Mt Baker Climb 11/15/2005

[tenzingcory]

FYI.. here is my next Climb.. Mt Baker Washington.. a little higher than 10 thousand feet. Heavy glacier travel conditions. It should be a blast.

I'll put up pix

later.. Cory

[rick]

You're going up baker on the 15th? This coming Tuesday? I don't mind saying: "You're going to freeze your ass off!!!" Who are you going with? Yes take lots of picts!

[tenzingcory]

I'm going with this ice climber I met .. her name is Erica.. and yeah we just got 4 feet of snow in the NC this last week.. and more to come.. I hope my digital camera doesn't freeze..

rick, I plan on posting the pix like you did with your airplane jump..

and as far as freezing goes.. its not january @n top of Magazine.. hehehe

[rickus]

You're going to freeze your ass off! Take care! and BE SAFE!!!

[tenzingcory]

Okey I"m back safe and sound.
The trip was awsome. No summit this time. The directions were good but all the access roads were completely unmarked and covered with snow. And those of you who don't know .. I drive a lowered Scion. I got off to a late start due to my climbing partner vanishing on me.. I still haven't heard from here.. oh well (those that can.. do; those that can't ...?don't know).
So the trip turned into a Solo trip. I gave Erica till 10:30 am on 11/15/2005 to get in touch with me and she didn't. I ran buy REI and grabed extra food and a snow shovel, then hoped in the car and drove 100 miles north in great traffic.

I reached Shriedners Meadow road and only 6 miles up that road lay the trail head. He he eh.. yeah right.. I drove 1.5 miles up and the road completely snowed and iced over.. only access is snow-mobile. So I drove down to the parking area 1.5 miles backwards and geared up and started hikeing .. by this time it is around 2pm and I hiked up snow and ice 6 miles at 3mi/hour so I got there by 5pm..

Its almost dark and I tried looking for the trail.. Found it!.. 4 Feet under the snow.. 2 more miles and I'd have made Easton Glacier 7500ft. So I find myself somewhere between 3500 and 4500 ft elev. and up to my waist in snow and ice.

Now its 5pm and getting dark in like 20 minutes.. so gotta set up camp in about 5 minutes.. okey, 35 minutes later (everything works slower in snow) i got the tent up and all my stuff set up.. Time for a quick bit to eat and a journal entry (to remind myself how to shop for snow-shoes)..


A bite of chille-mac (mmm..mmm.. good) and some water and I"m good to go.. I stuffed my down jacket under my head and climbed into my 0 degree bag (that weighs way too much at this point) and a tug of the rip cord and i'm all snug like a bug in a rug..

I guess it got down to 5 degrees that night..( thats cold to you guys in OKC) here is the math( 100 elev. -7degrees per 1000 ft = some where between hellishly cold and hell).. so I wake up around 5 am (cell phone alarm clock.. basically a very expensive alarm/paper weight at this point) and the tent is raining.. condensation happens when is 5 degr. out and 50 degrees inside.. hehe.. I made due though. I crawled back into bed till the birds started chearping. Around 7 am I got up and dusted off the tent.. (note to self: do this before you open the tent door..) And thats when I realized that when it snows 4 ft overnight don't camp under ponderosa pines.. cuz Whoomp!! snow falls outta the trees.. all night.. and scares the hell outta ya..

I made some breakfast (coffee first.. right rickus) and then some hash browns O'brian and sausage patties.

then time to put on the crampons and see whats up with the trail.. thats when I got the sneaking suspicion i might need snow-shoes ( the feeling came when I fell in waist deep and took about 30 minutes to dig out.)

so I packed up and started down hill crampons and tek poles in tact.

so all in all it was fun but no summit.. next time snow shoes.

take care

and don't eat yellow snow.. its not lemon flavored

--cory

[katie]

Reminds me of our trip to Wheeler Peak in '98...only worse. At least we had five bodies in our four-man tent to keep everybody warm!

Sounds like it was quite the learning experience, though. Loved your pictures!

[Guest Justin]

Dude... I'll never forget that night on Wheeler. That was the coldest (and most altitude affected) I think I've ever been. And I had the benefit of sleeping in the middle--warm bodies on both sides. I can't imagine how cold the folks on the end were. Can't recall who was unlucky enough to have drawn those lots, or which gods they must have pissed off to be so cursed!

Your trip looked fun, Cory. I've never gone out like that on my own, but I could imagine it would be a peaceful, fulfilling night. Great pics, too!

[rickus]

Hey Cory,

An overnight in the mountains with 4 Ft. of snow... And only an hour from your home to boot! You have my envy! And of course coffee first! I would expect nothing less of a former Seattle barrista!

So what did you use the shovel on? Did it come in handy?

Anyway, I looks like a lot of fun. I wish Seattle were right around the corner, I'd have taken a couple of days off to go and freeze my ass off with you.

Take Care!
rickus

[katie]

Guest said:

I can't imagine how cold the folks on the end were. Can't recall who was unlucky enough to have drawn those lots, or which gods they must have pissed off to be so cursed!

I'm not sure which god I pissed off, though it was probably the God of Abraham (I blaspheme A LOT), but the unlucky ones were the two girls on the expedition: Shauna and me. I had forgotten how cold it was! I was sleeping really well, until suddenly, something woke me up. And that something was all the condensation that formed on the side of the tent due to the five warm bodies. It had settled under my sleeping bag in a puddle of ice-cold water. I'm surprised I didn't get hypothermia.

On the up side, I was proposed to later on that same day, which made the trip much, much better for me!

[tenzingcory]

Rick,
I used the shovel to smooth out the rutts in the trail so I could have a nice level spot to sleep on.. check it out.. 24.00 at REI
www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?storeId=8000&catalogId=40000008000&productId=47781986&parent_category_rn=40003574&vcat=REI_SEARCH