pete_a

although you can certainly climb the mountain in a half day, if you are travelling from across the US and you get a forecast that has more than one day of good weather, a great spot to haul your camping gear up to is Illumination Saddle, above and to the west of the top of the Palmer chair. Nice view of Portland city lights. In case you didn't know, emergency beacons can be rented at a hotel (forget the name of which one) in Government Camp, and Oregon Mtn. Community in Portland, I think...probably don't need one if you have a cell phone...and you may not want to bother with picking one up anyways, just an fyi. In addition to checking the weather forecast, you might want to also check the current NW Avy Center avalanche forecast to see what the avy danger is.

thanks for the info Don, I appreciate it. and yes, I'll go snag a copy of your book this weekend

yeah, no one got hurt that day...but Asheley had the previlege of being the human crash pad for Hans, the out of control solo climber, while descending the fixed lines the next day... definitely made the trip all the better meeting Erden, Eddie, Squid and the whole around 'n over team. I had forgotten about Ash stepping in to handle the international relations on the summit ridge....nuthin like southern charm to get folks to move outta the way.

thanks.

The Knight inlet exit sounds like one day of very unpleasant bushwacking to Devereux Lake but its been done before... here's a trip report a found of a group that exited that way http://www.geocities.com/nobananas_kh/Waddington.html we'd prefer to see the range, not just get in turns, I'll have to look on my map for Bifrost Pass...doesn't sound familiar, can you give me a hint as to where it is? thanks.

I've been looking over maps for a while, read the Coast Range book by Baldwin, read through the trip reports I could find online...guess I'm just hoping to find opinions from anyone who's had previous experience skiing around Waddington as to which of these options is probably the best way to spend two weeks up there in the spring. Right now the traverse ideas are, drop off near Munday- ski around the head of the Franklin glacier hitting Munday, Wadd, Chris Spencer, Finality, and Jubilee along the way...exit via abandoned logging roads to lake near Knight Inlet for a floatplane pick-up. or...drop off above Fury Gap, ski Chris Spencer, Wadd, Munday, etc, and exit to the south down to Scar Creek for a pick-up at the logging camp airstrip. or...heli-in and heli-out of the alpine and not deal with a day or two of bushwacking and hiking to the valley floor. thoughts? opinions? thank you.

in no particular order, my favorites that I've skied so far...plenty other 'must skis' that I just haven't gotten to yet. Watson's traverse- Baker (up the Coleman, down the Park, ski to Baker ski area) the most satisfying single day traverse I've done so far. Slot couloir Garibaldi- north side descent to Garibaldi lake Inter glacier- not the steepest, not remote, but its a summertime classic imho SW chutes Adams- again, not the steepest thing around, but just a fun continuous fall-line run If one considers the Selkirks as part of the PNW- then I gotta add, Pioneer Peak Granite Glacier descent in the Adamant range and Youngs Peak, Seven Steps of Paradise at Rogers Pass.

pyramid marketing crap...

Tim- don't confuse the 'RX's with any ski from Atomic that ends in 'EX'. they are different shapes entirely. the 'RX's are the on-piste, groomer ski, pretty narrow waist....the 'EX' (10:ex, R:ex, TM:ex) are all 84mm in the waist and atomic's all-mountain/powder stick shape.

you might want to post on turns-all-year.com too. Some of the regular posters on that site are Bellingham locals who hit Baker all the time and have plenty of knowledge of the good spots to hit.

they've got some nice down jackets too, I hadn't realized OR has started making down clothing...800-fill stitch through construction, reg. $170, now half off. picked up some $12 gaiters too. not many (if any) size large gaiters left.

if you go with the dynafits, buy the dynafit comforts...it has the benefit of being able to adjust to fit a few different sizes of boots, the standard dynafits cannot be adjusted so if you switch boots at some point in the future you'd have to remount your bindings. Depending on how big you are and how arrgressively you ski, dynafits are fine for occational in-bounds use, I've heard that one can pre-release out of dynafits if the skis are over-flexed and the recoil quickly (such as landing a jump)...you can pop out of the heel pin. I think most folks agree that Dynafits see far less breakage than all other AT bindings. IMHO they are stronger than any of the Fritchi bindings, though I guess Freerides do have a higher DIN setting, right? The biggest hassle with the Dynafits is that it is difficult if not impossible to switch from downhill mode to tour mode without clicking out of the binding completely, this is something you don't have to worry about with the Fritschis or any other step-in AT binding. just my two cents...

good point, didn't think about that.

