mattp

Yeah, but that sucks, DFA. Smith Rock? I hear there's phat ice on Bear Mtn.

Ryland, Jordop covered it in the first response and I guess we are all just wasting our time now but I'll say that the fact that you can learn to keep your skis oriented straight up the hill or that you can loosen your boots enough to stay flat-footed on a traverse accross an icy surface is not a reason to recommend narrower skins. Some valid points in favor of narrower or straight-cut skins have been made here, but I don't think it is the mark of a whiner or an unqualified skier to recommend fatter skins and fuller coverage -- assuming one wants to ski up steep mountains like 95% of the peaks in the northern half of the Washington Cascades.

I don't think the bindings are designed for high speed wipe outs and stuff, and I'm pretty sure they won't perform as well as full on alpine ski gear, but I don't think they will kill you or anything -- I've taken my mountain boots and 404's to the top of Chrystal Mountain and skied some of the steep bowls up there just to see what I could do with the gear and I got down OK. What kind of ski brakes or leash do they have? I always think it is odd, though, when I ride the lift with folks on AT gear at a ski resort and when, upon talking to them, I find out they have no interest in ski mountaineering but they had been told AT gear was "more versatile" or some such thing - and my guess is that they just thought AT skis were cooler and gave them a better image. Perhaps the lady wondered if you were one of those people.

I don't think I have ever seen cheap used skins for sale anywhere - in 30 years of skiing - at least not skins that you would WANT to use. I haven't checked recently, but in the past there have been some good prices at MEC in Vancouver. For a while they had skins on a roll that they would sell by the foot, and you then had to buy hardware separately. Since I use the Candian "top fix" system anyway, so I usually disgard the clips that come with them, that "bulk" deal was pretty good.

Shapp - The washouts are pretty bad but you can probably get your car through there still. The big worry is that if they don't fix it now, there will be no road left in the Spring. An actual letter from you (and any other interested parties) would be helpful, I'm sure. Just politely say you appreciate the fact that they have been maintaining that road and the Eightmile Creek trail over the last few years, you hope it will continue, and you hope they can fix those washouts asap. A plea for more maintenance of the road ends in Copper Creek and on the Helena Spur would be helpful, too (the last roughly two miles of road serving Green Giant Buttress and the last mile to Blueberry Hill are badly overgrown and starting to suffer from water/flood damage so a truck or car you don't care about is becoming more and more necessary).

Constance is WAY cool, but it is a bigger hike and perhaps more of a mountain climb than the next thing to try after climbing Washington and Ellinor by the standard routes. Rollo: try this thread for my description of the E. Face route on Washington. It is, in my opinion, a "classic." old thread

That depends on what you are looking for, Crux. If your goal is to climb new mountains, I'd go for a new peak rather than a second route on one you've already climb. However, I've been up Stone and I'd say that the E. Face or SE Bowl or whatever you want to call it on Washington is much more fun than Stone - for the amount of effort involved.

Chris Christiansen used a digital projector for his Mount Vernon slide show last night, and he had much better contrast than we hat at Schultzy's. I didn't understand the whole story, but he needs to sell the projector. If somebody is interested, it might be worth checking out.

Part of the argument lies in the fact that folks have different ideas of what they want to ski. If you are yo yo skiing powder snow in the clearcuts, and for some touring, the skinnier skins will do just fine. However, if you are going to be skiing up and down mountains, you'll frequently be skiing rained frozen treewells below timberline or wind-blown crust above timberline and in these situations you want the skin to cover as close to the edge of the ski as possible or you are going to need ski crampons. When I trimmed my last pair, the instructions said to leave a half inch showing outside the skin and I decided a quarter would be better. I wish I had left even less. Skinning downhill sucks. I very rarely find the need for it -- even with a full pack and a narrow trail through the woods. I don't think this would be a reason for me to want skinnier skins.

