Icy-Ness Starting to Happen

[Perry]

I went up last night for some night-shoeing. Broke the front claws! Stainless steel. Somebody will find them in the spring... It's only icy in a few spots, still semi-consolidated powder in some shaded un-broken areas.

[drndr]

Perry where exactly is 'up'. Long Valley?

[Perry]

I rode the tram up and took a direct route to the summit. Sorry for the vagueness. I came down the Miller Saddle way, which was easier. Going directly up the east face without an ice axe is a bad idea. The top layer does give, but it's thin and the base is solid. I had to kick in to get traction, which probably led to the metal fatigue which broke the cleats at a later time.

[zippetydude]

Let's see if I can sum up that post: It's probably not a good idea at night, alone, over an icy crust, without an ice axe, on a very steep approach.

Yipes.

Well, I'm glad you had fun!

z

[Perry]

Okay, yeah there's a few qualifications to that warning. There is enough of a solid base that a person hiking up to Miller Saddle during the day could slide a ways, get scraped up a bit, but probably not die. If it doesn't snow for another couple weeks it could get extremely icy. The longer this melting/freezing cycle continues, the more icy it will be.

[Norris]

Perry, has the snow consolidated enough that crampons only (no snowshoes) is viable now during the middle of the day? Or would a 200 lb man encounter horrible postholing?

[Perry]

That's a good question. Right now I don't think it's ideal snowshoeing or alpine climbing. It's that halfway in between period. If I go next week during the day I'll use crampons and poles, taking the miller saddle route. In slush, I get better traction when I'm not floating too much. The MSR snowshoes are probably better than most. At night I would bring an ice axe, but during the day I think the shaft would just slide into the snow.

This would be nice to have:
http://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/ge ... hippet.php

[mark2812]

Norris, I was up to the summit last saturday -- after coming down from miller saddle in crampons - i switched to snowshoes for the rest of the way via tamarack... because i was sinking to my waist...mind you..i did have a large pack and i am a big guy....still, postholing to my waist was not fun..switching to my msr snowshoes made a huge difference.