[#19]

Still lots of it up high. Light snow last Sat above 6000'. Signs of recent small avy's 6000' to 7500'. Firm in AM and then soft in PM. Put in a few miles of holes on way out.

[Backpacker Joe]

Here we have Liberty Bell. 5/11/03 The parking lot was plowed, but there was still a 6' snow level around the covered toilets. TB

[#19]

Nice shot BPJ. The scenic viewing area you shot from is one of the best anywhere. IMO. Here is what it looks like zoomed up on from Kangaroo Pass. Anyone know if that rock feature is completely natural? I'm hoping it wasn't blasted into it's current flat top to accomadate the masses.

[Backpacker Joe]

Thanks Pappy. I had my mom with me so we didnt go out on the snow to get out to that viewing area. There were some people out there when we were driving around down to Mazama. TB

[MCaver]

I believe Liberty Bell and the Early Winter Spires it's part of are the throat of an ancient volcano, and thus completely natural.

[pappy-]

[Stefan]

Not bad Pappy. Here was a shot my friend took when we were on top of Mt. Hardy on 5/10/2003 looking south.

Repulse From Hardy

[IBEX]

Liberty Bell Mountain, Early Winters Spires and much of the surrounding rock near Washington Pass are part of the Black Peak or Golden Horn Batholiths. These large stumps of Ganodiorite magma cooled and solidified nearly 50 million years ago and have since floated up through the earths mantle to be shaped, shatter and sculpted by repetitive glacial periods. Though granite and volcanic rocks are related as igneous types, volcanic rock climbs are crumbly and treacherous, were as granite rocks are mostly solid and a pure joy to climb.

Nice image Stefan.

[polarbear-]

I've been reading this book on the N. Cascades that says some of the rock came from China. That's a long ways or maybe it wasn't so long back then.

[Quark]

Yup, a plate from S China docked onto us, alright. I forget all the particulars. Too lazy to pull out the books. IBEX is hot onto it, though... As an added nifty thing about the area - there are seashell fossils in the rock on top of Slate Peak. Next time you're there, take a tool and hammer away -eventually you find a fossil. I have 2 of 'em sitting on my windowsill, along with a chunk of Route 66. I drove as much of the original Rt 66 as I possibly could, from Amarillo to California. It drove my nephew nuts, 'cause I insisted on getting outta the car, standing on the old broken road, and reflecting of days gone by. I try doing that at Slate Peak, but it is sometimes difficult to be One with a fossilized crustacean - yet I really should admit that sometimes I am on the same level and have no problem tuning in with them.

[Larry]

Quark pontificated: "I try doing that at Slate Peak, but it is sometimes difficult to be One with a fossilized crustacean - yet I really should admit that sometimes I am on the same level and have no problem tuning in with them." I have been having good luck becoming one with the more modern and contemporary crustaceans. I pried a group of chitons off the rocks at Yellow Banks, shaved my head, and placed them in a double helix pattern on my skull. The resultant strains of "Go tell Alice When She's Ten Feet Tall" provided me with a quite forbidden pleasure, when coupled with the holdfast pads on the chitons squinching the skin of my skull up as though it had been attacked by the rubber thing from a snakebite kit.

[polarbear-]

When I go to Slate Peak, I do some clamming and then I make fresh Linguine. It is quite good, especially in that setting. The beige rocks in that area come from Beiging, or rather, Beiging left them there. One or the other.

[Larry]