[pct-l] N Cascades SOBO trail/snow report

[goforth at cnw.com (Joanne Lennox)]

This is a very helpful, well written  report that obviously took real effort 
and I was amazed that you seemed as upbeat as you are having just come from 
the warm and fuzzy climes to the South. This morning it is pouring in the 
Cascades, you are lucky to have had the weather yesterday.

but you recommend crossing snowfields in the NOrth Cascades without an ice 
ax and hoping there is a hiker groove.

I think that you may be able to do this. You obviously are very fit at this 
point having hiked 500 miles already.  I note that you had an ice ax and 
knew how to use it.  Knowing self arrest and how to use an ice ax allows one 
the experience to actually stop better in a fall without an ice ax, and it 
gives a person the knowledge of when he needs to be very careful and how far 
his limits are.  Using a self arrest with an ice ax, some of the stopping 
power is in the placement of the feet and the arch of the back - the 
position of the body.  This can be used without an ice ax(not a substitute), 
but has to be practiced with an ice ax to be done safely.  In some cases a 
person knowing ice ax arrest well, will be safer without an ice ax then a 
person having an ice ax and not really knowing how to use it well.

In the same regard, trekking poles can be used as a very POOR SUBSTITUTE, 
but to encourage this is to believe they are adequate on a slope where an 
ice ax is needed and where somebody without ice ax experience can use them 
in the way that you do. I have seen them used in this way, and bent also. 
Hiking poles do NOT HAVE ADEQUATE STRENGTH to stop a fall in certain types 
of snow, with certain weight of individuals, and only if the gripe on the 
pole is very close to the snow surface. Many falls are the result of slips 
or  imbalances -a self belay only helps if it is in place before the slip 
happens.  If we knew when a slip or fall was going to happen we would not 
need a ice ax. It should be noted that a bent and broken hiking pole can do 
a lot of damage to a body during a tumble on snow.

I seriously doubt that there will be much of a hiker groove in the cascades 
for SOBO hikers.  I rarely saw one inthe Sierras with lots of hikers. If 
there was not one there now, what makes you think that there will be one 
there in 2 weeks?  VEry few people enter the NC before the 4th of July to 
hike.

Goforth