march 12, 2005, the birthday tour, WA pass area

Aha, the birthday tour actually open for business on my birthday this year! Sorry I couldn't join you all for the opening days off route 20 this year, as I've been down in the the bay area traipsing about the big city and the oak woodlands. Madison avenue looks sweet!

- Kevin

what an awesome way to spend your b-day, kamo!  despite the corn-from-the-freezer like conditions, we had gorgeous weather and great company.  and after that last run back to the road, all i can say is, thank god for donuts!! ;)

A fine day to be out the N. Cascades!  Glad we found some good corn snow on Madison Ave. to make up for the "survival skiing" on the icy/shaded aspects in the Early Winter's Creek drainage  ;)

A couple short video clips (.AVI format) from the trip are
posted here.  (as for the image quality, it's not your computer monitor, my camera just sucks  ;D  though the clarity of the 3rd clip seemed to turn out better than the other 2).

Some 'still pics' from the trip are posted at the link below:
http://www.cascadesfreak.com/gallery/bdtour-3-12-2005

Nice pictures you guys! Too bad that Corinne and I could not join you on Saturday - funny though that we ended up doing the exact same trip ;-)

Did I see that right or is Kam really carrying his skis up?? He must be getting really old  ;D

Did I see that right or is Kam really carrying his skis up?? He must be getting really old  ;D

yes, i am getting old, and i had skin issues.

btw, i've posted more photos (click here to view).

Thanks for posting the report Kam!
Great to see you and the Cass up on the pass.
Incredible day of touring. Great pics! Which way did you guys come out?

Great pictures, Kam, especially the one of Carter!

Edited to add: . . . and now on the cover of Telemarktips.com for all the world to see!

Which way did you guys come out?

Heya Joe!  Great to see you again last Saturday!  
We finished the BD tour via the small pass and very icy E-facing couloir on the ridge north of Copper Peak (north of "Kangaroo Pass"); then made the descending traverse in the Early Winter's Creek drainage to the hairpin turn at Hwy 20.  A generous snowboarder driving a Volvo gave me a ride back the Blue Lake trailhead to retrieve the car  :)

Sorry I missed seeing you all this weekend;  I was hoping too!   Did a long adventure on the s. side of Black Peak Saturday and got back late (9:30) and then part of the bday tour Sun.

Sorry I missed seeing you all this weekend;  I was hoping too!   Did a long adventure on the s. side of Black Peak Saturday and got back late (9:30) and then the bday tour Sun.

hi Monika!  good to hear you were in the area.  how was Black Peak?  was that 9:30pm that you made it back to the car?  wow.  so how was the snow on the south side?

 how was Black Peak?  was that 9:30pm that you made it back to the car?  wow.  so how was the snow on the south side?

well, awesome views as you know plus 1/3 ice climbing/crossing, 1/3 night skiing, part  creek crossings (we were attempting to a loop via Last Chance Pass but not enough snow so ended up backtracking) and I'd say about 1400' "almost corn" out of 8300'.   you may be thinking "yikes!" and with any normal group yes.  But everyone, Paul Russell, Mike Cohen and Gregg from Bellingham, had superstar attitudes (and legs).  So we had an awesome time.  The first 100' of that s. side run starting at about 8500' was steeper and softened nicely.   Then turned hard until 7200' down to about 5900'.

check random tracks for Gregg's post re his lost ski that starry night...

... 8300'.  ...

burly!  that's over eight-times more than what i normally do in a day.  glad to hear everyone had fun!

Some pics from our Black Peak adventure:

http://community.webshots.com/album/296882051hCMwrw

Full tour on schedule for repeat next year...

Paul: excellent photos!!!!  thanks for sharing.   ;)

How do you resize your images when you insert them into a TR?   I've tried doing it from my comcast homepage.  I get the image to show up, but it always comes out way too large regardless of my resizing it on my homepage.  hyak mentioned downloading a tool which I didn't have much luck with...is that what you're using?

www.irfanview.com

download irfanview. Open pic. Select "image" "resize/resample" enter 640 by 580, "save as", "options", "80%", save. And you'll have a 640 by 580 pic around 70kb.

Awesome, this worked great!

When did you do the tour?  Is there a trip report?  The pics are great. It' one of my favorite spots.  I've camped and climbed, but this weekend will be the first time to ski.
bill

Wow - nice pictures Paul!

We did the Black Peak tour last Sat, March 12.  Monika made reference to our trip above, but no other TR.  Yes, it's a great area and one of my favorites as well.  Hope your ski trip this weekend goes well.  Should be a very different trip from ours with the change in weather and some new snow.

Appreciate all the comments on the pics.  I just converted to digital (reluctantly) and its great to make images available -- now that I've figured out how.