snow?

[Perry]

You also gotta be able to do a left-handed self-arrest, since the route traverses to the right. (Left hand gripping the head of the ice axe.)

[lee]

Thank you, everyone, for your interest in our trip and for your kind words and advice.
Thank you, Cy, for pointing out Richard's trip report. I did not know he posted it in the forum section.
I have not had time to go through the pictures to toss out all the bad and unflattering ones yet. But I have looked at the GPS data to see where we were.
I am going to try posting pictures here now.
Here is the close-up of the last part of the GPS track of our 12/16/2007 trip:

[lee]

Sorry, that did not work. Hopefully Perry will fix it and tell me what I did wrong.
In any case, I posted 3 google earth pictures at
http://leeland.shutterfly.com
(the 2007.12.16.Skyline.GPS album)

- the first one shows the track from my successful 06/24/2007 trip
- the second one shows the track from our 12/16/2007 trip (up to where we turned around)
- the third one shows the track from where Mike and I spent the night to the museum

As seen from the first and second pictures, I am glad we did not go all the way on our 12/16/2007 trip

I would love to hear your comments. Thank you.

[Cy Kaicener]

Lee - The three google earth pictures look good. It looks a lot steeper than it really is. With snow it would look dangerous and scary. I am looking forward to seeing the other pictures when the link is fixed. We have a few savvy computer people on this board so it should not be long.

[KathyW]

Lee:

Are you able to post images from Shutterfly? Have you done it before? Some of the photo hosting sites only allow you to post a link.

Kathy

[lee]

Cy: The way I capture the google earth images probably made that area looks steeper than it really is. What I wanted to get was the distance from where we turned around/headed straight up on 12/16/2007 to the end point of the traverse to Coffman's Crag (where you should start heading up) to see how far we missed that spot on 12/16/2007. I will try to measure/estimate that distance this weekend. And I would also like to know, by looking at the GPS track from 12/16/2007, if it is advisable/possible for us to reach the tram had we kept going (straight up) instead of turning around.
By the way, you can get shutterfly to display somewhat higher resolution version of those images by viewing them as slide show (you can stop and go back and forth in slide show).

Kathy: I have never done posting images from shutterfly or anywhere so I don't know. It looks like I can't. I also have free account on flickr. I will experiment with that. If you know of a free service that allow you to post images from, please let me know.

[guest]

Lee,

Glad your safe & had the courage, lack of ego, and turned back, as hard as it is.

I'd estimate the traverse to be 1/2 mile or less across, from the time you leave what we call the Rocky Ridge, (where the trail stops switching back & forth straight up the mountain) to Coffman's Craig.

There's a couple shutes (knarly, rocky, steep drainages) before this that one "might" be able to top out on, but it would take tremedous effort in these conditions (I've done one in snow, and it was extremely tough). Also, there's a very good chance that you'll hit some big granite spires, class 4 type stuff, very dangerous even in dry conditions.

The only one that "might" be doable as far as I know, is the one before Coffman's, which I'm not recommending, but this may be the one the 2 hikers attempted recently, with no success. I've done this one in the dry, and it got a "pucker factor" rating from me, at least the way I went.

There's so much "deadfall" on the ground from the drought, plus snow can make the fluted ridges even steeper, that it's quite dangerous & only super fit, mountaineers would be successful, IMHO.

You know when you get to the end of the Traverse, as Coffmans' is staring at you approx. 50 ft. away!, with a hugh, steep, gapping ravine in between. From there, you can basically only go up, steeply!

Happy, safe Hiking,

ss

[magikwalt]

Hi Lee,

Twice I have attempted to find a more noble path to the top from what appears to be the same area you move up. Both times I was looking to go up just before the traverse. Each time I failed to find a line that looked reasonable without resorting to 4 points of contact.

Walt

[lee]

Thank you, ss, Walt, for your much appreciated opinion and advice. I don't think I will try those routes under any circumstances and will try to stay with the "trail".

[cynthia23]

Yep, I agree with all these gents profoundly. The general rule to follow is: get close enough to Coffman's Crag that you can lob a spitball at it. Truly, not metaphorically: get to the edge of that fifty foot gap. Then, and ONLY then: go up.