Bronco

Yep, sorry David they appear to be soldout as well as on sierratradingpost.com. MEC has some softshell bibs and pants quite a bit cheaper than the Pattagucci stuff. Beck - you and your homies did a great job finding the lost dude on Adams in those conditions!

Rules for men to live by: 1. Thou shalt not rent the movie Le Chocolat. 2. Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella. 3. Any man who brings a camera to a bachelor party may be legally killed and eaten by his fellow partygoers. 4. When you are queried by a buddy's wife, girlfriend,mother, father, priest, shrink, dentist, accountant, or dog walker, you need not and should not provide any useful information whatsoever as to his whereabouts. You are permitted to deny his very existence. 5. Unless he murdered someone in your immediate family, you must bail a friend out of jail within 12 hours. 6. You may exaggerate any anecdote told in a bar by 50 percent without recrimination; beyond that, anyone within earshot is allowed to call bull shit. (Exception: When trying to pick up a girl, the allowable exaggeration rate rises to 400 percent) 7. If you've known a guy for more than 24 hours, his sister is off-limits--forever. 8. The minimum amount of time you have to wait for another guy who's running late is 5 minutes. For a girl, you are required to wait 10 minutes for every point of hotness she scores on the classic 1-10 scale. 9. Bitching about the brand of free beer in a buddy's refrigerator is forbidden. You may gripe if the temperature is unsuitable. 10. No man is ever required to buy a birthday present for another man. In fact, even remembering a friends birthday is strictly optional.) 11. Agreeing to distract the ugly friend of a hot babe your buddy is trying to hook up with is your legal duty. Should you get carried away with your good deed and end up having sex with the beast, your pal is forbidden to speak of it, even at your bachelor party. 12. Before dating a buddy's ex, you are required to ask his permission; and he, in return is required to grant it. 13. Women who claim they "love to watch sports" must be treated as spies until they demonstrate knowledge of the game and the ability to pick a buffalo wing clean. 14. If a man's zipper is down, that's his problem- you didn't see nuthin'. 15. The universal compensation for buddies who help you move is beer. 16. A man must never own a cat or like his girlfriend's cat. 17. You girlfriend must bond with your buddy's girlfriends within 30 minutes of meeting them. You are not required to make nice with her gal pals' significant dick-heads--- low-level sports bonding is all the law requires. 18. When stumbling upon other guys watching a sports event, you may always ask the score of the game in progress, but you may never ask who's playing. 19. When your girlfriend/wife expresses a desire to fix her whiney friend up with your pal, you may give her the go-ahead only if you'll be able to warn your buddy and give him time prepare excuses about joining the priesthood. 21. It is permissible to consume a fruity chick drink only when you're sunning on a tropical beach... and it's delivered by a topless supermodel....and it's free. 22. Unless you're in prison, never fight naked. 23. A man in the company of a hot, suggestively dressed woman must remain sober enough to fight. 24. If a buddy is outnumbered, out manned, or too drunk to fight, you must jump into the fight. Exception: If within the last 24 hours his actions have caused you to think, "What this guy needs is a good ass-whuppin", then you may sit back and enjoy. 25. Friends don't let friends wear speedos. Ever. Issue closed. 26.Phrases that may NOT be uttered to another man while weight lifting: "Yeah, baby, push it!" "C'mon, give me one more! Harder!" "Another set and we can hit the showers." " Nice ass, are you a Sagittarius?" 27.Never hesitate to reach for the last beer or the last slice of pizza, but not both. That's just plain mean. 28. If you compliment a guy on his six-pack, you better be referring to his beer. 29. Never join your girlfriend/wife in dissing a buddy, except when she's withholding sex pending your response. 30. Never talk to a man in the bathroom unless you're on equal footing: either both urinating or both waiting in line. In all other situations, a nod is all the conversation you need. 31.If a buddy is already singing along to a song in the car, you may not join him...too gay. 32.Before allowing a drunken friend to cheat on his girl, you must attempt one intervention. If he is able to get on his feet,look you in the eye, and deliver "FUCK OFF!" You are absolved of your of responsibility. 33.The morning after you and a babe who was formerly "just a friend" have carnal, drunken monkey sex, the fact that you're feeling weird and guilty is no reason not to nail her again before the discussion about what a big mistake it was. 34.In Blackjack, always split aces and eights. No arguments.

I had to rap through a smallish waterfall last weekend and was wearing my Scholler pants. Mildly damp. Dried quickly depsite brush belaying through wet folliage. Good stuff. No complaints yet. $42.00 on ovestock.com (Moonstone contortin pants) Very satisfied customer.

Great story about dogs and Ice climbing. http://www.rockandice.com/index.phtml?section=stories_show&content_id=40 I have a dog which stays home if we are going to the crags or any other activity she can't do herself.

