TR Replies

HUH? Global Warming??!!?? Since when is springtime a result of global warming?

  As reported by others on this page, the pollen conditions that I experienced yesterday on Goat Mt. was the worst ever. Three members of our party of six skied a few hundred yards through a deciduous covered valley floor. All had problems with their skins not attaching, while the three who had carried their skis didn't.After losing his skins 3 or 4 times, my son finally gave up and post holed up the gully and stayed behind while we climbed to the ridge line. We all had the gummy gunk...

Circumnavigation of table mountain Mt Baker  We were beset with pollen destroying any stick of skins to bases.We abandoned our intent to go out to Coleman pinnacle. I had it the worse and I had just waxed.
We were able to climb a lot low angle stuff with just pollen stick. Comically slow skiing down from Herman saddle. Ive been doing this sport 15 years and never seen it that bad.

Thanks for coming on the trip Tom. It isn't easy to find people willing to put up with my time constraints and it was nice to have company, especially that knew the trail. I made it home one minute before I needed to so it all worked out great.

Phil, the road will probably be around for another couple weeks before the gate goes up. I heard June 20th from one of the road workers a couple of weeks ago. After that, the road will be a bike ride, Big snow will be skied from Dingford,...

The Middle Fork is great...  :) glad to see the road is still open.

Sounds like a good trip...I was thinking of heading up there next week.  I have never been to Baker and would appriciate as much info as you could share.  Such as, time you left the car, time to summit, how far could you skin, is there a need to rope up, etc. 

Thanks,
Pawkala

Ron, is this the line you were scoping?

I'm sorry we missed the chance to see you guys up there. I was also scoping out a line that would run down to about the 3k level of the Dingford trail, about a mile short of Lil Myrtle lakes. So far it looks like it would go but I think I will save finding out for another year.

Matt,

I put on the skins as soon as the snow was continuous and I got up off of the steep slope above the trail.  Probably around 6000 feet.  It's pretty open up above that so a splitboard would be nice through there I'd guess.

Thanks for the report - this one's been on my radar screen for awhile too.  Did you do any skinning up higher, or just pack your boards?  I'm thinking that with the long approach it might not be worth bringing my split board because it's a little heavier, unless I went earlier when there was snow on the Pamelia Lake trail.  Thanks,

Matt

author=Lowell_Skoog link=topic=7135.msg28773#msg28773 date=1180030868]
I hope that's okay Greg! Your picture made a big impression!

No problem, Lowell. I was shocked myself, kind of like returning to the house you grew up in after a couple of decades and finding a WalMart in its place . . .

As I PMed you. It should be fairly mellow, the snowpack is pretty summerlike in that area.
Also the late afternoon sun does not hit that basin directly.
As always, play it safe and stay aware.

author=wood_Ster link=topic=7135.msg28775#msg28775 date=1180033205]
For a better resolution, you should have just emailed him the picture... ;)

Yeah, I did that after they left my house. I've e-mailed them quite a few pictures.

They might still use the screen shots, though, because they can pull back to show the hysterical skier pointing and gesturing wildly.  ;)

For a better resolution, you should have just emailed him the picture... ;)

Thanks for the additional info, the times and the depth of the sloughing are good know about.

I was up there 5/23 from 4-6:30 pm and it was sluffy - slow, wet, 3-4 inch surface slides, but nothing dangerous. The pollen problem has dissapated, but not disapeared. Had to take skis off a number of times on the climb to navigate rocks and trees.

The lift areas looked to have good coverage from the lodge up. It is pretty tight getting in to International from the summit...unless you drop in ;D. There was a bit of pollen so might want to be prepared. Was thinking about heading back to Kaleetan Peak again should be good! Jay

Thanks for the report.  Any estimate on how much longer Red will be in condition?

Thanks for the report and the great pics! 8)
I need to get back in that area soon!

Hi Robie,  Great pictures.  I met you on St. Helens a few weeks ago.  I should have taken you up on your invitation to Cowlitz.  We tried Hood, and ended camping in a gale.  I did have a great ski down on hard ice with a full pack the next morning.  Not nearly so nice as your report.  We're looking at a couple more trips...Muir (of course) and Adams sometime in June.  Want to join us?
Don (Rusty Knees)

Kjack, you shouldn't speak about a mute point.

Did you come back down the Easy Pass gully below Greybeard or did you cross over Ragged Ridge to the north and come down that bowl?  Were those cornices on the west ridge of Greybeard or did you go north from the pass?

Must not have been many alternate routes.

oh, there were alternatives, but we went with Monika's route choice....she seems to enjoy jumping off of things  ;D
thanks for calling it "courage", some might call it something else!

Which way did you ski down?  Doesn't look like you came down the same way. 

we were lost.  i don't remem...

Wow! I'm impressed. I'm one of the people who helped you at the ranger station. Thanks for the report. Skiing looks awesome. :D

The road had many snow drifts across it. I was able to drive through most of them by driving back and forth in 4wd to make a rut that I could drive through. There was one that was quite deep and about 60 to 80 ft across. I got as far in it as I could and then we winched through the rest. There was a few downed trees that we had to move, nothing too big just a couple feet in diameter. On the way back down I was able to drive through all my previous tracks without getting stuck. At 6400' the...