Alpine_Tom

I’d call this Darwin in action. I’d favor snowmobiles at Mt Baker, as long as there’s an open season on them, with a reasonable limit (say, 2 per day per hunter.) They’re loud, obnoxious, destroy the wilderness experience for everyone for miles around them, and are extremely efficient at hauling great quantities of trash into the backcountry, and leaving it behind smoldering in their firepits for others to enjoy. (Or maybe it’s backpackers who are leaving empty cases of Schmidt’s and empty bottles of 10W-40?) Maybe I shouldn't talk like this, this being Good Friday and all, but...

There was an article in the Seattle times about this last year, and one of the bits I remember was a person who refused to pay the fee, on the grounds that since it was a "demonstration project" his refusal to pay was a form of protected speech. The judge bought it, as I recall. Of course, I don't have any of the particulars, but maybe MrGoodTime or some other legal type might have some useful input on this tactic. (My search of the ST web archives failed to find that article.) Another tactic suggested in an October 29, 1998 ST article is to park a quarter-mile from the trailhead because it is legal, although not advertised in the news releases about the fee program.

Not to change the subject... but has there been any further word on those two Baker climbers? It's been a week, and if they were as poorly equipped as the news coverage indicates, it seems like they might be all out of luck.

As far as walking routes, there are plenty of hiking opportunities around here, though it's a bit early in the year. Have a look at http://www.wta.org/wta and http://www.cooltrails.com/ and http://nwog.org/. If you're comfortable with snowshoes, you can rent them at REI or Swallows Nest or other places, and they'll increase your options greatly. Have a great trip!

This topic has been worked over fairly completely, but as the son of a reference librarian, I can't help quoting from an authority -- (it's in print, so it must be true!) This is from Duane Raleigh's "Knot's & Ropes for Climbers" "Single ropes are those designated by the UIAA as safe for single-strand use...Single ropes come in diameters from 9.8 to 11 mm. Sport climbers, to whom every ounce is the enemy, typically use 9.8-10mm ropes... Double Ropes are those that you must use in pairs, although you don't need to clip every rope through every point of protection. Rather you can alternate clipping the ropes, an appreciated feature that reduces rope on winding and traversing routes. You'll find double ropes in the 8 to 9mm range. Double ropes are ideal for ice, alpine, and mountaineering, where you typically need two ropes to rappel the route and carrying two heavy single ropes doesn't make sense... All double ropes have the number 1/2, surrounded by a circle, on the rope's whipped ends. Twin ropes are the most dysfunctional of the lot, and I've never been able to rationalize a place for them. These 7 to 9mm lines are used in pairs like double ropes but differ drastically, as both strands must be clipped to every point of protecion. In my eyes, cliping both ropes robs them of the great advantage of double ropes - that of alternating clips to minimize rope drag. Also these small-diameter ropes are snag and tangle prone, and I can never seem to keep them orderly. Still, twin ropes provide the highest safety margin of all ropes and are the lightest combination possible, making them appealing to a few extreme alpinists... Twin ropes have the number 2 surrounded by a circle, on the rope's whipping. Don't confuse twin ropes with double ropes; they are similar but not interchangeable."

Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought the reason they were taxing us for trail access was to provide for maintenance of trails and roads. Or is this part of the "demonstration" project, to demonstrate that they're going to shut down any road that doesn't bring in enough revenue?

FWIW, the only place in North America that Asolo recommends (on their website) for repairing their boots is Dave Page.

I retract my earlier smart-ass comments. There aren't any really easily accessible glaciers, and as a rule, glaciers aren't safe places to explore unless you know what you're doing. The easiest to get to might be Interglacier, on Mt. Rainer, up the White River trail. (Coincidentally, that's the only glacier I've ever been on where a member of my party has fallen into a crevasse.) A good orientation might be RMI's one-day crevasse rescue school, or their "Glacier Hike" See www.rmiguides.com [This message has been edited by Alpine Tom (edited 03-19-2001).]

