Jens

After climbing Denali, my beta is: Go late in the season and don't bring hardly any fuel or food. Instead, people will be giving it away left and right on their mad dash back to KIA. Also, bring a carton of Cigarettes- you'll be able to use them to barter with to all the Euros and you'll get tons of food and gear. One friend traded and got an altimeter watch for about $20 worth of goods. Don't laugh- this beta will work and cut WAY down on your pack size and weight. Also- bring skis.

After a while, all of our rock shoe rubber seems to becme roughed up, gauged out in places and oxidized? if you climb on plastic you get a whole bunch of wear bumps in one spot on the bottom of the sole. Boreal addresses this issue with a new shoe rubber prep "paddle". I've tried wire brushes, copper brushes, files, and sandpaper and they all seem to just make my rubber slick on the high spots and completely miss the low spots. It seems like resolers run the bottom of a newly resoled pair of shoes over a grinding wheel or something? (ever see a resole kit what a slab of stealth rubber looks like -super slick) Could I walk in and have them spend a couple of minutes and run the bottom over the wheel for a couple of bucks? Anybody have any better luck with any technique? Should I try coarser sandpaper glued to a flat board?

I've driven up the middle fork road for other things but I've never seen this trailhead. Can anyone give me specific directions on how to find it? I'm thinking about taking my daughter up there. thanks.

The cave area has excellent bolted face climbing at all levels.

Just saw this thing's north face from several angles and was amazed at it's size, vertical gain, and width. The face appears to be wider then dragontail and steeper. Pretty amazing. Anyone have any good stories about this one? I'll raise my glass to you if you get up it's north face in winter.

Anyone have much experience with these? I just bought one and seem to like it but noticed it has a james bond trick sport squirter opening that has lots of of little metal moving parts that may be prone to leak, freeze, or break. Can I buy just the other regular lid and swap out the sport bottle opening? Do the bottles perform OK in winter conditions? The bottles don't weight anything and are swiss quality. I'm reading more and more science updates on "man boobs", estrogen levels and the like from every type of plastic bottle (nalgene etc.) leaching chemicals into the water. -and I'm tired of the plastic taste. I guess tons of alpinists in Europe are using Sigg bottles. Anyone have lots of experience with them and care to weigh in? I'm contemplating buying some more.

I'll second the notion that the brew pub has great beer. And if you are a Seattleite heading home, it's only a few minutes of I-90 - you can tip one back while letting bridge traffic die down.

As you probablly already know... *Super warm hat *sleep back to back with partner *I sleep partailly in my emptied rucsack tell us how it goes.-- Have fun and good luck!

When we lose a summit register, we lose a part of climbing history and community. As was said earlier, many of us only report our first ascents in the register. When registers get stolen, a part of climbing and lore of that particular peak are lost forever.

I live really close to the Issaquah i-90 on ramp and the speed limit is 70 but I do 78ish. It's 65 minutes to downtown cle elum from my place. I guess I neglected to remember that the crag is out of town a ways. My bad. It would still be nice if something was off I-90 just east of the crest for the rainshadow effect when rained out on a north bend trip. I seems to rain more at index.

I agree about the stone. One route I did was really long. It would be cool if someone would ferret out a cle elum area (rainshadow) crag that was quality because it never rains there an it is only 65 minutes from a lot of puget sound folk (vs. 2+ hours to 11 worth). It would be a heavily used resource for sure and would have 100 more climbing days a year than n. bend or index.

Part of the pocket glacier calved of or some large kind of ice/ rockfall as we were going up the lower potions of the couloir. I jumped into a moat as did my parter. He got tagged but survived.

Great TR! Keep em' coming. That is good info to know about the status of the middle fork. _____ For aspiring Jbergers: The closest I've ever been to getting the chop is in the CJ couloir.

Colin Haley and I climbed girth pillar Saturday. We encountered mostly dry rock except for a little bit of wetness on the 1st pitch of the pillar proper. The route was very fun. We left Issaquah at 1:10am and were back to the car at the trailhead at 10:50pm. I'd do this route again it's so good. Maybe Colin will post a picture or two.

I like single pushes because I'm to weak to carry a heavy pack and I sleep cold. Driving home often seems to be my crux. It's amazing to have a partner that can take the last pull without swerving lanes. Those partners rule! I think the the true definition of a Cascade single push is from home doorstep to doorstep. That will always be my personal ethic. I don't know why but I have always-- and will always consider sleeping at trailheads totally lame. -Just my two cents. ______ I'm to chicken to do it-- but I know of at least one advocate of an interesting way to stay awake for the drive home is to use addreneline -- mess with other drivers. I guess in this day and age, road rage might rule that out, but you'll certainly stay awake!

