Jens

They are indeed in. Climbed Alpental 1 and Stellar Falls with Peakpimp today. Both took good screws. Stuff is coming in all over by the minute up in that neck of the woods right now.

All of them suck now that analog is gone. My very first cellphone was clunky and lame but worked all over the Cascades. T-mobile is the only one I hear that is noticeably worse than the rest in the backcountry.

Re: they suck

All Penn Superbowl. GO EAGLES.

Sweet!

Have them throw more routes on that amazing lead roof. From what I have seen, it is one of the longer near horizontal lead roofs indoors in America. It is like double the length of the stone gardens one. By far the best feature in that gym.

Climbed shirtless and in shorts on Sunday at Smith. Put away the ice gear and dust off the rock gear!

The Seattle Times had it as the cover shot of one day's newspaper. The legend has it that a WSDOT director nearly choked on his morning coffee while reading his morning paper then promptly made a few phone calls and the route was chopped by noon. I've never climbed the route.

Rock climbing will be the call for this weekend. I'll bet it will be shirtless climbing on south facing routes in the sun pretty much anywhere. The skiing and alpine will suck bad.

We are thinking cragging at Sunshine wall or Smith rock this weekend with the temps being forecasted.

If it stays this cold for a few weeks, the small Franklin Falls cirque could sport a ton of fun and if someone were to bring a drill, it could feature some rather spectacular mixed variations that would surely test the forearms of any hardy soul.

WC Forged friends outperform all others, are super light and can be often found on sale from retailers for 29 bucks each on the net.

Impressive getaway!

Spire Rock was amazingly fun. I went about 30-40 days a year from around 87-92. Pehaps it would be a lame idea, but it would be interesting to have some kind of Spire Rock Reunion someday. Many of us have moved away from the rock and haven't visited in ages, but I'm sure some would make the drive. I'd be willing to wager that a couple of the eliminates might weigh in as high as V6 or 7.

I'm of little help, I've never driven from Vancouver.

Tvash, two friends from the gym, my wife and I headed up to Lillooet over the weekend for some ice. On Saturday (12/6) we hit Marble Canyon. It was REALLY grim but we found three different pitches to climb. We were extremely carefull not to hack away at ice that was forming and made sure to climb delicately. The new bolted mixed route at the far left end (left of Dale's route)was much fatter than when I led it at the end of last season. It was all ice with no dry tooling, however only one bolt was exposed. The rest of the bolts were buried with ice. The curtain above the overhang was very thick. The Dihedral was all ice but as thin as I'd ever seen it and definitely TR or solo only terrain. The bolted new mixed route right of the dihedral wall was ice for the first 20 feet and then pure dry tooling to the top and in much more difficult shape than when I led it last season. We stayed off the super thin Deeping wall and Icy BC to allow them to form up. Icy BC pitch 2 wasn't touching down. Pitch 3 and the surrounding pitches weren't in. We saw a huge section come off Icy BC pitch 1 during the day. Since it was getting way warm, the lake had opened up, and since we had thrown the rock shoes in, we climbed a couple of pitches of limestone across the highway before dark. The Reynold's Bar Saturday night offered food and Beer. Sunday was freakishly warm. This is as grim as Lillooet gets for December.

You've earned some good Karma and will win the credit card roulette at the next six dinners!

Thanks for the posts, now dish the dirt! How about some of the worst food in your neighborhood? We ate at the Varsity for Breakfast (In Wallingford just north of gasworks park) last week and it was one of the worst breakfasts I've ever had. Speaking of Wallingford, Tutta Bella has some terrible food! Mae's on Phinney Ridge also makes terrible breakfasts. Barking Dog near my house in Ballard used to have some awful service and food, but it has improved greatly.

I had it on two of my toes on my left foot. They are definitely more sensitive to cold now but they are fully functional. You should be able to make a full recovery. As for the Korean...yikes! Whatever happened to that Stacey Moon guy from around here that lost all of his toes on Stuart?

Scott Anderson snapped this pic of me

Given the weather, Vantage will be THE place to be in the whole state this weekend. No ice, no decent skiing, alpine will suck and it will even be raining on the 11worth crags. I'd carpool with you but I have a tweaked shoulder and need to stay home to rest it. Good luck.

Despite tweaking my shoulder last week, I'll be down starting on the 15th staying on the strip and most likely pulling pockets on area Limestone. Anybody climb any of the longer Jay Smith stuff that was put up in protest of the 3-4 or so very popular Black Velvet Wall routes?

Insiders are saying that the Feds will bail out one of the two (GM or Ford) but not both. Buy stock in both and make enough money on the one that gets bailed out to make it worth your while. The prices on GM and Ford stock are amazing right now. My two cents: The Feds should bail them both out.

I was a professional ski instructor for eight years and think your idea is a good one. You'll get more out of one or two private lessons than you would from a whole series of adult group lessons. Video analysis is a wonderful tool for improving. Definitely put a lot of time in during early winter lift skiing. You'll get a ton of vertical in. My brother Hans and I riding high speed quads at Whistler on full alpine gear from open to close will get more vertical in one day than the majority of the cascade rando and tele backcountry guys get in a whole season. If you are looking to go on the cheap, hang out at one of bars at a ski area and make a deal with an instructor who is away from his home area. good luck.

Does anyone know what are the current logistics (post washout of a few years ago) of getting to the Big 4 ice caves?