Bronco

I second lee's advice, I even heard an old cowboy in Montana talking about green-horns having to drink a lot of water to avoid headaches when first working in the high country. Drink till it hurts and eat high carb foods. Gator suggests taking one asprin 3 times/day to help keep your blood thin and assist in acclimazation. I have made a practice of doing this on Rainier and very rarely feel any altitude, although I'm sure I'll get nailed on one of these trips. Of course he also said Dan - set a speed record on Mt. Rainer.

Sounds like a job for the old SLEDGE HAMMER! My computer has been arbitrarily uninstalling my mouse driver. It's happened about 12 times in the last 2 weeks.

...people who steal guide books have a nut fall off and roll around on the floor of their SILVER TOYOTA VAN while they gape in horror.

You can use TP in place of unsterile pads if you are a wussie and actually carry TP. Real mountain men use snowballs for that job.

I'd loose that synthetic bag with goretex cover, that thing must weigh at least 5 pounds. You don't really need a goretex cover if you have a tent and if you wear your clothes to bed you'll be fine in a 2 pound 20 degree down bag. Your rope looks heavy (6-8lbs), if it's a non technical route, consider carrying a half rope (8 - 8.5mm). The pair of mine weigh 9 pounds 8.5 x 60m and I only take one for glaicer stuff. It wouldn't be too hard to find a lighter pack either, look at the Arcteryx Nozone, it carries pretty swell but, you should be able to go even smaller than that like the Khamsin 38 at 2.5lbs. I don't carry fleece on long trips anymore, it takes too much room and forces me to carry a bigger (heavier) pack. Between your Goretex and Down sweater, you should be comfy in most conditions, maybe throw in an extra poly pro shirt if you tend to be cold. Most off the shelf first aid kit's are heavy, mine consists of 20' of duct tape, a small container of ibuprofin and the bandana. Other than that, your list looks fine and 42 pounds is actually a pretty good weight.

North face of Mt. Baring. Just kidding, but they recomend one for the walk up on Baring. I have carried one while hiking for years and never used it. Once I started learning technical climbing, I realized how useless a 50' piece of cord is other than guying out a tent.

Interesting how the mountains make you lose stuff. 6 of us at Thumb rock lost the contents of our bowels when Liberty Cap let loose with a big enough serac/slide to give us a good dusting. Dang Mountains.

Rubarb bread is good climbing fuel too. More like rubarb cake really. I used it to get in the good graces of the lead RMI guide on a climb when I was a noobie. He had a reputation for being pretty hardnosed and proved it with most other climbers but me. He'd just mosey over and give me some advice, real nice like, then inquire if I had any more of that "good rubarb stuff"

It looks like the temporary Liscense. Boy, that really was a "brand new" truck. At least he probly got over the inital reluctance to beat on it pretty quick after that incident. Those vandals probly think it's extra funny to hammer on a brand spankin new truck.

Check w/MEC. I bought a shorty from them this spring.

The DC/ID is much more interesting in that you're kinda winding your way around and up the mountain. The emmons is all laid out for you from Camp Schurman.

I'm thinking it was possibly the big group from Denver in crackman's photos. (see Lib Ridge photos thread) Here's a funny story, within 15 minutes of each other, we had 2 teams of 2 arrive at Thumb Rock on Saturday afternoon. The first group (wearing shorts and tee shirts) melted snow and took off immediatly, carying less than 20 lbs each. The second group had these beheomoth packs that had to weigh over 60 pounds and had a full rack of ice screws, dog bone quick draw's on each screw, jumars and were wearing full on expedition type goretex bibs. The temp was about 60 degrees. The second team was beat and comented how glad they were to have stowed some gear in Gacier Basin (I cant imagine what they left behind). The first team just shook their heads and took off again. We talked to the expedition team and found they had a lot of high altitude experience (a lot more than we did) and were just used to taking that slow and heavy approach. I don't doubt they could live up there for a week no problem where as we were thankful for the heat so we didn't have to burn up our last day's fuel to melt water. Also on Friday afternoon, from camp on Curtis ridge, we witnessed a group of 3 out on the final slope to Liberty Cap that had reportedly first been seen leaving the proximity of Thumb rock at 8:00 am. I don't think they summitted until 5 or 6 in the evening, moving slow and making us worry about the conditions. I'm really curious as to what casued them to move so painfully slow.

More like an alpine bastard!

