Coast Range photos - September 2002
Greg checks out a dilapidated cabin in swampy meadowy Standard Creek. We later found out there was a drier trail that avoided some of the marshy valley bottom.
South slope of Whitecap Mtn - 4000ft of steep scree and steep meadow.
The Connel Creek/McGillivray Pass divide.
Mount Piebiter.
Morning Light in upper Connel Creek.
Peering over a dense tree patch trying to find a safe way down the killer meadows. They were wet from the night's constant rain, so crampons were necessary to avoid slippage.
After being dropped off by Mike King the previous evening, Gambrelli and I spent the first day wandering around the glacier.
Starting to snow kind of hard... apparently a group on Waddington during this time received 50cm of fresh snow.
Walking beneath Mt Nicholson.
The glacier was not finished with us though. We walked off its toe into an area of green glacial till "quicksand". The solid-looking boulders were merely floating on its surface. We both got to higher ground before it could eat us, but the green muck stayed on our boots and pants for the rest of the trip.
Muck on boots and pants.
Nepalese woman washing pots in one of the villages on the approach to K2. Actually, it's just Gambrelli washing pots in Whitesaddle Creek.
Clouds and sun.
Mount Nicholson in poor weather.
By the end of the day, the weather began to clear.
Hiking along a moraine near camp (red dot), trying to find the goat that kept eluding us. For those who have read Jitterbug Perfume, I think this was Pan. We saw his tracks everywhere, but he was not visible.
Clouds cling to Whitesaddle Mtn and the rock bluffs.
Cirque walls at the head of Whitesaddle Creek.
G's first real glacier experience.
On the glacier toe.
A large flake of ice I unknowingly climbed onto from below. I had placed a screw 4 feet below the lip before climbing up a bit more and poking my head over the edge only discover it was overhung by about 30 feet, and very thin where I was standing! I carefully backed down and traversed into the moat where we bypassed it on rocks.
At another section where we had to traverse back into the moat.
G hiking up the glacier.
A "summit" photo.
Looking west across the valley.
Razorback Mtn from a ridge-top.
Mt Mullen's awesome north face, almost 4000ft high.
On the glacier below Nicholson - 2 miles of bumpy runnels. Occasionally, in the middle of this relatively benign stretch of glacier, a "bottomless" crevasse would appear. Some of them had multi-level waterfalls plunging into their depths.
A couloir on Kontlan
Looking south to the Homathko icefield, and Mt Queen Bess.
G hiking along the ridge east of Nicholson. The contrast here was striking. Off to the left of this photo was a glaciated cirque with 3000ft high walls decorated with snow and ice, and off to the right was a broad, dry, lightly forested green valley. The peak on the right is Blackhorn, seen from the south.
Looking down the valley in the early morning.
Blackhorn Mtn with a photoshopped sky
Unnamed peak from the lake near camp.
Head of Whitesaddle Creek.
North face of Whitesaddle Mtn.
One of the north faces of Blackhorn Mtn. It seemed to have a few.
North face of Razorback as seen from the helicopter. This appears much bigger in person, pictures can't do justice.
