Colin

I'm always pleasantly amazed in the Canadian Rockies at how my crampons and ice tools stay perfectly sharp after tons of mileage on limestone (not the quartzite though...). Back on granite or gneiss they get quite dull in just one day of mixed climbing. How does volcanic choss compare, say on Tahoma, Kulshan, Colfax, etc? Of course the rock isn't solid at all, but that doesn't necessarily indicate a lower hardness. My limited experience seems to suggest that crampons don't dull nearly as fast as on granite/gneiss, but perhaps faster than on limestone. I'm guessing that people who tromp around on Tahoma (Rainier) all summer have a pretty good gauge of this. Thoughts?

Awesome photo, Dru - thanks. Actually, I think this MIGHT even be 3 years of accumulation in these photos. In mid Sept last year the Pocket Glacier was very much still there, and at the start of Sept 2010 it was also still very big. In any event, it seems to be going fast now. I think the ice in these photos is thick enough to actually have plastic flow at the bottom (I think that from one year of accumulation the Pocket Glacier only experiences "snow creep"), which might make the glacier more likely to slide off than when it is thinner.

I'm pretty sure that the Pocket Glacier never slid off last year (it was still completely there, but with tons of crevasses, in mid September last year), and that in this photo we are seeing two year's worth of accumulation. I wonder actually if sometimes having more ice accumulation (for example, two year's worth) makes the Pocket Glacier more likely to slide off completely. In any event, I wonder what this heat wave will do to it. Dru, keep us informed if you catch a glimpse again!

Haha, thanks Hannah! Although perhaps they are more rock climbers than they are alpinists, there's also Chris Weidner (badass rock climber, who now lives in Boulder) and Kevin Newell (lives in CA now, our local FiveTen rep). And yeah, that Bart Paull sure is cute. I'm sure there are lots more. Music-wise, there's Steve Miller and Candlebox! But I'm the only one who still lives at their parent's house! Hope to see some of you guys at the slideshow tonight. There won't be any rockshoes in the photos, but there will be a lot of big, snowy mountains!

Farrgo: Yeah, the "West Face, left side" (I'd refer to it by the FA party, but I don't have my Beckey guide here), went straight up into where the rockscar now is. Based on your line, it looks like "Scarface" is not really a new route at all, but merely a few new pitches through the rock scar. I don't mean to belittle your climb at all, because I think it's super cool that you guys climbed through the rock scar, but I don't think it's really a new route since the terrain above and below looks to be exactly the same. Indeed, that handcrack down low is awesome, eh? Agreed that there is still lots of room for more routes on variations on that quality face. Our own mini version of the Incredible Hulk!

Thanks for the helpful beta, guys. Drew, that TR is recent enough that I should've just looked back and found it... thanks. By the way, Drew, wanna update the Pocket Glacier webcam once more in a week or so? It'd be nice to do one crampon-less lap this summer...

Thanks for all the helpful info, everyone. Yeah, Froodish, those are basically what I'm looking for, although the shape of those ones is not ideal (by making them stackable, the volume of the barrel goes down). Thanks for the link. Kurt, you've got one, or two? I guess they are pretty similar to the ones in Froodish's link? Nice and big?

Long live the best crag in North America! (No, I'm not kidding, I really do think so). I'll be showing pictures from the first ascent of the Torres Traverse, in Argentine Patagonia. I apologize that some of you may have already seen this slideshow a couple years ago in Seattle.

I've been serac-climbing on the lower Coleman Glacier once, many years ago. Can anyone tell me relatively current beta on the best spots, and the best place to descend from the Heliotrope Ridge trail? What elevation is the best zone? (because it's fine to hike in the rain, but I'd rather climb in the snow)

Are any of you familiar with the round, plastic, typically blue barrels that are used by expeditions all over the Himalaya? The European expeditions often bring them there. They are very durable, water-tight, and close with a metal ring around the black, plastic lid. Does anyone know where you can get them in the US? Anyplace in or around Seattle? Thanks.

Agreed that CBR is one of the highest-quality pieces of rock in the Cascades, and with a short, bushwack-free approach. Nice work on the new routes - all look excellent from the photos. How 'bout a photo of the face with lines drawn in, showing both established routes and your new routes? And yeah, new approach beta? Do you mean that you went around the east side of the lake? I've done that a couple times and concluded it wasn't as good. But with a bit of a trail it would certainly be much shorter than going around the west side of the lake. By the way, Scarface, which climbs the rock scar, does not climb where the NW Buttress used to be (as reported in the TR) - it climbs where the "West Face, left side" used to be. The confusion is caused by the photo in the brown Beckey guide, which shows the line of the "West Face, left side" very close to the year date (1984 I think? don't have the book in front of me) that marks the Northwest Buttress. By the same confusion I climbed the "West Face, left side" (now "Scarface") several years ago, when I intended to climb the Northwest Buttress. From the description of Scarface, it sounds like the first few pitches are the same as they used to be - warm-up on an awesome 10a handcrack that goes almost a full pitch!

