mattp

Alex's recommedations are good. I don't know about calling the W. Ridge of North Twin "very short," though. There is a lot of semi-exposed scrambling involved and in comparison to the other climbs in this list it is not shorter than average.

In that UW thread, Jason is mistaken. I know of at least three parties that have climbed it without my being there. Sounds like you enjoyed the climb.

There won't be any moon. Bring light.

It looks to me as if that whold grand jury story has been buried.

How 'bout Rove? Hell -- how 'bout BUSH?

YOU ARE INVITED to Celebrate Wild Mt. Hood! Join us Saturday, October 8, 7 pm, at 4405 NE Alberta Street in Portland for food, fun and friends at a fundraiser for Cascade Resources Advocacy Group. We'll celebrate the recent agreement that protects the North Side of Mt. Hood for future generations! All are welcome! $20 per person includes appetizers, drinks, music, and…fire dancing! Beginning at 7 pm, we will have delicious beer donated by Lucky Lab brewery, as well as an array of other drinks, yummy food, and good music. Starting around 10 pm, we will have a performance by Flamebuoyant Productions' Shireen Press and Indigo Teiwes, who fuse dance and acrobatics with prop manipulation to create original and dynamic fire performance. Eat, drink and be merry, see old friends and meet new ones, watch fantastic fire dancing, support CRAG's work, and celebrate the settlement agreement to protect Mt. Hood's north side. Plus, don't miss the special silent auction & raffle of unique & fabulous stuff everyone needs, including gear from Patagonia, Pacific Northwest art, vacations, and more! Call Julie at 503-525-2724 to RSVP, so we can be sure we have enough food for everyone. 4405 NE Alberta Street

I haven't tried these shovels, but I wonder how effective they will be in avalanche debris. Often, the stuff sets up pretty quick and you need a pretty stout shovel to make anything like efficient progress. I know light is right, but I think I'd prefer that my buddies on the surface had real shovels with a stout blade firmly attached to an efficient handle and a "D" grip on the end. Assuming you have a shovel blade of similar weight, how much extra is it to carry a real shovel handle?

On both sides, some trails have been reclaimed by Nature while others have been gobbled up by logging operations. I don't think they've built many miles of new trail over the last 20 years but there have been a few places where they've been compelled by user-numbers to "adopt" trails that had been developed by fishermen.

I don't think they are building many if any trails in the surrounding National Forest either. In Mount Baker Snoqualmie, I believe, they hava a no new trails in wilderness policy and on both sides of the crest, from Snoqualmie Pass to the Canadian border they have a grizzly bear management policy that stipulates that if they do build a mile of trail somewhere they must remove a mile of trail nearby. These stated policies, of course, are probably not nearly as important as the fact that they simply don't have money for trail building -- they can't even maintain what they have.

I know it's said A-1, but I took one of the longest falls of my climbing career on that pitch. That was many years ago and I haven't thought I needed to go back.

In past years, there have been some spouses and sprayers hanging aroung the campsite during the day at ropeup, and I've felt pretty good about leaving my stuff unlocked and unattended. However, thefts in campgrounds are not unheard of -- take whatever you may think are appropriate precautions and don't rely on someone else to watch your stuff. I don't think anybody is going to be appointed security, but maybe that could be a lottery type thing and the "loser" has to sit around and not climb.

I'm wondering if anybody around here has done Shot in the Dark. I believe that Duane Constantino said it was one of his best efforts and I'm thinking it might be cool to upgrade the hardware. I wouldn't want to try it in its current condition!

You might have been on Luke. I've never done that one, but I've heard folks say it was pretty good and I think I remember there was a travese in there somewhere. Two pitches; 'don't remember the rating - 5.10a?

In my book, the start of Cornucopia route is on the plants, because the face offers little friction. How far left of Tidbits was your mystery route? Was it the next route left - immediately to the right of a newer one? I can't quite picture it from your description. Was it headed for a steep rib with a retreat sling hanging on an old bolt maybe 40 feet up? You could have been on Magic Bus. I think ChucK's picture is of that route:

We had ropeup at the Eighmile site the first year. I don't remember the layout, really, but there was plenty of room. You enter the campground and turn left at the dumpster.

