AlpineK

Squid you're making me cry. I'm just trying to be open with my feelings. Just thinking about how unfairly I treated Fairweather the other day makes me sad.

I'm angry and I'm dumb. I look forward to our debate.

Deep down I want to drink tea and admire fine artwork, but I always end up drunk in a ditch. Can somebody help me.

Yeah I gotta problem with you dickweed.

I hate them fancy lads.

I'm not down with the euro model, or the one you describe in Argentina. The Canadian hut system is more what I'd like to see. They seem to make it work, I don't know why we couldn't.

There are a lot of environmental groups that hate the idea. There was a big controversy over the replacement of a historic 3 sided shelter in the Olympics. I believe the environmental groups carried the day and now there is no shelter where there had been one for years. It's really too bad. In my view a hut in a popular area would concentrate the human use, so instead of there being 50 tent platforms and poop everywhere it would all be confined to one spot. I support environmental causes, but IMO the groups have a bias towards keeping everybody out. After all humans come from outer space and aren't a part of nature.

Most of my years climbing were pre internet, and I can tell you that it doesn't take a web site for climbers to start slamming other climbers. All you need is a campfire and some beer. I think climbers are a group that is self selected to be elitist shit talkers.

Yeah they also have Trailer Park Boys on the TV up yonder. That shit would never fly down here. Unfortunately there are a bunch of uptight fuckers that run this country...It's bullshit.

I used an Irridium phone while we were in the coast range. It worked great. I would second the comment that if you rent for a month you might as well buy one. Also you have to have the antena out to recieve calls, so it's a pain if you're not sitting still or in a car.

I'm actually very happy with what I achieved yesterday...and for the record I'm only into polar bears these days.

Don't worry I'll be spending a lot of time in court due to my bad behavior.

Ya know when somebody walks around with the chip the size of a refrigerator it's hard not to smack it.

The topic of this thread is rape. Can you say legal action, Kurt? Come on I backed up one of your point's earlier...where's the love; I just ask whether you had a daughter or not

Do you have a daughter

Make Halmark happy and send your mom a card. Then come skiing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12241326/ Looks like those right-wing nuts might just be right this time. Of course, a liberal like you would never pre judge a serious case like this. Innocent until proven guilty and all that troublesome nonsense, eh? Can you say Tawana Brawley? I'm coming out of exile - this one time only - to tell you what a fucking moron you are, E-Rock. And the fact that the administrator here allows you to threaten 'butt-rape' without edit only demonstrates why this site now resides in the gutter. The AZT has turned your brain to cheese. Fuck off E-Rock. What little I know about the whole thing I have to say that in this one case they may be innocent, but it sounds like those guys were fairly out of control, and they're probably guilty of one or several other things...of course they aren't being investigated for anything else. Come on Brian just admit your unrequited love for E Rock...and the rest of us

Nope, there were lots of furry animals.

Enough of this PC bullshit In reality a number of clients of mine are homosexual. I like thier money just as much as the money of my hetro clients. On the other hand the whole concept of gay sex is gross, and it's something I'd never do...unless I was forced to in prison. Therefore when I say something is, "gay," I mean it's something I'd never do unless forced to under extreme duress. What you PC people want me to do is spend my life typing instead of expressing myself in a three letter word Well here's a 4 and a 3 letter word Fuck You

I hear that after that snowboarder got burried at Rudy Berlinger(sp?)'s place he requires all his guests to wear an avalung.

Why didn't we do that coming out from Pebble Creek???? Sounds like a good trip, despite the weather! Our original plan was to come out either Salal Creek or over Mt. Athelstan to Pebble Creek. The weather put an end to that idea, but the whole time I was trying to figure out how to keep the heli cost down but still get back to our truck. I'd like to go into Icemaker next, and the snowcat is only $125.00 CDN/hr though it does have it's limitations.

Brett is going to fagschool to train for his ascent of Brokeback Mtn.

Ya know at least Brett is young, and he still has time to change his uptight ways. I'm more worried about super serious, "old ( )," guys. If your not carefull you're going to end up a curmudgeon.

