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Skagit Alpine |
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Skagit Alpine Club – June 2009 Newsletter
Skagit Alpine Club mission statement: "To promote the use and prevent the abuse of outdoor recreation areas"....SAC Articles of Incorporation
Meeting: The July (July 2) meeting is the annual SAC picnic potluck extravaganza! As in the past couple of years we’ll have the picnic on top of Little Mountain Park in southeast Mt. Vernon. We’ll start the picnic at 6:00 pm and stay as late as people want to. It is a public park and public consumption of alcohol is prohibited; however we have left it up to individuals to determine how they meet this rule. For those who wish to imbibe it would be helpful to use discretion, such as pouring wine or beer from the bottle into a plastic or paper cup.
Directions to Little Mountain Park from I-5: take either the Kincaid St. exit (north of Blackburn) or Anderson Rd exit (south of Blackburn), get to Blackburn St and go east for 1.5 miles; after the 90-degree bend in the road to the south go a quarter mile and take the Little Mtn road to the right into the park and drive to the top parking lot; look for happy club members in the grass near the picnic tables.
It would be great if anyone can bring tablecloths, table decorations like flowers, chairs, a folding table, or a blanket to sit on the grass. Oh, and bring your outdoor adventure stories J
Plan: Based on your last name please bring a potluck item to share according to the following 3 categories. The club will provide paper plates, cups, and eating utensils.
A-H: Dessert I-P: Side dish Q-Z: Main dish
Secretary‘s Report:
Old Business:
· The substitute for our faithful secretary did not provide the editor with notes from the June meeting. Ahem, J-Fro! Food and Drink Schedule:
New Business:
Program:
Member stories at the picnic!
Lookout: Submitted by Marie Erbstoeszer Park Butte Lookout:
We had a great ski up to the Park Butte Lookout on Sunday, June 7. Snow blocked the road about a half mile from the parking lot and we were totally surprised to count around 70 parked cars. When we started walking up the road with our packs and skis we noted that some of the cars had Mountaineers stickers – so we guess they had a large group out on the glacier and possibly climbing. With the SAC climbing class also there, it must have been a busy weekend on the mountain. It was so overcast and actually rained on us a few times that we could not see if there were folks on the mountain. Interestingly we never saw anyone on the trail, but as we scrambled up the switch back area we did hear some voices off in the distance. The snow is melting fast and only a few snow bridges were left on Rocky Creek.
The Lookout is in great shape and weathered the winter well. The painting we did last August has stayed on and we don’t see a need for much repainting this year. The interior of the Lookout also looked good – found some food dropping (raisins and pretzels) under the cabinets but luckily NO evidence of mice. There still is ample DeCon under the cabinets and some unopened DeCon supplies in the drawers. We carried out some garbage including empty beer cans, water bottles, and stuff picked up off the snow like cigarette butts and TP.
The Forest Service put in a new post under the Lookout last September – it looks great and certainly will help the Lookout last a lot longer. A big thank you to Lief Hazelett and his crew.
If anyone is headed up to the Lookout and would like to carry up a few items give us a call: 360-336-5896 - Marie and John Erbstoeszer.
Outing(s):
2009 SKAGIT COUNTY TRAIL MAINTENANCE ON THE PNT Want to do some local trail work with a wonderful group of people? No experience needed. Wear long pants, bring rain gear, work gloves, lunch, and get ready to have fun! Meeting place is the Cook Road Park-n-Ride, exit 232 from I-5 north of Burlington. Meeting time is 8:15 AM. If you have any questions email Lynn at sancho999@comcast.net. Hope to see you there!
Trail Work Correction - The Forest Pass is ONLY given to volunteers that work on the Easy Pass work party which is contracted with the Forest Service. Passes are NOT given for volunteering with the PNTA or Little Mountain. Sorry for the confusion. Lynn and Sancho
GENERAL TRAIL WORK Trail work will be done on the FIRST and THIRD Saturday of each month EXCEPT JULY. July 11 and 25 August 1 and 15 September 5 and 19 October 3 and 17
Conservation Report: Submitted by Jenny Lee & Maggie
On June 10, 09 the Anacortes Parks and Rec Dept. explained more of their draft plan and answered questions from the Planning Commission. There was no public comment taken at this meeting. The Commission passed the draft plan. On July 13, 09, the Anacortes City Council will have a "workshop" to be introduced to the plan. At that time, the Parks and Rec Dept will explain their draft plan. There will be no public comment accepted at this meeting. At this meeting, dates for public comment will be decided upon....those meetings will probably occur in August or September. After all these meetings take place, the City Council will make a final decision regarding the draft plan. We'll keep you posted!
