nolanr

Okay Central Oregon residents, it's your time to shine. I know I could check w/ the local Ranger Station, but that's no fun. I'm heading down that way for the 3 day weekend w/ a bunch of people. We'll be doing some hiking, not climbing, I'm curious about current conditions/trail accessability. Some of my favorites in the area are Tam McArthur Rim, Canyon Cr. Meadow (I think that's the name of the trail, the one that goes up to the base of Three Fingered Jack from the SE), and anything on the South side of Broken Top. Are the trailheads in those areas accessible? Is the snow fairly well consolidated, or are snowshoes recommended? I was up to about 6,000 ft. in the WA Cascades last weekend and the snow was fairly solid, even in the afternoon. Definitely didn't need the 'shoes. Thanks for any info.

I doubt the road is open to Reflection Lake yet but they were started w/ plowing about a month ago. Some of the road between Narada and Reflection Lake is probably bare at this point, I would guess.

Never mind the routes, the niece looks pretty good.

I did it via Froze-to-Death Plateau in August of '03. Also thoroughly enjoyed it. The weather wasn't terrible but wasn't friendly up high. Mostly cloudy, wind was pretty relentless, rained a little off and on, some thunder showers. Cleared up over night, kept peaking out of my tent in the wee hours of the morning and started heading up around 4 or 5 am. There were a bunch of parties camped all over the plateau so I wanted to beat the crowd. Had nice weather during the ascent, no difficulties at all, very little snow at any point on the route. Ended up joining up w/ a guy from New York who was a "high pointer" (highest point in each state), he'd done all but about 1/2 dozen or so but saved all the most difficult ones (Hood, Rainier, Denali) for last. I thought the route was mostly Class 3 w/ some 4 and maybe a couple moves of low 5th. Rock was decent quality. There was a pair of goats that passed us going down just as we topped out. Wonder what they were doing up there. We hung out on top maybe 30 minutes, then as we started descending ran into numerous parties on the way up. We managed to avoid any problematic bottle necks. Some parties were roping up and protecting some of the pitches. It's not necessary if you feel comfortable enough w/ the exposure to solo. We also saw a few parties who weren't experienced climbers but wanted to tag Montana's high point, as soon as they got to the base of the ridge proper they crapped themselves and turned around and went back down. A lot of work to give up at that point, but it's probably not the best climb for a newbie, either. Got back to camp plenty early enough to break it down and head back out to the car the same day. Found a better way to cross the plateau on the way down that saved a lot of time. After a while of being up there with the wind constantly trying to blow right through me kinda of wore on my nerves, I was plenty happy to get back to lower altitude at Mystic Lake. I love the Beartooths in general, been in there several times. Hiking around either fork of Rosebud Creek is worthwhile. The drive over Beartooth Pass is stupendous!

The state park immediately west of Horsethief Butte I believe has been renamed Columbia Basin State Park or something generic like that. Holy cow, somebody else from White Salmon! Been in the area long, Retired? I spent most of my growing up years there and graduated from CHS in '91. Anyway I like the Butte too, fun place to dink around for an hour or two.

"Cram" is such a crass euphemism for love-making. It was fun, but it wasn't that much fun. A little too conservative of a crowd for an orgy.

Stayed at a condo just east of Glacier Friday night. Saturday headed up to Yellow Aster Butte w/ a group of people. Got rained on off and on the rest of the day and night. Looked like more of the same for Sunday, so we headed back to the condo. I did find out I can cram 6 people in my 2 person tent, helped that most of them were female. That was one way to beat being wet and cold. Returned on Monday when it was sunny and beautiful.

I was just down there a little more than a week ago. Camped at Garnet Lake, visited Nydiver Lakes basin on my way out. Beautiful country. No climbing for me though.

I like the caper movies, I've watched "Ocean's Eleven" and "The Italian Job" both quite a few times. The remakes, I've never seen the originals. Another classic comedy is "Old School," don't even know how many times I've watched it.

Love those flicks. Marrying the Material Girl appeared to be a bad career move, however. He cast her as the lead in some God awful movie (Swept Away or something like that?) that nobody saw and he hasn't been heard from since. Watched "Layer Cake" recently. It was directed by the producer of "Snatch" and "Lock..." after Guy Ritchie passed on it. Sorta similar w/ the whole British gangster scene, but quite different stylistically. Nobody cusses better than those lads from across the Atlantic, you have to give that to them.

