TR Replies

definitley an awsome day - got a late start, around 11am from paradise. Hit snow around 7,000 feet, and skined up some nice corn to muir. Great ski down, except the last few hundred feet, which had some deep boot holes that I got caught up in... I needed a bath anyways. There are some pictures from yesterday and september 19th at:

http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~emrosenb/muirpics/index.htm

9/27/04 3:27am

JMor

:D thanks for the smiles this morning. ;D

9/27/04 1:37am

cascadesfreak

Nice poem Snoslut! creative TR ;)
--Chris

9/27/04 12:21am

Jeff Huber

Beautiful!

9/26/04 7:04pm

gusk

September 25, 2004, Muir

I'll second that, an incredible day.

A little uncertain when looking up from Paradise, at the snow that started at ~7200', got sceptical carrying skies passed all the tourists especially with our 11am start. But once we were up there, it was obvious how great a day it would be.
So great to meet all the Turns-all-year'ers, and I wish I had gotten to backcountry ski when I was 8.

9/24/04 8:01am

teletoo

September 22, 2004, Muir Snowfield, Mt. Rainier

I found a Black Diamond liner glove on the route up to the Muir Snowfield, on 9/19/04 contact me if you lost one.

9/23/04 12:04am

gregL

Hey, Paul, they worked great - I think it'll be a nice setup for mid-winter touring, pretty light & pretty wide. The 177 is a bit softer than my 184's.

9/22/04 11:58pm

Paul Belitz

September 22, 2004, Muir Snowfield, Mt. Rainier

Major freshie envy going on here. >:( Nice pics, BTW.

How did your F1s do driving the REXs?

9/22/04 9:44am

andyski

September 21, 2004, Mt Rainier, Muir Snowfield

An extra 1/2 hour for five miles? ??? Mileage sounds right, and you're dead on about the scenery.

9/22/04 9:30am

Randito

September 21, 2004, Mt Rainier, Muir Snowfield

Streets and Trips computes the 410 / Stevens Canyon route as a 110 mile 3 hour drive from the I-90 / I-405 interchange.

The South Hill route computes to 105 miles -- but 2 1/2 hours -- but this figure doesn't really take congestion into account..

The 410 / Steven's canyon route is certainly prettier.

I've driven these routes as loop -- that way you get to see the whole mountain ;D

9/22/04 7:18am

andyski

September 21, 2004, Mt Rainier, Muir Snowfield

I'm not sure if this would work for everyone, but taking 410 through Enumclaw/Stevens Canyon Road to Paradise from the Eastside seemed as fast, if not faster than Eatonville/Elbe when I did it last Friday. No Puyallup/Graham crawl!

9/21/04 7:07pm

markharf

September 21, 2004, Mt Hood, Southside

Markharf shattered my heart into millions of little pieces. I was crushed akin to a teenage girl stood up on her prom date.

Ooops. So sorry. Glad to hear of your narrow escape from a dissolute life and eternal damnation.

9/21/04 5:42pm

JMor

September 21, 2004, Mt Hood, Southside

Thanks for the smiles this morning with your TR and glad your shattered heart is now put back together. Looks like you had some fun on Hood. :D Let's hope we get some more freshies, there's a group of TAY'ers heading down to the Silcox on Sept 30 for an overnighter. ;D

9/21/04 7:08am

GregLange

What a fortuitous day to have been placed on my calendar. During September and October, I never know what the conditions will be like, just which day I’ll get to go ski. Jeff Renner called in a chit with the gods, apparently, because we had 8 inches of new snow to use last Sunday. Now, this wasn’t pow, but it beat the shit out of having the shit beat out of us by Muir’s infamous late season sun cups.

Lara P., Peter, Matthew and myself carpooled to Paradise, a...

9/21/04 4:52am

teletoo

Sunday was my first outing with folks through TAY. What an introduction…what spectacular conditions, …what a great group!!
I am psyched to find this network of passionate skiers/riders.

Eli, Lara, Greg, and Peter, I have photos to send your way,
&
I like the talk of going to Hood soon too...

Thanks again for such a blast!
~Matthew

9/21/04 3:53am

ron j

Thanks, Kam, Great pics.
Mark, you know we wouldn't hoard any secret stashes.