Here's my version of this climb, just to keep the thread alive: Solo climb of Fischer Chimneys, Saturday, Jul 13, 1996 I hadn’t planned on soloing, but my partner changed his plans at the last moment. So, rather than bagging it, I went alone. How dangerous could it be, I asked myself in the tone that you use when you already know what you want the answer to be. It was really hot this week, in the 90’s in Seattle, and it made sense to me that the place you wanted to be was as high in the sky as you could get. Left the house around 3:00 (prepacking the car greatly eases the morning exit) and stopped for gas. I parked at Heather Meadows. But had some trouble finding the proper trailhead. I walked up to the chain Lakes trailhead before figuring out what was wrong (thanks to my 7.5 degree map, I was eventually able to locate the trailhead fairly precisely, once I looked.) So, I didn't get on the trail until around 7:00, rather later than I'd hoped. The trail goes downhill into a valley, past marmot and wildflowers, and after four miles, you're at Lake Ann, which in the middle of July, was still almost solid ice, except for a turquoise ring of water around the edge. I ran into a couple of guys who weren't climbing because they didn't like the look of the snow, one of whom walked off with obvious disdain when I said I was climbing solo on the Price, the other spent about ten minutes explaining the route to me, pointing out the access to the Chimneys. Which is good, because the photo I’d brought along didn’t help at all. The trail (once I got on it) was pretty easy to follow, not too difficult, class 3 in some places but mostly easier than that. I ran into a couple who were turning back because they didn't want to climb a steep snowfield ahead. Once out of the Chimneys the sun got even hotter. My imagining that this would be a good place to be on the hottest day of the year was pretty wrong. It seemed to go a little quicker than the Sulfide Glacier route, though, maybe because there's more variety in the approach. Winnie's slide is steep, about 80 degrees, probably, and then you're on the Lower Price Glacier and descend somewhat to the entry to Hell's Highway. I walked along, thinking light and gentle thoughts, in the trail of footprints, relying on my x-ray vision and ESP to avoid crevasses. I'd thought about trying to do the hourglass, but it was only half snow, and had a nasty looking bergshrund at the top of it, and Beckey says that it's not a time-saver anyhow, so I followed the footprints ahead of me. I made it to the base of the summit pyramid around 2:00, but couldn't do the rock climb on the right skyline. There were a couple of guys there, a father and son, I think, who had decided the same thing. The father said that it was easier to go up the central gully once the snow was gone, but it was steep snow all the way up. So, they turned around and headed down (and disappeared from the Sulfide glacier in about five minutes) and after calling my wife I packed up and followed them. Then I noticed a set of footprints heading up the pyramid and I figured, well, why not give it a shot. There were some spots where it was pretty icy and slick, and I was a bit anxious, but I managed to make the summit staying on the snow practically the whole way. The last few yards were easy rock. There was not summit book (at least that I found.) I was up there for about three minutes, just long enough to take some photos and try to call my wife, but oddly, there was no cellular service up there (there had been below, on the Sulfide.) I descended from the summit pyramid as quickly as I dared, face in. Oddly, it seemed more secure descending than it had climbing, my toes seemed to get a much better hold into the snow. I didn't glissade as I'd planned, because of the fear of getting out of control. I was strictly in an evacuation mode. I also made it off the Sulfide in a few minutes; it's kind of steep, enough that you can half-slide on your feet, but remain in control. Down Hell's Highway, and back onto the lower Price, where I got to climb up to Winnie's slide. Suddenly the new strength I'd been feeling was revealed to be just the ease of descending. Winnie's slide was steep enough that I descended that, too, face-in. Somehow I got off-route on the descent of the chimneys, and ended up in a horribly sheer, steep spot with no obvious exit. It was clearly some sort of route, because there was a rappel anchor bolt there, and I could see a nice flat trail about 20 feet below, but I was almost paralyzed with fear and despair. "Here's where I die," my brain kept saying. After a long, slow start-and-stop, looking probably like a cat stuck in a tree, and a lot of praying, I managed to find a way around the obstacle (it was only a couple of steps on a steep face with small footholds, but I was pretty wrung out by then) and things got easier in a hurry. Climbing down the steep snow was a breeze, even without crampons. It wasn't until I got completely off the chimney access, onto the trail on the scree slope, that I felt truly out of the woods. Beckey says to allow six hours from Lake Ann to the summit, and that was almost exactly right (9:00 to 3:00, including half an hour of wandering at the base of the chimneys and sitting around talking with those guys) but it took me half an hour longer than the four hours he allows to return to Lake Ann. I ran into the father of the father-and-son group, on the trail (uphill) to Lake Ann. They’d camped at the lake, and still had to pack out that night. He seemed pretty beat, he was walking for fifty yards, then resting, walking again, and resting. It's hard to imagine him making it out with a pack much heavier than mine, up from the valley to the trailhead. I ran into another couple of climbers at the lake, and we talked for a few minutes about the route. In general, it was a very genial, chatty bunch of climbers there, much more open and friendlier than the people you run into on Rainier or other places I've climbed. Like Mt. Stuart, I guess. The hike out was beautiful, but longer than coming in. Another couple of tents were set up in the meadows, but it wasn't nearly as crowded as I'd expect, given the beauty of the area (except for the mosquitoes.) I was sufficiently tired that I had to stop, half an hour from the trailhead, and just sit and drink water for ten minutes or so. Usually I can smell the car from there, and push on in, but I was pretty wasted. It felt really good to emerge at the road, and slide down the snow, cutting the road switchbacks, to the car, as the alpenglow faded from the mountains. I took a couple of photos of Shuksan in the afterglow, Venus was visible in the sky above the Shuksan Arm, and it looked very fine. Then, back down the mountain at full speed, slalloming around the curves, I hit a bat. I think it was a bat, anyhow, what else would be out flying in the dark? It was about 1:00 AM when I got to Seattle, a pretty long day. That’s the other advantage of climbing with a partner; there’s someone to share the driving. Of course, it’s not really a climb unless you’ve learned something, and the thing I learned this trip was to put plenty of sunscreen behind your knees (what’re those called - kneepits?) The next few days were pretty painful sitting down, with glowing red sunburn getting rubbed by the fabric of my pants legs.

