3-16, Smooth Jazz

Lrudholm and I had talked about getting up here previously, but reports where that the road was blocked. Set out this am to do some road recon to see how close I could get to the Barclay lake TH. I attempted it a few days ago, but this time I was armed with a chain saw and straps. Luckily someone must have did the dirty work yesterday, because the trees where gone. Unluckily, the snow became to deep to drive somewhere before mile marker 3. I dunno, maybe 3 miles or so from the TH. It's a pretty familiar road for me being so close to the house and one of my girlfriends favorite quick hikes. She is actually the one who told me that there was "a snow line touching the lake". She spied it late spring, and within the few days it took me to get up there, the snow had melted back considerably. A while later after becoming more intrested in the history, I searched and read the report from Greg Lange about his ski decent led by Ben Haskell, and how 'jazzy' this line was.

The road was sloppy skinning, but the summer trail was nice and firm, with just a hint of a snow shoe track. After not too long and we where there, staring up at Baring in usual awe. I am sure my mouth was gaping, with a bit of drool. Such an ominous piece of rock. Good news bad news, there was a huge pile of debris a the bottum of the couloir.  actually happy it was there, it made me feel a little safer so we just went straight up the gut. perfect for up, with the occasional douse of slough coming off of the north peak. Sun breaks caused some very big sounding slides to start popping off of merchant peak, but there was not a hint of sun on our side of the valley. weird.

very near the top we lost all visibility and bailed on the last bit. Sad, it would have been cool to hear the whole riff. Although, it's a jam I'd be more then happy to listen too again.