Bouldering: The Ski-Sick Version

I never really wanted to climb the Boulder Glacier. Why? Because it's right next to the Boulder-Park Cleaver, a fabulous route that is nearly crevasse-free to 9,200' on the beautiful Baker's Horn. Also, the Boulder Glacier is the most lahar-prone place on the cornucopia 'cano. But after finding myself half way up it from poor navigation in a whiteout, I was happy to climb a new route and escape the jour blanc in the clouds.



We were a bit late for the Park Headwall in sunshine, but it seemed too icy to ski anyway. Conditions were strange that way: fresh snow from Sunday down low, but windscoured hardness up high. Maybe it was windy up there? (Not likely - prevailing winds usually place drifted pillows on the PHW.) Or the higher slopes were above a cloud deck the whole time? I don't know. Regardless, the net result was that I didn't ski the Park Headwall on my third try within a year. I'm getting soft.




Downed trees four miles from the trailhead made this a huge day, totalling 9k net vert. and a lot of miles. Beautiful views during a sunset hike down the road were the pleasant upshot.




Thanks for a great day, Baldwin and Christophe!

Memorial Day Weekend Weather

Thursday afternoon update: It gets even better. I'm skiing tomorrow. Guess which days are the holiday weekend?



This picture says it all. So classic: Perfect on Friday and Tuesday.

Got 'em, Coach

We're number one!
We're number two! (I always knew I was the isht.)

So Tony told me that I cried "Wolf!" Anybody want to help me fix it? See if you're linked:

http://skisickness.com/links.php

If you're linked, would you please give me a link? If you're not linked and you'd like to be, then leave a comment or send me an e-mail. On a side note, Tony's site doesn't have any links page. Hoser. You can get an e-mail address at

http://skisickness.com/about.php

Here is some code that should fix Google nicely:

<a href="http://skisickness.com">
SkiSickness.com: Sky Sjue's Ski Sickness
</a>

So much for anonymity.

Just make sure that "Ski Sickness" is in the anchor text, with the space.

**************************************************

On this day in history:

Google returns SkiSickness.com as the #1 result for "ski sickness."

This is highly appropriate, when you consider that it was returning a "malady" that pretty much consists of lazy, fat people getting sick when they hit the mountains. Take that, Wikipedia!

The Sun Also Rises

When your time expires just below the top of the Mowich Face, accept your Farewell To Arms and ask not For Whom The Bell Tolls. Especially not when you have more than 4k of sustained, steep fall-line skiing to do, followed by neverending glacier cruising: truly A Moveable Feast. Forget about that hike out.

The Mowich Face from the top of Sunset Arête


The Ruff Rider rips again.


It's my turn.


One more:


This unmaintained trail is so comfy, waiting for The Lovely.

Thumbing through the lines

Unexpected success is always that much more sweet. While driving to Rainier on Saturday night, it was pouring, or as Christophe said, "Il pleut comme un vache qui pisse."

Here are a several shots from skiing Fuhrer Thumb yesterday...

skinning up the Wilson Glacier

Skiing from Point Success, we ran into some cool cats not too far down.

We had been talking about skiing the Fuhrer Thumb for a change of pace. The CO boys had similar plans. Great minds think alike?
Christophe cuts the Thumb:

The Thumb was a sweet line. Better than the Finger, since it's slightly steeper and more sustained. Past observations tell me that it goes kaput from rockfall really quickly, though, even quicker than the Finger.
Isn't this a great view?

Parting shot on the Wilson Glacier


Ed: A solid sub-11-hr showing from Christophe and Sky

Nice Try, Sucka

TGR "maggots" think they can bag my proj? Nice try. Bwahaha

My Only Friend

Too bad he can't ski.

It's coming.

At this point, I could care when. Any day of the week. Of course, we'll need a couple nice days to stabilize the copious fresh, but after that... REDRUM.