Last time I checked the MLT was not available stock with the thermofit liner (why, I have no idea)...so in order to get the MLT down to a really light boot, you have to order an extra set of liners. You might want to check out the TLT4 that you can get with a thermofit liner...it is pretty close to being as light as the MLT and probably skis considerably better. I've used the TLT's on glacier slogs and although there is limited ankle flex, they were still plenty comfortable, light, and warm. Also, don't necessarily trust the given weights online for dynafit boots (or any boots). On a digital scale, my TLT4's only weight 1.5 ounces (each) more than my Koflach plastics....I had expected the Koflachs to be a lot lighter.

in case anyone is thinking those Cassins are aluminum, just a heads up- they are steel....still a cheap pair of crampons, but not a cheap pair of ultralight ones.

I'm happy to see that the article makes no mention of a certain local speed liar, I mean climber, and just focuses on Kellogg's accomplishments.

just curious...the steepish snow/ice you guys mentioned is making me wonder about what I was planning on using for footwear. Heading up to Oly the weekend after next and some of us were planning on using trailrunners and alum crampons. Sounds like at least one of us should bring boots that may be a little better suited for ice.. (still gonna use running shoes for the approach though) advice? thanks.

www.cheapsnowboards.com has Morrow snowboard boot liners for $30 that are the same as thermofit liners and are considerably cheaper than other options (though they used the sell those liners for about $5). www.life-link.com also sells thermofit liners,I think their liners go for about $100.

Paul Ramer actually built a prototype AT binding back in the 80's that had an integrated plastic ankle-calf brace built into the binding (which released with the binding plate when you crashed)....there was an old picture of it in Backcountry or Couloir several years ago when they ran an article highlighting all his ski mountaineering inventions. You could go downhill skiing in any boot that has a toe-heel bail on it with this binding...very cool idea for getting good ski performance out of climbing boots. I've tried using an old Lange ski boot cuff with foam wrapped around the inside and clamping it to the top of my Koflachs (used these cuffs back when I had leather teleboots). The cuff stiffens the Koflachs a little, but doesn't eliminiate the sloppy fore-aft flex...the knee-string thing actually worked better than the Lange cuff idea.

As of sunday it was getting skied There were Mounties (or some other group) 'ice climbing' it..but there is little if any actual ice showing right now...I'd give it another few weeks if you're hoping to wack ice tools on it.

You may want to check with the Forest Service about the time of year in the past that they've gated the road up to Cold Springs...its likely locked up before the first snow of the year at treeline elevation, so you could be looking at anywhere from a few miles to a lot of miles of road hiking that time of year just to get to the trailhead. FYI, November is generally one of the wetter months in the NW...there could be days on end of stormy, snowy weather that time of year. (mmm freshies) The NW early season snowpack can occationally develop depth hoar and thin, weak windslabs, but really there is absolutely no way to predict what you'll find up there in early winter. That being said, I've never been up Adams that time of year, but when I've been up Hood and Baker in Nov. and Dec. the upper mountain has been wind scoured clean of anything resembling soft snow.

good weather, twenty boarders & skiers, beer, and a large meltwater pond to skim across...not a bad way to get in August turns. many more photos here: http://www.turns-all-year.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=tr0407;action=display;num=1091423104

another discussion? one troll just isn't enough for you 007? " The risk is all yours" "This responsibility is with you, nobody else. " bullshit...you can prepare all you want and make all the right decisions and can still be up shit creek in a hurry by the bad choices of other nearby climbers. example- ill equiped climbers on big mountains that end up needing to be taken care of by better equipped teams...the better equipped folks burn through all their supplies babysitting some hypothermic, starving idiot, and when the weather breaks they must descend rather than climb cause they are out of food and fuel. by the way, you're misspelling the mountain you're going to climb...its Cho Oyu, not Cho Oye...

if you don't have snow pro, how would you rescue your partner if he went into a crevasse? it sounds like you are just a team of two, please read this recent thread on the challenges of two person team crevasse rescue: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/376980/page/1/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1 if you're not completely prepared to handle that (which it kind of sounds like you aren't), I would strongly suggest a route such as Adams that doesn't require any roping up or travel around crevasses. Yes, you will not be alone on the DC route, and odds are if you got into any trouble someone would be nearby to help bail you out...but depending on other parties to help you in a crevasse fall scenario is poor form to say the least. An ice axe is not nearly as versatile as a picket when used as pro. Depending on the snow conditions you could trust a picket that is either deadmanned or pounded in vertically, but I would only trust an axe if it was used as a deadman, an axe set vertically and then loaded as your primarly anchor would likely rip right out of the snow.

yup, looks like they're steel...at 28oz they're still 10oz less than a pair of BD Sabretooths, but still twice as heavy as some Camp Aluminums...