Special Announcement/Event: Submitted by Ginny Darvill
A few more helpers are needed this year as NCI staff is not available in this role. The contact person is Lexine Long. She writes: The days that we well need people to hike in will be July 31st and August 7th. On July 31st people would start hiking in the morning, and will probably get back somewhat late in the evening. On August 7th, people would have to leave really early in order to meet at the base camp in the morning around 9 or 10. We will need 3 people to help hike in and 3 people to help hike out We will also need one person with a pickup to help ferry gear back and forth between the trailhead and the campground on the days when we will be hiking in and out. We also might need another volunteer or two for the first night, July 30th to help cook etc..Another area that we well be needing help is borrowing gear. I will have more detailed information as to what hear we will still need to borrow in the coming weeks.
For more information or to volunteer contact Lexine at arinlexine@gmail.com or Ginny at gdarvill@fidalgo.net
Trip Report (2 this month!): Submitted by Joshua G
So Chris and I were looking to climb something simple. As in no pro needed. So Chris found a fairly difficult, albeit straight forward mountain. We wanted to attempt a day hike, so we headed up Cascade River Road to the east ridge of Eldorado Friday after work. We camped at the trailhead in the car, which was shockingly more comfortable than imagined. The weather was a concern, as it started raining shortly after we went to sleep. Our friend lying in the back of his truck didn't fair so well. Doors opening and shutting signaled the end of the comfortable "bed" for that of a dry one.
We left the trailhead at about 515 am. The first 1800 feet or so is straight up and accomplished in a little over an hour. The trail goes straight up, but is well groomed and maintained. The talus field is next and carries you up to the snow, which I think was around 5700’. The cairns help you find a couple of well placed trail areas and there is a creek to fill up your water bottles or camelbaks. There is not a need to carry 3 liters if you are willing to fill up here. The weather hadn't improved much, but it hadn't rained yet so we continued up and crossed the ridge at around 6200’. If you cross the ridge in the wrong spot you may be in for a very long rap or a serious down climb. Cross Early! At about 7200’ Chris let me know that the weather was [edited]-blocking us, or as another friend put it: I hate it when Mother Nature lays down her giant [edited] and says: NONE SHALL PASS. Eh. Anyway, we couldn't see much more than 90 meters, and the wind and rain picked up. At this point it should be mentioned that Chris thinks the visibility was more like 30 meters. We talked about it and noticed that the glacier was in sight. It seemed like we had a couple of crevasses in our view, but we couldn't tell. So down we went. The irritating part was once we dropped about 200 feet, the pouring rain stopped and we could see again. After a soaked clothes change out, it was pretty uneventful till the car.
Lots of marmots and a chipmunk were seen. I don't know what a chipmunk does at 5400’. There would be pics, but my wife grabbed the camera and left the battery. Nuff said.
Submitted by Chris Danilson
Kangaroo Temple (N.W. Face) – June 1, 2009 With the promising forecast and the overdue need to call in to work for a “sickie”, Alex K. and I opted to tack another day on to the class outing at Liberty Bell and attempt Kangaroo Temple. Climbing at Liberty Bell on Saturday and Sunday offered occasional tempting views of the west face of K.T. So, after parting ways with our entourage on Sunday afternoon, we headed into Winthrop for protein and liquid carbs. Surprisingly, we bumped into a group of students at the Winthrop Brewery who inadvertently took a wrong turn from the trailhead. At camp on the Methow River, we were able to dry out Alex’s wet rock shoes around the fire while we continued to rehydrate and rack up for the next day. Upon further review of the Beckey Guide, we decided to climb either the 8-pitch S.W. Face or the 6 pitch N.W. Face (both descriptions somewhat confusing and intimidating), getting an early start so we kept our options open. Well, best laid plans go astray and we managed to get on the trail at a “respectable” 7:30, affording us plenty of time for either option (or so we thought). High freezing levels yielded yet another miserable post hole approach through mush, avy debris, melting out talus, and laid over trees. Finally at the base of the west face we reviewed the routes in Beckey (yes, we carried it with us), and opted for the closer and shorter N.W. Face (fewer refs to pitons in rte. Description helped us make this decision). Finding the start of the route was a bit of head scratcher as we unsuccessfully searched for the “flat table-sized rock” and “rock tongue”. Alex, our up-and-coming rock “hard man” took the first (and ultimately most difficult) pitch, which involved traversing, down climbing a gully and a sketchy difficult to protectable runout slab with slimy wet patches due to the melting snow (5.7 my ass!). At the start of the second pitch, we again referred to “the bible”, scratched our heads, shrugged our shoulders. After some exploration, Alex’s hunch proved correct and I ascended a solid corner lie-back type pitch trending left to a second belay at a deep cave. After once again referencing the P.O.S guide book, Alex muscled a similar left-trending lead up to what we think ole Fred is calling “the dance floor”. Are we starting the fourth pitch, have we belayed too soon, or did we miss the dance floor? And how can it already be 4 o’clock? Clueless, I decide I like the look of a blocky chimney to my right, so I opt for that and get through the final challenging moves to see that we are at the end of the difficult climbing. After belaying Alex up, we opt to swap leads once more and belay the south-exposed summit ridge and then walk the final 50 feet up to the summit having to walk through only a bit of snow. After a bite and rest on the summit, we scramble down the north ridge silently praying that the two bolted “80-foot rappels” are not as obscure as the route description. Alas, this proves to be the case and we’re quickly down to the notch between K.T. and Little Finger. A scramble down and some traversing through snow takes us to our gear stash and we’re under way for another 1.5 hour post hole back (and one nice glissade) to the car. Our record-setting time of 12 hours car-to-car (slowest ever?) was unceremoniously celebrated by removing our wet manky 3-day old garb, guzzling a gallon of water, and hitting the highway for the journey home. Not a car on the highway between Washington Pass and Newhalem made for quick travel. At home (10:30), I pulled “Red Fred” from the climbing library, removed pages 307-312, and ritualistically turned them into ashes on the barbeque.
