Today's Hike

Awesome photos. Must. Resist. Breaking. Out. Thread....

nepa wrote

 
Local Marmot

 

Looks like a damn woodchuck to me --- BANG!

Skiray wrote

Curious to know why it was survival mode? Did the snow not give into the turns, was it due to exposure or crevices?  From the pics that ADK Jeff posted, you can see we are full on summer here now.

Lovely shots and great TR.

Thanks Ray.  No crevices in the snowfield.  The low angle of the slope and the strength of the sun creates little mini craters (sun cups).  This creates a surface that is not conducive to fun, enjoyable turns.  Unlike a mogul field, there are no defined lines in the sun cups... it's completely random.  Below 9k, the snow was pretty soft, but skis were still bucking like a bronco.  To call it "un-carvable" would be an understatement.  I call it survival mode anytime the ski is merely a tool for traveling over snow more efficiently.  There was very little enjoyment from the actual skiing... it was just a faster way to get back to the car.   If we walked down from Camp Muir, it would have taken about an hour longer.  It's a double edged sword... you have to carry the gear overland, so you expend more energy, but you can move much more efficiently (both ascending and descending) on the snow.

Harvey wrote

Awesome photos. Must. Resist. Breaking. Out. Thread....

Thanks Harv.  It was an interesting trip.  It felt more like a hike than a ski trip.  I don't want to clutter up the forum.  If you want to move it to a different thread, that's totally cool with me.    

campgottagopee wrote

Looks like a damn woodchuck to me --- BANG!

To be honest, I thought the were different than woodchucks, but they aren't:

The groundhog (Marmota monax), also known as a woodchuck, or Eastern Marmot, is one of four species of marmot in North America. The others are the Hoary Marmot (Marmota caligata), the Yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris) and the Olympic Marmot (Marmota olympus).

I think the photo is of a Hoary Marmot.  Based on WA state regs, these guys are protected.  You can trap em but you can't shoot em  

That's prime TR material for Summer Sports.

Course I'm biased towards TRs.

nepa wrote

campgottagopee wrote

Looks like a damn woodchuck to me --- BANG!

To be honest, I thought the were different than woodchucks, but they aren't:

The groundhog (Marmota monax), also known as a woodchuck, or Eastern Marmot, is one of four species of marmot in North America. The others are the Hoary Marmot (Marmota caligata), the Yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris) and the Olympic Marmot (Marmota olympus).

I think the photo is of a Hoary Marmot.  Based on WA state regs, these guys are protected.  You can trap em but you can't shoot em

LOL, I thought so too and looked them up just like you did.

That looks like a big one, must be they grow em bigger over there

here's another pic of one of the varmints..

 

The new ADK High Peaks map is out: http://www.adk.org/product.php?pid=2294&pname=Trails%20of%20the%20Adirondack%20High%20Peaks%20Map

Has anybody seen it yet?

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Wow these are amazing photos..  Really incredible.

Yeah, they really are.

I was in Harriman today and the blueberries are starting to come in down here, summer is tasting good so far.

This was actually Sunday's hike...but I was away enjoying the scenery.  

I am not sure if you've ever been to St. John before but I highly recommend it.  2/3 of the island is a national park, totally undeveloped except for some long standing land holdings from before the time of the park. Most, if not all of the park land was donated by Laurance Rockefeller.  We flew into St. Thomas and while waiting for the ferry to St. John, I spotted this liftline:



The mate on the boat explained to me that it is the Paradise Point Tram.

The ferry ride over to St. John was a nice, rum punch filled, 30 minute boat ride through some of the smaller Virgin Islands, including Jeffrey Epstein's infamous  Little Saint James Island.  

They are experiencing a fairly severe drought down there and, as a result, the stream and waterfall that usually runs down alongside the hike was dry.  We also opted to arrange for a pick up at the end of the hike instead of hiking back up the same or another nearby trail, probably about 1000 vertical feet.  Call me a wuss, but I think you'll understand this decision based on the photographs to come near the end of this TR.

After descending a well worn, rocky trail for a bit shy of a mile or so, we were able to get our first glimpse of Reef Bay, which is in the distance and for which the hike is named.  



After about another half of a mile or so we came to a side trail which is called the Petroglyph trail,  which you guessed it, leads to some really cool petroglyphs:







After walking the short 1/4 mile back to the main trail, we continued our descent down the last 3/4 of a mile or so along a slightly wider and smoother trail that passed through numerous old sugar cane plantation ruins.  The trail culminated at the old Reef Bay Sugar Mill ruins:





After exploring the ruins for a bit, a short walk through the brush led us to a stunning quartermoon shaped beach. After a little time for a refreshing dip, we made our James Bond exit with the help of this small launch which picked us up on the beach.



And brought us out to a larger speedboat which wisked us away past a few miles of national seashore and some amazing private homes perched on the cliffs overlooking the most azure colored water one's mind could imagine.  

Fastpacking in the Glacier Peak Wilderness on Monday and Tuesday.

Glacier Peak from a camp just above Buckcreek Pass

This zone in the GP Wilderness was a complete weather anomaly.  High elevation snowpack was just a bit below normal last season.  Currently, both the Spider Glacier and Lyman snowfield have pretty smooth surfaces.  If you don't mind carrying your gear 10 miles, you could earn some sweet turns here.  

Looking down the Lyman Snowfield from Spider Gap:

Very cool Nepa.  Great to see that you're taking advantage of the amazing outdoor opportunities where you live.  When you think of all the people that live so close to incredible wilderness and scenery in the PNW (and all over the west for that matter) who never leave the shopping malls on the weekend, it makes me think "what's wrong with these people?"

The PNW looks amazing still considering how poor the snow was at lower elevation, upper looked pretty well covered from the photos I have seen.  Some truly epic scenery there - incredible photos too.

We are primarily flatlanders in the summer as we like the beach - beach with mountains would be awesome but, we have to  go to either Northern Maine or Vermont/Upper NY for that. The views of Champlain are pretty amazing.


Here is what we have been up too -

..

Nice to have friends with boats - fast ones too....

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