Climb: Pemberton to Hurley River-Ski Traverse Date of Climb: 3/30/2006 Trip Report: Over the past few years I’ve been ski traversing the coast range in segments. Two years ago Jeff Hansel and I skied from Blackcomb to the Pemberton airfield. The next obvious trip was to follow the mountains north of Pemberton just to the east of the Lillooet River. Jeff and I left Seattle on the 29th and headed up to Pemberton. We got up there late and spent a night in the hotel listening to the rain come down. The next morning we were up early since we had to meet the helicopter at 7:30AM. We spent more time filling out forms and paying for the flight than the actual flight time. I remember the pilot putting on a Fleetwood Mac song and flying off towards the mountains. The next thing I know he says, “It’s too cloudy to drop you where you want, so I’ll set you here.” We land with the song not even half over; the pilot says, “there are your three lakes; you know where you are?” I wasn’t totally sure, but I said yes anyway. Jeff and I jumped out got our gear and the helicopter was gone. After it got quiet Jeff started laughing and says, “Where the hell are we?” We looked at the map and pieced things together. It really didn’t help that the clouds were rolling in and out rapidly. But that was to become the theme of this trip. Heli flight in Low clowds at the start of the trip After getting our shit together we started skiing. After 5 minutes we were in a white out; we kept skiing until we were suddenly at the top of a big hill that wasn’t suppose to be on our route. I got out the compass and discovered that we were now headed SW instead of NW. We backtracked and got more or less on route. The clouds also lifted for a time and we moved along until they came down on us while we were traversing a plateau on Mt Ronayne at about 7000’. Suddenly we were at the top of cornices and a huge drop. We consulted the map and dumped our packs and walked back and forth trying to get some depth perception and figure out where the hell we were. After a bunch of swearing Jeff and I went exploring separate ways I finally figured that we either had to backtrack a long way or try and rap off one edge of the cornice. Jeff returned and we talked it over. We hauled our packs to the edge of the cornice and started poking around. I shoveled out a bollard and a trough on the top of the cornice and then rapped down about 30’ onto a steep slope. Jeff lowered my skis then his skis and my pack and his pack and finally he rappelled down. The slope below looked sweet but way too steep to ski with huge packs on, so we decided to let the packs slide. Mine slid down neatly, but Jeff’s started to tumble and we watched the tent poles and a couple other things go flying. We eventually got things together and had a nice ski in great powder down to a little lake. Looking back at the cornice on Ronayne 3/31 We had a bunch more travel in near and white out conditions this day. I had the compass in my pocket and checked it regularly. We traveled over the rest of the Ronayne massive and skied to Ogre Lake. There were a bunch of snowmobile tracks on ths stretch of the trip, but we never saw any. From the lake we climbed over the west shoulder of Seven O Clock Mountain. Things got a bit ugly as we climbed back into the full white out. We reached a high point near Mt Barbour and started skiing down. I thought we were going north, but we ended up going west and ended up at a lake. We skied to the edge of the lake and we were staring down into the Lillooet Valley instead of Tenquille Creek which I had been expecting. Despite this we weren’t too far off the plan though, so we set up the tent and crashed for the evening. 4/1 Seven O Clock Mtn South of Tenquille Lake In the morning we did a nice traverse across a high ridge to Mount McLeod and skied down to Tenquille Lake. There were a bunch more snowmobile tracks at the lake. We skied to the NW corner of the lake and checked out the gauging station and hut. The weather looked good so we decided to climb over Tenquille Mountain. We climbed up the long south slopes of Finch Ridge on Tenquille in the sun until we got near the ridge crest; then the clouds rolled back in and once again we were at the top of a cornice with a steep drop and virtually no visibility. After fucking around for a bit we decided that we’d pushed things far enough for the past couple days and we should just ski back to the lake. Tenquille and Goat Mountain We had a nice ski down from Finch Ridge and ended up back at the hut. Nobody had been in it for a while, so we dug our way down to the door. The hut has seen better days, but it was alright if you don’t mind a Grizzly Adams mixed with white trash theme to your stay. We found a wood stove, some chopped firewood but no axe. The hut was buried in snow so it took us at least an hour to dig out the top of the chimney. In the end we had to dig a hole over 6’ down through snow. Anyway we got the fireplace going and I used my light weight ice axe to chop a couple more pieces of wood. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out. At one point a couple snowmobilers showed up and we talked to them for a bit. They seemed concerned about us, and told us they’d help out if we needed. If we’d been smarter we would have ask for beer. A hole in the snow for the chimney 4/2 The 2nd was much nicer. Instead of heading back to Finch Ridge we climbed up a gully in between Tenquille and Goat Peak. This ended up nicely. We got right to the head of the Tenquille Glacier and had one of the best skis on the whole trip. From this point the skiing got sucky. We spent the rest of the day skiing through clearcuts and eventually to the ridge to the south of Railroad Pass. Now we were at about the lowest elevation of the trip and the ski to Railroad pass was pretty sloppy. We skied onto the road and sat there for a time and ate. Then the best thing on the whole trip happened. A snowmobile came around the corner. The mobile was pulling a huge sled loaded down with empty water jugs and such. The driver stopped and we talked for a bit. The driver has some backcountry ski operation on Grouty Peak and he was resupplying stuff for the next week. As it happened he had a beer with him and he gave it to us. Jeff and I split it. I don’t know when I was drunk on half a beer, but it was great. We ended up camping about a 100 yards from the road. Skiing on the Tenquille Glacier 4/3 The snowmobile dude had told us that there was a ridge of high pressure building, so we were pretty hopeful this day. Things looked sort of good as we climbed up around the side of Face Peak, but as per usual when we got up high we entered white out city. We got to the col bellow Handcar peak and we could see nothing except a cornice of undetermined size blocking our way. After we dropped our packs we started poking around. You could only see the edge of the cornice when you were about 4’ from it, so Jeff and I walked back a forth trying to find the edge or figure out just how big it was. At one point I started chopping at it with my ski pole and then booted down; I got about 6’ down and when I tried to kick the next step down all I hit was air. After that I quickly scrambled back up. Jeff had better luck he found that if you climbed up to this point at one side of the gap the cornice ended but when I booted down a bit there was a lot of pillowed up snow that smelled of avy. After some more talk the clouds lifted a bit and I chucked a few snowballs off the top of the cornice and determined that the point which I tried to boot down was about a 30’ drop. As on the first day’s cornice this was something that you could huck with no pack, but life is a little different with a big pack. Anyway we decided on Jeff’s side route. I booted straight down to get off the pillow of snow; Jeff walked down and then we skied. This was another nice run with some traversing down low. The second big cornice In the valley we checked the time and looked at the weather. We still had a couple hours of travel time, but the weather wasn’t looking too good, we were burned out from a lot of travel and we were at a natural point at which we could bail from the whole traverse. We spent the night right there at the pass while it snowed another couple inches. 4/4 A distant view looking south at the 2nd cornice Mt Samson We woke up in a cloud with new snow falling, so neither of us moved very quickly. I eventually got up and the weather looked really bad for any kind of routfinding. After a couple more hours rest I could start to see the sun burning through the clouds, and sure enough as we made coffee it cleared up from full on white to a swirling coming and going. That was good enough for us and we headed up a long hill towards Mount Samson. The thin cloud cover seemed to amplify the heat of the sun and we were both baking in the heat despite our limited visibility. At the top of the slope we did a falling traverse and ended up with a short climb onto the Boomerang Glacier. Things were getting hot, and the new snow triggered a bunch of big avalanches onto the glacier. Despite this it was nice skiing and we were soon at the top of North Creek. I didn’t know where the North Creek hut was exactly, and I didn’t want to drop down too far, so after a half hour of searching we gave up. From the basin we climbed up a hill and camped just west of the divide between North Creek and the Hurley River. At this point we were a day and a half behind my original idea of getting to Salal Creek and after talking things over with Jeff for a bit I got on the sat phone and called up this guy in Pemberton with a snow cat and told him we wanted a ride out the next day from Donelly Creek camp ground. South towards Handcar (with cornice) Boomerang Glacier Delilah 4/5 North Creek Hurley Divide This was the first day of clear weather on our trip. We got going late, hiked over the divide, and skied the gentle slopes of the upper Hurley River. The clear skies made the snow icy and fast, so we made good time heading down the river. We saw a bunch of tracks including a set left by a cougar and her cub. We followed them all the way to the road head then lost them. The rest of the ski out was kick and glide on a logging road. Jeff and I got to Donelly Creek at about 3PM and spent the rest of the day hanging out waiting for the snowcat. Finally at about 8:30 our man with the cat showed up. It was dark so I didn’t get a picture, but the machine was just about the coolest thing I’ve ever ridden in. The driver handed us a couple beers apiece then drove the cat on snow then on the dirt road, and then to our surprise on the paved road almost all the way into Pemberton. From there He drove us to the airport and our car. The rest of the evening involved eating drinking and watching that White Castle movie on the TV at the Pemberton Hotel. End of the ski Bad ass snowcat Gear Notes: The usual things. We did use a rope once, and ski crampons helped. I recommend taking a Sat phone on a trip like this. Approach Notes: Heli to the start of the route and a snowcat on the way out There are 3 maps in my photo galery with our route marked out.