petsfed

I've been a pretty vocal critic of Dean Potter the publicity hound, but the thing was, I felt like he only made bad calls (that is to say, calls that affected us, the climbing community) his livelihood depended on being in front of cameras. My honest impression of him as a climber and as a person was that he was looking for something, peace, excellence, happiness, and the process of self-promotion complicated and corrupted that. His writing could border on the highfalutin, but I think it came from a place of honesty. When I think of all the things he did, all the things he said, above all else, I believe he was honest, and without pretense. I know of no higher praise for a climber. We shall not see his like again.

I've got nothing better to do the weekend of Valentines Day, so I think I'll see how the snow near Ketchum feels under my skis. I am looking for a low-difficulty overnight/2-night skitour. I'm also looking for a partner for such a trip. I am a mediocre-to-lousy downhill skier, but I can skin the flats with gusto. I've got some winter camping experience, but wouldn't describe myself as current. I'm out of practice and looking to shake the rust off on something more interesting than the local ski-hill, but not so committing that I'll end up dead. What I do have is some familiarity with continental snow-pack, but only insofar as what I experienced in SE Wyoming and northern Colorado. I'd really like to learn how Idaho's transition snowpack behaves, and a day touring, digging pits, and playing snow-scientist with somebody who knows the patterns would be super useful. Any would-be partners or mentors? Any advice other than the super-taco/mountainproject/rockclimbing.com adage "yer gunna die!"? This is cross-posted at MountainProject, so you can tie the user-names together, if you like.

Thanks! We were thinking Leutholds looked good, but I've heard rumbles that it can be dependent on the preceding winter's weather. Needless to say, considering how dry e.g. Mt. Bachelor has been to this point, it was a valid concern.

Getting into the training part of the year, and I'm looking to tag the summit of Hood for my first volcano this June. The question I have is this: what routes offer fairly low difficulty, but fewer crowds, and would (probably) be in shape in the first week or so of June? Other than reading trip reports, what kinds of weather clues should I be looking for before I decide between climbing the thing and drinking beer at a hipster bar in Portland? My partner and I have done some couloir climbing at similar altitude to Hood, but in Colorado, so they're much smaller undertakings. Obviously, we're getting out and practicing, spending a lot of time the stairmaster, etc. I'm also gonna be brushing up my skills in the Sawtooths throughout May, and he'll do the same in Colorado, so we should be in good shape, but the scale of the climb is a bit outside of our experience.

That was a poorly written article. So, who's pathfinder was it? The suspects'? The victims'? Is the implication here that the suspects took the address from the registration? Or information present in the victims' wallets and phones? Scary stuff, to be sure, just a really poorly written article.

PM Sent on screws and ropeman.

Sold pending funds.

SOLD

I ski a fair bit with a guy who's been rocking them for a while now. He loves them for rolling terrain, but he has the good sense to leave the skins on once he puts them on. They definitely slow you down on the downhill, but if you're doing short laps or on rolling terrain, you more than make up for it by not having to slap your skins on, or rip them off. Kirk's a better skier than me, but he could easily get 3 short runs in in the time it took me to slap the skins on, skin up, and rip them again.

Climbed near Salt Creek Falls above Oakridge today. We're already past prime for what's in, might even fall over tomorrow if it stays above freezing tonight.

Scarpa rebranded the T3s as the T4s, but yes, there's still a market for them. http://www.scarpa.com/t4 Essentially a touring boot with a removable liner for multi-day, mellow ski tours. Also, for ultra-light maniacs who don't need a stiff boot to kill it. I would not pay $150 for a T3, even if it was new (or in my size). I tend to trust gear trade's prices, so check this out: http://www.geartrade.com/item/355995/scarpa-t3-tele-boots-mondo-25 Finally, I have a couple F1s for training purposes. They suck to do searches *with*, but if you need a couple of beacons to stash and search *for*, you can't go wrong. I got mine for $15 a piece a few years ago.

Most classes do focus on the book stuff because the rest is learning your area. The only real way to learn this stuff is to get out on a lot of different days following a lot of different weather, and see what it looks like in the field. Learning the stability tests is easy, learning what they mean *for your area* is hard, and extra hard to teach. Central and southern Cascade snowpack is all maritime snowpack, so unless you're in, or immediately following, a storm, your tool-set and knowledge base isn't going to be that informative since it refers to continental (or Rocky Mountain) snowpack. That was a pretty tough lesson for me: the things I thought I knew like the back of my hand were simply wrong out here.

