As many of you know, I spent some of quarantine creating an online ice guidebook, cascade-ice.com. For the meantime, I’ve decided to go a different direction. I wanted to address the issue of information availability and how we share and archive ice beta.

So after a few weeks of work, I am pleased to share the first version of the ice observations page: https://cascade-ice.com/observations.

This observations page, similar to NWAC’s, lists relevant field observations with photos, pins, beta, and conditions. We hope it presents information in a more searchable, educational manner. Year to year, it could make “re-discovery” of potential climbs and anticipation of ice conditions easier with many data points and references. It’s not meant to replace Facebook, CascadeClimbers.com, or anything else right now. It’s an experiment to see if there is a better way of doing things.

When I’m out skiing, I often find undocumented climbs and would love to share that information with others so at least someone can get after it. With specific locations, photos, dates, this is finally possible. Imagine if we could get observations from all kinds of backcountry skiers! So much new ice would be found.

In the future, I imagine features like showing the weather patterns that led up to a specific observation, so that it can be compared to current weather patterns. Deeper insights and analytics can help the modern day ice climber increase their odds every so slightly.

For now, there’s no submission form so please send an email to cascadeiceguide@gmail.com (or DM me) if you have an observation and I’ll post it as quickly as possible. Community observations will be integral to the success of this experiment. We welcome feedback. Happy Hunting!