jhawk

Pan Point Ski Tour - Sat Dec 20, 2008

jhawk — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:29:00 GMT

Five powder hounds went skiing at Paradise, Mount Rainier National Park on Saturday Dec 20, 2008.

Here is the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMdHor9-OPA

enjoy
Jonathan

Mount Rainier - Disappointment Cleaver 2008

jhawk — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 04:17:00 GMT

After climbing Sahale on Sat Aug 2 my friend Autumn and I chatted about climbing Rainier up the DC route. Well the weather gods did their magic and on the Sunday we had a 3 day clear sky forecast for the next 3 days of Mon Aug 4 to Aug 6. So on the Monday morning we were on our way to Rainier. The plan was day one from Paradise to just below Muir, day two to Ingram Flats and day three to the summit and back to Seattle.

The forecast was accurate and we had a nice fun and easy 3 day climb. The route from Ingram Flats to the summit was a great shape. We left Ingram Flats at 1am and made it to the summit just as the sun was rising at 5:30am.

Pictures from the Mount Rainier - Disappointment Cleaver trip

Haute Route Ski Mountaineering Trip

jhawk — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 03:59:00 GMT

Over a weelk in late March and early April 2008 I skied the Haute Route from from Chamonix, France to Zermatt, Switzerland with a group of friends from Seattle.

We experienced a bunch of different snow conditions from hard ice to knee deep powder and weather from blue sky to full blizzard conditions.

Here are my Haute Route pics

Climbing: The Python Perspective

jhawk — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 22:44:00 GMT

The Monty Python Perspective on climbing.

Enjoy

Mount Rainier: Muir, Ingram Flats, Emmons Glacier

jhawk — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 09:09:00 GMT

Ed, Sandy (Ed's wife) and I climbed Rainier Sat July 28 to Mon July 30 via Camp Muir -> Ingram Flats -> Emmons Glacier as the DC route was rerouted (see below). My pics here. Ed's pics.

I said hi to Mike Gauthier (Chief Climbing Ranger) at Ingram Flats. He has a post on the DC route closure. Also pics of the new route from a CC.com posting.

Concord Tower North Face

jhawk — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 01:55:00 GMT

On Sat July 14 Ed, Joe, Peter and I did a quick climb up Concord Tower in the beautiful North Cascades. Concord Tower North Face Pics

Enjoy the pics.

Mount Baker North Ridge Attempt

jhawk — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:45:00 GMT

On Sat July 7 and 8 a group of six (Kirk, Jill, Claire, Rainer, Mike, me) head up climb Baker up the North Ridge.

At 6000' we chatted with Kurt the climbing ranger on North Ridge route conditions. He remembered my Baker Coleman group from the previous weekend. He said the snow and ice on the route where in fine shape and that the snow had frozen on Fri night. He also expected cloud cover on Sat night and Sun. He pointed out a nice campsite area on rock off to the left at around 6500' that was next to water and away from the busy (potentially noisy) growing tent village.

After we made camp on Sat afternoon Rainer, Claire and I scouted out the route heading out on a bearing of 100 degrees. We walked far enough (maybe .5 mile out) so we could get a good view over the crevasse field and scope out a route through and up to the bergschund. We saw a faint bootrack route heading through and up and left past ice cliffs and then heading up. Rainer took a bearing of 74 degrees that would get us through in the dark the next morning. We headed back to camp and had dinner. Around 9pm I got up and spoke with a nearby solo climber who was also going to do north ridge.

We woke up at midnight to hear from Jill and Kirk that Mike was vomiting, cold and not doing too well. Kirk decided to stay and monitor Mike. The other four of us (Rainer, Claire, Jill, me) headed out. The solo climber had already left. Rainer did a great job on route finding through the crevasse field and up and past the bergschund. We did a group huddle to discuss the weather as the clouds, light rain and winds were picking up. Small rocks and ice were coming off the rock band above and whistling past ... which made it 'exciting'.

We decided to turn around and get lunch at Graham's in Glacier. On the way back we spoke with two skiers who mentioned that the solo climber had also turned around. We headed back to camp and packed up gear. We noticed a number of teams that had attempted the Coleman route returning early, we suspect also due to the weather conditions. Mike was doing much better so we headed back to the trail head, clean clothes and lunch.

A fun weekend out with good friends.

Pics here.

Baker Coleman with 45mph winds

jhawk — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 23:55:00 GMT

On Sat 6/30 a group of 11 (Ed, Rainer, Bartek, Anita, Teresa, Sandeep, Tony, Lee, Jola , Phuong-Cac and me) in 4 carpools met at the Glacier Ranger station at 9am. The plan was a 2 day climb up the Coleman route. We signed into the climbing register, spoke with the rangers and read the recent trip reports which indicated good conditions.

The approach trail was snow free until we got the base of the glacier at 5800'. We filtered water and roped up. Rainer and Bartek moved us quickly past a couple of slower rope teams and we made camp at 7000' below the Black Buttes by 3pm. The 7000' camp was a small city with more than a dozen tents and more arrived as we made melted snow, made dinner and got some rest.

The plan was leave at 2am, however at 1am the wind was howling and I decided to wait a hour or two. By 2am the winds had died down. I woke up the team to gear up and we left camp at 3am. As we moved higher the winds picked up and people added layers. We moved past a couple of other teams. We took quick 5min breaks every hour or so and made the summit by 7:30am. The winds at the summit were in the 45-50mph range so we only spent a couple of minutes. Coming down we saw a number of skiers coming up. Ed and I thought we should have brought our ski gear. A quick descent had us back at camp by 10:30am. We broken camp and were back at Milano's in Glacier for late lunch. A good group and fun climb.

