ryland_moore

Cool idea Wazzu! There is a lot of ice around the Wallowas, but most people do not know about it because it is such a remote area. The backcountry skiing there is some of the best in the Northwest (if you can call it that) since it takes on a rocky mountains snow pack - dry and powdery. It just takes forever to get there! There is also some ice in the canyons around Burns, that I am told, forms every single year.

Matt was on my soccer team growing up in Roanoke. He did climb quite a bit at NRG and throughout the South, but he started clipping bolts before climbing trad at NRG and other areas in Virginia and NC. He is also fairly tall, built like Dean Potter, and is a machine on thin climbs and stemming nightmares. Climb in different areas, don't limit onesself to one style, and train hard will pay off big.

Check out backcountry gear's website for the Beal Rando and Edelweiss Discover Glacier. You won;t need anything more than this unless you are more than a 3 person rope team.

Yeah, but I don't think she would meet your criteria from your avatar! Although I guess alot can be allowed to go under the bridge when a trust fund is involved!

Let's just say he doesn't have to do anything if he didn't want to. But still, a place like that on the East side of the tetons would run over $1 million. Just trying to make the point of the difference in cost of living from one side of the hill to the other.

Try 4 hours on a good day with no traiffic in the summer going through Yellowstone. If you want to get between the two when yellowstone is closed, try 9-10 hrs. I used to do this drive a few times each season as I had friends who lived up the S. Fork of the Shoshone River in Cody. SkyClimb, why not Driggs? You lived there? I think it is an awesome place. A friend from college is a fly-fishing guide over there and he and his wife bought a 3 bedroom custom log home `1,200 sq.ft. on 2.5 acres that backs up to the national forest and a creek just on the other side of their property line. Paid $250,000 for it. Now that is cheap for the views!

This is within reason in my opinion, Jason. If someone is putting up a project and does not complete it within one season's time (there are exceptions of course) then I say it is free game, especially if all the gear is in and all that is left is a redpoint, which the setter has left to do in the "next couple of seasons" for example. They may have put money into the hardware and so deserve a crack at the rout first off, but if I see red tape on a finished route for more than one season, it becomes fair game. I do have to say that this is an exception rather than the norm as most people who put up routes can do them and are psyched to do them, hence why they put them up in the first place.

I lived in Jackson for 2 1/2 years. I'd move back if I could find a job there that would afford me to buy a house. I do not know much about Laramie other than it is really far from Jackson and a lot different. Jackson is an anomoly for the State and most people in the state look down upon Jackson because it does not represent their idea of what Wyoming is supposed to be. I find it only really touristy in the summers and if you can stay away from the town square and the major tourist centers then you have an amazing place to play. The winters are cold, vut it is a dry cold, unlike the west side of the Cascades. A lot of snow, cool people, and amazing backyard! The job thing is a bit of a hangup. If you can make over $70,000 and live in Jackson, you'll be fine!You are paying for the lifestyle and the backyard amenities. People do it for a lot less living paycheck to paycheck! If you have any other questions about Jackson, I'd be happy to answer. Cannot comment on Larmie. Also, to beat some expenses, look just over the pass in Idaho. You can buy a place for a lot less in Victor or even Driggs and commute in less time than you Seattlites over to Jackson.

Lummox, just because you cannot do a pull up don't feel bad. I guess from the stats, most males in the US can't either. The point is not to show how many you can do but that you are able to improve or increase the number of reps (reflection that yes, you are getting stronger). Will and Blue make excellent points. Also, more sets with lighter reps is better than fewer sets with heavy reps (bulky muscle - not good for climbing!). For those only able to do one or only a few pull ups, that is where the pull up machine can really work, because you can do 3 sets of 10-12 reps using a lighter weight than your body weight. That is the type of muscle you want to build. Also, with more sets and longer reps, your muscles are working for a longer period of time, increasing muscle growth. For those doing the shorter sets with weight attached, try going slower (ie. 10 secs. up and 10 secs. down).

For those that cannot do alot of pull ups try starting with negatives , especially if you do not have access to one of those pull-up machines that will take some of your own body weight for you. Stand on a chair or have someone help you up so that you can lock off your arms in the up position (top of the pull up). Hold it as long as you can and instead of just releasing yourself down to the ground, slowly lower yourself. As you build up strength, and can do multiple pull-ups, do sets of negatives where one of your friends behind you pulls down on your shoulders while you try and hold up in the pull up position. Another great way to increase strength on the pull up bar or fingerboard is to incorporate negatives into a routine. Instead of just pulling up and lowering down, go up halfway, hold for 5 secs., lower down, then up again to 3/4 hold, lower half way, hold, up to full pull up, lower all the way, etc, etc. Mix it up. On your last final pull up when you cannot do anymore, then have your friend come in and pull down on your shoulders while you try and hold it up there. This worked for me as a wrestler in highschool when I could do 30 pull ups easy (I also was 5'8" and weighed 135lbs.) Now I can still do 20 pull ups off the couch easy and weigh 155lbs. Alex Lowe used to do 100 pull ups each day, not consecutively mind you, but over multiple repetitions. Work on other aspects, ie. lat. pulls. sit ups, finger board, and triceps. Note: Not much of this makes much difference if you are not incorporating some type of cardio workout into the mix. Yeah, you can turn fat into muscle, but it won't make a huge difference if you keep putting fat on over the muscle you are building. There is no one cure-all to climb better, It is like the food web, remove one species and the rest will fall. Eat healthy, work out - cardio and weight, and climb!Voila! You will climb harder!

