Jim Frankenfield

==> December 2000 Holiday Letter <==

Holiday Greetings, friends and family!

<-- December 18, 2000

Here is a brief summary of a few of the highlights of 2000. I'll leave out the endless hours of computer work, the never ending political hassles of trying to use our public lands without enough money to buy a land manager or legislator, and the many other boring things in life. But they are plentiful as well and the outdoor adventures throughout the year are not the only thing I get to do, unfortunately! Running my own guiding business and the avalanche center (both essentially single-handedly) take more of my time than I get to spend outdoors. There are pictures on the web from many of the years highlights, and I'll link to those. They're often not completed sorted or properly presented until more than a year later but peruse them if you wish.

The first noteworthy adventure was to Nelson BC for a week in February to ski. I had planned a ski trip to a Chalet but had insufficient interest. Instead I spent the week in Nelson where a local friend arranged the use of a locally known cabin for us for a couple nights. This was some of the finest skiing I had all year. The snow was excellent and there was great skiing at slope angles which were safe (since there was some avalanche potential on steeper slopes at the time).

In March I had hoped to go to the Alpine Club of Canada Grassi hut in the northern rockies, on the west slopes. Since it was spring break at the local university I did find two others to go, pretty much at the last minute. But in a burst of weather typical for March there was a low cloud ceiling and a few big snowfalls and getting to the Grassi hut was out of the question. Being there in that weather would have been quite limiting anyway. So we flew into the Great Cairn hut for the week instead.

In May I had an opportunity to attend an international symposium in Innsbruck. I went a week in advance with skis and did some spring ski touring, sumitting two popular Austrian peaks and using the "winter rooms" of a couple huts. On one of the slower days at the conference I also skied down the back of the mountains by the city (from the gondola station at the top), hiked to Scharnitz, and returned to Innsbruck by train.

In June I did two of the intermediately difficult routes in Oregon, encountering rockfall on the second. The first was the east side of North Sister, up the Thayer Glacier Headwall. A very enjoyable climb with my friend Iain, and a long day. Just over a week later the two of us set out to climb the Sandy Glacier Headwall on Mt Hood. As we were crossing above the Sandy Glacier to get to the main headwall, moving quickly across a section exposed to rockfall, we were hit by falling rocks. Lots of rocks - large ones. Damages amounted to a chip off my hip bone (the Iliac Crest - that bony protruding part), a swollen but unbroken hand for Iain, and some major equipment damage that we had more of a chance to ponder later. We were able to get ourselves to a safe area and stabilize the situation, but were evacuated later that afternoon. I spent 24 hours in the hospital, including about 2 under general anesthetic while the picked out the fragments of hip bone and closed the wound up. This attracted far more press attention than it was worthy of (in part for politcal reasons, which I promised not to get into!) and the most accurate information is available on the Oregon Mountaineering Association site.

Following this I spent about 6 weeks doing computer work, including moving and consolidating most of my web work onto a new server. I was able to walk and bike around town within a few days, so I was hardly bed-ridden. But I did take a break from climbing.

By mid-August I was ready for a trip to Canada again. Once again I had hoped to arrange a trip and split the costs (including mine, for organizing it). But once again there were plenty of interested people but no do-ers. So when Iain and I had the chance to join an Alpine Club of Canada Calgary Section trip to the Grassi hut we did that. This was a great trip. I was able to climb the two highest peaks, Mt Clemenceau and Tusk. I started out for the most difficult, Shackleton, but turned back early since the hip was acting annoyed again.

At the end of September I went to Nelson BC again, this time for a week long professional training course on mapping avalanche terrain. We trudged through run-out zones taking core samples from trees, counting rings, and examining damage to extimate return periods. We also learned to use stereographic air photos and historical data in conjunction with the field studies. Immediately following that was an international snow science (ISSW) conference in Big Sky, Montana.

This last trip caught up with my truck, which began making transmission noises by Nelson and then got a smashed windshield from some grouse or other large birds which flew out of the sagebrush of southern Idaho in front of me. So since then I've been in the office working on getting together some money for truck repairs! I spent two weeks at the end of November visiting on the east coast. Now I'm back to 12+ hours a day at the computer as avalanche season gets started up.

The other project that has come about this fall is that the old VW bus became stranded at the highest reaches of some logging roads where it will now be for the winter. No way to get it out now! So I am hoping to get into the area and make good use of it to camp in for some skiing. The trick will be keeping it attended to enough so that the snow load on the roof doesn't get so great it collapses. I've gotten in there a few times now, but with a slow start to winter only the most recent trip was on skis.

In the coming six months I'm looking forward to teaching a few avalanche classes, running a trip to a ski-chalet in the backcountry if people will stop thinking about and do it, and guiding a climbing trip to Ecuador in June.

I wish you success in the year 2001. Don't forget to leave a little time for fun and adventure!

Jim

Dec 17th, 2000 - Upon Arrival at night

Jim Frankenfield.