Alex

Its a hard choice. In my experience, though, you can do more climbing and approaching AND ski with a pack better with AT gear than with tele gear. What I do (I have both) is use the tele for fun backcountry turns and skiing lift served, and use the AT for mountain experiences where skiing is just part of the thing, not the objective. If you had to do only 1, I would go AT.

It's kind of a hippy town, they don't have the internet there yet.

No words on the internet will make it click You need a mileage trip with an experienced partner(s). Carve out some time next Thanksgiving or Christmas and go to Banff or Hyalite for 4 days. Climb 12+ pitches of ice. Climb til you're blue in the face. You're technique will improve dramatically and you wont regress once you've done it correctly. Or go to Ouray during ice fest. You'll get more teaching than you'll know what to do with!

Jim Nelson's first guide really has some of the most tried and true recommendations. So the stuff below is mostly a re-tread.... Moderate Snow Hood in winter, South Side route. Like, weather this week is perfect for this one! Number one recommendation! Ski off. Rainier to Muir hut is great training any time of year. Colchuck in winter is good because the trail to Colchuck Lake is usually beaten in, so you wont get lost. Once above the lake if there is any visibility at all, it's ok. Mt Adams in Spring, South side, ski off Mt St Helens in Spring, ski off Shuksan Sulphide in Spring Mt Baker in Summer once you have your glacier travel down. Tons of other smaller stuff once you look around. Moderate Rock (define moderate!): The Tooth. Seriously. Best bang for the buck. North Face of Vesper. S face of Ingalls day trip. Go early or be prepared to wait. Beckey Route on Liberty Bell S Arete of South Early Winters Spire N Face Kangaroo Temple (did this in Oct, was fun with 2 inch of snow on it!) If someone can take you, West Ridge of Forbidden - full on alpine If you can get someone to take you, West Ridge of Stuart. If you can get someone to take you, upper N Ridge of Stuart, with no Gendarme is easier, w Gendarm is more aesthetic. Once you do all this, you'll get other ideas.

Last time I did this trip I had horrible wind crust most of the way, made for one of the most unenjoyable skis I can remember. Nice pic!

All what you say is true, woodsman. That said, it IS possible for ManAmongst to reach his stated goals and not die in the process, with maybe a modification to his original plan and being conservative. You want to see both the Northern and Southern Pickets solo? 1) Drive to Hannegan Pass TR. Northern Pickets: Hannegan Pass to Whatcom Pass to Easy Pass. Its not trivial but it's mostly on primitive trails at least. Camp there or back at Whatcom Pass whereever you find water, hang out, enjoy the views of Challenger and Blum. Don't die on the Challenger Glacier. Go out the same way you came in. 4-5 days round trip minimum. 2) Drive to Newhalem. Go in the standard approach for West Ridge of West MacMillian Spire. It's possible you'll figure it out solo the first time, but it isnt really "a trail", it might be followable if you are lucky or hook up with another party if you time it for a Friday or Saturday. You'll camp in one of the cruciables of Washington alpine. If you're motivated go solo West Ridge of West Mac. If not, it doesnt matter. And go back out again the same way you came. For fit people - zorastr and Erick Johnson are my yardsticks - this is a very long day trip, but you will do as an overnight or 3 day trip. Now, you've just spent 9-10 days and seen the Northern and Southern Pickets, possibly even with a summit, and likely not died.

Nice effort.

That's awesome! Me thinks with some updrafts you could...summit??

badass kurt and rodney!

I'd suggest that soloing a N-S traverse of Picket range is probably not the best idea, due to the level of commitment and your unfamiliarity with the area and the northwest alpine environment. I've personally tried a N-S traverse of the range back in 1999 with a super solid partner, and we bailed back over Whatcom Pass to Hannegan Pass from around Crooked Thumb when the cornices overhanging one particular part of the route of travel were too crazy for us. This was well before the Southern Picket wall. We were both seasoned alpinists but the commitment was total, and we didnt see anyone else our entire trip. As a REALLY good alternative, you could explore the Bailey Range traverse, would would fit into your timeframe and take you through some of the best country the PNW has to offer, with less danger and less commitment. Steph Abegg also has info on the Bailey Range on her site. Hope that helps.

I clip a screamer to every placement these days, the only time I use slings or draws is on bolts or trees. I fully extended a screamer in one very short fall at Hyalite this season when I pumped out and did a "controlled back down". They zipper very readily and it was actually very cool to see.

Thanks for the update. It's only mid Jan, there is hope yet.

Looks awesome, congrats to you both!

This is the route "CYA" in the book, and posted about alot on this site.

Hey good job. St Helens is a nice ski, typically more so in the spring when you get good CORN. Hard to beat the views etc. Backcountry skiing is a very very different animal than lift-served skiing, good on you for perservering through.

63$ cdn/night for 2 seems pretty std. I stay at the Mile 0 out of habit and its reasonably clean and quiet, not because it's awesome. (It seems many years now that Lillooet had the kind of climber traffic where you actually had to reserve much in advance. Ah those were the days! Seeing Don Serl and Drew et al at the Reynolds on Sat/Sun morning at 5:30am or so like clockwork....) The climbers log is just a book. It's been there for years, actually.

I bet you could write a book.

Thanks for the pics. It's pretty interesting how some areas are so thin this year (LWorth, Banks, Narada above), despite our (now two) relatively cold spells before New Years.

Nice. Only time you'll see ice that fat in NC for the next 20 years...

Ok, interesting, tne "topo" pic I have has their route going right up the ice flow.

In a word, yes. I generally stay at the Mile 0.

I believe the left hand line in the second pic is still unclimbed but the right hand line in the second pic is Dave and Scott's line from 2007.

Yeah my first summit of Hood was Dec 3rd? 6th? 1993 and it was like a "Winter Wonderland " ! It looked like the pics in the first TR you linked to. It was a bluebird day and I couldnt believe how small the lifts looked far below on the Palmer. There were wispy clouds between myself and them (likely vapor from the crater). Hood looks a lot steeper somehow when looking down than it does when looking up, climbing. I was flying pretty high, it was my first ever "alpine" climb in the Northwest! Top of Hood looks pretty much the same any winter month of the year, above a certain elevation. Best thing would be for you to just go climb it It's really just a nice jaunt.

Sounds reasonable. Accidents in North American Mountaineering would read like this: conditions and visibility deteriorated rapidly towards the top of the route as the lenticular formed. The weather window had closed several hours earlier than predicted! But our heros, lured by the proximmity of the summit and the skis on their backs resolved to go up and over, rather than back off, as the ski down the South Side is an easy cruise as long as there is visibility, and *SURELY* they would have enough visibility to bust up and over with the summit so near. They gain the summit ridge (which on Hood is actually a pretty narrow thing from where you might top out on Sunshine/Queens Chair to the summit) and foresake the summit - they'd been there before - for a speedy decent. Strap on the boards and start heading down but that high on Hood the ski conditions can be quite icy and as they are skiing the first turns, in climbing boots no less,(really crappy support compared to alpine touring boots) they loose control down the face of what would likely be the Old Chute and wipe out hard - broken ankle would be a very common injury - thus snow cave, Hogsback elevation, storm forming.

in any kind of remotely stormy conditions, ice axe or wands would not be visible. one thing that comes to mind is (make your climbers more hardcore...they were not only going to climb, they were going to ski off the top) to take skis with handy neon orange bases and mark the cave entrance with crossed skis.