Our party was a day behind Bodynazi's. I think the group you're talking about also left a dozen blue bags at Thumb rock. The conditions were firm snow with big bucket steps pre-kicked. I think a very strong climber could have arrestted a falling rope mate (shortroped) but, we still placed pickets between climbers on the rope because we had them, my 2 partners were't feeling 100% and there was a little rockfall. I don't think I'd want to be on a rope of 6 (or climbing below them) so, I'd have to agree with the inital poster that they should've placed pro if they weren't comfortable soloing.

or this one? http://www.nps.gov/grte/news/2003/03-23.pdf

is this the one? http://www.nps.gov/grte/news/2003/03-03.pdf

Anyone been in there recently and know if there's still snow patches lingering on the N. Face?

OK! Since you've made no attempt to contact me, no more Mr. Niceguy. It's time to go huntin'

E. Face of the North Peak put up in '51. 5.7 grade IV (Love those Becky 5.7's ) How bout the north face of Baring? That goes at 5.10 and definetly an alpine setting. No glacier but lots of route finding and brush, similar to Mt. Index.

Get some Rambo Comps for Water ice, they rock! I think some guy has a used pair for sale on the Yard Sale for $75.00

gotta watch out!

Bill that looks good, but, you could cut more bulk and weight by leaving your TP at home and using snow balls (yep) and obviously, a down bag would be much lighter and more compressable. On our recent climb of Rainier we each carried about 41-44 lbs out of the parking lot including all of our clothing except the shorts and t-shirts we were hiking in. I think Greg and I both had 2400 CI packs and Bruce had a 3200. Only difference was he could put his sleeping pad inside his where we had the pads on the outside. I think by Sunday morning with all of our technical gear being used and most food eaten, our packs averaged around 15 lbs each, just bivi sacks, sleeping pads and bags, stove and pot, water and food for the day, insulated jacket and misclaneous gear like pocket knife and first aid kit. The smaller the pack the less stuff you'll bring.

I had a kind of interesting experience just this weekend on Mt. Rainier where one person in our party had been the point man on our rope team the entire ascent to Liberty Cap even though he was suffering from the altitude. Anyway, we come to the schrund at the top which some hot shot Canadian alpine dudes were struggleing to pull over the top and I offered to lead the 15' of verticle snow groveling if he wasn't feeling good enough to do it without falling as I was still feeling very good. I knew deep down he wasn't feeling strong enough to do it, but when he wouldn't relent, I put him on belay despite my doubts. The first moves were over a bulge at chest height. He steps across the schrund, moves up about 5', struggles, grabs the picket (his only pro) which pulls out. He falls and crash lands on the lower lip of the schrund and starts sliding down the forty five degree glacier towards Willis wall which was promptly arrested by the belay. Miraciously, he was totally uninjured despite the presence of no less than 3 pickets, 2 ice tools and 2 crampons flying through the air with him and landing on his side. When he came off the schrund, I thought we were screwed, he was gonna get hurt or fall into the schrund or chop the rope with a flailling piece of gear. I was pretty angry but didn't say much. I guess now I realize I was pretty angry with myself for not insisting he let the stronger climber take the lead, I'm sure he would have listened to reason, I just didn't want to offend him. As it was, it ended up just being an exciting moment on an awesome climb, but, it could have ended up much worse. I'll see if I can post a picture of the schrund when we climbed it, the one crackman posted it's in much better shape and about 5' shorter.

Bill: No matter how much crap I bring, I know that somewhere out there, theres a guy topping off his 70lb pack with jumars to do the South slope of Adams. I think that Mount Adams may be the best place to see the contrast between over and under prepared.

Bruce McMillian, Greg W and I summitted Liberty cap yesterday around 8 am and agree, the condition of the route was beautiful. The scariest section for me was the mud & scree on the lower part of the Ridge because the upper part of the route was "cruiser eh" according to the 3 Canadians also climbing the route. The schrund crossing was about 15' of verticle snow flailing and pretty interesting. It was hot enough at Thumb Rock where we didn't need to fire up the stove, just threw snow into water bottles and in the pot and laid them out in the sun. We listened to a large serac crash by on Liberty Wall in the early afternoon and got dusted a bit, but the route was untouched. Shortly after the avalanche, a couple guys cruised through doing the route car to car, shooting for 18 - 20 hours round trip. By comparison, we took 8 hours from Thumb Rock placing 10-12 pickets for running belays and moved pretty cautiously. The descent is fairly direct right now, cutting accross the upper Winthrop to the Emmons. There's a big boot pack on the entire route, but that could change pretty quickly. It's unusual for me to have caught the route in such good shape and in great weather with solid partners. I could get used to that.