Jens

I haven't climbed the routes but I agree, a lot of the mixed stuff around here you really can't get to the top of safely to TR. As for impact, we've got Korean war surplus explosives, buried cable, sheet metal, and a whole lotta' other junk in that valley. Bolts are the least of our worries, espcially when they are painted to camoflauge in. In my humble opinion, we need more routes like these. Speaking of the valley and bolts, when is somebody gonna' open that beautiful whitish sport wall just above the freeway on the north side of I-90(near the west-bound on ramp when leaving Alpental)? I heard a rumor that Burdo had considered it a number of years ago. PS. That rock up in that valley is sure hard on picks. Any geologists out there.. what is that stuff on the Moh's hardness scale?

As for spouses, Monkey Face Ruined Everything for me..... About 6 or so years ago when I was a newlywed I was trying to get my significant other into climbing. I took her for the first time on a beautiful sunny day to smith rocks. I figured something over near Monkey Face would be the ticket. As we neared, we saw a recovery in process. We saw what was a body being taken out. Since then, my wife refuses to ever consider any thing associated with climbing. How unlucky was that for me? It's been the only fatality I've ever seen at a sport crag in 15 years of climbing. The whole drive home, I've tried to convice her i t was a one time occurance, and that sport climbing is a safe activity. She has three life insurance policies out on me now.

Also the boarders always seem to stop at either the front of a lift line or at a lift off ramp to adjust bindings (Usually for about four minutes). They also seem to like to aggresively "make" their way to the front of a lift line and then wait for their buddy who is about 100 yards behind. As bitter as I may sound and as much as some of us hate em' though they saved the ski industry. We have to thank them for that. My old ski school almost went tits up because we were slow to cater to boarders. Not that any of us can see the future but, I don' t think we'll see to many people boarding in 45 years from know though? Every generation in my family has been a skiier for probably 2,000 years. The snowboard will someday go the way of the Dodo?

Speaking of Freeway climbing, the new massive interchange they are building over I-90 in Issaquah will have some sweet after work bouldering on it. Those artsy-fartsy leaves carved into the wall will be cool to climb on and the wall is high and textured. -------------------------------------------- I walked to the base of the FWGS slab before it was bolted and should have come back for it. The slab looks very classic in my humble opinion.

For Sale La Sportiva Trango Extremes Size 44 (will fit if you wear a 10-10.5 street shoe) These fit a touch bigger than some of the other size 44 mt. boots by sportiva. Excellent condition. Only used for 1 WA ice season (that's not much) This fully insulated ice or M route boot will *Fit in your Silveretta Skis. *Keep your feet warm in winter but still hike well in summer New Retail: $330 For Sale $185 Or work some kind of a deal involving somebodys used Ski mountaineering skis.

Never tried it but I have something to add... The first time I ordered from cheapholds, everything was fine.....but I was very disappointed with my most recent order from cheapholds. The order took forever and when it arrived, the holds were super super small (They were marketed as some of their larger holds) Plus the shapes were lame, poorly thought out, not tendon friendly, and the bolts were coated in about 1/8"of grease. Some of the grease got on the holds! I know that cheapholds is a real bargain, but I personally won't be ordering from them again. I think it might be better to find a blow out on overstocked holds from somewhere like linkupgear.com. Or if you want to penny pinch I think you could make better wooden holds than the latest batches that the cheapholds people are coming out with. Good luck.

Speaking of Swallow's Nest, did they go belly up for not enough shoppers or what? They had a lot of floor space. I bet the rent was pretty high. An employee told me that becasue they weren't selling skis, they were missing out on a cash cow. I always seemed to get awesome service at that place. ___________ Does anybody ever go downtown to North Face? I haven't been there in ages due to parking and access. Are they carrying much gear in this day and age? ______ Cascade Crags in Everett carries a LOT of gear. Sorry about the thread drift guys.