9/21/04 3:35am

kam

for those interested, i've posted more photos. please click here. enjoy -kam

9/21/04 2:21am

wolfs

September 20, 2004, Muir

Thanks for the report. What you describe is an all too common syndrome on a Muir trip. I've found you basically have to weigh vertical vs visibility, and sometimes it's better to turn em' at 9500 while you still have a visibility window if you're suspicious that the window might close before you get to 10000. You're balancing a slight loss of vert vs a big loss of enjoyment. Unfortunately, the fog can close in on you SO fast, before you can even get strapped in. Sometimes fog's actually forming...

9/20/04 8:52pm

bcskibdy

How do you say it's a great start to the season if you ski all year? Great to be up there, great to meet the faces behind the names. I look forward to seeing al the pics.

Re. the weather--Like the mountain, sometimes we just make our own. Ya hadda be there.
8)

9/20/04 6:30pm

JMor

the only mystery involved the ever-elusive Ron Jarvis posse, which arrived around 9:00 to great fanfare and enthusiastic greetings, then was never seen again. Usually when this happens it turns out that they were all out rampaging around on some secret slope which Ron alone knows how to find. This time....I dunno. Did they ever actually leave the parking lot? Any witnesses?

Yep, we snuck up there, 8) worked on our tans, and grabbed the fres...

9/20/04 11:00am

markharf

I can't speak for anyone else, but I merely took my best wild guess, camped out in the parking lot under the stars, woke to a spectacular sunrise, and (two cups of coffee later) started climbing. Altogether I skied about 3000 feet in great visibility, plus another 1500 in moderate whiteout. I think it helps to be willing to suffer immensely if you guess wrong.

9/20/04 10:07am

Jeff Huber

Wow. Am I reading the wrong weather forecast? The forecast from NWS looked like there'd be very marginial visibility high on a volcano. How did you guys know you'd have good vis?

Jeffey

9/20/04 9:46am

markharf

What a fun day: probably the first time I've ever spent as much time grinning and shaking hands on a tour as actually skiing. Conditions on the Muir were good enough so that I scooted back up for another helping, then followed various tracks through light-to-moderate snowfall and clouds down through the rock gardens below Pebble Creek to about 7000 feet (the final bits looked really ugly, but there was no one around to notice). Not bad for September.

From my perspective, the only my...

9/20/04 9:26am

Eli3

It was definitley an awsome day - could everyone who took photos yesterday on the trip to muir e-mail them to me? I'll put them up on my webspace so everyone can download them.

spcmanspiff at gmail.com

thanks
-Eli

9/20/04 8:54am

lapaz25

To all:
What a fantastic day! Who woulda thunk a gimp like me would make it to Camp Muir and ski 3000ft of freshies on two bum knees, only weeks after surgery? :) Thank you everyone who was there! Please reply so I can figure out the TAY handles of everyone...

Silas, Ron, Jeanette...wow, missed you guys up in the sunshine at 9000ft. It was a good day indeed (picture big smiles with racoon eyes).

See many of you on Mt. Hood soon!
~Lara

9/20/04 7:06am

Schmitz

nice mute grab

9/20/04 6:07am

DonnellyM

Who says we have to wait till the lifts open? Nice selection of pics, Kam! Definitely a more memorable day on the traditional Muir Freshie Field!! ;)

9/20/04 6:02am

Skier66

September 19, 2004, Ptarmigan Ridge,Mt.Baker

Just like I said, I knew there would be plenty of snow to play on! Who would've ever thought it was September and let alone technically still Summer. It felt more like fall. 2000+ vertical of fresh tracks. Can't beat that for this time of year. ;D

9/20/04 4:19am

Telemon

First, thanks Bud. My computer skills are limited and I just couldn't get the URL right.
To view my humble collection of Baker shots go to Telemarktips.com; click on Tele Photos at top right corner; type in Telemon and click the Search button. You now have samples of July, August and September's turns. And yes, I do ski other mountains, but at this time of the year Baker is the only reasonablely close place with the white stuff that we crave.

9/20/04 3:24am

skip

September 19, 2004, Ptarmigan Ridge,Mt.Baker

jj-
two words: Campylobacter jejuni. You wouldn't have wanted me there, trust me.

What I want to know is what's with all the snow and visibility? You didn't have to descend with a GPS?
I mean, clear and deep is fine if you're into that kind of thing. Me? I prefer fall skiing on Muir a little more crappish:
http://www.leang.com/kam/mountains/tr/mnt_rainier/muir_snowfield/##oct_12_03

http://www.leang.com/kam/mountains/tr/mnt_rainier/muir_snowfield/##...

