Alasdair

So due to the fact that I only have weekends to climb I have been thinking about picking up an old snowmobile to get me up some of thos snow covered roads to make more winter climbs accessable. I have a couple of questions however.1. If I buy one what are the chances of it getting stolen when I park it somewhere for a couple of days while I am climbing?2. What about rentals? where can I rent one? Is there anyone who rents shit machines so I dont have to pay premium $$? Anyone done this before?

Take a look at the Federal building downtown. Perfect hand cracks for 40+ stories. could easily be protected with some cams also. Enjoy the jail time on that one.

Does anyone who has climbed Hunter, or has first hand knowlege have any Beta. What I am looking for mainly is what time of year is likely to have the best conditions. The last time I was in this area, Hunter got no asents due to conditions, but several weeks later saw several successfull attempts. In otherwords does Hunter tend to be more climbable in early spring or closer to the summer. Alasdair

Oh good for you Bill looking after the little old lady. The only way this would be a good thing is if he got exclusive permission to climb on her property and spent most of his time over there. That way none of the rest of the people who climb at vantage would have to listen to his loud mouth boasting about what he has climbed there. Bill Robbins the Vantage Police?

I was there last month. The glacier is no problem. It will be quite icy. Plan on ice axe and crampons. The only hard thing about it is the approach (it sucks). Enjoy.

The Glacier may be a little broken but it certainly does not present a routefinding problem for anyone who has been on a Glacier before. Look at it before you get on it and plan a route through. Apart from a couple of switchbacks it should be very straitforward.

I just did the Serpentine a couple of weekends ago and I realy dont remember it being that dangerous in the rockfall category. Yes there is loose rock, but there are very few areas where knocking a loose block off the route will hit the person below. First of all most of the loose areas are at such low angle you would have to try to get them to fall further than a few feet, and even when they do they go to either side of the ridge. Did I miss something on this route, or am I so used to climbing crappy loose horror shows that I thought this thing was fairly safe?

You definately do not want to go via colchuck right now. It is pretty ugly looking, and mostly blue ice littered with rockfall.

I did the route two weeks ago. I did not take an ice axe or crampons. desending the snow sloap on the other side could be very serious without. It is not that steep but if you fall you may take a ride that has a very unplesant end. I recomend not taking crampons and walking along the ridge down to the SE for a while. There is a walk down with no snow there. It looks a lot further than it is. It should take you about an extra hour but is very enjoyable. Do not try to desend the snow without an axe.

Better Beer? What the hell are you talking about? I would rather drink urine than drink Molson. If you are comparing Molosn to bud. It all sucks. But our micros have definately got yours beat. Better weed maybe.

No. I was on the N. Ridge of Sherpa. I heard some big rock fall on Stuart and looked over to see a boulder at least as big as a car barreling down Cascadian toward two climbers. They ran like hell and the boulder missed them by what looked like a few feet from where I was. It was the closest I have come to seeing someone get taken out in the mountiains. The two climbers were about 500-800ft. below the summit on cascadian and it happend between 10:00 and 10:15.

Hey,Captain Was that you on the Cascadian about 10:30 on Sunday that almost got wiped out by the huge boulder?

A couple of years ago several Seattle climbers who climb hard in the gym (5.10-5.11) and also work there went up on the North Ridge of Stuart and got in over there head. The helecopter was in the air when they finnaly got their shit together and got themselves off. I dont know the details of this but I remember hearing the story.

Caveman said something I agree with! Well said caveman. I think you managed to write a post that didn't insult anyone and probably wont piss anyone off. Keep it up.

Who has tried to contact them? Who are they? I have a pretty good idea who is responsible for much of it, but I am not willing to post their names untill I know for sure. If they are not reading these threds then we are having a onesided discussion that does not help the situation. Can anyone help us identify who the bolters are? After we identify who they are we should disscuss the issues with them in a level headed way, and not confront them as bitter crusty old climbers.

I dont understand why the hell we can not sit down as a climbing community and talk about what our ethics should be. I dont agree with bolting existing lines. I also dont agree with the establishment of washington pass as a sport climbing area(which it is in danger of becomming if the Phantom Bolters continue to slap bolts up on every peice of clean rock up there). Would it be too much to ask to discuss these ethics with the people who are doing this bolting? Is this not what we have the Access Fund for? It seems to me that the Access fund should be an organisational tool so that the climbers of Washington can sit down and discuss whether we are realy looking at the big picture when we bolt everything. Several of us know who the people responsible for this bolting are, and I have not seen them reply to a single post here, therfore it is clearly nessessary for us to arrange a time that we can sit down and have a reasnable disscussion with these people and exchange ideas and opinions. I am very worried that people are slapping up bolted routes for the sole purpose of getting there name in a guide book, and I think this is wrong. Does anyone know how to contact these people so that we can have a reasoble discussion? Should we get the access fund involved in this dusscussion? If we do not start some kind of disscussion now we stand to loose our rights as climbers from agencys such as the Forrest service who realy dont understand the real issues involved.

I tried this several weeks ago and could not get to the base. I would not waste your time going up there now. There may be a way to go from the base of the N. ridge, or totraverse round from the colman demming route, but I would not count on it.

What shrund? What crevasses? The glacier is not much more than a walk right now. Go soon and you wont have any problem getting to the summit. Jennie, did you find a way home to P-land yet?

I was going to try it five or so weeks ago. Ended up on the west ridge. The N. Ridge had a fair amount of snow on it at that time but I would think most of it would be gone by now. I would give the route a go.

There was a helecopter over by Fugs wall on Sat. also. It looked like it was practicing. There was no accident that I could see. Most likely just Army Reserve out for the weekend. They do that stuff alot.

There is a mountain in New Zealand Named: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanataha No I am not making this up. This is an actual mountain name on the east coast. Dont ask me how to pronounce it.

Looked like a fairly easy climb from Boston Basin. There was a good amount of snow, but you will be postholing the entire way. Even early in the morning.

I used a single rope. I recomend taking two and leaving one at the base of the ridge. If you are comfortable on steep slushy snow you should have no problem with a single rope however. The east ridge desent route had snow covering many of the ledges on the north side and looked to be a fairly involved desent. We were originally going to climb the N ridge but were not able to due to lots of snow on the ridge still. I think the only feasable desent as of two weeks ago is the west ridge.

Climbed Forbidden two weekends ago. There is patchy snow up to the trees and then lots of soft crappy snow in the basin (postholing). I did the west ridge of forbidden. The gully has snow almost all the way to the top, and gets pretty steep near the top. No snow on any of the rock routes (Fobidden, Shark Fin, Boston) There is still snow on N Ridge of Forbidden.

To answer your question simply. You can not transport hazardous material on an aircraft. An empty fuel bottle is not hazardous! Let all the fuel evaporate and ship the bottle with no cap on it. Burried in luggage (that way they wont see it and ask stupid questions). I have shipped many interesting objects on aircraft including compressed air tanks, Which is no problem as long as there is no compressed air in them and the valve is left open. A stove is also not hazardous as long as it does not have any fuel left in it.