A very sad item of news. I skied Crystal a few days ago. I was pretty surprised to hear about this. There was lots of terrain anchoring on all aspects due to low snowpack. Did the record high winds transport large quantities of snow leading to slab formation? Does anybody have a good memory- Haven't we had some winters where it has stayed at "considerable" or higher every single day for 3 months straight for elevations above 5,000 ft.? If you aren't going out when the hotline says "considerable" you aren't doing anything for a really long time. In my humble opinion the mountaineers crew were just unlucky? We've got some real good avy gurus around here. Anyone do any test pits or column tests lately?

If you are trying to squeeze some rock days out lately and your feet are going numb from the cold, try making some modified 80's aerobics leg warmers. Take some wool socks and cut off from about four inches back from the toe. The "warmers" slip over your rock shoes, leaving only the front half of the shoe exposed. If your feet are going numb from rock shoe tightness, just get in the habit of slipping your shoe half off between laps, boulder problems, or belay slave sessions. If you are multipitching it, with a little practice you can slip them half off even on hanging belays faster than Twight can even say the word "gu". In my humble opinion, buying bigger rock shoes for anything but high altitude rock is a bad idea regardless of what grade you are climbing. Good luck.. Keep us updated.

I am not kidding. It's either Metolius or Franklin that is selling them. The things are also wildly popular with my students. They like to point em' in each other's eyes.

Or how about: * The Metolius or Franklin laser pointers-- For beta-ing your buddies through their "pseudo flashes" from the comfort of the ground. (These are starting to pop up at smith.)

Good idea and good question. Will it require some looking to find just the right route? I would think that it should be steep but also has to be easy enough that your newbie buddy could follow the route after you are done with your monkey business? I would guess that a sport route might be a little better for this? I usually take a big practice fall on the first rock weekend of the year to clear my head and reassure myself that there is a reason we spend all these big $$$ on this high tech gear. Ever read about when Skinner was preparing for his FFA of the Salathe' wall? Each morning he would lob himself off the Salathe' headwall for some big air to clear his head. ____________ Not to drift off your topic, but does anybody want to confess about any big air they've accidently taken on waterfall ice?

Great boots. My feet have never been cold in them (not that I've ever wore them anywhere super cold). They fit into my silveretta 404'ski bindings. My only issue was I wish they had made the sole a little more rockered. It would make them hike even better and wouldn't have given up anything for precision. These boots have won ice world cups (before everybody switched to hockey skates or wrestling shoes). If you climb in plastics right now and switch to the Trangos, you will climb at least one M grade harder or one half a WI grade harder right away (on your first climb of the morning) Don't tell anyone-- it will be our little secret. I've also just got to try my Sportiva Ice Comps on a Hyalite ice trip. They climb mixed and ice better than the Trangos you are looking at but are not quite as warm and I would be hestitant to do much skiing in them for fear of breaking them. Good luck with your purchase.

Good thread. I think the answer is to own two pairs of tools?- That's my plan in a few years. Keep the funky tools that don't swing well in the car and pull them out for that roadside sport thing. Something to note: some of the people that are pushing for leashless climbing (Gadd, Isaac) say that leashes are and should be used on big waterfall climbs. Climbing leashless though definitely puts a new thrill on some of those more moderate climbs that were once really scary for us?

I like REI. The store is close to home, easy exchanges, nice people. Yes and even, some of their products are quite good- sometimes the very best. Here is a case in point and a little chestbeating to boot. My friend just bought three brand new pairs of gloves with the intention of "demoing" them all and returning the two he didn't like. We just took a road trip to hyalite last week. I wore the rei brand gloves leading up a soaking WI5 pillar. The rei gloves performed better than any of the other gloves any of the four of us had on our trip. We probably had at least 2 dozen gloves with us (north face, mountain suckware, marmot, columia, and black diamond, etc). Plus guys, much of our gear is made in the same sweatshops regardless of the brand name.

