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Freeze-Thaw


Lambone

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It seems this current high preasure system might be beneficial to freeze-thaw dependent alpine routes. Any ideas on routes that might be coming into shape this week? Or reports from the feild (you lucky bastards that aren't stuck inside)?

 

Now that school is back in, it's back to the weekend warrior routine. Thinkin about a climb for this weekend... bigdrink.gif

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hmmm...you don't think it is freezing up in the mountains at night? Seems like the clear skies would allow for that. It was about 40 in seattle last night. I figured it'd be at least 8 degrees cooler about 4000ft and above...

 

Anyway, thanks for the opinion.

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ski - iirc, the last couple of days, the forecast has called for high freezing levels but with the comment "freezing level at the surface at the passes", which would explain your temp. number. i think that this is a very localized phenomenon caused by the big air masses spilling over from one side to the other. it's very visible, for example when you ski at alpental on a day like today. from the upper lift, you can often see the lowland fog flowing like water out of a fountain across the pass below you, very fast, even though you are skiing in a t-shirt less than 1000 feet above I-90.

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ok, i'm getting way out my depth here, so if anyone knows better, they should correct me, but here's my guess about how it works: i think that the inversion is really only on the west side. on the east side of the mountains, you have a big mass of mostly homogeneous cold air, contained by the cascades. on the west, you have a big mass of warm air, coming in from the ocean and getting corralled by the mountains on this side. but at the passes, the wall separating these two masses of air is punctured at low elevation, and the cold air is slipping across, and being colder, drops below the warm air, causing the inversion.

 

doesanyone who actually has studied this stuff care to comment?

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Right on Camevan. Turn of the old computer and go climb then.

 

You're theory seems rational forrest. It's kind of odd how the weather link suggests two different freezing levels for tonight. One around the passes, and one at 9000ft.

 

Ray is getting to the point though...what is really happening out there? You'd have to go out and stomp around and find out. Is there a warm air layer between 4000ft and 9000ft that is above freezing? Would all the snow in between be mush, and on either end be icy? Seems odd, and I'm trying to remember if I've come across that before out there...

 

I'd love to go scope it out for myself, but unfortunately...life does not permit. So I'll settle with bullshitting about it on line. Anyway, have fun out there regardless. bigdrink.gif

 

 

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Would all the snow in between be mush, and on either end be icy? Seems odd, and I'm trying to remember if I've come across that before out there...

 

I don't know what it's like right now, but I've seen that very thing going into and out of Chair: Bullet hard amidst the ice-fog in the valley, mushy glop above the ice-fog, and nicely frozen again on the North Face.

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With an average max wind speed between 20-30 mph between 0700 and 1500 (prime climbing time) I bet it's plenty cold enough.

 

2 or even 50 miles away north or south on the crest it could be way different for instance as well.

 

I believe I remember climbing one "alpine ice climb" this year in pretty damn warm weather...

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