The brutal truth is that tendons (and other soft tissue) take an obscenely long time to heal. I have been suffering from a tendon problem on my thumb (called Dequervein's Tenonsynovitis, FWIW) for a couple of years now, and in retrospect, I’d much rather I just broke a couple of bones in my wrist and hand; I’d be long healed by now. The basic treatment is two-fold: anti-inflamatory medication, plus…rest. The rest is the killer, of course. Icing is good, since it also reduced swelling-inflamation. One thing I’ve learned from this is that different people respond to different anti-inflamatories. Advil might work fine for you, or maybe Naprosyn, or something else. There's about a dozen widely used (mostly prescription) anti-inflamatories out there, and the only way to know which will work is to try it. But in any case, they only work as an adjunct to the primary treatment, which is rest. It’s possible to get a cortisone injection into the tendon, which will provide near-immediate relief (but it feels about how you’d expect an injection of battery acid might feel!) However, these injections weaken the tendon, and they don’t replace the rest portion of the treatment, only the oral anti-inflamatories, so you feel great for a month or so until it wears off. The bottom line, see your doctor and beg or threaten until he/she refers you to an orthopedic surgeon or rheumatologist. Maybe a sports-medicine specialist would be worthwhile, if you don’t have insurance that forces you go to through a primary care physician. Heck, even if you don’t have insurance, paying cash to see the doctor is cheaper than losing a year or more of your climbing life. [This message has been edited by Alpine Tom (edited 02-21-2001).]

Another winter route: Mt. Pugh, on the Mountain Loop Highway. In the summer it's a crowded hike, but in the winter, it's a steep, challenging climb. Head up there as soon as the road is clear. Beware of avalanche hazards, though.

I noticed that REI has a mail-order-only "Spring Preview sale" going on the Lowe Netherworld 90 packs, for $150. The more I looked into it, the better they sound. Does anyone have any experience with this pack? It looks like exactly what I've been looking for: lots of room, big, (I'm 6'1") lots of pockets, and a much cheaper price than I'd hoped for, for a reputable name. The only downside I can see is that it doesn't appear to have two ice axe loops. Any opinions, anecdotes, friends of friends experiences appreciated. Thanks!

Dane's attitude seems kind of one-sided to me. For one thing, ice is much less predictable than rock: if a rock route is rated 5.10, you know (approximately) whether you belong on it or not; it’ll be 5.10 from one day (or year) to the next. Ice is much less predictable, from one day (or hour) to the next. Removing a bolt that’s there to provide safety, and maybe save a life, because it doesn’t mesh with your personal view of what ice climbing ought to be is pretty irresponsible. If you don’t like bolts, don’t use them, and don’t place them. At the same time, having a bolt there might make the difference between an inexperienced ice climber (like me) trashing the ice trying to get a good ice screw placement, (and taking half the morning, holding up everyone behind him) and using the bolt and cruising on up with a minimum of muss and fuss. So, that bolt might mean more ice for more climbers to enjoy. I’m guessing that there are a lot more inexperienced ice climbers here than in New Hampshire, so you’re more likely to be offended more here than back east.