I climbed the NE Buttress with a friend on Tuesday, Aug 23. We successfully crossed the Pocket Glacier, with crampons and a tool each. It was not simple though, definitely a bit sketchy, and I couldn't recommend it at the moment. Considering that it is already almost September, and the freezing levels are hovering around 7,000ft. the next few days, I doubt the Pocket Glacier will go away completely this year (but who knows?). One other option that I noticed: You could go to bivy below the pocket glacier (just past the notch), and then make a low traverse below the Pocket Glacier to the start of the NE Buttress Direct. This traverse is obviously exposed to anything coming off the glacier, so you would want to be very quick. It looks to be on easy rock ledges though (class 2, maybe a move or two of class 3), and avoids heinous bushwacking to get on the NE Butt Direct. This was my 4th time descending via the Crossover Descent, and I'm pleased that it gets easier every time. It was a casual 4 hours from the summit to the car. The high traverse along the ridge is finally developing a bit of a track (although a very subtle one still). I was also pleased to discover that it is very easy to avoid the one rappel on the crossover descent, with just a short (100m) traverse on the east side of the ridge (although on steep heather). The trail that we built a month ago seems to still be in great shape. Go use it and keep it from disappearing! Also, there is a lot less snow on the Crossover descent than one month ago, but there is still one snowfield where we put our crampons on. But I'm sure it's doable without crampons with a bit of care.

Yes, there have been some ascents of the NE Buttress this season. I know only from looking in the summit register after climbing the N Rib. Keep in mind that the Pocket Glacier is easy to deal with early in the season, gets worse as it breaks up, and then gets easy again when it is mostly all gone. However, considering that it is already August 7, and there is way more snow in the high Cascades than typical for this date, I won't be surprised if the Pocket Glacier doesn't go away this summer. The direct is obviously an option, which I haven't done but supposedly has quite good (but brushy) rock. Unfortunately the basin below the NE Buttress has way more bushwacking than it did several years ago, so the approach to the direct is probably a bit of a pain now. Another option is to traverse the N Slesse Glacier and get on the NE Buttress from the climber's right side. I don't believe this has ever been done, and looks potentially dirty, but I'm sure it's doable.

The weekend before last, some friends and I (officially a CASBC 'adopt a crag' event) spent a long day making a trail that connects the Slesse Crossover Descent with the memorial plaque - what used to be a long bushwack. Since the Crossover Descent is by far the fastest and most convenient way off of Slesse, and since the Slesse Creek Valley (the old standard descent) was recently closed by the Canadian Military, this trail is very necessary. We tried to make as well-established a trail as possible so that it will hopefully last a long, long time. As more and more people begin to use the Crossover Descent the foot traffic will keep the trail from disappearing. From the scree/snow basin at the end of the Crossover Descent, look for some really big cairns on the skier's left side of the basin. They will lead you to some liberal flagging, which will lead you to the trail we cut through all the brush. The entire way is marked with flagging and reflective markers, to make sure that everyone can find it and stay on route (and therefore keep the trail alive with their feet). A good, very-detailed description of the whole Crossover Descent can be found here: http://www.jeremyfrimer.com/visitor/Crossover_Pass_Descent.pdf

Trip: Mt. Shuksan - North Face Date: 3/17/2010 Trip Report: My brother, Booth, and I skied the North Face of Shuksan last Friday, with excellent snow conditions. There are photos here: http://colinhaley.blogspot.com/2010/03/shuksan-north-face-descent.html And a little video here:

Thanks for the info, guys. And of course, any other reports of successful calls wouldn't hurt. I realized after making my initial post that I meant to write, "Rogers Wireless," so that is the service provider in question.

I'm curious if one can find cell-phone reception on the North/East aspects of Mt. Slesse. Have any of you successfully made a call while on Mt. Slesse in the past couple years? Whenever I'm in SW BC my phone connects via "Edge Wireless," so I think that is the service that's in question. Thanks for any input.

Hugh, when you say they have have "non-releasable snowboard-type bindings," do you mean step-in (hard boot) snowboard bindings, or strap-on (soft boot) snowboard bindings? The strap bindings are too heavy and bulky, and I imagine would have too much lateral slop for use on skis. When you say you can try to dig them up, do you mean that you have a pair? I'd really like to find a pair of Figl-type skis (like in Lowell's photo), so if you remember any brand names or other info that might be helpful to find them, please let me know!

