mattp

Anybody carrying around any of the current compact digital cameras? Sony makes one (W-1) that fires up instantly and has a real nice monitor, but some reviews suggest it may not be durable and may not produce sharp images; the Canon digital Elph has proven reliable, but it is frustratingly slow to start up; Pentax makes one that is water-resistant, but many others pack more features into a smaller package; a few are really really small ...

Fox, I was referring to your "you know better than I do" remark. Anyway, Beckey was the only game in town back in the days of yore -- and he recommended a more direct approach to the lower part of the climb. Selected Climbs came out in 1993. Your picture of the climbing up on the Fin reminded me of just how cool that upper part of the climb was. We didn't have much trouble with the route-finding up there, but I thought the lower part -- like so many other routes in the area -- had a lot of mediocre climbing on it and we did wonder if we were "on route" on some of the lower pitches. I thought the off width was not as hard or scary as most people fear when they read "5.9 off width," do you agree? We had a #11 hex as our biggest piece, and I had to run it out a bit, but I didn't get the sense I was likely to fall out of the crack.

Fox, I asked a sincere question. I didn't have "the book" at work yesterday, and I don't think it had been published when I climbed Backbone. Now that I look at it, I see that Nelson recommends avoiding the lower part of the ridge and, looking at Kearney's book, it looks as if he agrees. Having climbed that lower portion of the route, so do I. With Jim Nelson recommending the avoidance, I am sure it has indeed become standard.

Last year: Year before:

Good liquor is not for mixing. The main reason they invented coctails was to cover the taste of lousy prohibiiton era black-market spirits.

We're arguing only with ourselves here -- on the issue of these draws. There has not been one poster to write that he should have left them there this long -- and several have said it is poor form. It has become established practice at lots of climbing areas, though. Is it simply the passage of time that offends us, or are we on this bulletin board a breed apart from our peers?

If you show up on Friday or Saturday night, we'll all be wearing helmets with our names written on the front. Don't forget yours.

Tim L left out a climbing area that I used to visit and which I thought was great. A few hours northeast of Toronto, north of Kingston New York, is Bon Echo Provincial Park. This has climbs up to about 400 feet high, on metamorphosed rock that rises right out of the lake. There used to be a Canadian Alpine Club hut on the lake, and you rented motorboats to reach the bottom of the routes. On some climbs, we used to rappel back to the boat. It was FUN! but tended toward being scary. I bet it hasn't been developed as a sport climbing area. Winnepeg is the middle of nowhere, but the north shore of Lake Superior, a couple hundred miles east, has good climbing on the Canadian Shield rock - some pseudo-granite or metamorphosed rock up to a couple hundred feet high. Carolyn on this site climbs there some. A half day's drive southwest of Winnepeg is Devil's Tower. Awesome!

I am not aware if it being an issue. There could be a watershed rule or something, though.

Has that zig zag avoidance of the lower portion of the route become the standard way to do this climb these days? I read an earlier route report that described the off-width as the first or second pitch of technical climbing and I wondered about this because when I climbed this route we did some tough (and not particularly aesthetic) climbing on the lower part of the ridge that you guys avoided. From what I recall, your route looks like the way to go.

Dru, most of the trail lies outside the contour. I don't recall which contour it is or what the elevation at the base of the route actually is. User-built trails and other similar unplanned and unregulated development raise a number of issues for the Forest Service.

Again, you are incorrect. The boundary in that location runs along a contour line, and the route is clearly located above that contour. The USGS map incorrectly shows the boundary to run along section lines, but in fact there is no question whether the route is in or out of the wilderness. The Forest Service did not raise the issue. They are doing their best to respond to it, and they will enforce their regulations. That is called doing their job - not justifying it. I'm with you about how the clumsy government bureaucracy often seems to be self-serving and driven by self interest and etc -- but I haven't see it in this case and not on this particular issue.

Dru, you are incorrect about Infinite Bliss. The Forest Service personnel in no way have sought to inflate the issue and I have seen absolutely no effort on their part to try to "justify their job." In the Middle Fork, they have plenty to do. I don't know the history of the City of Rocks closure, but my guess is that the issue did not start with some dim bulb with a government job. I am sure there are people who head out there to see a historic landmark and don't want to see climbers and rappel anchors all over it. Is the closure necessary or warranted? I don't know. Can we live with it? Probably so.

Dru, the land managers I have spoken with have expressed little concern for bolts per se, but they do fear user conflicts and management issues associated with some sport climbing -- so in that respect I think you are right that they are more likely to take issue with a sport climb being sited right next to a trail than is a tourist. Is that a sign of their "justifying ther job" or is it a sign of their "doing their job?" Merv, I may agree with you. I don't recommend that someone add sport routes at an existing trad crag, if that is what you are saying.

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It is a totally goofy story either way. No matter how you look at it, there seems to be no question that GW DID NOT complete his obligations to his country -- and he's lied about it. We'll all debate whether this shows there is some kind of media bias, or whether CBS is sloppy or whatever, and in the end we'll all forget that in this campaign Kerry did not make a bunch of noise over Bush's failure to serve - he only sought to capitalize off of his own record just as candidates have always done when they had some military medals to show off -- until the Bush camp started flinging the mud.

