New "Ski Route Photos" section?

[Note: I've changed this thread's topic line to reflect the discussion within. I will leave it in its current location for now, and then move or delete it later. -Charles]<br><br>Well no, I didn't really ski any of this terrain that day while hitting Muir and the Paradise Glacier. But I was trying to scout out the Fuhrer Finger, since a few of us have recently been thinking about trying a ski descent. ÊThe climbing conditions page on the park website still claims the route is "in shape" as of June 15. Unfortunately, the photo below shows that this route is probably becoming too melted out to be a safe or worthwhile ski descent anymore this season. ÊIt's now down to just a narrow skiable passage through the rock bands near 10500 ft, and I probably wouldn't want to climb it now either due to increasing rockfall hazard. It is definitely still skiable, but barely so. However, the Turtle Snowfield looks to be in super shape, and skiable all the way from Camp Hazard through the rocks above the Turtle (this uppermost portion does have a high icefall hazard from the Kautz Ice Cliff, though). <br><br>I hope it is OK to have posted a non-ski report here, since I think it shows useful route info (I would have liked to have seen a similar recent photo anytime during the last 2 weeks). The Mount Hood NF site now posts current photos of the Hood south side route, but I doubt the NPS will start doing anything similar for Rainier. Perhaps we should have a section here for current ski route photos of Rainier, Baker, Adams, etc., which could be kept well updated by the increasingly large and wide-ranging membership.<br><br> <br><br> Click here for a double-size version of this photo.<br>

Sounds like a great idea to me. A picture, or five, (even with a dial-up connection) is worth thousands of #@#$! words!!!!!!

I also think this is a good idea. It is easy for me to set up a new board. It should go in "Hot Air", and needs a title - any ideas?<br><br>How should it be organized? I could set up a bunch of threads for different areas (how many, which?), then people could add photos (with any necessary descriptions, but no TRs?). Should posters be able to start new threads, or only add to existing threads?<br><br>The "one photo/post" rule would obviously be suspended for this board, but how about width - anything goes? Photo files would still need to have a preexisting home somewhere on the web.<br><br>Please post your additional ideas here, and I will set up the board in a few days.

One way would be to have sections for all the volcanos, and maybe some generic area sections for other peaks, although that way there might need to be sub-sections for the different aspects.<br><br>Another way to do it might be to organize it by trailheads, so that all the routes and/or peaks accesible from one spot would all be lumped together. I think that might be my preference.

Charles, here are my suggestions for the new section:<br><br>Title: Something simple like "Ski Route Photos"<br><br>Organization: We could start off with some pre-built threads for the major local volcanoes and mountains. I think people should be free to start new threads for other peaks, but should be encouraged to keep only one thread per mountain once it has been started. For the more popular peaks, perhaps one thread per mountain per year would work best, with the threads named for example, "Mt Rainier Route Photos, 2003", so that next year we could start fresh and avoid having too many photos in any single thread.<br><br>Photo Width: Keep the current 600 pixel limit (to avoid having the text run too wide), but also encourage people to link to a higher-resolution photo (1200 or more pixels wide).<br><br>Photo Captions: Should include the date of the photo and its direction/aspect, along with the approximate location the photo was shot from. Encourage people to keep captions down to a paragraph or two, and post a separate TR in the appropriate section if needed. The photo caption could also link to the full TR. (Are there instructions on how to link directly to other threads? Perhaps it's easy to figure out... )<br><br>I'd be happy to get this section off to a flying start by posting some of my numerous recent route photos from around the Cascade volcanoes.<br>

Yes, I think most of us have very useful photos, but not all of us are able to post from another web address. Is it too complicated to set up a way for someone to post a photo right from a computer, say, in "my briefcase"? I have seen this available in many other sites (biglines.com) (cascadeclimbers.com) but this is the site i find most useful, and like to post here. Check out biglines "photo" section, and let me know. You can post from anywhere on your computer, just "browse".