Lowell_Skoog

In the Apr-May 1980 issue of Summit magazine, Pete Reagan wrote an article called "The Dragon's Mouth" about a climb of St Helens on April 10, 1980. This was after the eruptions had started but before the big blast. The summit had collapsed by this time. There may have been later climbs, but this was certainly the last one so well documented. Pete also wrote articles about climbing St Helens soon after the blast. There are references on my ski history website: http://www.alpenglow.org/ski-history/ref/summit-info.html#1980s

That's one of my most distinctive memories of pre-eruption St Helens--an amazingly huge trough--visible from space probably--made by countless wet butts glissading down from the Dogshead. I remember sliding down it once and getting scared because the bottom of the trough had been scoured down to hard ice. It was difficult to stop. I climbed St Helens in the mid-1970s, but never did it with skis, unfortunately. I have a film preserved by the Mountaineers History Committee of Sigurd Hall, Ralph Eskenazi, John James and Dwight Watson skiing St Helens in June 1938. Probably only a handful of ski descents had been made prior to that.

Sounds like a fun trip. Nice pictures! I have been trying to track down when the Sherpa Glacier Couloir was first skied and by whom. I have a third-person report (from Armond DuBuque) that it was skied in about 1997 by Jeff Mazinko and Shane Wilder. I haven't yet confirmed this with the skiers themselves. If anybody knows about early ski descents of the Sherpa route, let me know.

I got a note from Steve Hindman indicating that he skied from the summit of Mt Spickard in April of about 2001. Excellent! If anybody can push the date back farther, let me know...

Snowfield Peak.

Oh yeah, definitely. The only "mandatory" place to take the skis off is the ramp that bypasses the summit of Cosho on the south. West of Cosho we backed down a gully on crampons, but that was only because it was morning and the snow was frozen. With softer conditions it would have been skiable. The entire rest of the traverse, from Easy (or Mesahchie) pass until you drop into the woods above 4th of July Pass, is skiable. Kimtah Peak is probably the most difficult to climb from the north side. (All the other peaks can be climbed by their east ridge after reaching it from the north.) On Kimtah, my brother and I climbed straight up the east face on snow, which was a new route at the time and very dependent on adequate snow cover. I don't know about other routes on Kimtah. The east ridge of Mesahchie can be a bit treacherous. Perhaps the west route would be better, combined with a climb of Katsuk from the same col. --- BTW: Here are some corrections to the latest CAG-2 edition regarding my Ragged Ridge climbs: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/223474/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

My brother and I traversed the glaciers north of Ragged Ridge from Mesahchie Pass to 4th of July Pass on skis in 1991. Here are some brief notes: http://www.alpenglow.org/ski-history/notes/ms/lds-journal.html#lds-journal-p683 We climbed only Cosho and Red on that trip, but I've climbed all the other peaks along the ridge on different trips from the same basic route.

A lot of the peaks that have been named here have been climbed several times. I've climbed some of them and I know people who've climbed others, so I doubt that they're "least tagged summits." I think a peak has to have been climbed just once to qualify for least tagged status. "Never tagged" is not as interesting at tagged only once. There are probably several peaks that have been climbed only once. Since I was in the neighborhood last week, here's a likely one that comes to mind--the Devil's Toothpick, east of Mt Rahm near Silver Lake. Red Fred says Wild, Lucke and Roper climbed it in 1980. I bet it hasn't been climbed since then.

Notes about the sources mentioned above, plus a few more, can be found by following the links on this page: http://www.alpenglow.org/ski-history/subjects/R-info.html#mt-rainier-traverses

