SICK!!!!!

Fanfunkintastic-Way to be on the journey boyz…great photos of the Endless Winter…what is next on your list?

Mad props!

Wow! You guys truly tear it up. Nice work! With the snowpack here melting out before our eyes, it’s good to see the coverage up there, especially after last year.

These pictures are like crack to me 😯

you guys are incredibly fucking awesome.

looks like you had fun too. 😀

Thanks for posting Kyle!

As I wrote in the previous TR, my axe technique involved the following:

My technique for riding down involved a technical ice tool in my left hand and mountaineering axe in my right. If I came to an unexpected icy section, I would swing my technical tool into the snow, throw a picket in, use my mountaineering axe to chop steps, attach my board to my anchor, then gingerly take it off and use the steps to put my crampons on. Oh to not have hardboots…

Those photos with the dual axes really do look ridiculous. We didn’t end up encountering ice on the way down, so it wasn’t really necessary. I would have held the technical axe at its handle, but felt awkward doing so. The mountaineering axe was held like that for potential self arrest. It appears that I’m ollieing because I was doing some sort of jump turn…. “Freddy Kruger Air” indeed.

I would’ve really liked to tag the north couloir on Buckner, but another couple hours would be necessary for it to get soft. It was already 1pm when we rode the SW face. We still would have had to negotiate one of the rotten snow/rock notches on Boston for the return. Amazingly, it was the only slope anywhere in the vicinity that was icy. However, the SW face was sweeeeeet corn. It went well with the George Clinton & Parliament tunes reverberating in my head from the previous night.

Oh, and the bootpack up the runnels/debris on the north face was interesting as well. Good times.

Kyle in Crooked

Booting up slot

I toyed with going up there Sunday, but I was solo so I went to the Blue Lake trailhead on Hwy. 20, went up behind Liberty bell. Snow softened up ok by noon, only have a few non-interesting photos-no riding pics. How was the approach up where you went? Enough snow up on Sahale arm for a June trip? Might have to squeeze it in.

How the hell could you self arrest with that set-up? Not ripping your style, seems like you know what your doing. But how do you self arrest with one a tool in your other hand? For getting yourself out of an icy/dicey situation that’s a really good approach. But falling and trying to self arrest looks like a nightmare, with stitches.

I realize that it may not be the best set-up. However, I usually see self-arrest as being a last-ditch effort, where my chances of survival are less than 50-50 (otherwise I would be able to stop myself normally). In such a case, I would not care how ripped up I was, just whether I was alive or not.

It would be somewhat difficult to not get tangled in the 2nd tool while arresting with the first. I was trying to balance the desire for self-arrest capabilities with the desire for stabilization on ice. I would say that the ice stabilization would be most important since it would prevent one from falling into a situation where self-arrest would be necessary.

That said, this was my first time riding with two tools and am open to suggestions or critiques. I’m almost always riding with one or no tools, so this was an exception.

Thinking about it, it might be ideal to have the 2nd tool available to whip out when nearing ice, then stowing it for other times.

2 cents?

Having a way to stow it seems like the best option. It seems like whatever method you use, it would be useful to practice with it in a more controlled environment first… and it would probably be, um, “interesting” practicing self-arresting with the two-tool setup. 🙂

This seems like a market opportunity. Someone needs to invent a glove that has retractable whippet-like picks on each finger. It could have a voice-activated sensor that activates the claws on the words “Oh Shit!” Then just slam your hands into the slope and you’re like spiderman!

Seriously, nice pics, sounds like some great trips. That pic dropping into the chute is so great! So was the landing somewhat soft or were you dropping 20′ onto 3″ of corn on hardpack?? 😯