Badvoodoo states: Damn, you mean I've been going about it all wrong? I never realized that pulling VB plastic in the gym and top roping 5.7 one time out at Smith would do this for me! Too bad Siddhartha wasted his life achieving what badvoodoo did in a few weeks!

Better get your AAC memberships renewed!

To expand on Ken4ord's comments, I would highly recommend not using any joints to join aluminum poles. Instead only purchase two aluminum poles in the 1/2" diameter and one short 3/4" diameter. I used the 90 degree joiners and they snapped under heavy loads. I also experimented with PVC, but the weight of the sled was too much for me throwing the weight of the sled around and was hard to turn back over weighted on side hills. What worked for me on Denali and did not even have to make a repair was this: Take the two aluminim poles and get a bar bender, bending them at 90 degrees or a even more if you want the poles to cross going to your hips (even stronger). To attach the two poles together on the sled, take the 3/4" aluminum pole and fit it over top of the two 1/2" poles in the middle of the inside of the sled. I had the 3/4" pole running the entire width of the sled in the front. I drilled four holes to accomodate 4 large screws and wing nuts (easy to grab in cold conditions with gloves) and joined the 1/2"poles to the 3/4" joiner with two screws for each pole. Super solid and strong and really awesome on the downhill slope. I was using a harness, but attaching the poles to your pack would work well as suggested above too. The sled was your basic orange kid sled but longer (alomst 5 ft. Get the size that will fit your needs the best, but remember that you want the weight on the bottom. Top heavy sleds or weight sticking up high will cause problems on varied terrain.

Damn, from the title of this thread I thought one of you all was going to give me some dirt about a few of the women who post here!

It will be on again this Saturday. Read above or check out the MSNBC website. My copy is loaned out, but if anyone still needs it in a week or so, I can proabalby loan it to ya.

Well you sound pretty stupid. Obviously have not done your homework. The Denali Pro is a full ,1200 cubic inches larger than your 85. Yes it is heavier, but it also carries more gear. If I wanted to have a pack that you can only access from one point and have to dig through the enitre 5,200 cubic in. area just to get at something, then maybe a nice lightweight pack like that would be useful. In the Denali, you are paying for comfort. I like both of these packs, but when shlepping heavy weight up a mountain for multiple days, I'd rather carry an extra pound and a half worth of pack then have my back and hips killing me. A pound and a half difference is well worth the extra "bells and whistles" That come with this pack. You can convert the top to a fanny pack, enter the pack from the back to get to stuff in the middle of the pack without having to undo all the rest of your pack to access the top, and get to the bottom of your pack without having to do the same as above. Can't do this with Rainier's Serratus. I have used the Serratus and like it very much, but not for long expeditions. Try different ones on and go with the one that fits you the best. Look at function and form and make a collected decision based on what you will most likely need it and use it for.

I love mine. Had it for 4 years and it is amazing for week + long trips, expeditions, etc. Bad for weekend trips and even a little too much for winter climbs up Rainier. It is big, so you can really put alot of stuff in it. I've used it for weekend trips but now prefer to use something with less cu. in. All in all, a great pack if you are doing expeditions. It survived peaks in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Denali, and trekking around Pasayten for a month. Overall rating:

I have one pair of skins that I use on very different dimension AT and tele skis. They work fine, are straight cut to fit the waist and I slip rarely. I have skinned up Pan Point and felt that the very few times I did slip was because of the angle on a switchback or two. AFter spending two weeks using them on Denali and rarely slipping with a full pack and sled, I have to say that me slipping came down more to lack of experence in using skins than from the skins themsleves. People today think that the latest gear or latest technique is going to save them instead of trying to figure out how to make what you have work for you. In my case, I found that it was the way I placed my wieght over my boot when I stepped/skinned up rather than lack of surface area covered by the skin on the tip and tail area. Get out there, practice with what you got, make it work, and quite whining! Oh yeah, and get tons of face shots in the process.....