Climb: Mounts Spickard and Rahm on skis-North glacier, SW couloir, respectively Date of Climb: 4/29/2004 Trip Report: On April 29, my brother Carl and I climbed and skied from the summits of Mt Spickard and Mt Rahm by the north glacier and SW couloir, respectively. I won't have slides back for a while, so here are photos from a 1999 trip with another friend. The left photo shows Mt Spickard from Silver Lake. The right photo shows Mt Rahm, just left of center. On Wednesday, April 28, we coaxed my car 1.9 miles up the Depot Creek road, where we were stopped by a washout, probably from last autumn's floods. There were some big blow-downs over the trail near the border, and climbing the Depot Creek headwall was unpleasant due to thin snow over the talus and brush. We camped when we reached upper Depot Basin. On Thursday, we skied to Ouzel Lake and up to Silver Lake pass. We descended to Silver Lake and packed our skis up the narrow SW couloir of Mt Rahm. I left my skis at the base of the summit rocks, but Carl managed to ski up and down through the rocks on just a few inches of snow dumped by a thunderstorm on Tuesday. We both skied down the narrow couloir back to the lake, with Carl starting from the actual summit. We skinned up the north glacier of Mt Spickard, then carried our skis up the final slope to the NW shoulder and the summit. We put on our skis at the summit and skied a 50-degree slope down to the bergshrund. The snow was wind-affected powder, offering a good edge, but uneven footing. Lower, the slopes became more gentle and we enjoyed a range of snow conditions, from dense powder to windboard to corn on the 4000-foot descent back to our camp in Depot Basin. We hiked out Friday morning. Help me get the record straight People have been skiing on Mt Spickard for over twenty years. However, every ski party I know of (including my 1999 party) has left their skis below the bergshrund and walked up and down the final steep slopes. I don't know of previous ski descents from the true summit. On Mt Rahm, I found a record of a May 14, 1992, ski of the north glacier by Lorne Stevens and Richard Suddas [sp?]. I don't know if there were earlier ski ascents than that and I don't know if anybody has skied the south side of the peak before. If you know of earlier ski descents of these routes, let me know, either by posting here, sending me a private message, or e-mailing me through my history project website: http://alpenglow.org/ski-history/project/about-frame.html

http://www.alpenglow.org/climbing/ptarmigan-1953/index.html

Guilty as charged. It's from skiing with my photographer brother who likes lots of color in his pictures!

I use three-ring binders. I can insert hand-written notes, photocopies, printouts of emails or whatever in there. I'm on my seventh binder at this point and my journal contains over 1500 pages for thirty+ years of trips. Usually I write my notes after I get home from a trip. But on longer trips I sometimes carry a 8.5" by 5.5" spiral notebook and write in it. When I get home I photocopy my notes out of the spiral book (which opens to 8.5" by 11"), three hole punch them, and put the copies in a three-ring binder.

Interesting thread with good suggestions. It's hard to think of better ones. I'll add my vote for John Muir. His early technical climbing was already mentioned. Even more important was his advocacy of wilderness. I read an interview with Reinhold Messner a few years ago in which he compared the over-developed state of the Alps against the more natural state of our American mountains. He said the reason for the difference was that America had John Muir and Europe did not. Food for thought...

After I got my slides developed I decided to turn this report into a web page, including a couple of historic photos. Enjoy: http://www.alpenglow.org/skiing/patrol-race-2004/index.html

I haven't heard of any other ascents. I'm starting to understand how old-timers get that way. Twenty-five years slip by and you suddenly think, "Dang! How did that happen?"

My brothers Gordy and Carl climbed the NW face of Black Peak in August 1978. I think the rock was mediocre at best, but not very hard. A friend and I were climbing the west peak at the same time and we observed Gordy and Carl climbing steadily without problems. (Mostly simul-climbing.) I recall Gordy saying the rock "wasn't too bad." On May 20, 1979, Gary Brill and I made the second ascent of the NW face, in spring conditions. Here is a picture taken in 1992 showing what the face looks like. There was a little more snowcover on the face when we did it. I think spring is the best time to do this route. To reach the face, we descended from the lowest col on the NE ridge (at left in the picture) by downclimbing snow gullies. Later in the season a rappel or two may be required. Our route started almost directly below the summit and climbed mixed snow and ice up and right to the sunlit, elongated snowfield in the center of the face. We climbed this snowfield to the larger sunlit snowfield above and angled left up it to the notch just left of the true summit. Gordy and Carl's route started farther right, near the toe of the face, and followed the slight prow on the face that angles up and left toward the summit. Here is a picture of Gary just above the crux of our May climb, a short mixed pitch (M3-4?). And here's a picture of Gary leading the final snow slope to the ridge just east of the summit.

It would be fun to resurrect the Patrol Race sometime. I'm too busy to do it now. I'll be writing about the race in the ski history book I'm working on. Maybe when the book is done (a couple years?) I'd have time to organize something like this. The book could generate more interest too. It would be a good activity to coordinate with the Mountaineers Centennial (2006-07) and the spring carnival at Meany hut.

