Restarting

Oops, looks like I forgot to post anything for awhile (12 years I guess). Time to get back at it - may post date a few items to catch up too.

10 December 2011 - Cabin Creek

Another quick tour on Viking/Berg course, this time with Karen. It was a beautiful weekend, but since we got there before 10:00 am, the crowds weren't too bad.

Here's a few snapshots from the trip. Click on any one of them for a slide show.

It was pretty cold, so I got to practice my skate technique in backcountry skis while Karen watched from trail:


Also saw these guys having a pretty serious discussion, probably about how long your skis should be for these particular conditions.

Here's one of the fun little downhill sections on the Viking Loop. Even though there were quite a few people up here, the trail still looked like it had just been groomed.

Too bad the weather warmed up right after this. On the drive back, I took a picture of our route on Guye Peak .(posted in the trip report below) and you can see there's very little snow on any of the slopes with a southern aspect. What good is a La Nina with global warming?

7 December 2011 - Guye Peak S Gully Attempt

After a small snow storm passed through and waiting for a couple of cold nights to consolidate things, Mike H and I took a day off in the middle of the week to try out the snow/ice in the South Gully on Guye Peak. Unfortunately work obligations kept me in the office until Wednesday, so we probably missed the best day, but we went up and tried it anyway. There was TONS of snow down in the trees so we were thankful for snowshoes and wore them from the parking lot until we got out of the trees and on to the steeper slopes.
The pass area was completely fogged in, so we never really saw the summit, but we kind of felt our way around until we were pretty sure we were in the right gully. Once in the gully there was a decent crust, so I put on crampons, but Mike is a master of step kicking with his plastic boots so he just powered up on toe holds.

(photo by Mike)

At mid-day and mid-slope, we broke out of the clouds. We also reached a short step at the top of a particularly narrow and icy point of the gully, so I asked to rope-up. It probably wasn't even class 4, but the sun was starting to loosen things up and if one of the ice steps we were on broke off, you'd be tossed in to the middle of the gully without much of a chance to self-arrest. After the step, the angle lessened, but so did the snow. Mike led up a half a rope length or so, but the ground wasn't covered by enough snow for efficient travel and rocks and ice chunks were starting to roll down on us, so we decided to turn around and save the rest of the route for better conditions.

Just for a little extra security, we kept the rope on for the descent, using a combination of anchored belays and running belayed simul-climbing until we got to a safe slope for glissading. It was a short glisade though, because as soon as we slid back into the clouds and trees, we were wallowing in the deep stuff again. Then it was back to snowshoes for the short hike back to the WAC cabin and the car. Maybe it was a bit disappointing that we didn't get to do as much climbing as we hoped, but considering this place is less than an hour from the park and ride, we can't complain too much - it'll be here all winter.

Finally, here's a picture I took two days later driving back from Cabin Creek. Since it was so foggy when we climbed, I can't really tell where we were on this picture, but it's somewhere there just below the right-hand skyline (Guye Peak is the foreground mountain; Snoqualmie Moutain is the gentler but higher one in the back).

Mike has some photos posted on his facebook and mine are here on Picasa.
(Guye Peak from I90)

2 December 2011 - Rainier Playday

Octavian and I skipped out of work again this week, this time for a quick trip up to the Mountain. We weren't sure what the snow conditions would be, so we brought snowshoes and skis.

We spent the morning touring Glacier Vista and the slopes below Panorama Point on snowshoes. Just playing around, trying to find out how steep we could climb; turns out you climb up steeper than you can climb down, especially when it's really icy. The built-in crampons work great on the ascent, coming down not so much.

For the afternoon's entertainment, we skied around to the east of Alta Vista. This side was nice and shady and the snow was soft and easy for the skis. But winter days are short, and before we knew it the alpenglow was telling us it was time to find the car.

Check out the photos here on Picasa.

