TR Replies
"the magic of the PNW can come out when you least expect it"
For sure! As my buddy says, you don't know until you go : ) And same here, despite my numerous tours at the Pass, somehow I've been missing out on the Bryant Col ... so, thanks for the inspiro!
As someone who was born after '85, I've been a huge fan of TAY since I moved here. I was lucky to have some of you 'old farts' show me around when I first moved here, and I agree that it is an amazing resource if you're willing to spend the time and do your research. From what I can tell speaking to my other millennial friends, most of them use TAY on facebook, not this site. But as anyone can tell you, TAY sticks to trip reports and trip research while facebook...not so much. For the most pa...
None of our turns looked like this! Those pictures Mike took of me are strictly poser shots!
Wonderful TR, photos and the reality of "wap" at different parts.😀
Lets kick everyone off TAY that was born after 85' and they can all have the facekook and instafame and let us old farts complain about the good ol days in peace!
March 18th, 2021... Interesting reading these old TR's.
As of this date, I'm 63 and at the time we did this trip, I was 51. Back then, no thought was given to working all day, drive for 3 hours, start hiking /skinning for 9 miles with skis, tent, winter gear, rope, sleeping bags, etc.
Camp in the dark, then get up early, do some serious frozen snow skinning (too thin/punchy for crampons, to hard and frozen for skins) ... but we did it- scary. Then a f...
In contrast to TAY, social media lets me have a private account where most (not all) people who see my posts are actual friends who I hang out with in real life from time-to-time. So I think that making a post there causes less of a TAY effect than making a post here. Although some of those "friends" are pretty hardcore frothers that are gobbling up every bit of information they can find.
I definitely think before posting to this forum. I don't want my favorite spots to become more ov...
I'm sure the Swiss have. :)
Word of mouth in the previous generations would be my guess. The internet just kicked up the spread a few orders of magnitude. My guess is viewership here is down as the spread on FB and IG has largely taken over and multiplied it once more.
I agree with you, not a unique phenomenon but hard to argue the internet didn't usher in a drastically quicker method of spread.
On a tangent, I'd imagine the advent of better and better gear that makes...
It looks to me like viewership is down on this forum, not up.
What do you all think caused the "overcrowding" in the 70's, or the 00's? Is that cause better or worse than one of our current causes, the Internet? I am legitimately curious.
I think the moment we are in now is less unique than we believe. I imagine that the Swiss have been having this same conversation about their own mountains for hundreds of years.
He's probably not the only one that realizes their past posting has been part of the problem. I'm in that camp. I wish we had foreseen what would happen. In the time period you highlight, it was a much much smaller community and viewership. Indeed massive population growth is the real issue, but the tipping point i would really point to was the social media explosion. It went from websites with increasing visitation to mass spread.
Gen Z and millenials are not the issue (hey, I'm marr...
Part of me understands where you mikerolfs coming from but most of me doesn't. There have been many to ski these mountains before us and many who will ski them after us. The population is growing. There is no use getting upset about it. Mikerolfs has probably posted trip reports on this website so that contributes to this problem. I guess next time just withhold the location when writing a trip report.
Erik
At its core, this forum seems to contain the largest collection of high-quality backcountry skiing trip reports for the PNW, and serves as a platform for the creation of new TRs. I enjoy scrolling through TRs from Hummel, Sky, and others from 10 or 15 years ago. It is inspirational to say the least.
I am trying to understand where folks like...
And the guidebook in question published that route after it was posted on...yup, the internet.
Even skiing another route in the valley, they would have come across the huge gaggle of people forming the congo line to get in the route of question. If you are somebody that enjoys a modicum of solitutude, that still sucks.
It bewilders me how much people will defend against the clear fact that internet route sharing has made for crowding in many areas where there otherwise wouldn'...
So cool!
I was in the party of three that watched that giant rock fall at you guys, I thought for sure Jordan was a goner!!
Fancier footwork I have not often seen.
Glad to see you guys gave it another go and had some sweet turns!
The route you are presumably referring to is published in a guidebook that's been out since 2014, and that is owned by virtually every backcountry skier in Washington. If you don't want to share the mountain with other people I'd suggest choosing a route that is not in the guidebook. In the Napeequa Valley alone there are multiple other lines you could have skied where you would have been guaranteed to not see another person all day.
