I like digital point forecasts

For 7800ft on Mt Baker:

Today: Periods of snow. High near 23. Windy, with a south wind 33 to 36 mph decreasing to between 11 and 14 mph. Winds could gust as high as 55 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 19 to 25 inches possible.

Tonight: Periods of snow. Temperature rising to around 25 by 5am. Windy, with a south southwest wind 11 to 14 mph increasing to between 42 and 45 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 36 to 42 inches possible.

Monday: Periods of snow. Temperature rising to near 29 by noon, then falling to around 19 during the remainder of the day. Windy, with a south southwest wind between 40 and 45 mph, with gusts as high as 70 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 34 to 40 inches possible.


89 to 107 inches over the next 36 hours...

Some pics from today

Got gear

I helped drive the economy today at Beyond's 50% off sale, buying things I didn't really need... 45$ for a windstopper fleece jacket, $50 for some light softshell pants, and 80$ for a softshell jacket (which is 50% the heavyweight WB400 Schoeller and 50% the light stuff - interesting). This was the first clearance sale I've ever been to where there was actually a big selection of stuff that fit (take note Marmot, REI, etc...).

So I felt like I'd tell everyone - it's what consumerism's all about. (oh btw, the pic was taken with my D70, which I got back a few days ago, fixed free of charge - guess I'm still stuck with 6 megapixels for a while)

Back in August...

The aforementioned snow in New York state, from a few posts back:



My brother is a mechanical engineer, not a computer engineer, so it takes a month for him to send pictures over email...

Me and my nephews "looking cool", after having come out of some caves.


The red eft form of the eastern newt:


(eft is a good Scrabble word).

Lords of Lame

What do you do when your partner can't leave town until 2pm? Go anyway and hope things go smoothly...

Checking the time shortly before encountering a non-trival section on the traverse and bailing...



As I found out later by looking at a picture, turns out we were only a short distance from the beginning of the nice part of the climb. So we should have gone for it... oh well.

The ultimate lameness... top-roping 5.0 slab after a quick hike to the summit.



But at least we got to watch the sun set over glittering Puget Sound, the Olympics and Vancouver island. And we did summit, in defiance of a Mountaineers party member (with requisite 10ft ice axe) we met on the way up - who when told we were trying to beat the sun to the summit - disapprovingly said the mountain would win.

It was pitch black by the time we made it back to the lake where Ed had stashed two double-size australian beers.



They held much more buzz than anticipated, and so we were forced to spend another hour there watching the stars, the milky way, and meteors. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

Should have brought my skis

There is still snow left in NY state. My brother, nephews and I found a snow patch today, big enough to make at least two turns on. Crazy. Kam would love it I guess.
I would update with a photo, but there is no way to get pics off the camera right now. I'm astonished I can even get online - someone around here has an unsecured wireless broadband network.

Pwned

R.I.P. Caroline

I learned an old aquaintance of mine was killed in a rappelling accident at Skaha Bluffs last weekend.

Here are some pics from a Utah ski/climbing trip we were both on in 1999:

Caroline on the right:






The last time I saw her was about 3-4 years ago when she and a partner were hiking in to climb Mt Rexford while we were on our way out.

Abernathy Peak

...can't make any puns with that. So just a plain title.

I didn't get enough video for a genuine mtnPhilms video (Jason wasn't warm to my movie plot we could have filmed with our extensive time at Scatter Lake). Plus he was self-conscious about his skiing, so he didn't want it shown to everyone. So here are just some random clips thrown together:



Everything looks steep (which may not be a bad thing) because youtube doesn't handle wide-screen video properly.

The hardest part of this ski trip was long drive!