Just saw this thread. Bart and I climbed the NE Butt of Goode in July 2002. It took us 12 hrs. car-to-car from the Chelan side. We carried a rope and rack (but never took them out of the pack), and weren't particularly trying to move super fast. If someone wanted to it wouldn't be hard to take several hours off that time. Jens, I'd say you didn't make an attempt on the Croft Traverse, but the second ascent of the Croft Traverse. For sure, solo and in a faster time is more precisely what Croft did, but if you climbed the same terrain you climbed the same terrain...

I have done the Slesse Creek descent once, and now the Crossover Pass descent twice, and I absolutely recommend the Crossover descent. The first time I did the Crossover descent was two years ago, and we were going off the description in McKlane's guidebook - we took quite a while, did some sketchy downclimbing in places, and some horrendous bushwacking at the end. I did the Crossover descent again a couple weeks ago, this time armed with Jeremy Frimer's description, and it only took a few hours to get from the summit of Slesse to the car. Jeremy's topo is very well done, and if you follow it closely (print it out and bring it with you) the descent can go very easily. The only place where we were not able to follow Jeremy's description was on the descent through the forest - we saw no flagging for a long time, but then picked it up again near the basin. The last part of the trail (back to where it joins the official trail, just below the memorial plaque) is much better now than when Jeremy wrote his description, and thus involves no bushwacking. For this reason, I absolutely recommend following Jeremy's description rather than taking the 4th-class gully that Buckaroo suggests. Yes, the Crossover descent is more complicated than the Slesse Creek descent, but it gets a bit easier to follow with every party that takes it. At first I was bummed that the Slesse Creek Road was getting closed, but now I think it is a wonderful thing because it will force more climbers to take the Crossover descent, and soon there will be a well-worn trail all the way, without the hassle of extra bikes or cars.

Would you mind posting those pictures of Hell's Highway? I'm thinking of heading up the Fischer Chimney's on Sunday, and it would be great to see a photo of Hell's Highway beforehand. I don't mind having to climb some steep ice, but a glacier-width crevasse 20ft. wide would be annoying...

Lowell, those figl's look almost ideal, especially the bindings. Are you able to adjust the length on those Salewa bindings to accomodate different size boots? Yeah, I know that Hagan's aren't especially light for their length, but as you say, short is important. Anything longer than 100cm is a serious nuisance on your backpack when climbing hard pitches. These short skis are all over the place in the Alps, but hard to come by over here. By the way, Lowell, why have you marked these skis right and left? Did you mount the bindings a bit to the side to make edging in your climbing boots easier (on the inside edge of your outside ski)? Darin, that's not a bad idea, and perhaps what I'll end up doing. The hardest part I think would be to make them adjustable for different size boots (for example work with a pair of Baturas, but also with a pair of Spantiks), but maybe not too difficult.

Unfortunately, the Silvretta 404's are much too heavy for this application. I already have a pair of Silvretta 500's, which are lighter than the 404's, but I consider those to also be too heavy for this use.

I'm looking to put together an ultralight ski descent setup to use with mountaineering boots. For the skis, I'm thinking 100cm, although maybe even 80 or 90. Probably I'll need to buy a pair of Hagan's over in Europe (can you buy them in the US?), but are there other options available? I think the shortest TRAB skis are 157cm. More importantly, I'm looking for binding suggestions. The old-style Emery bindings are perfect for this application: http://www.wildsnow.com/backcountry-ski-museum/emery-chrono/emery-chrono-ski-binding.html But I don't know how to find them. Anyone have an old pair they want to sell? Another option would be a binding setup with no tour mode, and no release capabilities. It would basically just be a wire toe bail and a wire heel lever, like on a step-in crampon. Certainly "snow-blade" bindings are similar to this, but all the ones I've seen are actually quite heavy. Anyone know of a super simple, light, binding system like this? Thanks!

I like to use rap rings whenever rappelling with ropes of vastly different diameters (usually a 9.1-9.7mm single rope, with a 4.5-6.0mm rap line). If the knot is always set to pull the skinny rope then the rap ring prevents the knot from moving, and, if the rap ring is small enough, it is a safety backup for the chance of the super-skinny rap-line getting cut (because the knot jams against the rap ring, and the main rope is still intact). However, for it to work as a safety backup, it needs to be certain that the knot cannot pass through the rap ring, and with the skinny ropes these days I feel that is not 100% certain with the standard size rap rings. Thus, I am trying to find smaller-than-normal rap rings. I remember bootying an oval-shaped rap ring off of Snow Creek Wall years ago that would have been perfect, but I have no idea who manufactured it. These Omega ones I believe have a smaller than normal inner radius (http://www.omegapac.com/op_climbing_rings.html), but at 34 grams they are heavier than a good carabiner! Anyone have any good recommendations? Thanks.