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May 28, 2017, Steamboat Prow

5/28/17
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Posted by jakedouglas on 5/28/17 12:45pm
Don't be suckered by the amount of snow in the parking lot like myself and many others this weekend. Snow is discontinuous for over 2 miles and trail runners are the correct approach tool. I made it out without any carnage but I suspect a number of people ended up with hamburger feet.

I crossed the river barefoot on the way in, but this is not necessary and you should be able to follow various cattle tracks now that stay climbers right in the trees away from the river and end up in Glacier Basin without getting your feet wet. Luge track on the way out worked pretty well too.

Plenty of wet slide evidence but much snow has already been shed and I was not particularly concerned with anything reaching the skin track up the center of the basin. One substantial new slide came down by the time I headed down around 2pm on the south side of the basin and it stopped well above the common skinning path.

While climbing the Interglacier I was passed by Andy and Jason Dorais working hard to descend on skimo race gear, who went on to set a new FKT for Liberty Ridge with an Emmons descent of 7:07 car-to-car (!!!!!!!!!!!!). I later had the pleasure of meeting my ski heroes and their friends (who also did the same route in a single push, albeit a bit slower) in the parking lot.

Plenty of climbers and skiers on the Emmons, as well as numerous helicopter passes including what looked like flying someone off of the summit and lots of buzzing around the eastern side of Curtis ridge above the Winthrop. Not sure what they were doing there.

Top ~1k skied pretty well and the rest was just a lot of work. 1 foot pole penetration was not uncommon and I just had to lock my quads and make very long traverses. Other people appeared to be struggling as well. I skied over a couple small cracks that were starting to open up, so keep your eyes peeled.

There was also a very brazen bear close to the trail on the way out. I was alone when I came upon it so I waited for the couple behind me to catch up, who then wanted to take pictures, and more people showed up. A group of about 8 of us proceeded loudly and it did not seem very perturbed.
flying machine for skier injured by crevasse fall

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/injured-climber-plucked-from-crevasse-on-emmons-glacier/

This may have been one of the helicopter trips I saw, but the article says that accident occurred at 12.3k and I'm nearly certain that I saw them haul someone from the summit area.

author=jakedouglas link=topic=38554.msg156041#msg156041 date=1496071519]
This may have been one of the helicopter trips I saw, but the article says that accident occurred at 12.3k and I'm nearly certain that I saw them haul someone from the summit area.

My guess is that some of the rescuers climbed back to the summit while the victim was flown to the hospital and were extracted (and inserted) there because of the safer LZ

That would make sense. Someone else told me that they had earlier seen what looked like a litter hanging from the line, but at that point none of us had a vantage point to see where it had come from. What I saw later looked like a person with no litter.

We did Emmons this weekend. Here's the timeline of the rescue:

Saturday night, after various flybys, 2 park rangers were dropped off at the Winthrop saddle then descended to the accident site.

Sunday morning, around 9-10am, a 3rd ranger was dropped off at the accident site via short haul.

2nd flight, ranger and victim were short hauled out.

3rd flight, gear was short hauled out.

4th flight, the 2 park rangers were short hauled out and dropped off at Camp Schurman. We talked to one later in the day after returning from the summit.

We had front row seats for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th flights, and will post photos later.

So back to the 7:07 time. (!) What is the vertical total, since you drop down to the start of liberty ridge?

d

author=sprice link=topic=38554.msg156052#msg156052 date=1496109139]
So back to the 7:07 time. (!) What is the vertical total, since you drop down to the start of liberty ridge?



Total vert gained 11,222 over 21 miles according to GPS


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may-28-2017-steamboat-prow
jakedouglas
2017-05-28 19:45:08