Alasdair

Bullshit I can go 400 kms on a 30 liter tank in a 90 Subaru Legacy The 1990 legacy 4wd gets a stated milage of 25 mpg. The stated milage is always a conservative estimate. you are claiming 31 mpg. I call bullshit. Assuming that is that you do have the legacy 4wd. Even if you dont, the 2wd version still only gets 28 mpg. So I call bullshit and stick with my claim the subarus get shitty gas milage.

If you are looking for good gas milage stay away from 4 wheel drive. I dont have it never have and I just drive a little slower than others, I have never had a problem. If there is that much snow on the roads, you cant fucking climb anything anyway. Definatly stay away from subarus if you want gas milage because they suck gas. YOu might want to look at a jetta TDI wagon.

I would agree with Alex here. I found hwy 1 very scary to drive in winter. The truck drivers are a fucking hazard to every other vehical on the road. Go through washington and cut up from spokane.

The access funds severe pro bolt stance is the reason I will never join.

"ummm, uhhhhh, duhhhh evil doers want to kill your babies"

Thats kind of like developing the most enviromenatally sensitive nuclear weapon in the history of weapons. What a crock of shit. If you want enviromental sensitivity make do with what you already have and use a well established ski area like hood.

I spent several weeks in Talkeetna in October of 1999 I think, and I can tell you at that time of year there is fuck all to do except drink, and watch the rivers freeze.

Oh and one more thing. It is still dumping snow up their right now.

I am. Even with several days of sunny weather, the amount of snow dumped last weekend would still be on all the ledges and dripping. Unless we get several weeks of warm sun, this route will likely not be dry again this year.

There was somewhere in the range of three feet of snow dumped on the thing last week. On the summit of Dragontail on sunday there was enough snow that it was impossible to find the summit register. There were 4 of us digging for about a half hour. The north side of Stuart was almost completely white. IF I had my pictures developed I would post one, but it looked like full on winter conditions.

Dude, NR of stuart would be a total fucking horror show right now. What are you thinking? It will rock covered by several inches of wet snow. There will be very little verglass. I recomend you take your full rack to the east side of the mountains and crag climb.

Top of asgard trees are just beginning, lower down there are no signs. Give it another two weeks.

It wasn't really that bad. Another few feet and boulder fields will be a pleasure to cross. Postholing was only in areas of wind blown snow. The rest was pretty nice.

Postholing between Little A and Dragontail.

"Dusted" is an interesting word to use for 3 feet of snow.

I traversed below the glacier a few weeks ago and then saw it again from black peak a week later. I think for many people the glacier would be considered a no go. This is not to say that you could not get accross it. It can be done by a party experienced in negociating broken up glaciers. If I were going to try it I would get on the glacier at the far left at the base of a large rib that intersects it. This could have some pretty steep and hard ice on it, but it will be short. Go high on the glacier very close to the base of the rock and traverse rightward toward the NE buttress (this looked relativly strait forward). There looked to be a very large shrund between the glacier and the NE buttress. You may have to rap off of a bollard into the shrund and then start climbing the rock. Stay on the very farleft side of the rock rib until you gain a few hundred feet and then climb directly up to the ridge. Take real crampons and a screw and you should be fine. Except as has already been stated the weather is going to suck so go recon it and bail.

I suggest you read Cascade alpine guides. Fred Clearly has a pretty good grasp on geology and those books have a lot of basic info in them. Ah and Granite is Granitorite but granitorite is not granite. Most granitic rocks in the northwest are not granite, but most climbers just assume they are. Granite has bigger ofter pink crystals.

Hate to touch the untouchable here, but for pure reading enjoyment I have to say that anything by Beckey is horrible. I will admit that I own most of the books, but they are boring to the point of unreadable. Unlike some of the other examples, Fred has done a great service to the historical and climbing communities by writing the books he has, and I do still read them. They are so detailed that they are very hard to read. Has anyone actually read Range of Glaciers? I tried, now I just use it as a reference book to read bits and peices about different areas.

There is a lot more to technical rescue than most climbers think there is . First off, is the loads involved in many rescue situations are much higher than typical climbing, and I would rather have a group of people who know EXACTLY what those loads are and what margin of error needs to be used picking me off a mountain than a bunch of my climbing buddies. Some SAR people are not in the best of shape, but many are, and they are the ones that will get to you first. Either way most SAR and Mountain Rescue folks are anal to the point of anoyance when it comes to making sure loads are not exceeded, your climbing buddies probably would not be. You tell me who you would want picking you off a route.

Yes, I cut rap anchors if all the slings are bad. I personally encorage people to remove bad, misplaced or otherwise useless rap anchors. If there are rap rings on them they they are added to my rack to be placed the next time I need them.

Start riding a bike. Start in very low gears and avoid hills. After a month or two continue with the low gears but hit a hill or two. YOu will be fine in the spring if you keep it up.

yes, it is still raining and the temps are warmer. There is still not any snow. Try looking at www.weather.com

but before you decide to do that go read a couple years of ANAM and decide for yourself weather that is really something you want to do.

Mine arrived in great shape only to be placed on my front doorstep in the rain. Now I have full color wet toilet paper.

FYI: With no rain gear your "good down jacket" would have been useless after about 10 minutes of any time in the weather up there.