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I agree with you JJS, those fees are bollocks.  Mt St Helens National Monument is Federal Land, collectively owned by the people.  Charging someone $22 to walk through their own backyard is ludicrous and very much unconstitutional. 

If you're directly benefiting from those fees, for instance, being able to make use of posh lodging/restroom facilities, or receiving expedited rescue services, (should one be needed) with tea and biscuits provided, are some exceptions.  If, h...
Nice work guys!  Man i miss Nevada!  Love those patches of snow in the desert and the sunny skies!

Sounds like you used to live here.  I've been here 3 years now and used to live there.  I sure miss the desert and sun, but i sure can't complain about the skiing here.  It's been awsome!

Check out the East Humbolt range, go there now it will be sweet and you will be all alone!

Cheers, David.
Fantastic stuff, amazing line, well done sirs!
author=mtneer ordinaire link=topic=20598.msg87752#msg87752 date=1303331187]
Dumb question: it's closed due to a gate closure not because of unplowed snow, correct?


What I found was large orange and white standard hiway issue ROAD CLOSED sign that spanned most of the width of the road.  There was green colored tape on each side of the side to block the rest of the road.  There was a big white handwritten sign that said NOT PLO...
Maybe if we say we're planning to log the area they'll unlock the gate?  Having just bought some passes this is pretty annoying.
author=Boot link=topic=20598.msg87753#msg87753 date=1303333489]
Could this be a result of the Warming Hut fire?


what?  I was up there last month!!! did somebody burn down the warming hut? 

and I completely agree with all the posts.  if we pay fees we can expect to get something for them. 
Could this be a result of the Warming Hut fire?
Thanks for posting.  I was planning to go there in the next 2-3 weeks.

author=johnspeth link=topic=20598.msg87727#msg87727 date=1303306973]
The first indication that the road was closed was at the road closure barrier.


Dumb question: it's closed due to a gate closure not because of unplowed snow, correct?

Sounds to be the case.  No information's available concerning the gate's open date?
damn impressive backyard skiing guys.
you buggers!  had my eye on that for a while now...
well played, nice timing.
Nice beginning to the anual spring trip. I've had coffee at that snack bar before, during Xmas season. Good luck on the rest of your venture...
Nice 'schwack shots, especially the ford! Wait 'til I pass this along to my Swiss friends!! I toured the Engadin region a few weeks back, and we had a forest descent (ala PNW Summer Skiing...). They could not believe that this is a normal occurance for us to feed the obsession. Can't wait until next September or so (once summer REALLY starts up here.) to ski some of that tasty maize...
Impressive, thanks for the TR and photos.
Good one.....Beautiful....

What Stefan said!!!
You continue to defile ice climbs by skiing down them!
Sweet!  Nice work Drew & Dan -- sporty stuff.
The first 1000' vertical was variable for us too.  Then about 2000' of boot top pow followed by dust on crust to the parking lot.  Without the break in the weather it would have been a very challenging ski.   
Thanks for the update. I will be changing my Friday plans.
Awesome! way to get on top there Kenji and crew. Someday I'll make it.

Once again, thanks for the inspiration, and saving me a PM of "how the heck do you get over that step?" I've tried both sides with some pain.

Was going to the east side yesterday but my truck could not make it over the pass. Seen ghosts of you down tracks, but not a sign of your up once you left the creek. new snow at the TH was about 2"s, but up higher we found 8-12"s. ...
It's about 2.5 miles with 1200' gain on the Surprise Lake trail to where you would take off toward the Plug. It's just before the trail gets steeper to the lake.  The hardest part of the route is to get above the first basin which has a steep step of about 400'.  I've tried several variations over the years.  This time we climbed straight on, and it was the shortest, but ugly and pretty exposed to any slide coming down.
too bad we didn't see this this morning!  We started to Muir, found icy patches going up Pan face, cut right, skinned up on 1-10 inches (highly variable) snow on top of blue ice; above the Pan overlook area, we found just a couple of inched on top of ice; once heading towards McClure Rock, we encountered variable snow depth, icy patches, and, like in your video, we had snow showers/low visibility moving in and out; so we decided to ski below McClure on snow that varied greatly in depth...
Looks fun, thanks for the photos.

