TR Replies

great photo Charles!

Nice job Kam and friends.  Looks like a great time with a good weather window.   ;D

Thanks for the report, Brent.
Sounds like you parked fairly close to Cold Springs?

Good words, JWman.
As I recall, Mad Dog, that Ranger that gave us a ride last year was female.  So what am I getting at?  Uh, oh well, I think I'd better drop this before I get into trouble  ;D
She probably just felt sorry for us.
Here's a shot of the world famous Jerry of JW Designs, crankin' out corn on the Foss:

Nice report, Matt. It's great to hear of people doing imaginative trips.

You mentioned the 1932 partial orbit led by Ben Thompson. It's hard to overstate the importance of that trip. It was, as far as I can tell, the first real alpine ski traverse done in the Northwest. It was years ahead of its time, I think. I've found no other written references to ski mountaineers carrying multi-day packs and camping out on snow above timberline for days in a row in the Cascades until the 1940s, and e...

Scotteryx,

Nice report.  Sounds like a really fun climb.  Nice job holding out for 17 hours!...gotta love those long and hard days.

-kam

We did have a good day on Sunday, and it won't be much longer until Foss will have to wait until next year.  Sounds like you had a good day also.

Cool.
Isn't this a great forum.
Thanks, Jon, for the update.
Kam, did I miss Jerry's report somewhere?  >:(
Charles, you done good coming up with this forum.
It's a great tool.
Thanks.

Hey Ron,

Thanks for the kind words.  I didn't see the tree, only heard about it from other skiers.  You know me, I prefer the less traveled route...bush whacking!;D  I'm sure the road will be clear by this weekend though if you decide to head that way.

Say, nice turns on Foss Peak with Jerry and Mad Dog!

-kam

I've not done it, but a friend of mine did the tour earlier, like as soon as the road was clear (several years back). The transition zone in the woods sucked on the ski out, but otherwise he said it was great, especially with the boulder field well-covered. He did it as a long sick day trip, and so was travelling pretty light up the approach. But for what it's worth, he won't go back to do it again with me.

Great photos, thanks for sharing.  You really lucked out with the weather for all your trips.

Well, I should let the guilty party speak for himself, but he didn't mention needing any aloe vera for a raspberry.  He did say something about needing to change his diaper, though!  

Hey Mad Dog & Ron - guess we were the 4 snowboarders you spoke of - I dropped in first - wow, what a wonderful ski, eh?

Were you the folks hanging on the rocks at the entrance when we dropped in?  I think I remember hearing voices over there, but my mind was kind of occupied...and hearing voices is nothing new.

I like that picture!

Reflecting back on that day, this tour has got to be noted for the unbelievable sensation of climbing what seems like a medium sized random peak and then cresting over the ridge to see one of the most classic and unbelievable views in America.

Nice photo, man.  That shows the line we skied perfectly.  As I said before, my next trip here will be a 2-3-4 day venture either ultra-light or with a basecamp to ski all those lines on the other side of the photo.

The Northwest Bowl of Mt Washington from Big Lake, with the middle portion of our ski descent shown in red.  The upper portion of our route followed the narrow snow finger above the red line, and then the leftward angling snowfield to the North Ridge (see the larger photo).  The lower portion of the ski route is down in the woods.

The southwest side of Diamond Peak from a clearcut on Road 2149, about 5 minutes hike from where we were car-camped at 5800 ft.  I finally managed to stagger awake around 10 am, and this photo was taken at 10:35 am, just after Corey and Cyril reached the summit.  You can see them up there, but they're really small!  I also drove around that day to get photos from the north and east sides of the peak, and there is much more snow on those other sides.  Although the approaches a...

The Northeast Face of Lassen Peak from the Devastated Area Trailhead, taken after our ski descent.  Our ski route up to the North Ridge is shown in blue (the upper part is hidden behind the right skyline), with the ski descent shown in red.  The debris from the massive sluffs we set off is easily visible to the right of our descent route (skier's left).

I've decided to go back and add a photo to each of my recent trip reports, since it might be a long time before I get around to posting a full trip report with photos on my website.

This is kind of a blank and featureless photo, but it shows the sweet turns on the morning corn, heading down from the true summit of Mt St Helens.

Sky,

Great TR,photos and ENTHUSIASM !  ;) Zap

Guess I should have put the pic in a new post so the thread would come up again so everyone interested could see Steve's pic.  Oh, well, this'll do it  :)

We met up with Sam & Bill on Saturday afternoon.  We were able to drive all the way to the trailhead from the north.  Continuous snow started at around 5000ft if I recall (after about a mile of walking on the trail).

Apparently, most of the pollen particles don't stick to skis, most of the time.

Mark, this is a good way to state my basic conclusion. I've been thinking about starting a thread where we could gather people's observations and theories in one place, and maybe gain more insight into this problem (edit: the thread can be found here). My experience i...

Thanks for a great report, Charles.  The pleasure you take in being on the snow and in the mountains, and the curiosity with which you approach the world in general, is clear with each paragraph.  Very refreshing.

Pollen issues have been puzzling me each spring, but I don't usually spend long enough skiing a confined area at different times of day to notice the sorts of striking differences that you did.  I'd always assumed there were localized patterns of pollen deposits,...