I like about half of that Jack Johnson release. I guess that is not a bad average for recodings from that school of music. For the JazzFunk, Head Hunters is pretty good, though certainly "dated." The early Funkadelic stuff had some jazzy elements to it, as well.

Every one of those guys is a great musician in his own right. They went on to be the leaders of several of the most popular fusion bands for the next ten years. For those who don't recognize the name, Zawinul was the keyboard player for Weather Report. Tony Williams didn't become as popular as the others - he had an eerie and strange taste in music that made him harder to listen to, and much of what Dave Holland did as a band leader was a little too abstract for most fans but I think some of his stuff was really terrific - though it was less fusion and more "free jazz." He played base on all kinds of great fusion stuff with Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, etc., but I liked the free jazz stuff with Anthony Braxton and Sam Rivers. I think you had to see it live to gain an understanding of it, though -- then the recordings took more life.

Friday, September 30th, through Sunday, October 2. We'll have the group campsite at the Eight Mile Campground in Icicle Creek, Friday and Saturday nights. Come joins us around the camfire or hook up for a climb. This is an annual celebration. We'll have a couple of slideshows, a gear swap is brewing, and there will some opportunity for inexperienced climbers to try their hands on some deliciious Icicle Creek granite with some help from more experiencd climbers while others head off to climb on their own or wander around the canyon, enjoying the scenery. It'll be a very good time ... hope you can make it.

He definitely had a big attitude, but lots of musicians did and still do. In addition to Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way is a terrific "fusion" album. It has an incredible cast, as well: * Miles Davis - trumpet * Wayne Shorter - soprano saxophone * John McLaughlin - electric guitar * Herbie Hancock - electric piano * Chick Corea - electric piano * Joe Zawinul - organ * Dave Holland - bass * Tony Williams - drums I think In a Silent Way was Miles' first real electric album and it was highly criticized at the time by some who said he had "sold out." It is far easier to listen to, very understated, in comparison to Bitches Brew which came next. I liked fusion at the time, but most of it didn't hold up - at least for me. I still listen to In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew quite a bit. For an earlier album, I like Kinda Blue.

Yes, the chest harnes is the way to go if you have a full sized camera and are not on technical ground. And theere's a lot to be said for the old SLR's -- I had one that withstood being dropped and didn't seem to mind the rain and worked GREAT until it got stolen afer I'd had it for fifteen years. I bet there isn't a modern digital that will ever match that.

Landing Pad for Jesus: Apocayptic Christians & Bush

I used to carry around a full sized camera for the same reason, and I think it is lots of fun to chase after really good pictures but most partners don't want to wait around while I fool with the camera and, for ski photos and climbing photos on the fly, a point and shoot pocket camera can't be beat. My last digital died on a wet weekend when I was fairly careful to keep it in a ziplock. Funny, though, I opened it up and took the battery and card out and kept testing it and it magically popped back to life about three months later.

I've been leaning toward that one, but I'm concerned about the performance in low light. Some reviews say the image quality is poor even in good light, but I think it is generally not thought a good performer in low light. Red eye is also a stated problem, but of course that is easily correctable with photoshop.

I think there are two different fundmentals at odds here: features vs. pocket size. I'm unclear what the advantage of having control of the aperture is if we are talking about a pocket camera as I've been perfectly happy with just being able to select +1 or -1 Fstop or "backlight" or "slow" or whatever. For active climbing shots, most of us want something that fits in a shirt pocket. Yes, I understand how one can manipulate deapth of field and contrast and etc. with full manual control, but I'm thinking that, for a climbing camera (pocket sized), qualities like good low-light capability, wide(er) angle zoom in addition to at least 3x optical, and waterproofness would be more important. If you want a real camera, that is a different story. But if you are hiking around looking for shots and setting up for them and stuff like that and really thinking about aperture settings, you are probalby packing a tripod and god knows what else anyway. Thoughts? Models?

Right on, Bug. In past years, I've taken folks up their first multipitch climbs but I won't be able to do that this year. Doxey is going to be setting some top ropes for new climbers as well - somebody could get the full on cc.com immersion if you take one of Doxey's graduates up R&D and then suggest they post a trip report with full-on epic tales of greatness. Oh -- by the way, the group campsite is going to be at Eightmile Campground this year because Bridge Creek was already reserved.