I wouldn't bring somebody without mountaineering experience up the Tahoma. There's enough steepish terrain and objective hazard (requiring reasonably fast movement) that I think it would be a bad idea. The approach is probably the longest on Rainier, since you start so low. Here's a thread from another bulletin board with a trip report I wrote last summer after skiing the route. There are some pictures near the bottom. http://www.telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=9527&highlight=&sid=9b50a8cb4b8aa97caf311efd2848cf7a

Thanks Mike. I added it to my weather page.

Some context: 2002 was a stormier winter than this one, and the Cascade River road was blocked much farther from the end than this year. philfort posted a note about it before the 2002 Buckner thread got started, but I haven't looked for it. That's why people made cracks about using a helicopter. rperitore's query generated a lot of spray and misinformation, but that's typical on cc.com. He also suggested some odd route ideas (maybe he mixed up the names of Boston and Sahale?), which caused a flood of responses, both helpful and unhelpful. That's par for the internet. One of the reasons the north face wasn't climbed earlier in winter is that the notch crossing next to Boston Peak isn't well known. I think it's only an attractive route with snow cover. I looked down that gully on a ski trip across the Boston Glacier in 1987 and didn't think it attractive. So it didn't register in my mind as a route until I heard that the June 2002 ski party used it. It is odd that the southwest route wasn't climbed before 2003, but I think the approach crosses some pretty serious avalanche terrain. I spoke to one of the guys who climbed it last winter and he said something to that effect.

Yes, in the Snoqualmie Pass area I believe the crest trail was designated along trails originally established by the Mountaineers. The section near Silver Peak corresponds with the crest trail. Not yet. I shot slides. The markers vary from about the size of a credit card (though a big longer) to maybe six inches square. The amazing thing is how high some of them are. Apparently 1933 was a huge snow year. There is a story of an earlier marking party who walked the trail in summer and stood on each other's shoulders to place markers. But that apparently wasn't good enough, so they put 'em really high during the April 1933 effort.

