Home > Trip Reports > February 27, 2010, Kendall

February 27, 2010, Kendall

2/27/10
WA Snoqualmie Pass
2613
6
Posted by BSHB on 3/1/10 2:16pm
Ok. I'm not going to say this tour was a complete failure, but it was nearly there. I went to Kendall with a classmate on the 27th, conditions weren't horrible, but the snow was really wet, and there we saw close to 30 snowshoers. I've never been to Kendall, but was explained the route, and told that the skin tracks would be obvious and easy to follow. Saturday, this wasn't the case, the route split at least 4 times and there were skin tracks everywhere. Needless to say, we had a lot of trouble with route finding, on top of this (and this is my mistake) I forgot my compass, so I couldn't really do much to plan my route myself. We had fun, but we never really made it into good skiable terrain. about 2 hours in one of my skins ripped right near the tail and started to flap around like a wizards sleeve. I tried to boot the rest of the way but due to my increasingly sedentary lifestyle revolving around my pre-architecture requirements I gave up after another hour. 3 hours in we didn't make it out of the trees. I'm going to assume we were in the wrong place, and took the wrong route, because I feel like we weren't moving that slow. I'll post some pictures when I get them from my classmate who had the camera, if any of those places look familiar to you, you should reply to this and tell me how close/far off I was/ does anyone want to tour a lot during the week of the 21st of march and show me the correct route? Things were quite stable and the two shallow pits we dug showed a lot of consolidation within the big fat hoar frost from that cold snap, probably due to the fact that all of the snow was super heavy, and super wet.

Also... Check out the picture of my skin that tore. My idea was that if i could get some adjustable sts tip loops and then some of the rubber tail straps I could just trim my skin a bit, since they had the old-style metal hooks on the back I have lots of room. One problem, when you buy the sts tail straps they don't come with the metal bracket that mounts them to the skin, only the hook that attaches the end of them to the ski. Does anyone have any sweet suggestions or know where I can get the bracket to attach those?
Yeah, just chop off that end and get a set of the STS tail straps.  I've done that with mine after breaking the metal clip on those ClipFix attachments.

I bought the sts tail kit not just the tails at second ascent for $15ish and it came with the metal mounting brackets, it was an easy install, I used a soldering iron to make the holes

My wife and I skinned up from the exit between central and west on sunday. We made it to the clear cut but the trees were too thick to skin. We started to boot pack but the snow was getting soft and we were sinking deep so we had lunch and ski/hiked down and made a run at Hyak. The red arrow is about where we were.

The trees, of course, have been growing, so the lower portion of the clearcut, where the red arrow above points, has gotten a bit trickier to navigate even in years when we have a more normal low elevation snowpack (like 80 - 120 inches showing on Snoqualmie telemetry). I can only imagine that that section is a bit annoying right now.

That skin failure is a good advertisement for having a small roll of duct tape or some waterproof adhesive tape or the like in your pack. Also handy on wet-ish days that invove multiple skins on/off events, as someone in a decent sized group will likely find that their glue is no longer sticking enough, and depending on your route you may not simply have the option of skiing downhill to bail.

Glad you got out, Ben!  Forgotten compass aside, sounds like there were lots of opportunities to learn on this one.  If you started from the PCT trailhead, it can be a maze of snowshoe tracks, and snowshoers generally don't know what the hell they're doing. :p  I like to think of them as uneducated future backcountry skiers/boarders who have yet to see the light, and as such, try not to ever follow snowshoe tracks. :p  There's another place to start that avoids the snowshoe freak show.

+1 for the duct tape repair.  Below the grip on your poles is a great place to store/roll some.

Voile ski straps also work great for temporary repairs for this, and have a 1000 other uses.  Get some if you haven't already. :)

It was a short trip, and the consequences were low, but you can now see how important it is to be able to make some backcountry repairs.   It's a good idea to figure out a solution for some common failures (for instance, skin rips, broken skin tip, binding failure, ski pole breaks, etc.) soyou will have the know-how and the pieces to limp back home from deeper in the backcountry.   

FWIW, I use those same skins w/o any tail hook. 

Trim the end of the skin so it ends before your ski tail starts curves up.  You want a clean, straight cut, perpendicular to your skis.  Use a skin trimming tool to make it easy.  If no one around here has one handy, a sharp pair of scissors or utility knife will work.  Next, round/angle the back two corners a bit, where the tail ripped off.  Here’s a shape that works well for me:

http://picasaweb.google.com/djbenno/Selling#5444132807658103826

Repeat for both skins and have a go at testing it on snow.   

If you find yourself having issues (i.e. if your glue is older/less sticky and just won't hold) you can add the tail kits at any point later, but I think you'll be just fine w/o and save yourself 15 bucks.  Makes it easier to store them (fold/roll) too.

You can also sew your skin back together with dental floss.

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february-27-2010-kendall
BSHB
2010-03-01 22:16:21