Yeah, "blows goats" is what I say. Well not really. Some of the climbing on that route is really quite steller but, as with Outer Space, I'd give it an overall rating of "good" but not "fantastic." I say this because there is a lot of scrambling and monkeying around that is NOT classic, the summit is only moderately cool, and the approach and descent are definitely NOT classic. For clean, moderate granite in an alpine setting, go to the Bugaboos. I'd say the standard routes on Snowpatch and Pidgeon Spire far surpass the N. Ridge of Stuart in terms of overall quality (though they are much smaller climbs) and for for a bigger route that is roughly comparable to the full North Ridge of Stuart, the Beckey Chouinard on S. Howser was way cooler.

Mt. Cook IS cool. What route did you do? This one?

In my book, Outer Space is overrated. The last 2 1/2 pitches are great but the fist two are garbage, the crux pitch is in my view only OK, and that next one is certainly nothing to write home about. Overall it is a good though not great climb. I'd give Midway, Dreamer, DavisHolland/Lovin Arms all higher ratings than the "megaclassic" Outer Space.

Other interested parties? Lets carpool.

Does that illustrate or contradict your point matt? I think you just illustrated it perfectly.

I think it boils down to the fact that there are different goals here. Some people come to cc.com to meet other climbers and exchange information about climbing. Some just come here to entertain themselves when they are board at work, or to stroke their ego's, or perhaps to practice their debating skills, and it looks to me like some people post just to see their screen name on the monitor. Ever since I first came to the site, I've been arguing for more civility and less crudeness because I think cc.com could contribute more to the climbing community that way -- but others think it is real cool to be able to log in anonymously and act like an idiot all day long and, to a certain extent, the site owners agree with that. Yes, I believe that the whole tenor of the board would be both more civil and more genuinely informative if everyone were required to post under their real names, but then we'd have a different site -- wouldn't we?

I'd say the time for that would have been about a year ago, Trask. What do we do now, in your esteemed opinion? Do you think we ought to just pull out?

I'm sorry that not everybody is as brilliant as you, Necro. I don't see anything wrong with somebody trying to present something they think may be interesting -- skip if if you don't want to read it.

I thought it was because we waste too much time at cc.com.

My wife had a dog that got into that once upon a time. She wired one of its victims around its neck in hot summer weather and made him wear it around for three days. It never went after a chicken again.

I don't see what is wrong with Dean's comment, actually. Indeed, there ARE lots of guys with Confederate flag decals on their pickup trucks and I believe those decals ARE generally displayed as a symbol of some sort of disconnect with modern American politics that has both south-centric leanings but also a bit of an anti-liberal tilt to it. Maybe I should go back and read more about the context of Dean's remarks, but is there anything wrong with saying he wants to appeal to a broader voter base and he thinks his platform can serve folks that might dismiss him or his party because they are commonly protrayed as smart ass liberals held in the sway of the northeastern establishment?

That's what I was talking about, AT - just plain hiking. There are plenty of times I've been quite happy with the bumbershoot. Once at Shoqualmie Pass I found one very nice while riding the chairlift, too. When I visitted Germany a few years back, they were selling them with a wooden pole and plastic stays because they said you had to have a special "alpine vettershute" or something in order to be safe during thunderstorms.

I'm sorry you feel so slighted, CJF, but if you are getting wet from sweat, you probably have too many clothes on. In the scenario you described, I'm not sure which would be better to remove - the shell or the long underwear top, but that combination, or perhaps those garmets combined with your other clothes, are keeping you too warm if you are sweating and that is what is getting you wet rather than precipitation or the fact that you are lying in the snow. I quite often dig a cave with just my raincoat and no layer underneath. Whatever you do, you've already hinted that the goal should be to get as few items wet as possible. You may be smarter than the average bear, but I am constantly amazed at seeing my skiing companions sweat it out as they climb up hill with a sweater underneath their goretex and then they are too cold to sit there and eat lunch at the top. Similarly, most of my buddies seem unable to fathom the idea of stripping down under their shell gear while digging a snow cave. Wet clothes are pretty much the enemy, eh?

If you are sweating, CJF, you are obviously wearing too many clothes. You gotta stop for a miniute and take a sweater off, then put your shell back on. It's that easy.