Was down in Cali recently, a couple minutes up the trail from South Lake (near Bishop) I heard a little noise on the downhill (closer to the lake) side of the trail. A few moments later a head pops up, followed by the rest of the body. It paused in the middle of the trail for a moment to look at me before it disappeared into the brush on the uphill side of the trail. I'll be damned if it wasn't a marten dragging a fish about half it's size. I'm not positive if it was a marten, definitely weasel family, dark reddish brown w/ lighter chest/belly. Anybody ever heard of them catching fish before? I thought it was possible it stole it from an angler down at the lake. Anyway, quite a sight. Sorry, no pictures, it moved to quick for me.

Just finished reading "No Picnic on Mt. Kenya" about Italian POW's who escape from camp to climb the peak w/ almost no knowledge of the mountain or the route. Good book if you get a chance to check it out. Sounds like very interesting flora/fauna on the slopes of the mountain.

Surprised nobody has mentioned Larry the Tool yet.

On Thielsen, I would highly recommend taking your time on the way up or way down and scrambling around on some of the small, funky towers on the west slope or south shoulder. Volcanic rock has a reputation for being totally rotten, but this stuff is not friable as far as I experienced, lots of texture to it so it's extremely grippy, fun to play on.

If I remember right, the last little bit of climbing on Thielsen there isn't an "obvious" route because there are any number of easy lines to scramble up, whatever looks best go for it. The rock all seemed solid, too. I would definitely recommend doing it, don't let the picture intimidate you.

Many years ago I was at the pool at the back of Oneonta Gorge. It was a hot summer day, there was a number of people back there making noise and splashing around and what not. And there was a guy fishing. I was thinking "There's no way you're gonna catch a fish w/ all these people around and all this commotion, genius." Well damned if he didn't hook a fish in the next couple of seconds after I had that thought. Small trout. The fish probably committed suicide so it could get some peace and quiet. Anyway definitely agree, that place is very cool, haven't been there in a long time but worth a trip. Pretty much anything in that area is nice. That's where I got started hiking as a youngin long before I got into the alpine.

Dungeness Spit (5 mile long sand bar leading to a lighthouse) is a fun half-day outing. Costs $3 or something to park.

That's what I was thinking. I've only been there once and it was about 5 years ago, but it's fairly distinctive.

Royal Basin is pretty cool. You can get in and out and do some exploring or tag a summit in one long day, or camp up there and take your time. I think you have to go to the Ranger Station near Pt. Angeles to get an overnight permit, however, which is a pain in the butt because it will cause some extra driving and backtracking. Used to be able to self issue a permit at the TH but not for several years. Or...you could go into neighboring Deception Basin which is more out of the way and forego the whole permit thing, and easily cross the ridge and descend into Royal Basin for a day of exploring.

Matterhorn in the Wallowas?

Busses are aid! W/ a full pack it's worth it but if you're traveling light you can hoof it up that road in no time and then you can catch the bus on the way out for free cuz they just want to get you out of there.

Got a late start on Sunday, headed up Railroad Grade, got to maybe w/in 500' of where the rock rib disappears, then headed west. Nibbled on some grub and sat gazing at the spectacular icefall on the Deming for a while. I heard a little bit of noise, some small slides and some falling rock. A louder noise got my attention, turned just in time to see a large chunk breaking off near the top of the icefall and pound it's way down probably a thousand feet or more. Very impressive. I haven't been lucky enough to see a spectacle like that before. It was on the far side of the glacier from me, near the Black Buttes. Hard to say just how big it was, but I'd guess at least car sized and probably bigger. After a couple of impacts on the slope below it busted into a bunch of smaller chunks. This was around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. There was another party on a grassy knoll (insert JFK joke here) downslope from me. Later on I went up to the Park Butte lookout, I don't think you would've been able to see it from that vantage. It was one of those right place at the right time things.

I haven't climbed much this year, but I hike fairly regularly. On days when I'm only hiking, am I unworthy of talking to? How can you tell just by looking or if a person asks "Did you summit" if they are a climber or just a gumby/touron/etc? I try to be civil, people in general are friendlier in the mountains than they are in the city.

Yes, Boundary Peak, does count along with Tatoosh Peak. Don't know if I would count Stevens Peak though. We just chose to stop at Unicorn. Like I said, to do the whole traverse in a day would require an early early start with a full moon to shed some light on the night. I've been up Unicorn a couple times, keep thinking it would be cool to check out Boundary and/or Stevens, but I haven't got around to it. Nice job on the traverse, that sounds like a fun outing.

Boundary Peak doesn't count?