25 November 2011 - First trip of the season to ... Cabin Creek!

On the day after Thanksgiving Octo and I snuck off to Cabin Creek for our first ski trip of the season. The snowpark wasn't officially open, but someone had plowed out enough of the lot for a half dozen cars so we squeezed the 4runner in among the other early season folks and headed up for a quick circuit on the main loop (Viking Course/Berg Course, Boundary Loop). There was certainly plenty of snow on the ground to kick off the season.

Nothing was groomed, but someone had run a snowmobile over some of the trials and most of them had been skied on in the last couple of days, so we were only breaking trail in a few places. Most of it was just easy track skiing and enjoying the sunshine in shirtsleeves and sunglasses.

Lots of fun and a great introduction back into winter rec. If this is what it's going to be like all winter this is going to be a great season.

Scouting Trip to Snowgrass Flats

The snow is falling! Unless you're the turns-all-year kind of skier, there isn't enough to ski on yet, but there should be by next weekend.

I've been looking for a place for our ski-in camp this winter. We need something that isn't too remote or that requires expert ability for the approach (at least if I'm going to ski it). Also, because we might have to commit to a date long before we have a weather report, we need to find something with a protected approach and very moderate slopes so we have somewhere to play regardless of the avy conditions. With this in mind, I noted the contour lines around Snowgrass Flats look pretty inviting.

Check out the topo here on acme mapper.

The map looks good, but I wanted to be sure before I sign up to live out of a sled for a week. So I took a day off work and hiked up to have a look while I could still get in on foot. Because the early part of the week was forecast to be bad, I waited until Friday to skip work. The forecast was wrong about the days: Monday through Wednesday were beautiful and I should have taken one of those days off, but on Thursday, something great happened - everything above 4000' got covered in snow! Friday was just OK so I didn't get any of the famous Goat Rock views, but I had fresh snow the entire trip and didn't see another soul the entire day on the trail. The picture above is what I found when I got to the flats.

Down low, the trail was flat and sweet, with a couple of inches of new snow -- just enough to show off the tracks of all the little animals running around getting ready for winter. In the middle (climbing from Goat Creek to Snowgrass Flats) the snow was a bit deeper and the trail a bit steeper, but still easy hiking and probably reasonable skiing. It might be tough to drag a sled up and down the switch backs in this section though, so we might want to think about dropping the sleds at the base of the climb if we bring them. Up high, I was enveloped in fog and post-holing above my knees so I turned around seven or eight hundred feet below the summit of Old Snowy.

(click for larger version)

From the elevation profile, you can see the trail is perfectly flat for two and half miles, then climbs 1250' in the next two miles to Snowgrass Flats. From there on up, except for one or two little steps, the terrain still isn't very steep. The profile shows about 10 degrees average, but this was mostly traversing, so the actual gradient is more than that, but not by much; I didn't see very many places more than about 25 degrees.

The only place the trail crosses a slope steep enough to be of concern is the climb between Goat Creek and the flats. This section is all in heavy timber though, so no worries. The flats themselves are, well, flat, so we're good there too. (Don't fret that it's too flat, there's plenty of dips and drops around, and some steeper slopes in easy reach so if conditions are good we can branch out for some more exciting rides.)

Because of the clouds, I didn't get a look at the upper slopes of Old Snowy or Ives Peak, but judging from the topo, we probably won't climb them unless the snowpack seems pretty stable. Bring an ice axe though, in case we get the chance.

The only thing that doesn't seem ideal here is the approach. There's a snowpark, but it's about eight and half miles away and 2300 feet below the trailhead. We might want to see if we can find a snowmobiler to ferry us in, or this might make a good place to drag our gear on sleds.

Please look over the pictures here on the Picasa Album and let me know what you think.

What I did on my summer vacation...

UNDER CONSTRUCTION


(Photo by Karen)

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20 November 2010 - 1st Storm?

Friday I got a pretty good look at the Cascades flying over to Eastern Washington and back for a flight test. It looks like there's plenty of snow at the higher elevations, and on the north slopes it goes all the way down to the foothills. Today was spent digging winter clothes out of the garage, waxing the skis and buying a sno-park pass on-line. First ski trip tomorrow morning! (Don't worry, we'll bring snowshoes in case the conditions don't live up to the fantasy.)