All Activity

I hope you're all doing well! My name is Max and I work at Spooky Nook Climbing Gym in Manheim, PA. We’re currently advocating for the addition of a training board in our facility and would love to learn from gym owners who have already integrated one. Every gym is unique, and your firsthand experience would be invaluable in helping us make the best decision for our space and community. If you have a few minutes to fill out our short survey, we’d greatly appreciate it. Your insights will help us understand how a training board has impacted your gym and strengthen our case for bringing one to ours Google Survey Here

Anyone been up to the Mt Baker Ski area ice climb recently and know if it's still in? New to Bellingham area and hoping to check it out.

My wife, 63yo, bought an ebike a couple years ago and I spent a year trying to keep up with her on my Yeti ARC--but finally gave up and bought a Specialized (yes, I know) Turbo Levo. I've been going back and forth, but the logic of the non-ebike is starting to escape me. Riding my human-powered hard tail after a day on the emtb feels like running with a 100 pound pack on. I'm not tracking any of my elevation gain while on the ebike; it's not my effort. Not sure where this is heading. But it's a good time to be getting old.

Cool!

it handles like a regular bike, super nimble....but at the same time is has a unique feel to the ride that just feels good. hard to explain. no skidding, tight turn radius. I"ve taken it on mtn bike trails (cross country, not the big drops) and it cruises them. This it model I have here, but yes, mine is ti.

That looks terrifying, well done in keeping it somewhat safe and sane. What a place, I had never even heard of it!

Woah awesome!!

Last month a group of 7 friends and I went on a trip out to the remote Icefall Brook. An otherworldly cirque in the mountains north of Golden BC, housing likely the highest concentration of big ice routes in North America. While out there we climbed several of the classic ice lines and one new mixed route that we think was pretty classic. The new route we climbed parallels Fossen falls for five pitches up to M7 WI5+ with an A1 roof crux that we did not have time to try and free. It probably goes free somewhere around M8 or 9. Overlay of the route. You can see Doug near the bottom of Fossen falls for scale. P1: Our first pitch followed an obvious chimney system up into a cave below the beginning of a steep flare. Protection was decent, but the rock quality wasn’t the best. The cruxes consisted of a few bulge pulls with poor feet and decent snice sticks. P2: The second pitch was absolutely classic mixed climbing. The ice on the right wall was barely thick enough for good sticks, but stemming, chimneying and good rock gear eased the stress as the ice got steeper and fatter. A tunnel and a bunch more rock gear protected ice took us up to what is essentially the top of Fossen falls second pitch. P3: From here, I stepped out right and tiptoed my way up a barely-there smear aiming for a short but steep pillar above. Again, gear was hard to come by, but when I did find something it was usually good. More incredible ice and mixed took me to another protected comfortable belay stance in the back of the main cave. A scary, but spectacular pitch. Kurt said following it was one of the best pitches of mixed climbing he’s done. P4: Now under the crux, it was Kurt's moment to shine. He started by trying to climb some thin glassy ice out to the right in order to skirt the roof but backed off when the rock above looked downsloping, loose and generally really hard. Instead he opted to take the roof straight on, tagging up the drill and placing 3 bolts with a few pieces of intermittent gear. Once at the lip, he sent the drill back down and started free climbing again. As he climbed out of sight things got slow and quiet. Standing in my cave I watched rocks rain down into the abyss as a combination of snow and down plumes floated in the air from Kurt's shredded down jacket. Eventually he called off belay and I also aided my way through the roof to save time. The climbing above proved to be hard, grovely, runout and wide. The upper part of this pitch was bone dry and entirely chossy. A less classy crux than we had hoped for. The first attempt going out right that we backed off of. Kurt approaching the roof, I'm hiding in the back left corner. P5: One more pitch up a slick ramp took me up to a pedestal just above the top of Fossen falls. With no suitable cracks for an anchor, I hammered my tool into a deep pocket and tagged up the drill, drilling the only bolted anchor on the route. From there we rapped onto Fossen and took that the rest of the way down. Slogging down to the hut, we were welcomed by some cold dinner and the rest of our group already asleep upstairs. We called our route “Jumping for Joy” (M7 WI5+ A1). A phrase that Kurt's late father used often, for the simplest things in life. Rack: Double rack .2-4, handful of pins and ~10 screw including several stubbies. 2 70m ropes for rapping, but 60's are fine for the route.

Hey friend wondering if you still have these boots?

You make a lot of assumptions and have strong opinions that you’re well entrenched in. At little flowery prose to go with that. Not saying I have done the same, we are both old men yelling at clouds. You don’t really know much about me or how I arrived at them, other than I don’t share all your view points. I can think of a lot of things I’d rather do than debate someone such as yourself on a Friday night. I wish you the best with your opinions and viewpoints. The truth is I’m sure somewhere in between. Best of luck Brian. I did used to enjoy a good spar, but I spend too much time in front of a computer as it is.

Your complaint sounds like MSNBC script. Or a scowl on the face of a crowd refusing to celebrate a 13 year old boy stricken with cancer. How did Democrats become so utterly awful? Ok, you used Nazi allusions, so let's start there. The only folks I see spewing anti-Semitic bile these days are Democrats and progressives. Columbia, anyone? Not Republicans, who, in fact, are united in their support for the Jewish state. Certainly not Trump who, likewise, has attempted to cut off funding to universities who tolerate the physical harassment of Jewish students and violence generally. Who are the Nazis in America these days? Ask a Jewish friend--if you have any. Putin. Yes, I understand Rachel Maddow says you can't be against unchecked financial and weapons support for Ukraine and against Putin at the same time. But do you really think this? It's just, well, a very limited view of the world. Finally, yes, we just had an election and America chose Trump. I didn't like it when they chose Biden--but, hey, that's democracy. And Trump won because of the dripping arrogance and utter contempt white liberals hold for pretty much everyone who lives outside their city limits or a university campus--or the national parks. (Full circle.) Leftists, Democrats, progressives, have become weird and generally disgusting. A cadre of white liberal women and their cucks. A masquerade ballroom full of elites and intelligentsia dancing into the night while The Red Death ravages the countryside. Trump is President because of the thoughts, ideas and actions of the people you surround yourself with.