I think you are mostly right about that, Dru, though I generally think that we should avoid developing climbing areas right next to trails or roadsides or campgrounds -- there is much more potential for user conflicts than there is for any benefit to come from creating situations where we will be interacting with other users such as hikers, bikers or families with small children, or creating hazardous roadside situations by standing around on the shoulder, or creating a "scene" that is observable from a picnic area.

For sipping good scotch, the .6 liter Sigg drink bottle is the way to go. The simple yet elegant mechanics of unscrewing the top aid in the contemplation of a fine sunset, and the pleasantly finished metal body cozies up nicely in your hand. Best of all, it won't ever leak in your pack and it is, as Snoboy noted, coated with an inside finish specifically designed to hold liquor. If you happen to be out with the Mountaineers, it looks like a fuel bottle and they won't take it away from you in the parking lot. For backpacking, the platypus or equivalent seems the best way to go. It weighs very little and flattens to almost nothing once you empty it.

Note: some posts here have appeared to be based on the assumption that the draws in question are hanging right above the trail to Snow Lakes. That is not the case. The climb we are discussing sits above the access route for Das Toof, and would only be seen by people who have left the hiking trail and are following this "way trail" (or some variant of it -- I as up there two months ago and did not see this route even though I was keeping an eye out for it). I agree with those who criticize the practice of leaving draws hanging on a cliff. As I've said: it has become an "accepted" practice by many and I think that is unfortunate. But lets not be confused here: these draws are not hanging above a popular hiking trail crowded with non-climbers. In my mind that doesn't make it "better," but it changes the discussion somewhat: by-and-large it is climbers who will be offended, not families with their kids. The issue in this case is what do WE want to see at the crags and in the mountains, not what are THEY going to see.

Like you say, Merv, I'm simply "calling it like I see it." Tone it down a bit and I think you'd find folks more able to discuss whether climbers should take their draws home with them and we might even see a reasoned discussion of whether permanent alterations in the form of such bolt-intensive mixed climbs are worthy.

[Commentary] Lets see if we can have a real discussion here. Titling a thread "ice sporto litter" and starting out by describing the climb as an "attrocious bolted overhanging "mixed climb" that someone must think is really special," with typical Dwayner-style venom and put-down, reminds me of prior threads based on the premise that sport climbers are cowards who do nothing but deface the rock. Further, the statement that this route was in the wilderness, apart from the "technical" distinction of where the actual legal boundary lies, seemed (to me) a bit exaggerated. In my opinion, the past net effect of threads that started out like this, or headed this direction before they were done, has been to get lots of people mad, drive many users away from the board, and to stifle conversation about important issues. Lets try to keep this discussion more "on track."[/Commentary] I agree with those who feel that leaving the draws in place when you leave the area is poor form. There may be reasons for it in some places, and maybe somebody thought they had a good reason for doing it in this case, but it seems to have become a much more widely accepted practice than I would like to see. Another point that I fear could get lost if we descend to a discussion of whether bolted mixed climbing is OK in the first place is where might such a bolted mixed climb be appropriate? I gotta say, I am not all that psyched about modern "mixed" climbing... but if there was a place anywhere in the State that a climb like this might be appropriate, wouldn't it be at Snoqualmie Pass, just outside the Alpental ski area? As I understand the Ski Area license, this location is indeed probably just a couple hundred yards outside their area.

Good point, Rudy. Instruction and clinics and stuff are now offered in gyms where 25 years ago there was no such offering, or little of it, outside of climbing clubs and guide services. Fleb, I think you oversimplify a bit, but I basically agree that following-to-leading or sport-to-trad are probably larger leaps than simply gym-to-exit-38. However, I think you discount some of the challenges you have learned to face. Even at Exit 38, the holds are not marked with tape (if it hasn't rained, they may however be marked with chalk). You gotta use more judgment to find a route. Even at Exit 38, there remains some danger of stonefall. You gotta use some judgment about where to sit while you belay. Even at Exit 38, there are places where the ground at the bottom of the crag is not flat and it is not covered with pea gravel. You have to be careful not to fall on your way to the first bolt. And, after that, there are places where you could get hurt in a leader fall -- you gotta use some judgment about where to just throw yourself at a move you are unsure of. You also may have to be able to get yourself out of a jam if you drop your rope from the top of a pitch when you are threading the anchors. Now that I think of it, we are some badass mofo's, climbing at such a terrifying place as Exit 38!

That gym-to-crag issue is big, Alex. Not only do we see people on the crags and in the mountains who may lack a background in outdoor survival and safety matters, but the gym-climbing initiation leads newer climbers in particular to sometimes expect or seek a gym-like experience when they head outdoors. I'm not looking to spark a "sport climbers suck" attack thread, but efforts to minimize our visual impact and environmental concerns can be lost in the tunnel-visioned pursuit of performance.

It doesn't take yet a fourth hand to "unlock" the ATC and hang on to your hanging climber while feeding/reeling in the other one, as it does with the Reverso. This is not a distinction specific to climbing with a team of three, but I am sure you are aware that the ATC doesn't lock up the same way that the Reverso does - that is a fundamental premise of this discussion. Like I said, I prefer the Reverso in this situation but (generally on lower angle terrain) I've have used the ATC and I've felt that I was providing a secure belay – though safety police on this site have admonished me that I must have been delusional.