Baker Coleman pics here.

Tooth South Face

jhawk — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:29:00 GMT

A group us (Peter, Claire, Teresa, Karen, Brett, me) had a fun day out climbing the Tooth South Face. We left the TH before 7am and found snow from Source Lake to the pass. The rope teams were quick and the first team made the summit in around two hours. The rappels were smoothly. We let a solo climber rap down on our ropes to let him (Chris) get off quickly. We had a strong and quick party and were able to make it back to the North Bend Bar and Grill for dinner and beverages by 5:30pm. Pics Tooth South Face.

Ingalls East Ridge

jhawk — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:18:00 GMT

Pics from the trip up Ingalls East Ridge.

Mt Adams North Side Ski Tour

jhawk — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:24:00 GMT

On Sat Ed, Dan and I signed in at the ranger station in Randle and were greeted with “are you really going to climb” … 1^st sign :-) We got stopped a bunch of miles from the trail head by deep snow on road and a large tree across the road … 2^nd sign :-) We also got Ed’s Subaru stuck in the snow … 3^rd sign :-) … a great start to the weekend.

We then hiked on road/skinned on patched of snow/carried skis on bare road/skinned up for about 10 miles. About 7:30pm we made camp, had dinner and decided not to summit as the team was exhausted and had not reached the high camp yet. It was little early season as the snow level was too low and increases the length of the approach.

This morning we skinned up another 1000'+ to high camp including some stuff on high angle terrain. I never knew that on skis+ski-crampons that is was possible to go up such steep terrain. We had a better views of the N-Face of the NW Ridge Adams. Adams Glacier looks like a great blocky ice climb. N-Face NW Ridge looks like a long 2000+ feet smooth face. Both look fun.

We then skied down some nice slopes and traversed. We then followed a couple of heavily snowed over creek drainages which made for quick downhill travel. Entered dense trees and had fun skiing between the dense trees and tree wells which was a first and fun for me. We eventually made it back down to the road and ski/glided/poled along the road for a bunch of miles. We took a 0.25mil shortcut and bushwhacked which saved us 1.5 miles on the road. After another 0.75mi we need made it back to the car.

A fun weekend. Pics here.

Mount Garibaldi

jhawk — Wed, 30 May 2007 23:00:00 GMT

On Thu May 10 Ed, Joe, Ken and I made a trip up to British Columbia, Canada to make an attempt on Mount Garibaldi. Click here for pics

Camp Muir

jhawk — Wed, 30 May 2007 11:50:00 GMT

On Sunday Garett and I decided to do a walk from Paradise to Muir. It was his first time up there. Click here for pics.

We left Seattle at 5:15pm and found no traffic on 405 or 167. With a mandatory Starbucks stop in Puyallup for a coffee we arrived at Paradise at 7:50am and left promptly at 8am with occasionally rain droplets. I had skis and Garett had my snowshoes (see below). It was good to see a couple of friends (Dan, Rod, Josh, Max) who were instructing and leading the Mountaineers Snow 2/Crevasse rescue field trip.

The snow up to base of Panorama Point was good and I was looking forward to the ride down. I removed the skis and booted it up and over Panorama point. I have been looking for Dynafit ski crampons for 2 months now. I guess I will have to keep looking.

Once past the two to three little bumps after Panorama Point the skis were back on and we proceeded up. The precip was turning to light snow and the wind was picking up around 20mph with visibility around 50 yards. Around half an inch of fresh snow over a hard icy surface.

We broke through the clouds around 8500’ into blue sky and sunshine. Just fantastic views! No fresh snow on the ground just a super hard surface.

We arrived at Muir at 12:15pm and had lunch, chatted with the RMI folk, took pics and watched Mt Adams and Mt St Helens poking through the cloud layer. Around 1pm we headed down. Me on skis and Garett running down …. on snowshoes. He is a runner in really good shape and hence we stayed together. At times I had to catch up with him J

The snow above the clouds was still hard and made for interesting skiing. However once we hit the cloud layer which had been rising, the surface turned to about an inch of fresh. Fantastic skiing. Around 8000 feet the snow was frozen solid and visibility was down to 2 yards. We proceeded with caution following ski+boot tracks and monitoring my GPS. Visibility opened up to around 25 yards at Pebble Creek. From the base of Panaroma Point the snow was soft and great for skiing. Back at Paradise by 3pm.

Garett and I stopped in Puyallup for dinner and were home by 6pm. A great day.

Exit 38 - Deception Crags

jhawk — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:38:00 GMT

As week ago (before the rain) a group of us (Mike, Eva, Matt, me) went out for a day of cragging at Exit 38 Deception Crags. We met at 10am and headed up to Write Off Rock. During we also climbed at We Did Rock and Hall Creek Rock.

On Write Off Rock we climbed Mom There’s Pink in My Burger 5.6 (Eva led up), Bottoms Up 5.7 (I lead up). From Mom There’s Pink in My Burger I moved the top rope over to Knife in the Toaster 5.9 and rappelled down. Matt did a quick lead up Flammable Pajamas 5.5 while Mike cleaned the anchors on Knife in the Toaster.

We moved to over We Did Rock. I lead up Your Sister 5.7 trailing a second rope and after topping out set up the second rope for My X Wife 5.10a. Eva did an awesome job on My X Wife. I got a little pumped. Next Eva lead up Absolutely Nothing 5.9. Long and cool.

We finish off on Hall Creek Rock with Occam’s Razor 5.8

A good day out.

Polar bear ice climbing cartoon

jhawk — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 00:35:00 GMT

A bit of fun for friday with this polar bear ice climbing cartoon on YouTube. The original can be found at rgstudios.com Enjoy.