TR - Roundtop Recon Mission, 8/19/07

[Vets]

Date: August 19, 2007

Location: Roundtop/Sisters saddle snowpatch

Weather: Warm, sunny, and windy

Participants: MJ and Vets

Gameplan: More August turns, recon for next weekend and September

Duration: 2 laps

Vertical: not sure, but not very much

Beta: see pics or ask

Pics: MJ and Vets

Music: (for Part 1) Dread Zeppelin - Heartbreaker

and/or
(for Part 2) Police - Walking on the Moon


"Recon kicks ass!" (From the movie Heartbreak Ridge)
Yesterday was a recon mission and it nearly kicked my ass. Looking at some of the quickly dissappearing snowpatches also nearly broke my heart. However, on the way up we could see that the Roundtop/Sisters saddle snowpatch was still reliable:


Before heading to old reliable, I had to see how "The October Patch" was holding up:

It was heartbreaking to see this. This year it is barely "The August Patch." Here is how it looked on October 3, 2004 with my friend Doug standing in front of it:


After that we looked up at Sisters:

Still heartbreaking. However, the Moon looked pretty cool.
Here is what it looked like on August 14, 2005:

and on August 21, 2006 (Harpo pointing):


So we walked away from there

and headed up toward the saddle snowpatch:


Before skiing it, MJ wanted to hike up to Roundtop.
On our way up we looked back at the saddle snowpatch:

If you look closely, you can see another skier at the top of the snowpatch.
I wonder if it was a fellow maggot. We saw his tracks when we headed back down, but he had departed before we got there.

MJ on top of Roundtop:


To be continued on Part 2...

[Vets]

...Part 2

Here I am dropping into the Roundtop/Sisters saddle snowpatch:


MJ:




Suncups and Sisters (or craters to moonwalk on):


Here I am navigating through the suncups/craters:



On our way back down, MJ and an angel of light looking down on Roundtop Lake and Caples Lake:

[Sutter]

Nice Vets, keep that streak going, the more you get out there, the sooner winter comes.

[idiot]

you guys are just killing the august turns......that is pure dedication

[skimoore]

Holy crap Vets...bravo. Hopefully we'll get the season started before Halloween again, so we will have an October patch...

[Vets]

Thanks.
I'm all for bringing winter here sooner.