Mt Defiance & Snow Report

[mjirving]

I had a great hike with Ray (FtBraggSoldier) in our meet-up hike on Defiance. We also saw "E-Bum" on top who blew our ascent time out of the water! (Impressive 3 hours faster than our 5-hour time up through the snow).

Here's a detailed report on my blog with a bunch of pictures:
http://goaltechhikes.blogspot.com/2014/ ... iance.html

Here's a video I put together that contains the pictures, some video and a 3D track of the hike:
https://vimeo.com/93933751

The snow started at 4,350' toward the top of the thick tree line and also just above Warren Lake. Post-holing was not a problem. The snow compressed a 3-6" for us and was "corn". No ice at all and our boots/shoes were fine for it. I was really glad to have a GPS track though as it wasn't always obvious where to go going up and down while we were in the snow. I grabbed it from gpsfly.org before the trip.

Here are a few of my favorite pics from the day.

Sunrise:

First Viewpoint:

Hood to the north:

Ray/FtBraggSoldier and Mike/GoalTech on the summit:

The point on the way down looking across to Dog Mountain:

It was a great hike and Ray was a great partner in the adventure. Thanks to PH for this great site to have the ability to organize such a thing!

Mike/GoalTech

[Sean Thomas]

Nice TR and pics, Mike. You guys are looking pretty badass in that pic on the summit! Thanks for the update on conditions too, sounds like it was a great hike.

[Helen]

Still loving that video!

Anyone want to venture a guess as to what the snow conditions are like up there now? I was thinking of doing the hike next week with the sunny weather.

[Don Nelsen]

Wonderful video! thanks!

dn

[mjirving]

Thanks again for the video comments! I just build a "dolly" out of Legos and fishing line to use with my GoPro so I'm looking to do some more innovative stuff there, so stay tuned!

There was a lot of snow on the top of Defiance (at least 2 feet in some areas so I would imagine its going to take another 2-3 weeks to get rid of it all depending of course on weather and any new accumulations (like Friday I bet there is fresh snow at that elevation)

Mike