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kevino's Alpental updates


kevino

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Was up doing a recon and some skiing at the Pass today. Overall it looks like it stayed colder up there than I expected over the past week.

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Snow depth at Source Lake was 160cm. 200cm up on Snow Lake Divide.

 

Travel on foot probably sucks as penetration was 30-40cm (think knee-deep) most of the time with the occasional waist deep drop (as we found when we popped our skis off).

 

Ice forming up there, though these do not appear to be in climbable shape quite yet:

Bryan Buttress routes

Source Lake Line

Kiddie Cliff

Rap Wall has enough ice on it to maybe call it mixed climbing.

 

No ice on the Alpental I-IV routes.

 

Chair is starting to look good and perhaps the NF is in better condition than the NE Buttress, whose waterfall pitch doesn't look quite formed yet. We didn't venture up to have a look. NF of Snoqualmie Mtn has white on it, but we couldn't tell if it was ice or snow from our vantage point. Kent had visible ice-ish flows at the base as we cruised past on the freeway; doubt it's climbable really.

 

One party today on the S. Face of Das Toof, but no report from them at the end of the day.

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Hey Kurt,

 

Thanks for the info. I've been working a stretch of night shifts so I haven't been able to get out recently. When you were on your skis today did you notice any crust during your turns? Had a couple objectives tomorrow after I get off work, would you say the South or North facing slopes have been ski conditions currently?

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Thin suncrust on southern aspects, but did not affect ski-ability. The crust 12cm down was supportable. Decent skiing in spots on northern aspects. go as high as you can. I bet the north slopes of Chair are the best bet for decent snow at the pass right now.

 

The return track is icy and less-than-fun right now.

 

And a beta photo for those interested (click for full size):

IMG_50251.JPG

Edited by kurthicks
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Climbed the NE Butt on 12/4. It goes but I wouldn't call it in. Spent most of our time bashing tools into rock. Snow was generally well adheared - there just wasn't much of it. 1st pitch gulley had a bit of ice where we needed it. The 2nd pitch was a unique combination of steep wallowing and drytooling. 3rd pitch was more drytooling on slab, though there was just enough fairly well consolidated snow to hold foot placements. 3rd pitch ice curtain was just solid enough to climb, though pulling over the top onto thin snice on slab proved entertaining. 4th pitch was the standard slog to the top, but lacked the snow depth to use pickets as pro - much excavation was need to find pin/nut placements to protect the short length of simul-climbing. Added a pin, sling and locker to the lower rap station at the notch - snow levels to low to use upper rap station. Reslug the 3 pin rap station at 35m with new cord and added a biner to it. Knifeblades, small/medium nuts, a yellow metolious and 2-13cm screws were used.

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As of a few days ago Mt. Snoqualmie is doing its freeze/thaw thing and the moss is frozen, which seems to be the most important thing. Not much real ice at all, but some of the snice holds weight and the approach up the slide above the road is bootable. Seemed like the skiing would be pretty bad. We climbed something between NY Gully and LA Express, or maybe we climbed LA Express. We climbed the yellow line in Dane's topo here: http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=868244 which is in a very different place than Waynes LA Express line here: http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1005888/2

In any case we thought it was neat and had a good time and my calves got tired.

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