TR Replies

Jerry ,
When we made our try of it we went in through Tahoma creek over suspension bridge and then south into indian henry's. About the same thing happend to us, it got slushy.  Still doable this year right ?  We also skied on Ararat,Copper and and flirted with the Pyramid glacier.
Got a killer place to camp up there.

Brent, thanks for everything you have done for bc skiing in this area. Your trip reports from the eastern Alpine Lakes opened my eyes to the many possibilities in that region. And, as many people are probably aware, the existence of this TRs board is due to your years of running the TRs pages for the Mountaineers. It took me a while to catch on to how useful first-hand reports can be for planning a ski trip, but now I would feel lost without this kind of information (and probably would have much...

The snow pack on these sun exposed southerly slopes leading up to Cutthroat Peak seems a bit low. While skining up the steep slopes near 5700' I could see the ground at tree wells, so the depth was only a couple feet in these places.  The weather the past month hasn't done much for the snow's staying power. It seems like we're in Summer already.

Jer - Speaking of pictures, I can't wait to see your pics from when we lowered you down into the cone  ;)  I would hate to think that I hauled that rope up there for nothing!!  ???

Sounds like you hit it nicely!

Do you have any feeling for the snowpack in the area, say compared to last year or at least for its staying power?

Sounds like a great trip, Zap.
Looking forward to the next report.

Brent,

A few days ago Jill and I were driving past Mt. Shasta on our way to the eastern Sierras and it brought back memories of our ski descent of Shasta a few years ago.

I used to be an old eastern ski bum so I know you'll find plenty of places to make turns.

Keep turning them buddy - the alternatives are bleak.

Zap

Don't ask to borrow my skis!

hmmm, that's interesting.  It could be their tracks (by the way, they were VERY nice tracks & it looked like maybe there was 3 of them), but for going through a few days of sunbaking, they sure looked fresh compared to the skin track of 1 week ago.  I could be wrong...that's good to know about the N. Face because we were debating it.  Based on what we had on White Salmon, I doubt it would have been any better.

I don't know if they were the tracks you saw, but I know my brother had descended White Salmon not this last weekend but on Apr. 4. I wasn't along, but the second hand report I got from him was that it was nice corn not far removed from powder, and that they actually turned around on a planned ascent/descent of N face due to scary perched windslab pack powder above 7K on that route and gone over to White Salmon as the secondary objective.

Great climb, Phil.
And Welcome!!

Ron - the ski areas offer "backcountry tickets" good for one ride from base to the top of the mountain.  You need to go inside to customer service and show them your beacon, shovel, probe and skins (at least we were asked to show these), and fill out a form about your plans.  The tickets are approx 30 CDN.

The Baldwin map is the nicest ski map I've seen outside Europe (the Swiss make some ski maps that are beautiful).  It has route descriptions on the back.  ...

Thanks for the report, Brent.
Come back and ski with us regularly, eh?

Great info, Kenji and Robie, Thanks!

OOps Kenji ,it was still good today when we skied it on the 11th. Sorry I confused the date. The crevasse was still not open ! :-)

Really though, it was the magical properties associated with the new piece of gear that made the trip.  How else can we explain that many thousands of vertical feet of exquisite corn snow?  How else can we explain the spectacular views?  How else can we explain the amazing sollitude in such a spectacular location?  Unfortunately the good ju-ju didn't extend to my camera. . .

... and again today. This time made it to the top (but I was a lot later for work). The corn was better last time, and the waterfall bypass has more vegetable belays than last time. Stuff was frozen hard enough that I never even put the skins on and booted the whole way to the top, but it took way longer than I would have expected (maybe because it was steep enough in places, or froze hard enough, that there were a lot of places I felt like triple-kicking the steps to make them nice and solid)....

can anyone confirm for me whether Lundin is the peak with the long, open chute?  if so, approx what is the pitch?  i'm thinking of shoeing up on sat a.m. and shredding down.  even if it gets relatively soft it should be decent on a board.

thanks-mc

Hey AlpentalCorey,

I remember you..I think we finished the race at the exact same time !
Funny - Mike C. was actually with us on Saturday, he turned around in the afternnon though as he was only available on Sat.

Kam: I philmed a bit, but don't expect great vids...I did not have my oxygen bottle was me, so all you can probably see is an unstable image with a lot of background noise ;-)

Starting at Blackcomb puts you in the alpine right away.  It would also be a long climb up from Singing Pass to near the top of Overlord starting from Whistler.  FWIW, all the parties that did it last weekend started at Blackcomb.

Yea, I know it's Overlord.  Such a fitting name as it's the highest peak around.  The peak and glacier names were for the most part colorful, much like the names in the Pickets.  I think my spell check flagged it, suggested overload and...

The big difference is if you take the lifts up or not. By taking the Blackcomb lifts, you start at 8000 feet or so. By starting from Whistler, you start a bit lower down, somewhere in Harmony bowl, I think, and have a low point of Singing Pass (5500 feet) that you have to climb up from to get to the high point of Tremor col (around 8600 feet).

If you don't take the lifts, I think people usually hike or ski up the Singing Pass trail, which adds on about 5000 feet of climbing, lengthening...

Great photo, Ron! Glad that Jerry decided to hang around at the top and not ride it down.

Brent, it is hard to believe that you won't be skiing around here any more, and I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to ski with you. Thanks for all of your work on the original trip reports, from which this forum has grown, and please send an occasional update from back east (especially from your August and September ski trips!).

Nordic Ned,

Very nice TR.  Did you shoot any videos w/ your new camera?

-Tele Ted.

Nice to meet you two, see you in the hills ---- Jerry  8)

"Grande Cocoa!"  Nice description of the trip Skip!  My favorite part was definitely the tree skiing!  :D  Fortuntately we all made it out mostly intact  :)