I took a bunch of pictures, not all of which are back. I didn't get any that would be of much help in routefinding, though.

We roped up heading down off the saddle, because of concerns of crevasses on the Reid glacier. we stayed roped all the way to the top of the couloir, where it opens out onto what they call the "Queen's Chair," which I referred to in my account as the snow dome. Roping seemed prudent, but my perception was that it wasn't hazardous enough to justify belaying, partly because with the ice and pebbles falling, speed seemed like a valuable asset. Had it been more icy, the decision might have been different.

I've done Whitehorse and Big Four in winter. The main route on Whitehorse (I think Beckey calls it Ice Gulch?) is really only feasible in winter, when the snow cover reduces the amount of bushwhacking. Even then, it's remarkable amount of slogging though slide alder to get to snow and rock. On Big Four, I did the east-facing gully (I think it's called dry creek?) in February a few years ago, and it was great. Access for Big Four is a problem, but there's been so little snow, the road might be open closer to the trailhead. Don't follow Beckey's guide for the approach, though. Just hike in on the trail to the snow caves, then bear around to the left, scrambling over the house-sized boulders and stream beds, to get to the base of the climb. For route details, refer to Beckey, or e-mail me if you want my detailed recollections.

Trip date: Jan 28, 2001 If you’ve only climbed the hogsback route, you may have a pretty cynical view of Mt. Hood. Grandmas climb it, and gradeschoolers, it’s more like Mt. St. Helens than a “real mountain.” As soon as you get off the south snowfield, though, it’s a completely different mountain, far more alpine and a lot more interesting. We left the parking lot around 5:00 AM, and got to the Illumination rock saddle by around 8:00 after numerous pauses to enjoy a really dramatic sunrise. A party had dug a really marvelous snow cave up there below Illumination rock, and we spent a few minutes admiring it. It was incredible; they had a separate kitchen, and the entrance into the main cave was small enough that they could block the entrance with a pack, but inside it was practically big enough to stand up. They’d spent about four hours digging it, they said, and it was by far the nicest snow cave I’ve seen. One of the challenging aspects of this route is the routefinding. I had “Oregon High” with me, and the photo showing the route was not much use, since it was taken when the mountain was completely covered with snow, obscuring the rock formations. The route description says that the couloir parallels Yokum Ridge, and it does, but it’s important to know that it’s also the couloir that’s closest to the ridge. When you descend down onto the Reid Glacier, you look up and there are three or four different couloirs that look like they might be right. We were fortunate to have footprints to follow. Basically, you traverse as far to the left as you can, and follow the couloir right up next to the ridge. (Some people we met at the saddle said that Leuthold Couloir has a distinctive hourglass shape. We did see a couloir above us that seemed to fit that description, but it was pretty far to the right. Indications from the book are that it probably goes, but we didn’t want to spend a couple of hours exploring, and then end up having to downclimb.) The couloir is pleasantly steep (40-45 degrees sounds about right) not steep enough to require belaying, but steep enough to be interesting. The snow was of pretty good quality most of the time. One concern was that in the lower narrow part of the couloir (it’s probably less than ten feet wide at the bottom) a fair amount of ice chips and marble-sized rocks were tumbling down. We found a sheltered spot to wait a bit and watch what was coming down, to see how big the chunks of ice got. There were a number of them the size of golf balls, but didn’t seem to get much bigger than that, so we decided to push on. The surface was pretty hard, often a good kick only put my crampons and boots a few inches into the snow; and here’s where being a cyclist comes in handy. I can front-point all day long with no problems; my partner’s calves wore out after a while, so I slowed down and kicked and chopped larger steps, which slowed us down a little. It gave me more appreciation the climbers in the old days, before crampons, when you read accounts of chopping hundreds of steps up the summit dome of Mt. Baker and places like that. It’s a LOT of work! A couple of hundred feet up, the couloir widens out considerably, and the hazard is greatly reduced. In fact, we didn’t notice any falling debris at all up there. The route meanders nicely, so you’re constantly seeing new stuff above, and when you look back, the scenery drops away satisfyingly. Unfortunately, anything you drop also drops away, not so satisfyingly. I contributed an OR glove shield to the ecology of the Reid glacier partway up, and boy did it fall a long way! I brought an ice tool as well as my ice axe, and used it. I didn’t feel like it was particularly necessary, but I kept using it mostly to avoid the hassle of putting it back into my pack. The lower hundred feet or so is steep enough that the ice tool gives a nice feeling of security. Most of the time it wasn’t hard enough to use the pick, but there were spots were the snow and ice were too hard to sink the shaft of my ice axe very far, and the ice tool was pretty convenient for that. One of the drawbacks to the hogsback route (to me) is that you see the whole route all the way up, and there’s no drama, no surprise. The Leuthold Couloir route is a quite varied route; when you finally exit the couloir at the top of Yokum Ridge, you continue up the dome of the mountain, and from there, across the summit ridge to the true summit. I read someplace that around the (last) turn of the century, someone hauled a bicycle up there and rode along the summit ridge; that hardly seems possible. We saw some footprints that seemed to indicate someone had climbed Yokum Ridge in the last few days, which seems impossible; there was no ice at all on the ridge that we could see. It was awfully windy, of course, up on the dome and the summit. I had one of those little zipper-pull thermometers and it registered around 30 degrees for most of the trip, and about 20 degrees on the summit. In any case, it was cold enough that the water in the Nalgene water bottle I carry outside my pack froze completely, and the water bottle inside my pack was pretty slushy. We got to the summit a bit after 1:00; for about eight hours of some of the funnest climbing I’ve had in a while. The descent was routine; down the hogsback, and down to the parking lot. It’s always a pleasure to descend Hood, and be able to get from the summit to the car in two hours – try THAT on Rainier! [This message has been edited by Alpine Tom (edited 01-29-2001).] [This message has been edited by Alpine Tom (edited 01-29-2001).]