Unfortunately the…well what ever you call these people you voted for …seem to be embracing and apologizing for the Nazis. Are they Republicans? sure if you’re anti-war I think that is great I don’t like at either. But does that mean capitulating to a foreign invader? I would think that was the only argument for war versus to the take control resources of other countries for your corporations. Are you a Putin fan? Seems like a number of (again not sure what to call them, sure aren’t the classic principled conservatives) love him and his methods. Full story of this administrations impact has yet to be seen. Best take I saw was what Chappelle said on SNL. Personally, as you’d expect I don’t like what I see. I’m all for having a more efficient government, but what I’m seeing is a clown show of firings and then rehiring when some 20 year old making decisions fucked up. I’m seeing guardrails that were put together over many many years in a bipartisan way being dismantled, many of which allow corruption to go unchecked. I’m seeing a government run in “please the dictator” type of way rather than a steady guiding ethical way. I do think it is possible to cherry pick a positive item here and there. I’ll leave that to you. And I do wish the best for our country, and hope Trump and team are successful. What I mean by that: Whatever the hell this grand experiment is, it better work and not hurt the people. Like Chappelle said, congratulations now don’t fuck it up and don’t hurt your own people.

Don’t let the facts muddle this

Exactly. We do not have, nor did we ever have a "treaty" to protect Ukraine as you claim. You should do a better job reading the links you post. Semantics aside, I think it's a good thing that an American President finally wants to stop wholesale slaughter and war--and not feed endless war and corruption. Progressives are sounding more and more like neocons nowadays.

I will. Work is killing me right now. I should’ve known that “more stuff to do” would not be good for me ! 😂. But will have to just get done unless someone can meet me and help distribute?

Let me know when you drop these off at FF!

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-budapest-memorandum-and-u-s-obligations/

Snowshoed up Star Peak (formerly Squaw Peak) above Hwy 200 this last Tuesday with my neighbor and his 12 year old son. Cold and windy and one of the coolest outhouses I've ever seen.

Spoken like a true "public servant."👍 Remember, you work for us. And we elected this administration. For too long, NPS staff have acted like the public lands they manage belong to them alone. Looking forward--learn to code? Trampling free speech? No, that was you and your Biden/D buddies who, at one point, even tried creating a Ministry of Truth. Corrupt? It's looking like your USAID buddies and their D bosses take the blue ribbon. More to come. Go Elon! Curious, which "treaty bound" country did we abandon?

Well, from the article I read about this, I think the folks up there unfurling the flag were already fired?

Trip: Whitepine - Iced Beef Trip Date: 01/25/2025 Trip Report: Kevin Alexander and I climbed a snow/ice gully behind Whitepine main wall on 1/25. We think this is a new route. I’ve heard of some ski lines on this face, anyone been climbing up there in the past? Here is a view of the upper portion of the route: The approach to the base of the gully is a short hike from the road and then it’s moderate snow for ~1,000 ft until the gully forks with steeper ice up the left side. The ice up to climber's left was discontinuous and thin but could form an excellent climb once it's filled in. We found a slide path below the gully that made booting up super easy. P1-2: From the fork we pitched out two longer ice steps separated by sections of steep snow to a low-angle stance. P3: The crux. This pitch starts with about 20m of WI-3 followed by lower angle ice and then snow to a belay at a tree climber’s right. A 60m rope got from the base of the ice to the tree belay with only a couple meters to spare. P4-5: From the tree belay we simul-climbed sections of steep snow, with more WI-2 ice steps. Eventually the gully flattened out around some trees. We put away the rope here and climbed a couple hundred feet to the ridge, more steep snow with some short ice steps. We left the road at 8:30 and topped out right at sunset. Walked off and around the back to the NE and then back W along the train tracks. Ended up being 12 hours car-to-car. We’re naming the route after Kevin’s favorite alpine snack: “Iced Beef” Gear Notes: Screws and runners to sling trees Approach Notes: Leave the road 1/4 mile past the bridge on Whitepine Road, eventually enter the slide path below the gulley.

Funny, I interpreted this as government workers, people who have dedicated their careers to maintaining and protecting federal properties (which belong to ALL of us), protesting against an administration which is acting in a way that is illegal, destructive, careless, cruel, wonton, corrupt, sucks up to bloodthirsty dictators while abandoning a country we are treaty-bound to protect, threatening our neighbors, and trampling on the right to free speech. I could go on. But then, you do have a history of backing the bad guys. Perhaps you should return to advocating for motorists who commit vehicular assault on bicyclists that have the nerve to be on the road at the same time as them?

Saw this a day or two ago https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/200589906/ north-face-a5-double-portaledge-great-condition-brooks-range-puffy-size-m-sterli

Curious if anyone has a Brooks Range Mojave or Alpini jacket in size Large that they would be willing to part with? Might pick up one in size medium if not as they seem to run on the larger side anyway. Thanks!

yo I've been looking for somebody to start doing more technical alpine routes in Oregon and WA. I have a bit of experience on trad can up to 5.8 area, but I have a lot more experience on ice and mixed up to WI4 M4 as well as just general mountaineering. I'm in the Portland area. Hit me up if your interested