Climbing Class: Submitted by Chris Danilson
Mountaineering Class Update Alas, the 2009 class has come to a close! The 18 (of 25) students who were able to hang in there, and stay healthy and ambitious were rewarded with the spectacular summit finale of Mount Baker during the wee morning hours of June 7th. The class split into two groups for this outing to the Boulder and Easton Routes and I’m pleased to report that everyone made the summit. As one student noted, “one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen”. A quick note to those that had to drop for various reasons – you were in our thoughts and with us in spirit that day! I cannot express enough appreciation and thanks for the great bunch of students and the 20 or so club member assistants who contributed to making this class such a success. Students and instructors alike made huge commitments and sacrifices for 10 weeks, which enabled all to learn, grow, and achieve many goals along the way. My hope is that this experience stays with the students for the rest of their lives and that many continue their alpine pursuits for years to come. The very gracious students brought a pile of swag into the last class in appreciation of the instructors who helped with the class (somehow they got the impression that we like alcohol???). Also, a final wrap-up celebration was hosted by Holly Collins (aka “Tally”) on June 13th and it was well attended by students and instructors alike. In addition to great food, drink and conversation, a fantastic slideshow was prepared and presented by Holly Kersteins (aka “Smally”). By the time I left, the keg was dry, the fire was blazing, and the hot tub was overflowing. Unless there are titillating details yet untold, the final tally from the class remains: Divorces - 0, Romances – 2-ish. On behalf of all the instructors, I’d like to say thanks to the students for the swag and great party. For those interested, one of the students (JB Smith) has put together a very nice photography website that beautifully captures the weekend outings. Thanks for sharing this JB! Go to: http://jbsphotos.smugmug.com/Skagit%20Alpine%20Mountaineering%20Class
Also, Smally’s slideshow (complete w/ soundtrack) can be viewed on her personal website: Go to: http://web.me.com/holly_kerstiens/Site/Welcome.html As this relates to the remainder of the climbing season, I’d briefly like to make a suggestion/plea to the entire membership. There are a bunch of new students out there who, after a bit of relaxation, are hoping to get out there and climb this summer. Please consider opening up your climbing schedule a bit and helping these great and eager folks to get more experience and exposure. Use the SAC listserve to post outings and invite our newbies to join. THANKS! Finally, as many of you have heard, Skagit Valley College has discontinued their community education program. This puts our class “out on the street” until we can come up with a different plan. The Executive Committee and I have done some research into different options, but this remains unresolved. Given that the class is, more or less, the “lifeblood” of the club, my hope is that we can keep a focus on this over the next several months so there is a plan in place for next year (incidentally the 50 year anniversary of SAC).
Officers: President – Jason Griffith (360) 419-7480 jkgriffith@gmail.com Vice President – Jonathan Frostad jonathanfrostad@hotmail.com Treasurer – Ginny Darvill gdarvill@fidalgo.net Secretary - Chris Noskoff cnoskoff@gmail.com Newsletter - Corrina Marote corrina.marote@gmail.com Webmaster - Steve Trent skagitalpineclub@comcast.net Programs – Jason Griffith (360) 419-7480 jkgriffith@gmail.com Lookout - John and Marie Erbstoeszer erbst@cnw.com Outings - Lynn Postler sancho999@comcast.net Conservation Com- Jenny Lee Frederick jennyleefrederick@gmail.com Social Com- Wade Bessett bessettw@hotmail.com Climbing Com - Chris Danilson |
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