mattp

Watch out, Greg. He might just know what he is talking about.* CJ--Where's the stats? *Though, even if he is right one would have to acknowledge that the murder rate is probably much more dependant upon factors other than pistol sales or ownership.

quote: Originally posted by JayB: What about non-roadside stuff, e.g. requiring several hours of skiing and/or an overnight stay. Suffering for several hours in order to get on some uncrowded stuff is totally worth it, IMO. Surely you've come across some stuff with all of the skiing you've done. I'm not sure what you're looking for but yes I have seen frozen waterfalls all over the place. Nothing really comes to mind as being the hidden gem that you might be after, though, but maybe that big pillar on the back side of Three Fingers, or that beauty that SayJay climbed up at the Scottish Lakes last year, or that thing up above the Nisually Glacier or ...

Chips, you may be sensible to be cautious with a new partner but two of the best climbing experiences I have ever had were with partners I never met before and have not seen since. Sometimes you can go with your instinct and it works out.

A $15,000 deposit? But with that cupholder design flaw, the thing can't be worth more than $10,000.

quote: Originally posted by Dr Flash Amazing: Matt, DFA is thinking about selling his brand new Sub' and going with a used model. Fire off a PM if you want to buy it! Meet you in Olympia, cash talks. Let me take it for a test drive for a month or so. We'll talk in December.

quote: Originally posted by iain: 4runners have a lot of frou-frou crap that I don't need... Is there a car on the market that doesn't? All I want is something that drives like a car but has enough clearance to drive up a poorly maintained logging road, and I gotta buy some kind of all-wheel-drive SUV or sub-SUV and it's going to have electric windows, automatic coffee holder, driving lights, and a 5-disc CD changer.

You should see how fast the motor oil and water drain from my Toyota! [ 11-01-2002, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: mattp ]

I've been driving a toyota 4x4 for fifteen years, and it needs a new head gasket - or maybe a new head. I think I'm going to go for the Subaru. I look forward to having a vehicle that gets better mileage, is safer, has better visibility, rides and handles better, and is quiet enough that I'll be able to hear the music I play on the way to go climbing.

quote: Originally posted by JayB: There's got to be more ice out here than the stuff at Banks Lake and the one or two %#$ing flows at Alpental - but no one's talking. Hopefully this situation will improve when the guidebook comes out or invents a teleporter to Lilloet. The problem is, Jay, there really isn't much more than that -- if you are looking for roadside stuff. You can hunt down the odd flow at Mount Rainier or wherever, and there are some low elevation flows that form up occasionally, but I'd be investing in that teleporter technology if I were you.

quote: Originally posted by Retrosaurus:

quote: Originally posted by Retrosaurus: All this political correctness gets in the way of the truth. Agreed. You may find it more satisfying to express yourself the way that you do, and it is certainly your right to do so. I'm just suggesting that you may better be able to present the "truth" if you were able to do so in a different manner. I do not think it is "politically correct" or disingenuine or even naive to recognize that people are going to be more likely to listen to you if you don't start off by telling them they can fuck off if they don't climb as well as you do or aren't willing to take the same risks as you do or whatever. [ 11-01-2002, 12:02 PM: Message edited by: mattp ]

Mitch, I do have a problem with your tone. I have tried to avoid picking fights with you, because it doesn't really serve anybody. But your answer to just about every issue, whether it is bolting, passing other parties, ice climbing, or whatever, is "I am a badass and fuck everybody else who cannot climb at my standard." I have heard that you are in reality a nice person, and I would actually like to meet you some day. But in this forum and at Leavenworth and Vantage, you have in my opinion been divisive and hostile and while I agree with many of your opinions, I believe your "tone" does a great disservice to your message. Earlier in this thread, you sought to clarify your position and stated that you hadn't set out to insult anybody, and I can see here and in other conversations that you are probably sincere about that. In suggesting that your initial posts were "over the top" I was not asking you to blow sunshine up my ass but merely to consider showing more respect for climbers who may have lesser abilities.

Coming from Colorado, you may be used to being able to drive up some canyon, get out of the car, and hop on some user-friendly ice. You won't be able to do this any where near Darrington except in a rare cold snap, but if you are willing to climb a mountain to find some water ice, there are all kinds of cool climbs near Darrington. Otherwise, you will have to drive three or four hours to the passes, where there are some mediocre climbs that are "in" much of the winter, or to Eastern Washington or BC (more driving).

Tex - The confusion stems from the fact that the "Hanging Glacier" is about a half mile southwest of what is called the "North Face." The so-called "North Face" is really the NNE face of the mountain, and the "Hanging Glacier" does not descend this face but starts due north of the summit and flows northwestward dropping off a cliff overlooking White Salmon Creek. To add to the confusion, this "Hanging Glacier" is marked as "Winnies Slide" on the 7 1/2 minute map but the actual Winnies Slide is in fact on the upper White Salmon Glacier, yet another 1/2 mile southwest of this point. There is an unnamed hanging glacier on the North Face, and that body of ice is what you are referring to in your description of your trip, is it not?

Fern- I wasn't intending to offer a platitude and Joe probably wasn't either. In fact, I have often argued that climbing is very dangerous and that all of us must acknowledge this and figure out how or whether we want to deal with that fact. It is not a platitude to say "I've been there" and that there are a variety of lessons that can be learned from such an experience. She might conclude that she doesn't want to climb again -- or she might not. She might conclude that she shouldn't have tried that climb -- or she might not. Either way (on both questions), I hope she learned something valuable. "I've been there" may be comforting or it may be exactly the opposite.