There is some good perspective on Everest Rescues in this account by Dave Hahn(solo): http://climb.mountainzone.com/2001/story/html/hahn_everest.html

That is one MANKY lookin bushwack on the N.Ridge! You know what else was fun on that climb was every so often I would think "mabye now is a good time to put on our crampons". I had just read one of Chounaird's tip for speed is to cut steps instead of stopping to put on crampons and did that instead. Chop Chop Chop, it only took 2 swings to form a nice secure foot hold and ususally no more than 6 or 7 were needed to get to better footing. Jerome: wow! 9.5 hours is awesome! I think route finding would be easier in April under a good snow pack. Was the big boulderfield just east of the summit of Persis covered?

From Freedom of the Hills: Rope Without Knot: 100% Double Fisherman's: 65-70% Bowline: 70-75% Water Knot: 60-70% Figure 8: 75-80% Clove Hitch: 60-65% Fisherman's: 60-65% Overhand: 60-65% I think these are all good knots to know and most have certian scenarios that work better than others. I usually pull a water knot tight with my teeth for rap anchors, but, you guys are freaking me out with your stories though. Obviously you should also know a prussik knot and a munter hitch, but, what other knots should aspiring alpinists know?

TESTOSTERONE!

Was it me? or was it the M's game

Alex: I have read at least one account of someone doing the traverse durring the winter but instead of descending to Lake Serene they make a 2 dayer out of it and go back to Persis. I think it would be a lot easier to travel over snow than verticle dirt. We took several pictures, but they need developing. I'll send some in if they turn out.

Philfort: Good question, the closest/easiest anchors were set back from the edge of the waterfall. In hindsite, I should have sacrificed a couple of nuts or hexes to keep the rope, but speed was the issue. Someone gave Brian the rope anyway.

They got this neat thing called PRIVATE MESSAGES on this website. Thought I would let you potty mouths know.

My partner Brian arrived at my house ½ hour late, 4:30 am, which allowed me enough time to eat the waffle I made for him. We drove to the Lake Serene trailhead, parked his truck and drove my truck to the foot of Mt. Persis. Our plan was to scramble up Mt. Persis, traverse the ridge connecting Mt. Persis and Mt. Index, tag the summit of Index, descend the “non-technical” East route to Lake Serene and take the leisurely hike down to the trailhead. The total elevation gain and loss was approximately 14,000’ over 11 miles. Our bivy gear consisted of a cigarette lighter and ultra-lightweight bivy (Hefty Garbage) sacks. We started out well hiking with headlamps and, topping Mt. Persis by 7:30 under a clear blue sky. We reached the ½ way point on the traverse ridge by 10:30 despite stopping for ½ hour to look for Brian’s bite valve to his water bladder, (DOH!), which popped off while climbing over a big boulder. Lots of big boulders encountered, which is a lot of fun! We ate lunch and decided to switch sides of the ridge and travel along the north side on the open face above the cliff band as opposed to the near vertical forest we had been traveling on the south side, which sucks! As we descended to the low point on the ridge of 4,800’ I found a small gully to glissade the final 400’ to the bottom. I soon discovered the snow too shallow and soft to adequately control my speed and flipped over to self-arrest as I gained speed. Now hurtling down the gully with the pick of my axe bouncing off of rocks, ice and brush I steered toward a small tree to stop my decent not noticing the rock protruding from the snow just up hill from the little conifer. Pow! Well, I was stopped. I was missing my hat and most of the skin from my knuckles and was now losing some blood. Brian brush belayed down to my position and we inspected my left hand deciding there wasn’t anything we could effectively do except move fast and get to the truck. We put on our crampons, steadily climbed the west ridge of Mt. Index and reached the summit at about 2:30pm, signed the register and descended the East ridge to the saddle at 5,450’ where we were to find the key to the descent, the “obvious gully”. We found 3 obvious gullies, #1 didn’t look like it connected to the main gully without an 80’ rappel, #2 started and ended with a long rappel, #3 was 4’ wide and contained 70° neve. Since the total length of our rope was 80’ we took gully #3 as it also lead directly into the main gully. I kicked steps down 100’ to where I discovered a 20’ rock step covered with water ice with no obvious rap anchors to be found. Climb back up and try Gully #1. Nice and wide 60° neve with a ramp leading to the main gully. It was now 4:00 and fog was covering the lake creating, a sense of urgency. We down climbed a couple of 30’ easy 5th class steps to arrive at an overhanging, 40’ waterfall gushing with freezing fresh snowmelt. Tied 2 runners around boulders, attached the rope and tossed it down. Peering over the edge we could see the end of the rope dangling inches off the deck, Hallelujah! Brian went down first followed by the packs and myself. Very cold water. We gained the ridge to descend to the bench above the lake, followed a trail to where we found several old rap slings. As we were forced to leave our rope at the waterfall (it was short) we had no choice but to down climb into the clouds. It wasn’t bad, make like Tarzan most of the way, with lots of trees and brush to lower down. We reached the lake at 6:00pm, took 15 minutes to eat and break out the headlamps. Brian’s headband broke so; he held the light in his hand. It took an hour to circle the lake in the dark, climbing over and around boulders the size of UPS trucks. We finally reached the North end of the lake where we had to enter the woods, bushwhack up a vertical forest, where Brian dropped his hand held headlamp, which fell off of a small cliff. Sharing mine was a pain, I would climb ahead up through the thick brush for 10’ –15’ and shine it back to him then he would come to my position; repeat until we were thoroughly lost and frustrated. Brian was getting panicky and started thrashing and cursing the vine maple that had a hold of his pack. I finally got my bearings and hooked up with the nice USFS trail to the truck at 8:00 pm. We trudged down the trail swinging the light back and forth, Brian was very dehydrated and refused to drink water from the streams causing him to move really slow, yell at and taunt me for not planning the trip better. Sheesh! Some friend! (He later apologized after I offered him some Gatorade). We finally made it to the truck at 10pm wet, tired and not happy to find the back window had been pried open and Brian’s toolbox and wallet were missing. This was the last straw for Brian and he delivered some colorful comments and a couple of kicks to the fender of his truck that would have made Pele proud. The Trailhead thief should consider himself very very lucky he wasn’t still there when we arrived. The headline would have read something like “Suspected Trailhead thief found dead of multiple stab wounds, ice axes are considered the primary weapon of the killers”