In the Beginning was the Railroad. The first railroad breached the Cascades in 1888 through a tunnel under Stampede Pass. Twenty-seven years later another tunnel was bored under Snoqualmie Pass. A young outdoor club, The Mountaineers of Seattle, decided that the Snoqualmie railroad offered them an opportunity to make their own home in the mountains. So they built a lodge a mile and a half from the tunnel and began to visit their new home in every season. (This was long before the Snoqualmie Pass highway was open in winter or any ski areas existed at the pass.) In winter they came on Snowshoes. But before long a few started to bring Skis. The Mountaineers found skis to be Good and began using them to explore both north and south from their Lodge. In 1928, a band of Mountaineers spent a weekend in railroad shacks near the Stampede Tunnel to see if this country might rival their home skiing grounds at Snoqualmie. They liked what they found and before the year had ended they built another home, the Meany Ski Hut, near the Stampede Tunnel. Adventurous Mountaineers soon scouted an eighteen-mile ski route between their two mountain homes. In 1930, they inaugurated a race over this route, the Patrol Race. This race was the first of its kind in North America. Three-man teams would start at intervals from the Snoqualmie Lodge over a trail broken by a party that left before dawn. Each man was required to carry a ten-pound pack of emergency provisions and the three team members had to finish within a minute of each other at the Meany Ski Hut. The race ran for twelve years and produced tales of both misadventure and great skimanship. During World War II, the race was discontinued and in 1944 the Snoqualmie Lodge burned to the ground. Travel by railroad was supplanted by the automobile, large sections of the Cascade crest between Snoqualmie and Stampede Passes were clear-cut, and skiers turned to groomed trails, chairlifts and slalom. The Patrol Race passed out of memory for all but a few old-time skiers. ---- A few years ago, as I started researching Washington ski history, I read many stories about the Patrol Race. During the winter of 2001, when a low snowpack created poor skiing, I scouted the route from both ends on consecutive weekends. A few weeks later, on a cold, foggy day, I skied the route end-to-end. The following winter I skied it again. I wanted to share the experience of skiing this route with a partner, but due to low interest, schedule conflicts, or bad weather I never hooked up with anybody. Last Friday I posted a note on turns-all-year.com looking for someone to ski the route on Sunday. John Mauro called me up. I was a bit nervous about trying the route with an unknown partner, but John came recommended by someone I trust and he enjoys covering distance on skis as much as making turns, a rare quality these days. We hit it off right away. We parked my car at Snoqualmie Summit and started up the groomed slope in the dark at 6 a.m. By the time we reached Beaver Lake, it was getting just light enough to venture into the woods without headlamps. We carefully descended crusty snow to Lodge Lake, the original start of the route. Then we traversed southward, pausing for a moment above the Snoqualmie Tunnel to imagine the Mountaineers, almost ninety years ago, disembarking from the train to begin their hike through the snow to their Lodge. We followed the Hyak cross-country trails to Windy Pass, then entered the woods northeast of Silver Peak. The section from Windy Pass to Tinkham Pass is my favorite of the route. The old forest is still intact, making it easy to imagine what the entire route was like in the old days. It is also possible to find some of the original route markers, orange colored tin shingles (like large mailbox flags) nailed high on the sides of trees. In April 1933, a party of nine Mountaineers placed over five hundred markers, every three hundred feet or so, along the length of the route so at least one marker in each direction was visible at all times. South of Tinkham Peak, most of the markers were cut down with the great trees that supported them, but north of the peak a few remain. We reached Tinkham Pass (northeast of the peak) at 10 a.m., a little behind my previous pace due to harder trailbreaking and stops to take pictures of the markers. Then we descended to Mirror Lake, where we encountered our first snowmobile tracks. Except for the tracks, Mirror Lake would have looked unchanged to the pioneers. But once we passed through the trees at the outlet of the lake we entered the Desolation of late twentieth century forestry. As far as the eye could see there were clearcuts and logging roads. We descended to Yakima Pass, then skinned up the clear-cut shoulder south of Twilight Lake to the main Meadow Creek road. All the roads were packed by snowmobiles, and we gave friendly waves whenever they passed us. We schussed down the road for two effortless miles, then took a spur leading up Dandy Creek to a pass one mile northeast of Dandy Pass, known in the old days as Baldy Pass. Here we could look north along Keechelus Lake and see how far we had come. From Baldy Pass we followed the Pacific Crest Trail to Stampede Pass, then followed roads and power lines to the Meany Ski Hut, arriving at 2:30 p.m. Our time from Snoqualmie Summit to Meany was 8-1/2 hours. For comparison, the record time for the Patrol Race starting at Lodge Lake--about 45 minutes into our tour--by Wolf Bauer, Chester Higman and Bill Miller in 1936 was 4 hours, 37 minutes. Those were rugged days! At Meany we were welcomed by the Mountaineers, who have been operating their little ski area at this site for seventy-five years. The area is a throw-back, a time warp, and thoroughly charming. We rested in the old hut, then accepted a tow behind their tempermental old snowcat to the highway. The Age of the Railroads that gave birth to skiing in the Northwest is long gone, but as John and I bumped along with fifty other skiers behind the old cat, it seemed to me that in this tiny corner of the Cascades the old ski trains are still running. More history can be found here: http://alpenglow.org/ski-history/subjects/P-info.html#patrol-race http://alpenglow.org/ski-history/subjects/M-info.html#mtneers-snoq-lodge http://alpenglow.org/ski-history/subjects/M-info.html#martin http://alpenglow.org/ski-history/subjects/S-info.html#snoq-pass-road

Here's a link to today's front page story in the Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001857949_avalanche14m.html I met John Miner in 1987, when he and some friends joined my brother Gordy and me to try climbing Mt Waddington. I'm sorry I didn't get to know him better on that trip. I never saw him again after that. This tragedy reminds me of the accident about ten years ago when Mark Bebie, Steve Risse and Tom ?? were killed on Slipstream, apparently by an avalanche or falling cornice. A very similar scenario. Although I didn't really know the victims in this accident, it is a sad day.

I seem to remember Dan Davis telling me he did it by himself in winter many years ago. My fuzzy memory is that he chose the route in part to avoid crevasse danger, since he was by himself. If that's correct, he might have descended it as well. Fuzzy, fuzzy ...