TR Replies

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

2 old farts ;D ;D ;D ;D

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

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

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...

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!!

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.

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!

Great report. Corey.
Eres un hombre muy macho!

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.

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...

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.

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...

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

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

So don't sugar coat it for us, Andy...
Tell us how it really was.
:)

Nice job on the streak and baby! I've managed to keep my streak going through 2 babyhoods, and it is manageable (after all, it only takes one trip per month). A great thing is that your kids start learning about the mountains, backcountry, snow, and skiing from an early age bacause they hear about those things all the time, and they will probably start begging to go on a ski trip from an early age. My daughter and I have been doing an overnight bc ski trip every spring for 5 years now, starting...

I wonder if Larry Schick comes to this site.  If so, please forcast some snow as soon as possible, because if not, I'm worried that Jeff will go and do something like this again.   ;)

Yet in a karmic sense, this kind of suffer-fest could only please the snow gods.  Maybe now my face-shot total will be up 10% this year, if so I thank you in advance.

Seriously though, nice work man.  

Hey, cool!  I'm all for beer anytime, anywhere!

If you want a more spectacular ascent, Frostbite ridge or Kennedy glacier are shorter than the south side and have awesome scenery.  Sitkum definitely isn't the best route up, aesthetically speaking.

I have serious questions about the first ascent party... supposedly they climbed up disappointment peak thinking it was the true summit and were very "disappointed", right?  Well, they CAN'T have been paying very...

I did just about the same thing last weekend.  Differences: a snowboard, and Sitkum ascent.  Windy, icy, rocky, sunny!, yep.  It was my first climb of Glacier Peak, but I wish I had climbed a more spectacular route.

Nice job, wickstad.  A noteworthy effort for the conditions we're in.

Congrats on the new baby!! Hopefully your baby will plan his/her arrival well before a big dump of new snow  ;D

Nice to read about your Sept turns, and TAY anniversary month, I'm sure you were glad to get those knocked out before to much longer.

That still leaves some of us still contemplating where and what to do about October, in the meantime we are hiking and finding lots of great options for this winter.  

"After another 200' or so run down to our hiking boots we were very satisfied. "


Wow - 500 ft after all that hiking - you're easily satisfied! I always feel like it was a lot of hiking versus skiing even when we get to ski all the way from the base of the summit gully down to the woods near the top of the clearcut. Way to have a positive outlook!! If you haven't done so before, try this tour again in June...

yeah, the weather today is giving me some hope...web cams at Whistler and Stevens Pass are showing some white coming out of the sky.
I know this little storm will probably only drop a couple inches at the most but at least its a start. Too bad the forecast for the days after this storm is back to 13,000ft freezing levels.  This is always a tough time of year...

Boy, it's sad in the PNW with the lack of snow, but what a great summer we have had   8).  If we think September is bad, ulness things drastically change, wonder where we will get our turns for October, Glad you guys were able to get Sept knocked out.