ACC'ers on Baker seracs Oct 18&19

[Don_Serl]

OK, I know it's not in BC, but it affects BC climbers...

I'll have a group of people down from Vancouver for our annual newbie sortie onto the seracs on Sat and Sun Oct 18-19, so don't expect solitude if you go.

Cheers,

[Gary_Yngve]

UW Climbing Club will be up there Saturday as well.

[Don_Serl]

...as well as groups from the Mtneers and Boealps. was there something in the water when it came to picking a weekend?

oh well, there'll be a rope every 2m strung on every available chunk of steep ice, so i suppose there'll be lots of climbing going on - not to mention socializing!

cheers,

[AlpineK]

I was with a mounties Intermediate group up there in the late 70s. I believe our numbers beat your combined numbers. Maybe not, but our group had a rope on every serac.

[marc_leclerc]

Sure loks like you guys had great weather!

[Don_Serl]

so, there were 11 of us Saturday and 7 Sunday. and no problem finding a wall to ourselves.

 

because of the warm rain thursday and friday, the ice was devoid of snow and shiny as an icecube - plus hard and brittle. 'difficult' conditions, to say the least...

 

I don't generally like criticizing indirectly, but I don't know which groups were involved, so which leaders I ought to be addressing. Some of the groups that we saw on Saturday did not display reasonable people-management skills. in the half-hour or so that it took us to have a snack and get our crampons and harnesses on, we watched FOUR people take slides on the very icy approach slopes. one person slid perhaps 100 feet before coming to a halt. luckily no one caught a crampon and broke an ankle.

 

anyone with any experience should have assessed the approach slopes as EXTREMELY tricky on the weekend, and anyone with any sense of caution should have recognized the probability of a 'newbie' mis-stepping and taking a slide. it takes very little extra time to rope up and move together, or at very least to set a handline (both of which we did) to keep the inexperienced members of the group secure. there's more to the day out than pulling on vertical ice, and more to 'leadership' than just demonstrating steep ice techniques. like keeping inexperienced, unskilled people who don't know any better safe, for instance...

 

[marc_leclerc]

Which approach slope was this Don? Ill keep this is mind for next weekend.

[CascadeClimber]

The slope immediately above the top of the moraine, which is fairly steep, was 80% exposed glacial ice last weekend. It was not too bad going up, but was extremely dangerous coming down. I commented to Jens that it was the most dangerous part of our entire day. We chose a longer route down that let us walk more on what little snow was left. I'm not at all surprised that people fell here, though I am surprised that no one was seriously injured.

[mike_m]

Conditions were the same yesterday, though with even less snow cover. Really sketchy on the way up in the morning; trying to flat-foot on even the moderate slopes just above the moraine was really insecure. The surface had softened quite a bit by the time we came down at about 3:30.

[marc_leclerc]

Went to seracs today. We traversed in from a bit higher up to get to some bigger/less busy seracs. There were a couple good 'bunny hill' routes good for the beginners and some solid overhanging stuff to work the arms. The approach took us exactly 1 hour from the cars to the seracs. Conditions were really brittle on the shady stuff and very nice and plastic on the sunny seracs. Back up your screws with a V-Thread and check on them every so often. They like to melt out in the direct sunlight.

Edited October 26, 2008 by marc_leclerc

[Tennessee]

You should all know that there is an easier access to the lower coleman glacier. There is a trail through the woods that brings you right onto the compression zone from Mirkwood Camp. Mirkwood camp is in the trees a couple hundred feet down from Survey Rock which is the typical overlook for hikers sitting right above the last trees on the moraine. Walk all the way through the flat camping area in the woods and find a trail that winds down 200 ft or so through the woods and spits you out onto the lower end of the compression zone of the lower coleman glacier. This is a very easy and straightforward way to access the seracs with beginners.