How long was your ski in before heading vertical?
Charlie, I think Silas has had an influence on your touring reports, especially the apres' ski component.  ;)


I think it'll be weeks.  Not that it's a BAD thing   8)


Can't agree more.
"fairly enjoy-able if you are not too picky about the quality"

Good rule for living, that.
The top of the sign at the lower TH was about even with my ankles!  That means there was about 4-5' of snow, and that was one of the sunny parts.  BTW the old clearcut below the hogback where the middle trail goes was sking a bit like corn, tho still really deep. 

I think it'll be weeks.  Not that it's a BAD thing  8)
The skiing was a lot more fun than i thought it would be!  Of course it's always wonderfull being out in the mountains.  Thanks for the pics Kenji, great skiing with you guys as always!

David
Lower TH might be open pretty soon.  Just last Tues the 12th the snow was continuous at 1700'.
Yeah, those photos indeed help answer Silas' question about "why go to Europe when the snow is so good in the Cascades?" But by now I'm sure Silas has also seen the reports of heinous crust around his usual haunts too  ;)
author=Lisa link=topic=20567.msg87624#msg87624 date=1303102468]
  Maybe I'll catch up with you at Alpy next weekend, it may be the last for them. 


Should be up there on Saturday.  From talking with some people it sounds like Hyak was definitely the place to be Sunday.  Someone I ran into at a soccer game Sunday night said he did one run down at Crustal and went home.
Saw you heading up yesterday and was wondering if I'd see a report.  Guess I should write one for our trip in the area...
We saw some deep wind loading (up to 30+") and moving snow on Friday north of Argonaut.  To much a white out to see anything else.
So, did you approach via rat creek?  nice photos by the way!
Greg story and pictures, Alan!
I neglected to take a photo of it but there was a young gent who was carrying his 2 year old daughter in a child carrier pack along with her skis. 
He said it was her 25th time skiing this season.  When he asked her what her favorite ski was she replied, "Tinkerbell". 
Those of some familiar senior citizens from the PNW.  ;)
author=Marcus link=topic=20573.msg87652#msg87652 date=1303152013]
Hey Joe,

Great report -- what were you doing in Idaho?

I checked the content of the IMG tags for your pictures -- you're using the wrong URL.  You need to find the image location that ends with a ".jpg" or some similar address to put in those tags.


Thanks, Marcus....
Business brings me to Pocatello, snow brings me to Snowbir...
Yes... the smoked salmon was good (different trip).  I think maybe good idea to hang away from tent ; )

Soon as I skied off I wished I'd taken pictures of the tracks.  nearly every other trip I have images of tracks and scat of many animals.  Helps remind me of what I saw.

These tracks were going downhill.  Overall path was 12-18" deep and ~24" wide plowing through the snow.  Tracks were within the previous half hour.  Foot print...
Nice pics Amar! Looked like a great day for Rainier.  I'm looking forward to hitting up laps from Paradise to Muir soon to work on conditioning.

Good to see you at Snowball!
Cheers!

-Rob
Cute pic of the kiddo's.  I've been wondering how to get my kids up skiing!
Hi Gary;

Looks you all had a good day and your photos are great! I was up in that exact area on Saturday, and did three laps. I don't know the names of the runs, but roughly I did two runs off the top of the 2nd hump away from parking lot down to the road, and one down off the ridge perhaps a 20 min further skin toward mt. Angeles.

i put in a skin track from the road back up to the 2nd hump; in that area, at about 3pm, the snow was soft heavy untracked with some windb...
Hey Joe,

Great report -- what were you doing in Idaho?

I checked the content of the IMG tags for your pictures -- you're using the wrong URL.  You need to find the image location that ends with a ".jpg" or some similar address to put in those tags.
For some reason the pictures didn't load, hope to figure that out soon.
author=kam link=topic=20570.msg87642#msg87642 date=1303149514]
Maybe we'll stop by for a surprise visit when Norie gets on skis in a few years!!

We'll look forward to it!!
Great video!
If that was the the Truckee you crossed in the video it looks a bit low... looked like the only thing that got wet fording it was the soles of your tennies :)