I saw a little cave that had a short bolted route on it's celling when I was driving out to the ice this winter? It was on the right very close to the road, before you got to the ice climbs. It looked ugly, but it was steeper than anything in western WA except for maybe the acutal cave area at exit 38. I didn't stop, so my facts could be way wrong?

I'm a wannabe weight freak but still refuse to go aluminum. Buy a real light pair of 10 point steel crampons- cut down the bar, straps, and file the points short and weigh the things- they'll be really super close to any of the aluminums ( and a lot tougher). Black ice, scrogging over a little rock, mixed, etc.it's not worth it in my humbe opinion to get burned by aluminum as which can cause to nearly have to abort a climb. For ski mountaineering, they are probably the ticket. ---Just my two cents.

I've been noticing this exact pattern for two months now: on Thursday night, the weekend forecast calls for rain, so everyone makes plans accordingly. By Friday night, the forecast for the weekend is improving, but people have already made their plans based on the earlier forecast. When Saturay/Sunday actually arrive, the weather is gorgeous, but there's no-one around because they all bought into the gloomy forecast. This weekend is a case in point - Thursday night the forecast called for 70 - 80% chance of precip for Squamish. In fact, it's been hot and sunny all weekend. They've forecasted rain (as of Thursday evening) for all but one weekend for the last two months, and we actually got significant rain only one of those weekends (Memorial Day). So I'm going to say it again, and again, and again...ignore the Thursday evening forecast - it's invariably far worse than the weather we actually get, at least here in Squamish. I don't understand how they can be so consistently, predictably wrong, but they are. Well stated! I think the two months of this has had a lot of alpinists doing a lot more cragging than regular. I was at little si yesterday and not hardly a cloud in sight. Darn weathermen!

I've been in there a bunch and still can't decide if I like the boulders or the woods better.

Eatonville *Two short trs with bolt anchors on a small cliff in a clearcut below the huge chossy cliff near the gun club just out of town. * Used to be a bolted route under the trestle that is off the gated wherehauser road just on the outskirts of town (rainier side). * go to fossil. It doesn't deserve it's bad rep. * go serracing on the nisqually and get sick strong. *go drinking at the Highlander in Ashford (best climbing watering hole) __________________________________ As a sidenote- In my experience, Elbe and Ashford locals and businesspeople seem to be nicer than Eatonville locals.

Would anybody on the planet do this forme: I like it when the cams have a doulbed length sewn sling so you can have the sewn sling extended or short. I prefer wc rigid friends. Every comapny tells me that the hole on the wc cams is to small to accomadate the doulbed sling feature. But now with the super skinny mammut slings, it would be possilbe. Am I just a few years to early for this? and does mammut have a monoply on the razor skinny spectra slings? ____ btw mt.tools has done good work for me in the past.

Depends on if the area favors pure friction or edging. The best I ever had was a pair of green asolo runouts that had the edging midsole removed and were resoled with the stealth 2 rubber. The 5.10 friction loafer was said to be pretty good? I think that stealth2 may have been the best all time slab rubber but I think you would have a hard time finding it now. C4 was created to be slightly more edging oriented as slab climbing isn't cool anymore. Anyone try the brand new stealth high fricition rubber? One of the local resolers told me he thought it wears down way to fast.

Yeah it rocks Gotta love 11worth! Hit snow creek wall, bouldered in the icicle, & finished off at castle yesterday. Weathermen wrong again. Where is the cheapest real estate in or near town? 11worth has it all.

Buy the Petzl Meteor, Simond -w. face shield,or the Grivel Cap- w. face shield if you want to look like a Stylin' Euro Uber climber. When mixed climbing, be sure to flip the shield down casually as needed as if you are blowing chalk "Edlinger" style on a rock route or- Buy a Neon Yellow Edelrid if you are joining the mounties (standard issue) and be sure to put your athleitc tape name tag on the front as you preach to your group about a "dangerous" technique that a climber at the same crag is using.

Just got pulled over by a trooper on Bluett pass heading over to crag at 11worth on Monday. He let me off. Try- *short hair *no piercings *when you get pulled over at night, turn on the dome light. *put one hand on the wheel and the other hanging out the window or both hands on the window if it is cold or raining-never move around in the vehicle. *look em' in the eye *take off sunglasses and cap *drive an American car or perferrably an American pickup *be polite * If you are east of the crest, don't have a "coastie" address on your license. _____ I used to climb with "priapism" a lot in the early 90's-- that dude gets outta everything! He even got let go and scolded for a DUI when I was riding with him on the bleuet cutoff (through the orchard shortcut) after a 11worth climbing and drinking spree. He would get pulled over tons and never get tickets. A dude I work with has been pulled over 11 times and never gotten a ticket.Much of my above advice is from him. Best thread in a long time. ____ We made it toYosemite in a little over 11 hours once