For those of you who were up on Denali this past season, you probably remember the National Geographic film crews doing a documentary on the Denali CVlimbing Rangers. Well, it is finished and will air this Sunday on MSNBC at 8pm. Check out the link: http://www.msnbc.com/news/978692.asp Should give some pretty good insight into the lifves of the rangers and all they do while on the mountain. Plus I am sure there will be plenty of good footage of rescues and the like. Enjoy!

Nome, AK

I like the people that work for Beyond, just not the owner himself. Had a semi-bad experience with him, but more personal that product related. In speaking with the employees directly, they are honest, hard-working and make excellent poersonalized gear. I have talked to some folks who either had an excellent experience with them or a terrible one, but the bad experiences came from them being so overwhelmed with orders that they could not fill them in a timely manner. I'd suggest that if you want something for X-Mas, you'd better order it now as in a month, it will be so busy, that you may not get your order filled in time.

Paul, re-read my statement. It uses the terms "Most teens" not all. I agree that the lazy attitude stems from the parents, and if you re-read my statement, you will see that I blame the parents fore the outcomes of their children as well. ANd no, Paul, I wasn't referring to you. I think you are a fine, upstanding teen! Necro, go find some real friends. I see that my post has struck a nerve with you, and I can only assume that my statement above some how turned personal to you and that what I said somehow portrayed reality to you in real life. I am sorry that you do not have friends outside of cc.com and you failed reading comprehension and/or basic math. I can't help that. Go climb, have fun, and why stress or worry what others think og your climbing style or why stress about what you think of others climbing style? You are not them and they have no effect on you or your activities personally. If they do, then you lead a very sad, uninteresting life. Oh, and if you want to find out who handles all of Dean Potter's meetings, publicizing, and sponsorship requirements, make all inquires to Wild Things in NH and Five.Ten. They can help you out.

Anyone wanna bet on this one? I could get pretty rich pretty fast. What about Messner, think he didn't have an agent? I'll bet on that one too. Anyone in the public eye today, regardless if you are a musician or a climber, has an agent. You think Dean wants to sit around all day dealing with covers, photos, video shoots, articles, and sponsorship issues? Hell no, he wants to be out climbing. So does Tori. A role model, whether it be someone famous or the molester next door, is still a role model. Whether or not it is a good one for each child is up to that child's parents and no one else. You guys all support the media craze one way or another. You are also all responsible for the direction climbing is going. Climbed at Smith lately? Cause that is what climbing is to 90% of climbers. You all are a minority. Sounds like you all are pissed about that and wish that your style of climbing was more popular. Then you could all feel better about yourselves, because you would then have people look up to you (doubtful). Sounds like the Tori dissenters are really a bunch of narcissitic nerds who have nothing better to do than spend wasted time on this board. Go get some friends! If you can't meet anyone else that enjoys your company and your social conversations revovle around this board, then re-read two sentences prior and maybe that will explain it to you. Most kids coming up in the world and want to get into climbing aren't thinking about alpine routes and sufferfests. They want to have fun and that is all that matters. Not boosting their egos like everyone on this board wishes to do. Go out, do what you like, climb what you enjoy, for yourself, and quit judging others that you have no idea about who they are, what they are like, or what they represent. If you all would spend half the time climbing that you spend talking shit on this board, you might break into another letter grade level. I praise Tori, not just for her ability, but her perspective, her overall understanding of her situation, and her ability to deal with the media craze that surrounds her. Screw all of you for judging a teenager. Most teens I see around here are uneducated, lazy, disrespectful, unmotivated, and will be a burden to society in a few years when my taxes will have to pay for their food stamps, welfare, etc. Who are their role models? I'd worry more about your own kids then about some teen who is actually doing something positive with her life, unlike the kids out there who are fat, lazy, slobs and a waste to the world. Take a look at your child. Is he/she part of generation "O"? What about you? Are you conveying the lazy, fat attitude that is plaguing the rest of the US? Look at yourselves and your children before you bash on others. If you don't have any, then you have no voice to talk about role models to begin with. The fact that Tori is so intelligent, can write and get her point across in an eloquent fashion is kudos enough. SHe is more than half most of you all's age and is more intelligent and eloquent than most of you on this Board. She is not even finished with highschool! This website sucks Trask's ballz!!!!!!!!!!!!

He wasn't trying to kill himself. He is a stuntman in Michigan. He said to his friend right as he jumped in that if he survived, this stunt would make him a lot of money.

What about an adopt-a-trail program done by climbers for this trail? Who wouldn't mind spending a weekend day clearing the trail up to the past on Saturday and blitzing up a one day ascent of a surrounding peak the following day? That is all it would need, with the majority of the work coming in the first year. After that, it is basic maintenance and occasional avy debris from the year before. Even if the trail was as enclosed as the BB trail is at the beginning, that is all climber's would need. Very low impact in an area that is mostly void of vegetation because of the avy terrian to begin with. Any thoughts? I'd put in a weekend once a year to help out.