad form to sprain your knee or ankle on the big hill with no one around) then the ski down can be moderate if the corn sets up reasonably well. Further North you venture into more and more glaciation which for the solo traveler who is new to the mountains, suggest you do all the easy climbs first before you brave crevasse fields solo... HTH!

Candide Thovex shows that even dirt is skiable, so... year round! For snow that might make it worth it to actually hump in skis and boots and ski some continual lines in the Sisters, I would say end of June? Mt Hood and Jeff > likelihood of skiable lines after end of June? But even so tend to be pretty bare after mid-summer.

Wanting to be on mountains as much as possible because it's dope, and to get in a good alpine start to avoid hazards as things soften later in the day, we would want to camp on hood as well. Would we do that just above the ski area but below devils kitchen? Again, assuming you are talking about the South Side route. Camp at the Illumination Saddle. Period. Relatively short summit day, but rad place to bivi. That, or the only other "sheltered spot" that might also have a little flat ground would be a bivy by the ski station at the top of Palmer. The South Side of Hood has essentially no sheltered bivy spots, nor many really flat spots, and isn't a particularly long route, so not many ppl camp and you'll be camping just cause you want to.

I think it's awesome! "wtf man.... i dont have an external frame pack.. what is wrong with jeans for hiking through the forest? and the ski field is pretty steep for a ski field.. pics dont show the exposure sometimes... what were you doing today.. sitting on you fat ass bugging highschool climbers out to have some fun... "

Friends don't let friends climb the North Face of Chair

I watched it. It was neat, but somehow I kind of figured that if you followed just about any drainage in the PNW you're going to find a lot of that kind of terrain. I think it was nice for OPB to do a cool spot on it, good viewing but a little too much drama for something that looks kind of mellow if you've ever done any canyoneering.

thanks for the post. the route is very commonly climbed and is named " Hubba Hubba" or, alternatively The Funnel, for the large amount of avalanches that occur here. the snowpack last few days has been very suspect, might be good that you didnt climb...

really excellent, thanks for sharing

Yes it was closed at exit 34 for a while.

I recommend everyone take AIARE Level 1 to help with their avalanche awareness and assessment.

Or, just get up an hour earlier and hike it/skin it. There is plenty of daylight that time of year.

Why don't you just rent a pair of plastic boots for the climb? Mt Hood isn't particularly long climb, it doesn't warrant spending 400$ on a pair of boots.

The long term (for the inversion in the mountains anyway) is more promising, I would watch the weather closely

I would softly suggest that 45L is far more than adequate for Mt Rainier. I have a Dana Designs Terraplane I used only in Alaska and have not used it ever since. I've used the 45L for everything since then, including summer and winter objectives. If you find yourself considering being a packmule, an external frame pack might be the ticket for big loads to help with kids backpacking trips, because, you won't be doing gnar-fest bushwhacking where you might opt for an internal frame bp.

I have not been into Strobach. However, with the snowfall, I think breaking trail into there would be an all-day effort, or if you follow the sleds and skin up the road, 3 hours. And the climbs are fed by snowmelt, which is great cause we sure have the snow, but the temps have been 1000-2000 which means not much melt AND it's really only December, so if you go in I wouldn't expect anything steep to be fat, you might end up climbing a semi-buried Sad Ce'bu. Strobach in my experience has always been most rewarding later in the season, not early season. Lillooet, I don't know I haven't been looking at the reports but I would wager money all the usual suspects are in.

Hyalite