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Topic: Dec 3-4, Spider Mtn, north face tag (Read 13549 times)
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tabski
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Posts: 256
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Skied a line on Spider Mountain's north face with a great crew during this last lovely weekend. Ryan L, Eric W, Antonio J, Dan H, Peter H, and myself left the car appx. 4 miles from the Cascade Pass trailhead. Though the road is open to within 2 miles of the trailhead (at Johnson's cabin), our rented, non-insured mini van struggled with the deep, hard frozen ruts - only the highest-clearance vehicles would make it all the way.
We climbed the road, crossed Cascade Pass, and as darkness fell we camped in the depression ~500' below Cache Col and enjoyed fine dinner with stars, a half-moon, calm wind, and a bottle of Wild Turkey 101. We left camp on skis at 4:45am, crossed the col and arrived at the pass by Art's Knoll with the first light of the day. We descended to the base of the north face of Spider and began climbing Arachnophobia, the 1976 climber's line first skied by Volken and Avolio in 2003. The bergschrund was easily crossed and soon four of our party were perched on the summit ridge. Two stopped slightly lower due to the icy conditions on the final 100m of steep slope.
Those who skied from the ridge had to sidestep with ice axe in hand until gaining the less steep and icy slopes below before making turns. Even there where the snow surface was a smooth 4'' of powder, turns were made with extreme caution as old ice crusts and bed surfaces lurked just below the surface, and the zig-zagging nature of the route keeps it constantly exposed to cliffbands below.
We had spaced out significantly during this time, and after regaining the ridge at Art's Knoll, we finally regrouped back in the sun below the climb to Cache Col. The sun sat definitively as we gained the ridge, and we skied down to camp with the light of the alpenglow reflecting off of Forbidden, Sahale, and Buckner. We ate the last of the food, brewed tea, packed up camp, and clicked back into the skis. The moon lit our way as we skied down into Pelton Basin, climbed up to Cascade Pass, and skied down and out the snow covered road to the car, arriving at around 8pm.
Gobble Gobble.
The line is the leftmost, slightly traversing snow slope.
Climb.
View.
Survive.
Shred.
Easy now...
Finally, getting less far from the car. The line's exit is seen directly above the skier before slanting right.
Endlessly inspiring mountains.
Hurry Up, Spider, Formidable (L-R).
Skiing rules!
A few more images here:
http://photobucket.com/twelvelegspidy
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Charlie Hagedorn
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Posts: 1908
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Mighty fine! Glad the snow wasn't too blown out.
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silaswild
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Posts: 1722
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Well chosen objective, team, timing, and execution! Nice writing and photos, thanks for sharing. Way to surf the cream of the Cascades.
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jasonkdowns
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Posts: 37
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Awesome, Drew!
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ryanl
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Posts: 362
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Nice write up Drew, and great to get out with you. Funny timing- I just posted on Sky's site.
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danpeck
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Posts: 499
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Inspiring!
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mtkato
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Posts: 5
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just. plain. awesome.
thanks for the writeup and for sharing.
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Marcus
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Fantastic Drew, thanks for sharing it -- hope you didn't have to pack out all that Wild Turkey 
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Mattski
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Posts: 150
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Damn, 5 star!
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chmnyboy
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Posts: 264
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Nothin but class.
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Mofro
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Posts: 296
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Skiing rules.
Well stated.
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not always bad
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Pete_H
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Posts: 278
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Good times. Should have brought more whiskey. As usual.
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alecapone
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Posts: 826
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nice work gang!
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scott
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esvege
5Member
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Posts: 60
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Rad! Nice work
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Lisa
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Posts: 376
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Well done gentlemen!
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hedonaut
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Posts: 196
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what a trip. thanks for the well-written story, tabski! i took some pictures and posted them here.
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« Last Edit: 12/08/11, 12:58 PM by hedonaut »
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Gregg_C
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Posts: 345
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Nice warm up guys. Since Dan didn't pick his skiis up from my place until Friday night it is damned impressive that these were his first turns for the year.
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David_Coleman
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Posts: 381
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Once again, the E-liminator (aka E-dub, E$, E-lderly) proves his balls and lungs are made of steel, or something along those lines! Nice work fellas.
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mikerolfs
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Posts: 946
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You guys are grr-animals. Nice work and nice write up. Perfect timing right now to get to things that have snow, but the road isn't quite impassable yet. I'm inspired.
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AKrider
5Member
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Posts: 7
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Bad ass guys. Great work and great pics. EW, sick sunset pics on Picassa
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trees4me
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Posts: 506
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Fantastic tag guys! Way to take advantage of the high pressure and score a nice line!
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chill people, skiing is fun
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