Anyone have any information on conditions on Mt. Hood? I'm specificially interested in the Leuthold Couloir. Apparently the National Forest (http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mthood/climb_up.htm) has decided that the climbing season is limited to the period from Mid-April to mid-June, and doesn't provide ANY conditions information outside that two-month window.

Back in mid-November, we did Camp Muir, and hiked on up to the beehive. The snow was very thin below Panorama Point, there were plenty of spots where the snow had been worn away by snowboarders, exposing the dormant heather underneath. The snow cover is sufficiently thin that a glissade down Pan Point is not recommended. There’s a new door on the Muir hut, new at least since I was last there last December; a half-door that closes to keep the snow out much more effectively. Our summit fees at use, I guess. On the ridge up to The Beehive (my first time on that route) the snow was also pretty thin, and varied from icy to loose powder. A lot more fun than the slog up to Muir, though! We did see a two-climber party descending from a summit climb; they’d taken the DC route and left Muir for the summit at 10:30 PM, and were descending the Muir snowfield at around 11:00 AM. They reported good conditions, and a boot-track to the summit. The biggest problem was the locked gate at Longmire. We had gone there intending to do a one-day climb of Little Tahoma. I talked with a climbing ranger on the phone on Friday about conditions and such, about the Paradise vs. Summerland approaches, and specifically asked about registering in the early morning. “No problem,” he said. “There’s an unattended registration drop box. You can register at 2:00 AM if you want.” So, imagine our vexation, after getting up at 3:00 AM to drive down from Seattle, and arriving at Longmire well before 7:00 AM, to see the gate, with the sign “Road closed for snow removal. Opens at 10:00 AM.” The gate was padlocked, so there was no chance to pretend we didn’t notice the gate. It turned out that this particular day, someone opened it some time before 8:00 that morning, although when we asked a park employee, she said that it was up to the snow plow drivers. The fact that it hadn’t snowed in a couple of weeks doesn’t seem to matter, and we were told by someone else that the issue is actually one of icy roads. To increase the pressure, the gate is locked at 6:00 PM. This means that if you’re planning on any sort of climbing activity on Rainier, you’re constrained both in the morning and the evening, and if you run long, you are, apparently, out of luck, and in addition to climbing supplies, the prudent winter Rainier climber will pack food, etc, in his car for an unplanned bivouac in the parking lot.