9/20/04 2:35am

curmudgeon

.

If you are interested in photos check my Teletips gallery

Where is this?

9/20/04 2:32am

jimjar

Nice shots Kam. Good seeing everyone on the hill. One thing I was wondering is where was the Skipster on such a fine day?

9/20/04 1:26am

cascadesfreak

September 19, 2004, Ptarmigan Ridge,Mt.Baker

Great pics Kam! ;)
Nice meeting/seeing several TAY folks up there yesterday!
Awesome September freshies! Pretty well tracked-up by now ;)

--Chris

9/19/04 9:41am

Pete A

looks like you found the goods. nicely done!

hard to believe its only september

9/14/04 8:00am

JMor

Ok, so now we have our annual "Crystal Mt. ski fest", ;D and The "Slush Cup" ;D do I see an up coming annual "Sand Fest" in the works?? :D

9/13/04 11:49pm

philfort

Yup.... and bruneau is 3 times the vert - but 5 times the drive!!!
Let's see, for a vertical mile you'd need to ski these dunes 35 times....

9/13/04 9:13pm

Sam Avaiusini

One thing is for sure...that sure beats the 10+ hour drive out to Bruneau, ID! There's more vert. to be had in ID, but you can just do a few more laps at the Gorge to get your vertical mile. 8)

9/13/04 7:54am

cascadesfreak

I have heard rumors of other sand dunes somewhere farther east near Hwy 26, but not as high as the dune slope near Vantage...maybe those rumors were referring to the small dunes out in the Potholes Reservoir vicinity; perhaps there are some other worthy "sand stashes" out in the Columbia Basin!? ;)

9/13/04 4:01am

JibberD

That's a beautiful sight! I drive past this area on my way to an account in world famous Royal City and have wondered if skiing the dunes were possible.

Now I know!

9/13/04 2:44am

kam

... I remember sand starting from the top. I must be thinking of another spot or it's just a bad sand year.

no, it's a reasonable sand year. coverage appears to be a bit slim in places, but i was able to ski to the truck..., see ;D

and for those interested, here are more photos....

9/13/04 1:45am

snoslut

I wondered about those sand hills off of 26 the first time I went to Pullman in 94. Going to and from college my friends and I would slide the hill on anything we could find and or drag up. I can recall going down some fun chutes on my skateboard (minus the trucks/wheels). I even dragged my surfboard up there as well as my boogieboard on a number of occasions. There's even some cool dunes to run and jump off of. Fun times. From the pics it appears to have less sand than I remember. I reme...

9/13/04 12:48am

cascadesfreak

September 6, 2004, Muir Snowfield

Great photos! I had no idea that you could just "skin" up sand. How steeply can you ascend without slipping?

I guess I wasn't paying real close attention to the slope or "skinning" angles...the dune slope is probably at/near its "angle of repose" (approximately 30 degrees); we were unable to ascend straight up the dune without sliding back, but lower angle (maybe 15 degrees??) "switchbacking" across the sl...

9/13/04 12:28am

Charles

I've been absent from these TRs for a bit, sorry for the delay in responding. snoslut, I guess I didn't recognize you from photos - I think Silas and I passed you just before Pebble Creek. And the group of 4 skiing down was probably us, with Pete and Becky.

Paul, Sky, and Corey, I think we saw you, and I should have skied over to find out who it was, but we were trying to stick to the edges of new snow away from the uptrack. Hope to meet you in person another time.

From today's tel...

9/13/04 12:20am

Charles

Great photos! I had no idea that you could just "skin" up sand. How steeply can you ascend without slipping?

9/12/04 11:53pm

philfort

hmm... one year I tried very hard to find out if there was any reasonable sand-skiing in Washington, and concluded there wasn't.... somehow I overlooked this one! I knew there were some dunes around there, but all the pics I could find made it look flat - but that actually looks nice...

9/12/04 10:24pm

kam

Skip ran into one in the bushes, see...

9/12/04 9:56pm

cascadesfreak

You used Snake Skins of course, I presume. ;)

For some reason those rattlers seem to get angry when you try to latch them to your ski bases ;)

yeah, no climbing skins were needed...also, I found gaitors worked quite well for keeping most of the blowing sand out of my ski boots.

Fortunately we didn't find any rattlesnakes in the sagebrush at the bottom of the run ;)

9/12/04 9:18pm

skip