Jens

It musta been Eric Gratz's mojo for leading those radical ice pitches! The guy can hang on forever!

Why are their not nearly as many good bump skiiers seen any more? Is it because the mean skiier age is older and knees go? Is it because better grooming technology is limiting mogul formation? Are the boarders ruining them? Is it shaped skis? Is bump skiing not cool? For the more recent outings of lift skiing, my brother Hans and I have been by far the best mogul skiiers on the hills yet 7-8 years ago their were tons of pros-

The Drip at the Drip wall looked in!!! Anyone get on it? It looks like the fang in CO! Will this warm spell doom leavenworth ice? It's cool leavenworth is having a good season. When I learned to climb in the 80's, Leavenworth was always money for ice. With gloal warming, I pretty much gave up on it for the last 7-8 years but it is nice to see a lot of ice again.

Kudos to all of you guys. Nice climbing and way to get after it!

I know it is gonn rain in Lillooet this week but is their enough ice volume to make it worthwhile for next weekend? Dru? Anyone else?

Some pics. It is the falls to the right of the pencil in the picture.

I wear a mammut for ice and big wall. It is nice but slighlty inhibits reach due to the swami being so wide. It is certainly better than any of the stuffed Black Diamond rigs though!

Yes- very good point. If you find piton in place, unlike a stuck cam, the piton was placed and intended to be left in place for others. It is considered very bad form to steal it. If you have an older friend that tries to bark about pitons, know that they proabably are a fringe element. Learning and practicing pitoncraft is a very enjoyable thing to try if you are new to the sport. Have fun and be safe.

Pitons make great anchors and protection points and are often the only protection available. Next time you are climbing a route in the mountains, consider leaving the piton you just placed in place for others to use after you. It: *Saves the rock from future placements *Is standard practice through most of the rest of the world *Makes the experience more enjoybale for when you come back to repeat the route. * Is the kind and noble thing to do (good karma)- you'll send hard! * Will allow you to climb faster (you won't have to waste your time cleaning) * You won't risk dropping the piton * You can really hammer it home * Pitons don't cost much * You can place them in three sided corners where if you were planning on taking it out you couldn't * You'll get beers from freinds at cc pub clubs. --------------------------------------- Roadcuts are great places to practice putting ptions on and building your skill level. Have fun and be safe!

I love the groupie pics! Keep em' coming! We gotta work Richard Simmons into that. Not that I've travelled that much... but in my experience Best: Slovenians, French, Russians Worst: Austrailians, South Koreans Most overhyped in American media(currently subpar on world stage): British Most willing to throw one foot in front of the other and suffer no matter what but not necessarily techical: Polish Like to party: Italians, Sweedish Adicted to their climbing gear and toys: Us Americans

Are you serious! Wow!

Jeff Hansel and I crossed the tumwater river this morning and slogged up the penil drainage in the dark. We saw a cool ice climb that we thought was the pencil barely visible in the darkness. It did not go well for us. I led out about 40 meters and set a belay. We realized we were not on the pencil when we realized that the falls was at at 70-80 meters and radically overhanging (it wasn't a water ice 5 the way it was formed). I started up the next pitch and looked up to see a large portion of the waterfall cut loose. Luckily the climb was steep enough that it free fell behind my back. We V-threaded and bailed. As we headed down to rejoin the pencil gully, we looked up the main drainage and in daylight we saw the pencil! We were a bunch of idiots in the dark. We decided to hike back up to climb it. As we were nearing the pencil, lots of hanging ice high above the valley calved off and lanched' the gully. We ran to the left side and dodged the ice. We bailed again. Lower in the gully we heard a loud crack. 60 whole feet of the falls that we had just climbed the first pitch and a half earlier in the morning came down! Just bare rock left! I felt sick. We had climbed past the section that calved off completely. Again time to dodge ice balls. I'm having difficulty posting picures but will try again later. For pencil aspirants, the bad news is that it looked to be getting a lot of sun and the thermometer read 39F. The good news is that the pencil is less than vertical as stated in the ice guidebooks. For Drury Aspirants, the bad news is that is getting a lot of sun and good news is that it looks to be high volume this year. The river was running much higher and faster than my other crossings I have made.

I've been trying to post some pictures in the gallery this evening and am getting "Internal server Error" contact cascadeclimbers webmasters. I've posted photos successfully in the past and my photos do night exceed filesize limits. is the gallery temporarily down? I've read both the help and weekend climberz how to guide. Feel free to delete this post.

You've never been on an expedition.

Great question. I'm curious to. An engineer explained to me how vertical v-threads are worse than horizontal v-threads (he also was well versed in how ice fractures).

A good time was had by all. I was paying and tipping by walking up to the bar and as it appeared everyone else was. The barmaid never once came to our table. I think perhaps the bartender was smoking crack. Sorry you two had to deal with that bullshit.

I like three people for the sport crag. More time for me to rest my weak arms between redpoint attempts. With two, I don't force myself to take the rest I need to clip the chains.

If you are an ice climber and had superpowers that let you fly, I bet "Mickey's gully" and "Hey mikey he likes it" are both HUGE route now. I skiied Crystal yesterday and Saturday and couldn't help but wish I was on the summit of Rainier as I looked over at it while sipping my glass of wine from the comfort of the lodge on top of REX.

No I didn't bring a camera. We're having a great ice season in Washington this year!

Isn't Grivel North America essentially Dr.Doom? Or are their other people working for him?

See ya all at 8pm!

Ironically I believe they sell gingerbread at the lake jolanda crossing- If that is your chosen approach to the falls. Perhaps I can convince the gingerbread man to ride on my nose next trip.

I just got back a little bit ago from an outing up the I-90 corridor. Wrecked semis all over the road. It was 22F when I left. I tried to solo CYA (M4,WI4)but got scared and backed off. It was thin but definitely leadable. So I just played on the lower sections of the wall. Coming out, I-90 was closed so I pulled off to the shoulder of the westbound lanes and did some climbing at a sweet bouldering/TR area. It is a little alcove right off the freeway 75 yards east of the westbound exit 38 off ramp (you've all seen it). It is about 20 yards east of the overhanging Richard Cilley crack. It would be a great teaching/ ice bouldering area. I knew the state troopers wouldn't hassle me as the highway was closed and they were all down tending all the semi accidents.

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Thanks. I was wondering about that bridge.