TR Replies

October 13, 2003, Black Tusk Microwave Towers

did some "turns" down some scree slopes above the green river in Canyonlands NP last week but it sounds even better up at Baker... a great trip report to read as always from our Bellingham breathen ..... sure feels warm out there today tho ???

10/17/03 11:53pm

Paul Belitz

You got to skin from the car! I'm jealous. Nice trip.

10/16/03 5:43am

Paul Belitz

I'm jealous. You let us catch all the rain and low visibility! You should have come Sunday. Builds character. ;) Nice photo.

10/15/03 3:15am

Paul Belitz

I paid attention while skinning on Sunday...and I concluded that the tap only sounds if a. you don't know how to skin, or b. when you have to set your skin particularly well. I love the step-in when I have frozen hands and cramping calves. ;D

10/15/03 3:02am

alpentalcorey

No I haven't seen them.... But I bet I've heard them clack-clack-clacking away somewhere. ;D

10/15/03 2:08am

Paul Belitz

Have you seen the Fritschi light? ;D

10/15/03 1:47am

alpentalcorey

Well Dave, you still have time to put the dynafits back on. ;)

I really want to go this weekend, I bet today's rain is snow, but the forcast really doesn't look wintery enough.

A RAINY AND BLUSTERY PATTERN WILL DEVELOP THURSDAY AND CONTINUE THROUGH SATURDAY...
...RAIN...HEAVY AT TIMES IN THE NORTH CASCADES... SNOW LEVEL 9000 FEET.
...RAIN LIKELY... SNOW LEVEL 10000 FEET...
...RAIN...HEAVY AT TIMES IN THE NORTH CASCADES...SNOW LEVEL 10000 FEET.
...RAIN LIKELY......

10/15/03 1:06am

David_Coleman

no need to downsize - they weren't impressive enough! 8)

Paul - as for this weekend, I'm not sure yet...my skis are torn apart for the new bindings I'll be putting on. i'd have to bum off Sky or Ben who both have 2 sets.

10/15/03 1:03am

Charles

Mark, thanks for the great TR. As usual, it seems, Baker is again the snow champion - early, mid, or late season, this always seems to be the case.

10/14/03 11:51pm

Paul Belitz

Yo Dave, you're wrong. The fact is just like the Muir Snowfield gets cracked and nasty in a year like this, the same happened to the snowfields below the cleaver. I think the cracks were really shallow, glide crack type things, and I think we could have made it to the cleaver proper fine without roping up, but I was already cold, and ruling out a faster pace (I won't explain this.) meant that I could only get colder higher up. I know I'm selfish, but I'd...

10/14/03 8:55pm

skip

p-

I actually was able to view all of your photos, though (and perhaps this was the issue for Charles), the latter photos took a moment to load; whereas, the first was immediately in view.
-s

10/14/03 8:47pm

Charles

Thanks for both of the reports. Paul, when I looked at yours, only the first photo loaded - the rest had broken link icons (I think there's a "\" instead of a "/" in the URLs for those).

10/14/03 8:21pm

skykilo

that's funny...word is you only made it to the base of the cleaver, and there are no crevasses in that area. You guys must have been in the main Boulder drainage in order to cross cracks as little elevation as you guys gained ;D

Yo Dave, you're wrong. The fact is just like the Muir Snowfield gets cracked and nasty in a year like this, the same happened to the snowfields below the cleaver. I think the cracks were really shallow, gli...

10/14/03 11:00am

Paul Belitz

I have no idea where we were, but on TOPO you can see that you have to cross some ice to get to the cleaver proper. I'm going back to bag that line from the summit this winter. I was feeling stronger than I expected, but continuing unroped would have been dumb, and roping up would have taken too much time, being that cold/wet.

PS, Jeff wants to get out and get miserable again on Sunday. You in?

10/14/03 10:08am

David_Coleman

that's funny...word is you only made it to the base of the cleaver, and there are no crevasses in that area. You guys must have been in the main Boulder drainage in order to cross cracks as little elevation as you guys gained ;D

10/14/03 5:55am

kam

Nice report Sky, and I like the idea of covering up your boots with a grocery bag! Great turns in the video.

10/14/03 5:33am

Paul Belitz

Thanks. Sky wrote one, too: http://staff.washington.edu/skykilo/Wet/Wet.html

10/14/03 5:02am

Andrew Carey

2 old farts ;D ;D ;D ;D

10/14/03 4:57am

kam

Paul,

I enjoyed reading your report, and of course the photos. Thanks for sharing.

-kam

10/14/03 4:11am

Paul Belitz

Dave, what are you tripping on? ;) I was arguing that I'll use skins when they are most efficient. Here they WERE more efficient. You should have come along, the views were incredible. 8) 8) ;D ;D

PS, it was nice to have the skis on when we were crossing crevasses that had barely any bridge. Sky tried to ski into one on the way down, but failed. So your argument makes *some* sense. ;D

10/14/03 3:57am

David_Coleman

Paul - what was all this talk a month ago on the Park, and even a month before that on the Squak that skins were inefficient??? I think you should have pushed forward bootin' up to really appreciate what skinning has to offer....If I remember your argument back in Aug/Sept., it wasn't just "spring conditions" that you thought they were inefficient, but winter as well... ;D

10/14/03 1:30am

Paul Belitz

Heck, looks like you guys didn't even get rained on! 8) Nice viddy, BTW. I gotta get some rock skis.