The original Aztars were designed to be a transition water-ice/alpine tool, so they're quite a bit heavier than the Aztarex, although they still suffer in conditions where you have to chop a bit to get purchase. They have a very shallow curve to them, so they don't do well in steep or chandaliered ice, but I've led WI3 with them fairly confidently. Honestly, the hard part for me was transitioning back to a leashed tool after climbing so much with my Vipers. The picks are very hard to find, since Petzl doesn't make them anymore (although you can still find Pulsar picks fairly easily), and the Aztar never had great sales to begin with. I like them a lot for low angle ice, couloirs, and otherwise situations where the weight of your pack, rather than the technical difficulties, will determine whether or not you summit. The Aztarex was the Aztar on a serious diet, so they were really bad for climbing actual ice, but worked great for steep snow.

Moss made a lot of tents. Which one are you looking for?

Round trip or point-to-point? I think a North-South traverse of the range would be pretty sweet. The north side of the winds is pretty empty, especially compared to around the Cirque, so you could have the lakes to yourself. The traverse I've been dreaming about (minus the fishing) is to start on the Glacier trail, near Dubois, hike down to Gannet Peak, tag it, go over Dinwoody Pass, cross again at Washakie pass, then tag the Cirque of the Towers and exit at Big Sandy.

So you're selling friends, but your title says camelots [sic]? Considering that a lot of people prefer camalots to friends (and vice versa) you might want to clarify.

My experience with Kirk last week was pretty eye-opening, coming from a Rocky-Mountain-snowpack paradigm. Slab avalanches just are not an issue, but the expectation of greater consolidation (which is what I was banking on) goes right out the window because of point releases. Absolutely, you're not going to get a deep-slab event, but that's not to say that big wet sloughs aren't possible, or dangerous.

http://www.geartrade.com/browse/mens-mountaineering-boots?sort=pLow Where are you located at? If its not too far to go, you should check out one of Sierra Trading Post's outlet stores. I scored a pair of mountain boots in their 3rd's room for $30 once. It was about 93% off. They don't typically list those deals online.

I've had very good luck with Rock'n Resole in Boulder, CO. The major downside is the amount of time the shoes spend in transit, but they rarely spend more than a day or so at the facility before they're back on the road.

Fun fact about that: an oversight in the writing of the Wilderness Act requires a road be built to any legitimate mining claims made in a wilderness area. Not just ones that predate the act, but all of them.

See, now that's a well reasoned argument. I've watched my home get torn apart by the mineral industry, to the point that the most popular trail head into the Wind River wildernesses has worse air quality than Los Angeles every December. I'm told, by the folks who make such decisions that since that industry creates jobs in Wyoming, helping it to fight the EPA regulations is "common sense". I've listened as Wyoming snowmobile enthusiasts (and more than a few from nowhere near Wyoming, but who come to recreate) urge the total repeal of the Wilderness Act because they're not allowed to take their machines into the few powder stashes I can ski to in a single day. They say that since they pay taxes, its "common sense" that they should have access to it as well. As I said, I've come to expect the phrase "common sense" from somebody who knows that they can't actually justify their position. Given that I sympathize with both sides of the issue, I really didn't want to hear "Its just common sense". As a non-local to the Washington scene (I haven't lived in Washington since 1996), I wanted to actually understand your position, but I also wanted you to understand that your phrasing was harming your position.

Not sure if this is directed at me (re: Staying in Oregon), but I'm not an Oregon local. I've spent the last 10 years living in Wyoming. That doesn't make my observation any less valid, my point was simply this: if the meat of your argument is "its just common sense", then you're appealing to a sense that your audience may not share, or you're trying to weasel out of adequately expressing yourself. As far as the lookout, I don't have an opinion. I just have an opinion on "common sense", because I don't see how "common sense" somehow allows the NFS to ignore the processes they are supposed to follow, even if preserving the lookout is the right thing to do.

"Common sense" is what we've come to call the set of knowledge that must become instinct in the environment one is raised in. There's farm common sense, wood-shop common sense, mountain common sense, etc. If, however, you haven't put in enough time in a particular environment, or if you don't tend to learn from your mistakes, then you don't develop that "common" sense. Its not a shortcoming, per se, just a reality. "Common sense initiatives" are what politicians call their bad ideas if they don't want you to critically examine them.

Wow, really? I mean, MSR sells it as a fully featured 4-season expedition tent, and now you've got me looking at my Stardome in the closet (what it was sold as under Moss) and questioning its utility. Really gotta get my other 4-season tent in for repairs then.

I don't know that they'll *quickly* fall off, but rather you'll need to use an electromagnet to keep the crampon in place, which requires a continuous power supply to work. The only other option is to use incredibly heavy permanent magnets (e.g. rare earth magnets) and I doubt a 6-7 pound boot is worth a lighter binding system. For an electromagnet, you get to deal with keeping said power supply light enough to actually be practical, and without having heat problems. There's a lot of room to improve crampon attachment, but for practical reasons, it needs to be of the GSB variety, rather than the magnetic variety.