TR Replies

Oh well now that I read your TR on your website Paul, it looks like if you were gonna fall anywhere on the NFNWR, you'd want it to be where Jim fell.  A strange twist of luck?  Or was Jim just having too much fun? ;)  I'm gonna lean toward the latter as you seem to have made it halfway down the thing without losing it.

Yeah-Good work Donnelly! Heck of an accomplishment! On the 20th I hiked up to Sunrise and upon my return ran into a guy on the Wonderland Trail that had pictures on his diggy cam of that brown bear on the Glacier Basin trail. It was a big Brown bear.

Very nice, and very well crafted report, Skipper  ;)  ;D
And Fantastic photog work.  Anyone that can make a geezer look like he's NOT about to fall over can really handle a lens.  Nice pics.
The ones that I managed to get are at:
http://groups.msn.com/WildHeartsSkiing/paradiseglacier62004.msnw

Sorry, didn't take any pics, I was too busy first trying to keep my out of shape ass going as fast as the others, then too busy trying to ski. I've got a bunch of nice photos from camp, though.

That does look like a good bivy spot, but I think I still would like camping at "the beach" better because it's higher up and there's water at the lake.

Wow, glad you're ok Jim, that sounds crazy to fall there.  Probably a good idea that you descended with axe in hand.  

;)  ;D

Nice shot! Both of those 2 main chutes below the false summit are great ski descents!  Thanks for posting a pic  :)

Yes, nice work - 10,000vf in a day! It sounds like you went from sea level to 14K+ in less than 24 hours, and I'm curious about whether you experienced any altitude sickness? That sounds like a classic scenario for it, but you don't mention any problems.

Interesting about the bear. Over Memorial Day we saw very fresh bear tracks near Grand Park, and then two days later tracks and then a bear near Sunrise. I wonder if there are there getting to be more bears in the area, or just more peop...

... and for those who like the visuals:

;D

Greg, We met and talked for a minute at the top of the chutes when I was on my way down. Zach looked like a dynamite skier.  Nice of him to take his Dad out to the mountain on such a beautiful day!  8)  Hope to see you both out there again.
Don_B

Jim fell?!  I just assumed it was Paul! ;)  I thought I told you, no more 720's on steeps! lol.  re: Jason--skiers good at keeping their edges, snowboarders good at pulling their S%*t back together...

Oh yeah, thanks for bagging a big line on the only days I don't have off... >:(  Dangit now I gotta go solo that crap, like usual...

400 foot rag doll. I resemble that remark. >:(

Way to go on getting your summit, Donnelly!

We saw a bootpack and some turns up your Tuna/S America thing. Must have been yours. Jim and Jeremy tried to get up there, but nearly got fried by lightning when they reached the base of the tuna. Meanwhile, I was enjoying the rain in my tent.  :)

Hey Lowell, no worries about not replying sooner...I figured that with the good weather you were probably out in the mountains too.
Four of us did the traverse on sunday, ended up taking a few more hours than you took, and the snow was a little more sloppy than the powder that you had, but we still had a great time.  
As I was looking for a good snowbridge that connected onto the Park I saw some very faint tracks (yours, I assume) and it was a welcome relief to know that we had picked the...

NFNWR was really nice today.  ;D  Icy sastrugi until it got steep, then it was probably six inches of nice corn. There's more to the story, including a first snowboard descent, and 400 foot ragdoll from the rockband to ten feet above the bottom cliff, but I'll have to write that up tomorrow.

BTW, Jim said he thought he saw Amar on the summit today. Amar?

BTW BTW, the bivy at the last trees on the N side is the most beautiful bivy I've ever experienced.  ;D ;D

When you swung around from the Boulder glacier onto the Park did you have a fair amount of crevasse navigation/hazards to get over to the less crevassed central portion of the Park or did it go pretty easily?

From photos I could find online from past years it looks like there's usually a pretty good jumble of crevasses on the upper mountain right between the park glacier and boulder glacier that one has to traverse though.

Sorry for my s...

Right on! You missed out on some classic schwackage though.  ;D My arms look like the contour lines on a map.

That's awesome, you taking new people to great area. You'll have to get back to finish the NFNWR next week or next year. Snow conditions weren't just bad at mount adams. We had our share also...

How did you find the stability/slide potential?  I was thinking about Nisqually chutes tomorrow (Sat).

This is a great part of the mountain and definitley the place to beat the crowds. Skiable through the summer and into October as well! Fun, fun.

Nice variation, Zap.
Keep up the good work.

Nice report, Lowell.  Still hard to believe the transition from cold rain the parking lot at 1 am to starry skies upon waking at 3... and the transition from near-frostbite fingers at the summit to burning heat a few thousand feet down.  Very much enjoyed it.

Glad someone else took advantage of the Park headwall!

And to the question of face shots (in June): absolutely.

...Ron- ...Did he do the climb w/o poles?

Actually, Joe, as I contemplated the day without ski poles at the trailhead, climbing was my greatest concern.  I had never climbed up or skied down without poles but I figured if the little toddlers at the ski areas can ski sans poles it couldn't be too hard going down.  But I fall over enough skinning up WITH ski poles, so I had no idea how that would be.
Thoughts drifted back to the time year...

Corey many thanks for this timely TR! Ironically we're actually planning to ski Snowdome this Friday.

As to the approach, we're thinking it's faster to hike the Tilly Jane trail then to bushwack up Cloud Cap road. In retrospect do you think Tilly Jane is fastest (it's 3 miles long over 2000vert)? How long did it take you to hike the road?

Again many thanks for the report, my heartrate jumped in excitment when I read it!

I think yesterday was 138 in a row for him and he had plans to do something today. Donnelly claimed to be stopping at 155 for some rest, but I'll believe it when I see it. He claimed he would stop at 131 when I skied with him last and that dropped a week ago.

There is still quite a bit of snow up there, but it does require some hiking to get to at least to runs of any kind of length.