10/14/03 1:22am

kam

Let me better illustrate Skip's comments about the "lovely" weather on Sunday with this photo (snoslut, I'd be happy to remove this photo if you have another to post):

A few more of the same can be found here, as well as a short movie (3MB) of what we experienced:

10/13/03 8:14pm

skip

Fearing blue skies and calm winds in the forecast for Monday, a couple of the boys and I went up to Paradise Sunday to beat the nice weather.

It was raging: low clouds spitting wet snow in strong winds; whiteout. What better time to beat the crowd for first tracks? This, at least, is what I kept telling the boys. They bought into it until ~7100', after which further coaxing became difficult as communication was relegated to hand signals.

We pushed on in the gale to where they...

10/13/03 6:48pm

Great report Paul.

10/13/03 5:44pm

ron j

Good show, gang.
It's great to hear there's some coverage up there.
Hopefully we'll get some more this week.
Sag - we'll be seeing you at happy hour on Thursday!!

10/13/03 8:23am

Randito

Why did I go to work today ???

10/13/03 7:44am

sag

The higher you went the better it got. We went up to Camp Muir. About 200 feet below camp the wind had cleaned a strip of about 40 ft of its fresh harvest the rest was beautifully wind packed powder with lots of unpacked pockets down to moon rocks and I have to say this part again because it just makes me grin. All the way down to the parking lot.

10/13/03 6:18am

Andrew Carey

Regine and I climbed up to about 8,800 feet, just below Moon Rocks. Really nice wind-packed powder skiing to just above McClure Rock-Pan Point; looked too rocky to head to Edith Basin, so we hiked down from High Skyline to just past the cliff-face summer trail and skied to the parking lot in dandy fashion. Some of the best early October skiing we've had :) :) :) :)abc

10/9/03 10:36am

Charles

I've been busy lately and so a bit absent from the TRs, but I want to add my congratulations on your bagging of September and discovery of a new stash. I also enjoyed the photos you posted - definitely looks like late September skiing!

10/6/03 7:20pm

skip

jo-

To add to Ema's message, my thoughts are that clearance is the real boon, 4x4 less important - at least at this time of year (my tune may change were the conditions wet/snowy).

That said, we were up there with a couple of rather small cars, as in "compact" models. I don't know how they did it, and I'm sure it was ugly, but they were able to make it. Perhaps it comes down to comfort level. If dry, with some crafty maneuvers and the willingness to scrape the frame no...

10/6/03 4:47pm

ron j

Great report. Corey.
Eres un hombre muy macho!

10/6/03 8:10am

Paul Belitz

Nice! Sky and I appreciated having your jeep around, too. :)

10/6/03 7:43am

Pete A

Great job Corey! I was wondering how the trip went for you guys..glad to hear that the rainy season provided the skiable snow you were hoping to get! Hope you post some pictures soon....
And now you're back just in time to start enjoying the rainy season in the PNW.

10/6/03 7:13am

skykilo

Hasta la maize siempre!

10/6/03 6:13am

Bill f

Fantastic TR, Señor AlpentalCorey. Its great to read Citlaltépetl has good ski conditions right after the rainy season. I'm glad you caught the weather window.

I visited Citlaltépetl in late January, 2002 but without skis. January was no month to ski en Mexico. Though one could have skied down to just below the breakover at the bottom of the glacier even in late January (below 16kft), the snow would have been miserable - frozen wind-scoured ice. There was eve...

10/6/03 5:57am

ema

Nice Corey!! Thanks for the great report...Orizaba and Popocateptl....(sp?) have sparked my interest in the last year, extending the "Ring of Fire Desire". Would be great to see some pics when you get back.

10/5/03 8:41pm

ema

jim_oker, the road to twin lakes past tomyhoi TH is truly awful. what you need is not only 4wd, but pretty high clearance. i drove it in a subaru outback last year, but friends with a subaru legacy, whose clearance is just a wee bit less were not able to make it...it is only a couple of miles long though from what i remember.

10/4/03 6:28am

Sounds like good adventure boys ! Think winter 8) PS nice photography Skip.

10/3/03 11:27pm

Jim Oker

Indeed.

I have a question for you guys - I hear different things about the road above the Tomyhoi Lake trailhead - that it is truly 4WD only, and that reasonably high clearance 2WD vehicles also make it up there just fine. I've driven the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie road to the end multiple times - I'm wondering if this road is really any less passable than that for the trusty old minivan?

And another question - past years' reports indicate flowing water at the lookout cabin eve...

10/2/03 10:20pm

JMor

Nice job you guys, thanks for sharing.

And the desperation of where to ski for October continues ???

9/30/03 8:37pm

skip

September 24-25, 2003, Glacier Peak

Ron,

I finally broke down and opened a webshots account, that I might post you some pics. You can find the pick of the litter for this trip at:

http://community.webshots.com/album/92875382ETXYMn

Enjoy
-s

9/30/03 10:10am

Paul Belitz

I'm so there! but I've got class on Monday. >:(

LET IT SNOW!

9/30/03 7:25am

Jim Oker

Incredible, truly. This is the best report I've read all summer! I can't wait for October now!

9/30/03 7:19am

ron j