When you get tired of working out in the gym try to chop a chord of knotty pine firewood in one of the local steep forests. No saws, just an axe. It is an awesome upper body workout. Wait for a nice windy, rainy, 35 degree day to build some character. let me know when & where you do so I can pick up the wood

Carolyn: I get the impression you are shoping for a primary pair of boots that will serve as an all around climbing boot for you. If that is the case I would recomend taking a closer look at the leathers as they are better all purpose than plastics IMO. If cold is what concerns you plasics are warmer, but, take a look at some Scarpa Matterhorns at: www.sierratradingpost.com You probably wont find a better boot for the $ and if they don't fit, Sierra Trading won't fuss about the return. (I've returned a few things without any trouble)

quote: Originally posted by Rodchester: I think Messner said "murder" of the impossible. But I agree with your sentiment, to a point. Let the yuppies have their toys. Do you really think anyone will buy this AND actually use it? No. Read Matt and Mattp's trip report on 3 fingers. I bet they would have fought over the jacket if they had one.

is there an echo in here??

I got another (if I'm allowed) I wanna hook into a big steelhead on fly fishing gear and land it. Maybe I will this winter while you guys are chopping down Drury Falls. I guess I could climb Drury, parasail down to the river and catch a steelhead while eating shrooms all the while. Top that you blackbelt keyboard ninjas!!

Hangliding and whatever it is those crazy French guys like to do off of the summit (parasailing?). Also like to get into tele for winter traveling (and throw these damn alpine trekers in the garbage)

Miker - let me be the first to say "hey old man, I think there's some juggy 5.5 climbs around the corner if this one's too sic for ya" Just kiddin' it's probably nothing to worry about heh heh Bronco 29 'till January [This message has been edited by Bronco (edited 10-17-2001).]

Good for you holly. I am the same way. Thirsty for geeky climbing tech data. No easy answer for the all consuming resource but, I believe your mind is the best tool on your rack and the only ways to develop your arsenal is experience and reading. Reading is the safer way to learn initally, experience will come. I cruise the climbing section of used book stores I have come across and buy every techincal climbing manual I find. I don't necesarily read them from cover to cover, but get familiar with the content and refer to it when questions come up. Freedom of the Hills is the best if you are only going to have one. Hope this helps.

I hate that paved "trail" throught the medow. My wife and I were up there 2 weeks ago and watched a poor bastard with rental plastics and a HUGE pack stumble up the trail a bit and then try to come back down. He looked very uncomfortable and finally decided to side step down through the steep section to avoid the looming faceplant. Ha Ha

I might suggest calling Barel Mountaineering in Bozeman prior to driving the 10 hours - I don't think theres any sign of ice YET (406) 582-1335

For what it's worth, there is an Ice Climbing Festival scheduled for November 17, 18 & 19 in Bozeman MT. Newbie workshop on 17th, intermediate on 18th and Manley Icemen on the 18th. Probably wont be any parties unless you like college girls.

I appologize in advance for contradicting you Beck, but, I looked in the back of my BD cataloge yesterday and a 5/8" spectra daisy chain is rated for 19kN with the individual pockets rated at 3kN. As opposed to a regular Spectra sling rating of 22kN. I agree with the rest of your analysis though. [This message has been edited by Bronco (edited 10-12-2001).]