Getting scared

Sometimes, skiing's all about getting scared shitless by taking too little gear for the climb. I don't want to ski with all that crap on my back: That's not what skiing's all about.


Photo by Pandorable nabbed from the cc.com galleries.

-SkiSickness

How many stories fit on Jason's website?

Let's have a look at the following URL:

http://www.cascadecrusades.org/SkiMountaineering/baker/colemanheadwall/ch2007/chjune.htm

First breadcrumb:
Fatboy engages in 3 sports as far as I can tell: skiing, kayaking and hiking/etc.

Second breadcrumb:
This is more difficult. Skiing, there are perhaps 100 peaks that might be interesting in Washington. Kayaking... I dunno - 40 rivers? Hiking... hard to guess. Let's use 80 for this breadcrumb.

Third breadcrumb:
This appears to specify the route on a particular mountain. It does not appear to be used in river or hiking trip reports. Thus, ski mountaineering trip reports have an order of magnitude more possibilities, and we can safely exclude hiking and kayaking from our calculations. Let us assume that an average mountain has 5 routes.

Fourth breadcrumb:
The used of this crumb is inconsistent - it may be the final html file, but it can also be an additional folder, usually specifying the year. Some times it adds in the month. But the month can also be a fifth breadcrumb, as in the URL above. Let's consider all of this one "yearly crumb" with 12 possibilities (the months)

Summary
Let's calculate:

3 X 80 X 5 X 12 = 14400 trip reports per year!

It is clear that Fatboy's web-fu is strong, and he has created a very scalable trip report solution.

Satisfying the groupies.

Jason wrote a TR accessed with a ludicrously long URL.

My helmet cam footage has a much better URL.

Now it is time for another nugget of wisdom from Edward A Rossit:
The mountaineer is not happy because of any material wealth he may have. Indeed, he deliberately leaves material comforts and luxuries behind him when he climbs. He does not worship sucess, because success always lies in the eyes and approval of others. The mountaineer is happy and at peace because he approves of himself. He is self-sufficient. He sets his own goal, and then he achieves it. Is there a greater contentment than that which comes from achievement?

Coleman Headwall... in the footsteps of Ben M.

Doing this on the Coleman Headwall is *not* what skiing is about!



Nevermind that though... the rest of the story: Jason and I took about 7 hours to reach the summit, moving slowly so as to let the snow soften. There was a strong wind starting at the Colfax/Baker col.
At the summit plateau, Jason's stoke was very high, so we began the descent right away w/o waiting for the snow to soften any further. It could have been softer, but that might have been worse in the spots where there was an icy base.
Anyway, the headwall was a really fun, serious route. Long pitches of steep continuous turns. Great atmosphere. Probably an audience down at the flats below the glacier. I don't think you could ask for better conditions... the face was minimally crevassed and the snow surface was smooth. We took the "easy" start, down the ridge (the direct start looked icy, and w/o having climbed it first, was not worth the risk). After traversing in, the rest of the route was very direct, taking the skier's right of the rock protrusion at the bottom center of the face.
Somehow, we managed to find a good line across the lower Coleman and back to the cowpath (after I took over route-finding).

Mt Ruth, Glacier Basin

Ok, not a big descent, but certainly part of what skiings about... endless great corn.

Le stoke est de retour?

Helmet cam footage

Fightin' words

Edward A. Rossit, on why skiers can wear plastic lenses.

Skiers can get away with their plastic lenses where mountaineers can't for two reasons. Firstly, as high as they think they are, skiers are seldom found at the considerably higher altitudes where mountaineers range. At the lower altitudes, where skiing takes place, eye protection with goggles is not nearly as important as it becomes futher up, in thinner, rarer air.
- Edward A. Rossit, "Northwest Mountaineering", 1965.

Stay tuned for more choice quotes from Mr. Rossit in the coming weeks.

"Where it all began"

Some old pics...

This was on one of my first "backcountry ski" trips. We tried to ski some of the slides on Giant Mtn (NY). You read trip reports of people skiing these things frequently now - I think there is even a guidebook. But ten years ago... we never saw anyone or heard of anyone doing this stuff.

We ended up bushwhacking all day until we had to turn around. Much of our descent was thrashing through slide alder. But I just thought it was novel to be skiing downhill not at a resort. This is a nice patch of forest once we were back on the trail. What's that above my head? It's an old style wooden snowshoe (with rawhide webbing). Not the best for climbing mountains. I think I'm wearing all cotton too. I'm lucky I didn't die.

The following photo is from Whiteface Mtn in Lake Placid, probably a year later. Apparently the "slides" are an official part of the resort now, but this was a ski mountaineering adventure back then (the backcountry fad had not yet arrived). At the bottom, after negociating some icy cliff bands, we cut back into the runs at the resort (closed for the year) and skied to the base for a 3600ft continuous run.

By this time I had found more modern snowshoes which I used to ascend. We had a French guy on this trip - I lent him my "traditional" ones. I guess you could say I was mean for giving him the large cumbersome things, but he seemed thrilled - I think it just heightened the North American experience for him. You can see him in the day-glo yellow pants above.

Où est le stoke?

Still too sleepy and un-stoked from non-ski-sickness to actually get up and go somewhere on Saturday morning. So decision was made to try again by waking up at a trailhead Sunday morning.

The weather: 30% chance of showers overnight, sounding like it would clear up quickly on Sunday.

It poured rain hard at the Easy Pass trailhead all night. I slept better than I have in weeks in the back of my Subie.

The rain didn't stop until 8. A quick drive up to the pass revealed 5 inches of new wet snow at 5400ft, undoubtedly more higher up (1 inch liquid precip overnight on the sno-tels - bet you weather forecasters never saw that coming). Indecision set in... sure-bet May powder with the "crowds" at Blue Lake col, or significantly-revised original plan? As I drove back and forth changing my mind, the Blue Lake trailhead population of cars tripled.

Significantly-revised original plan eventally won out - but unfortunately the stoke lost out to poor visibility and fresh debris from overnight coming down from unseen heights... blah

Gas is now $3.50 a gallon - but I managed to squeeze 29.5 MPG out of my car, so the trip only cost me $37!

CrystalFest

Vinnie made a post about it on his extremely prolific blog. Check out the ugli. The Ugli site says they're 4-6 inches in diameter, but mine was bigger.

Also I would like to say that Amar didn't even ski above the lodge. He took runs on the groomers. Amar, skier of anything in all conditions no matter how steep, didn't want to deal with the hard crusty chutes on the Throne. I'd say that might be reason for ouster from the big leagues. I vote we replace him with Dave, who seemed perfectly willing to throw his body down the gnar using bizarre knee contortions that made Vince wince.