South Sister Trip

With the Cascades Lake Highway freshly open plans were laid in the office for a splitboard trip on South Sister. With over 4000 feet of Cascade corn skiing South Sister is a annual ritual for Bend snowsliders. Here's some pics from the Office Ninja's splitboard trip in early June where we encountered warm temps, rain, hail, and thunderstorms. All in a all a great day in the mountains!

2009 Guides' Training on the Palmer Snowfield

On Thursday May 14, we had our second day of 2009 Guides’ training up on the Palmer Snowfield of Mt. Hood.

Going into it, we all had "wishes" for nice powder skiing and sunny weather but instead the mountain gods served us up a full-course of “anti-wish” pie- high winds, low visibility, and ice.

But it was a fun and exciting day anyway- and we all got to bust-out our shell gear and goggles!

For a flavor of “full-conditions” up on the Palmer Snowfield, check out the video below.

An early-season ascent of Mt. Hood

On April 26, I had the opportunity to climb Mt Hood with Judge Wilson, who flew out from Kentucky. Judge had alot of climbing experience, having climbed Kilimanjaro, the Grand Teton, Mt. Rainier, Mt Washington, and 11 of the 14'ers in Colorado. He had always wanted to climb Mt Hood and arrived at the lodge in great shape with an infectious and enthusiastic attitude.

We had stormy weather with no visibility during our snow school and the forecast for our climb day was 45 ph winds but we decided to go for it anyway.

We began our climb in clouds and wind but by 4Am and were able to climb above the storm and found clear skies, excellent snow, and most importantly, no wind!

There were few other parties on the mountain this weekend, with two other TMG trips ascending the mountain, guided by Joe Owens (photo below) and Geoff Lodge.

With firm, styrofoam-like snow, we moved efficiently through the moonless night and into the clear, blue and pink-colored sunrise. A thick marine layer of clouds (the source of the wind and sleet below) drifted across below us, obscuring the land underneath. Above us, the summit towers were encased in a thick layer of white rime ice.

We ascended to the Hogsback and then traversed west to the "Old Chute". With a little water-ice in the exit gulley to spice things up, we reached the summit at 9:30 AM, with 28 degrees, sun, and only a faint breath of wind. Joe and company were already laying out on the summit, soaking in the sunny skies. It was a memorable summit day!

Here's a video of the climb.

Classic Oregon Alpine! 9 O'Clock Couloir on Broken Top

John and I set out bright and early this last Monday on the snowmobile to take advantage of good, cold, climbing conditions on this Oregon Classic. Great hiking lead us speedily to the base where we found the climb in great condition, under sunny skies!








John was a stout climber and we made great time reaching the summit just as the clouds of an incoming storm moved in on us....but never fear, we were well off the mountain as the first snow flakes began to fall! A brief snowmobile ride back out quickly lead us to Bend for some afternoon celebrating! Thanks John for a great trip! Come back soon as I have plenty more Oregon classics to show you!

Haute Route- Skiing from Chamonix to Zermatt

In early April, I had the privilege of tail guiding for two friends in Europe: Olivia Cussen and John Race, owners and guides for the Northwest Mountain School (mountainschool.com) . From April 7 -12 we skied through the Western Alps from Chamonix, France to Zermatt, Switzerland on a 6 day, 5 night hut tour. Our group consisted of Ken, Shelae, Jess and Jeremy as intrepid adventurers with John and Olivia as guides and me as official helper.



Great views and incredible mountains surrounded us. Here we are almost to the Col Du Chardonnay.We had one rappel on the route at the Col du Chardonnay.


All of the Swiss Huts are fantastic and comfortable with great food. This enables one to travel with a fairly light pack. Light Pack = Fun Skiing!

Skiing on the glaciers here is just incredible!

The Mt Fort Hut in Verbier.

Climbing to the top of Rosablanche. A high summit along the way.

Our group on the summit.

Olivia Cussen, aka Wilma Schralpington makes it look so easy.

The icing on the cake was skiing powder on our final long day below the awesome north face of the Matterhorn.






From the town of Zermatt, the Matterhorn looms large.

Chris & Joey: 2, Mt. Huntington: Also 2 (Summits: 0). Alaska: Heck Yeah.

Talkeetna, AK: After two weeks on the mighty East Fork of the Tokositna Glacier, my longtime partner in crime Joey McBrayer (formerly of Bend, currently of Talkeetna) and I are eating bagels, drying gear out at the Alaska Mountaineering School headquarters, and trying to fatten ourselves back up. Two weeks in the shadow of Mt. Huntington behind us, my toes are thawing out and I'm beginning to think about squeezing in some more climbing before coming back home to Oregon.














A complete trip report will eventually be forthcoming, but to check in quickly, we were able to climb the beautiful West Face Couloir (aka Nettle-Quirk) [V AI4 3200'] as well as the Colton-Leach [VI AI4+ 85° 4000'], although (heartbreakingly) both climbs ended at the summit ridge and not the summit proper, the first attempt being halted by the triumph of unconsolidated sugary snow over fast and light tactics (i.e. it got dark and we had no bivy gear), the second being halted after two days of climbing into a storm. Either way, a memorable first trip into the Alpine dreamscape that is the Alaska Range. Rad.

First Mt. Hood Summit for TMG's 2009 Season! by Jon Bates

I was fortunate enough to have the company of young Rhys Dubin on my first Mt Hood climb of the year. We had excellent conditions for our summit attempt consisting of perfect neve crust all the way to the base of Crater Rock. After assessing the snow conditions and the weather we decided to spice things up a touch and have a go at the Devil's Kitchen Headwall. We found great moderate ice climbing in two pitches up to the East Crater Rim where we were greeted by very high winds from the west. We then began climbing the final portion of the Wy'East route weaving through the numerous gendarmes and gullys.

The view was completely unobstructed by cloud and was fantastic. We summited around 8 am completing TMG's first successful summit bid of 2009. We descended the Pearly Gates to find 10' vertical step of ice which we carefully negotiated down to the hogs back and then downward through the cloud layer to the Lodge. All in all I had a great start to my season with an aspiring young alpinist.