TR Replies
Great report and way to cruise that trip quickly, it's a big day! Such a cool route....
Awesome! I always wanted to get out there but never made it. Thanks for the write up
Great report Thomas! I’ve enjoyed my tenure as the cover of TAY, but nothing lasts forever. Excited for the revival of this community!
what about the toy truck?
Some more photos and a map of these ski lines on my website:
https://www.thomaskakatsakis.com/maps/rogers-pass
Isn't the West peak a good deal higher (and rocky and unskiable) than the East one that we both tagged?
Cheers Kam, thank you! You and Phil's trip report was a huge hit of beta and inspiration! Cool to know we were after the same thing! By real summit, did you mean the west peak, or just off the summit down the east face towards honeymoon lakes?
I had fun this same day, but you had to know where to go to avoid the wind blasted surfaces.
Let it snow!
Epic, especially to finish with a bike failure! I remember biking that road out with my commuter rig to be the most dangerous part of the trip to Anderson and back.
Phil Fortier and I went in there to try and ski that E face years ago, although we didn't give it away in our report! We didn't end up dropping into the headwall because of a lack of refreeze the day we managed to summit. Instead,...
"Pretty significant inversion up there." seedy
That brought a big laugh! Nice one
Alisse, thanks for sharing this even later after the fact! It sounds like you learned a lot and I think I learned something or it reinforced something for me reading it. I have been "there", not in those peaks but in similar situations. It's good to not beat yourself up about it.
One thing I've learned to respect more in recent years is the mush and shed season (Lowell's website has a lot of wisdom on that) which is easy to get complacent about. Some years it just takes forever to con...
Way to go! Love that part of the mountain when it's like that and nobody around!
The N side of Hood is rad! Sad to see the Eliot so beat up, but such is life in an era of glacial retreat.
Thanks for the frank discussion! I admire your choice to put some of your questionable decisions on display. I can see talking myself into the same kinds of choices, but I'm pretty sure I would need a third day to cover all that ground in the conditions you describe.
yeah, I think the downtrack (if that's the main Overcoat drainage) is what I had in mind. The only Volken guide I have is the one where he tells us to boot up the Slot...no, no, no, even if you are a certified AMGA instructor...OK, just having a little fun...I know, times change; routes change.
Mostly I'm just advocating for independent thought. And you seem very capable of this. There is much subjectivity afoot in what we do. In guidebooks the route is often the ONLY route that was d...
Thank you for engaging in a thoughtful way!
Great questions. I don't have good memory of what the weather was doing leading up to the trip, but of course I was watching it. I don't think we wouldn't have set out for this if there hadn't been some amount of freeze-thaw cycles going on. So probably just poor analysis into how it would translate in the snowpack :) That said...if I'm reading
Thanks for posting! That's an ambitious route, and you pulled it off (mostly) and lived to tell us about it. Gotta be thankful for that!
It's a fabulous reminder for everyone that trip planning is not all about vert and mileage stats. As your TR demonstrates, there is so much more (especially in the Snoqualmie environs).
I'm surprised you were surprised about the conditions...seems like you get out quite a bit, and part of that is keeping up with the weather. You don't need so...
Blair- yup, thanks- that's about right. Congrats on year one! Happy to be heading into winter, so I don't have to get all worked up again about maintaining my streak until about late July!
Hey Robie- "wh" is pronounced "ph" down here, so I guess I am a phakapapa. Neither one sounds too good to me though!
Congrats on keeping the streak alive! This was inspiring as I just finished my first 12 months of TAY at the age of 51-I am guessing about the age you started your current streak? I now have something to shoot for ;)
Interestingly enough, there was a very small snow field even lower with 2 mtn goats laying out on the snow so must have been a lucky day!
Blair- thanks so much for the timely report! That looks very typical for this time of year. It's rarely good above 9000' this late- maybe in October, all will be sweet if we get an early storm. Hoping to knock off September (238) on Friday. I hope we don't have a government shutdown, or October will be a challenge!
I have been hiking up that area for decades, and never seen a goat in that area! Wise to give it a wide berth!
Flowwwwwers!
Thanks, was just thinking where to go for just a day trip next weekend... Great for August sounds nice!
Wooooot!!! Love the Kamtron-Brendigler linkups :)
Nice work boys, way to harvest.
@carbonj: thanks for the historical tidbit! As you can probably imagine, there's a whole story behind the origin of that helmet.
@eben - Would love to see those but it appears that photo link is broken or private!
The video gave me the heebee geebees during the upper part. Lucas's hard hat is the same one Clint Eastwood wore in the Eiger Sanction, Bitchin!
Sweet trip in a special spot!
2012 eye on exit ice https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipPHCRiAqpJmafcjB0lPs1wRTCDHVSyQU5_OW4O_/photo/AF1QipOpAbnmYZcseM5MGXaYtYuYoHGuhnKFFLzoAZxu
Such a wild position! Stoked to see more west side action!
Gnarwal, glad you made it through the gauntlet!
I have heard tell that a lot of the hardcore crushers that ski this line (who don't post on social media or forums) often do the up-and-over. I think the folks I've heard of were mostly mountain guides who could crash at Muir with a daypack, then launch up and over to ski off the other side. Seems like a cool strategy, but scary not knowing what kind of ice or deathly schmoo might await.
I was up there yesterday (May 27) and the approach was pretty much as described in the original approach, although I did not look at the river approach/deproach. Coverage is continuous from the basin up to Steamboat Prow but the skiing was largely an unconsolidated schmoo fest from a few hundred feet below the Prow to about 6,800 feet in the basin.
Great to see trip reports like this! I enjoy reading about others “cold fear”, and the feeling of that first successful first turn…..
Congrats! Fun project to keep things interesting during drippy season.
Proud line boys! Quite the Cascadian adventure, 'shwack and alpine and all. Inspiring!!
great trip report! One of my favorite silly rides is getting from West Seattle to Hyak and back in a day, though its a bit too long a haul to squeeze in skiing - nicely done pulling off the no-car ski tour.
Awesome! Jealous you all spent the night out there. Skiing that side looked like a bunch of fun!
Lots more photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ge5L4c2ia7WypXpKA
I love all these TRs! Keep 'em coming Sam!
Unbelievable run this year...