Thanks for sharing. I thought we were crazy to go that way.
Awesome Nick! I've been wanting to check out the north side of Sherpa & Stuart for a while now, glad you guys were able to get it in good conditions.
Such a good corn slope. Last spring it was in prime condition for a number of weeks in April
Gib chute is one of my favorite lines up there despite the menacing ice cliff.
Nice work
No, they definitely didn't ask permission. They were entitled and walked across private property to the "sick" line they read about on the internet (as I guarantee you they never would have found it on their own just being creative and browsing topos). Yeah, it sucks man, i feel ya. That area was deserted 10+ years ago but, yup...the internet. That and BC skiing becoming trendy.
Advice to any others who will listen to a curmudgeon like me: sharing your sweet trip is best done with fri...
@stefan, I don't keep track but a rough estimate is 25K.
Well, at least you don't have to wonder about it from afar anymore, 😂 (Nice work, tho).
When I skied this three years ago, we were the only party on it that day, but when we got to the bottom no less than just shy of a dozen people were making camps for attempts the next day. Good call turning around.
Nice! -- that western slope on Silver down to the lake it pretty perfect.
I've been lazier than you in doing this tour -- I typically leave a car at exit 47 and then as a season's pass holder ride the Silver Fir lift and follow the XC trails to the top of the "Windy Acres" clearcut. Twice I have skied down and across the lake and then followed the open slopes on the western side of Humpback Creek. down to the P2C and then shuffle up that a bit to follow the...
Its a tough one Mike. Id love to blow the internet up with you and take me back ten years to the cascades of my youth but those days are loooong gone. I hate how busy everything is but its just a fact these days. The good news is that 98% of these newer folks dont have the skills to asses when a mountain will be prime for skiing, they rely on facebook and instagram to know when they can go ski something...you and Jaime have lifetimes worth of mountain knowledge to get the jump on everyo...
Continuous snow from the cars. But 2 of us used trail runners til we ventured off the well trodden Annette lake trail. On skins you’ll have to cross several bare creeks and a few other obstacles. Iron horse was solid snow.
BTW, what was the snow like on the Cascades to Palouse a.k.a. Iron Horse, and how where did continuous snow begin?
Thanks for posting - one year I'll have to get to Silver from the Annette Lake trail. Typically, I wait for the forest road to melt out, and drive in (as close to the PCT crossing as possible), or slog it from Silver Fir. I agree - this is some of the best 2K of vertical to ski near Seattle (especially on corn).
First of all kudos to you for making a challenging decision with respect to your own safety margins early in the morning. I'm sure it wasn't a happy experience to drive out there and sleep over only to pull the plug without even skinning out to the line.
I guess I am a little surprised that you would describe this line as obscure, when most people that I ski with have been talking about trying to ski it for some time. Remote and committed, but not obscure at all. Given that someone po...
Whoa. How much elevation gain did you do in 4 days???
How was access to the Colchuck trailhead? FS road still closed? Skiable to the gate?
Sounds like the right name for it - Gibraltar chute. It is next to the Gib ledges. Timing was good - no icefall when we were passing. We heard icefall early morning, on the way up.
It looks like you skied Gibraltar chute on the way down. Are you saying you experienced icefall in the chute?
I have a bit of experience leading WI4+ so I didn't think twice about the pearly gates, there were nice kind of icy steps the whole way up and only one 2 foot 70 degree section of ice that might make someone think twice. We did see one group in front of us though that was dual wielding quarks and very securely kicking in monopoints to get through. I just collapsed my pole and whippet, and used them as per normal.
We were still rocking some fresh snow that hadnt frozen yet, so...
The park has been very good this winter in providing access, even on days I would have thought they would have closed the gate to Paradise. They did close for something like two weeks when they got 100 inches of new snow accumulation--the snow walls along road going up when they opened were actually at bit scary, especially the upper left side of Frog Hollow.
Here's a quick video edit of some ski footage from Ruby & the Triad: https://youtu.be/bPB8YKG4co0
Started the descent at 14:00. Never saw another party the whole day, no fresh tracks before me.
Sounds like an awesome time and sound decision making! Congrats!