Craig - I've done it twice. It is a very easy route to the top of the mountain, perhaps the easiest route on the thing, and I am sure you already know that the winter is the best time for that one. Later in the winter is better than earlier, and wait for one of those ten-day clear spells so you don't have to worry about the weather. The route faces south, so it will set up relatively quickly after a new snow, but for best conditions you should probably try it no less than a week after any significant snowfall. You probably don't need to start at midnight, like you might for a summer climb, but be aware that if it is at all warm during the day, falling rocks will be pummeling the ledges after mid-morning.

Kevin - I may be attending a professional meeting on the East side on Tuesday night, whatever it is -- the 12th? How's about an east side pubclub that night?

Snoboy - When we have the annual telemark vs AT debate, I always point out that telemark gear is actually better when it comes to crawling through the woods or picking your way through a bunch of avalanche debris on the way to most backcountry ski runs. The AT folks generally refuse to believe this, because they are an inferior breed lacking in intelligence, but being able to pick up the tail of your ski without having your heel locked down comes in real handy lots of times. The telemark gear is not as good on the steeps, perhaps, but on most of my outings half of the fun is in the getting there. [ 10-31-2002, 07:46 PM: Message edited by: mattp ]

quote: Originally posted by ILuvAliens: quote: Err. . .I mean randonne is french for can't tele. No, but tele is french/english/japanese/etc. for I am a ski snob. There is some accuracy to this statement but, in my case, it just happens to be an historical accident that I ski on telemark gear. Telemark skiing caught on when my buddies and I were ready to try ski mountaineering and it never even occurred to us that there might be some other way to do it. As far as we knew, there was cross country and downhill -- one for back country and the other for resorts. Twenty years later, I can see the merits of both telemark and AT gear, and I have no sense that telemark is superior (in fact, I would recommend to any new ski mountaineer that they buy AT gear) but I'll stick with tele because I've grown comfortable with it.

I am largely a self-taught climber and did a lot of climbs early in my career with partners who knew no more about climbing than I did. Somehow, we bumbled through it and nobody ever got hurt. Consider yourself lucky, but consider also the possibility that you actually were qualified to attempt that climb. You were sensible enough to figured out that you were over your head so you made the good decision to bail, and you did so at a point where you were not so far off the ground that this wasn't a fairly good option. Perhaps, too, you conciously or unconciously chose to do so before you got way too far above that rusty old relic piton. Your story kind of reminds me of a time when, in Huntington's Ravine on Mount Washington, my buddy and I decided we'd have a go at climbing The Pinnacle. We got a couple hundred feet up the thing before we started getting scared. At that point we looked around and noticed that there were these little metal spikes in the rock and we thought to ourselves: there must be some special skill needed to climb this thing. Downclimbing was a bit tricky, but we managed to get back to the ground and said: boy was that stupid. But when we got home we started reading up on ropes and pitons and stuff.

I'm with JayB about the Scott-bashing. He may have made himself a target in the Muir on Saturday thread, and I agree that it is a little presumptive for him to think that somebody but perhaps a friend of his might want to sponsor his hobby website, and he himself has periodically come out and said it is cool with him if everybody laughs at him, but I still find it rather sad to see that so many cc.com posters seem to lack the imagination to think up something else to joke about. Scott has put a lot of work into his site, obviously, and he's also shown a great deal of real courage in showing up on this bulletin board from time to time. It's too bad he didn't make it down to Bridge Creek campground for the rope up, but I can't say as I blame him for not wanting to hang out with a bunch of drunk guys that are sure to do nothing but make fun of him.

Mitch says he didn't mean to put anybody else down but he did say that the climbs that many of us may feel are quite worthy are not ice climbing and take no skill. He corrected that, by saying what he meant was that lesser climbs don't put led in his pencil, but the initial statements were indeed a little over the top. You may go back to work now.

I saw the ad last night. It looked to me like shots of Everest, though our TV antenna is not working and mostly all I saw was a snowstorm and ghost images. Here's a view of the north side. From the north, you can drive to "basecamp" although the real basecamp, "advanced base camp," involves a hike of something like 20 miles.

quote: Originally posted by texplorer: For your info this is a climbing website about climbing. Right on, Tex. We wouldn't want anything but strictly climbing-related info here, would we?

quote: Originally posted by Retrosaurus: Unless it is VERY thin or actively falling down, water ice requires very little in the way of skill or technique to succeed, and most will be able to bumble their way through it. But when it is truely vertical it is a completely different animal and you will need to have your shit dialed wire-tight. Placing gear on sustained vertical ice (especially if it is of less than ideal quality,) is one of the most demanding things that I have ever done. Mitch, you are right that the demands increase exponentially as ice approches vertical but I think you overstate your case. Frozen waterfalls are beautiful and I find the climbing plenty enjoyable even on "low angle" falls suitable for a bumbly like me and I believe many moderately experienced climbers find sufficient challenge when the overall angle exceeds, say, 70 degrees -- even if they could thrash their way up someting "truly vertical." You are in a fairly elite group of you don't consider anything less than that to be worthy.