Simond makes great stuff. It's to bad no one really carries it here in WA? I think their line of ice gear is perhaps better than Grivel's. I guess it all comes down to access, marketing, shipping, and distribution. Their stuff is wildly popular in Europe. I have ordered some of the products online recently.

Dry tooling leashless is sure cool! I've been doing a lot of it this fall on my home wall. I did some at Cascade Crags before the comp. ----Although I'm not quite sold on it for WA or BC and here's why: We have conditions that are unlike much of the rest of the continent for ice climbing. We often wallow though heavy wet slush or cascade "mashed potatoes" to get to the base of our climbs. Our climbs are often running wet big time. We are often ice climbing in 33 degree snow/ rain mixed. This means that the shafts of our ice tools are usuully soaking wet when we climb making leashless climbing often impractical. This is not as often the case for the rocky mt. states, alsaka or the Canadian rockies. The boys and girls leashless climbing there have bone dry shafts 90% of the time. (Try a timed dead hang off one tool with a wet shaft and one with a dry shaft- It will really shock you) Another point: I will agree that leashless climbing is often better for steep bolted mixed dry tooling routes. I can count the number of such routes here in WA on one hand. And I haven't seen much more up in BC. If we were to get at a bunch more such routes, I'd be a least tempted to throw away my leashes. ----------------------------- Everthing wet and no cavish mixed= keep the leashes

It depends on what you like best? We all have our own opinions. For example. In my h umble opinion, I think Levenworth has at least a dozen crack routes that are better than index's best crack routes (not that I claim to have done all of index's crack routes.) ------------------------------------------- As for moderates, It's pretty hard to beat the upper pitches of outer space! Others outstanding moderates that come to mind: *Split pillar pitch grand wall (10b) *Upper crack systems on West face of NEWS (10d/11a)( position, alpine ambience, lack of moss, views etc.) What is the most awesome obscure crack climb that has been around for a long time that is a complete unheralded classic that n o one really talks about? Anybody? My vote would be for something up at midnight rock.

I would have to agree with Dr.Ben Krazy. The route would include steep snow ice aid mixed skiing free rock And you'd get Brownie points for chopping a swimming hole in Lake Serene and taking a skiiny dip.

Our stories get passed by storytelling on long car rides to climbs. Wherever we live, we all put a lot of miles in the car to climb (lillooet, smith, WA pass). Cascade lore gets tweaked a little with each retelling? We've all got our Beckey stories and stuff. I guess the internet is/has really changed our passing of lore from one generation to the next?

Yes Iain, that was me. Work sent me to Portalnd for a couple days. Great views from the top and the ski was good. Here is a question for you Portland/ Oregon climbers? Does everyone quit climbing in the Nov. Dec. Jan. months? 1st: I went to Beacon rock on beau tiful sunny day hoping to score a partner. Not a single climber showed up. Dry rock! (The 6 hour round trip drive does not make Smith a Local crag) 2nd Went to Portland rock gym. Awesome height in the roped area! The bouldering area was tiny with soft ratings. Only a couple climbers showed up. Noneof them brought harnesses or were even willing to look at the incredible roped area. 3rd. Left the gym and took a break. Went up and soloed hood, skiied off. Beautiful sunny day. Not a single other climber on the whole hill! Different scene than WA? Everybody was cool though.

In my humble opinion, the analogy of sport climbing is not very good. Pre-protected dry tool mixed routes may be the "sport climbing for the new milenium" but leading a steep early season unconsolidated WI-heinous requires more balls than just about anything in mountaineering except for perhaps extreme ski mountaineering descents. Ice climbing in this fashion is not even close to sport climbing in termsof safety and lack of commitment. If anything hairball water ice with bad pro makes mountain and gullly ice climbing seem somewhat tame (if avy condtions are stable). Just my two cents. The next level will be applying sport dry tooling to big overhanging mountain faces. Only gym climbers and sport ice gymnasts will be able to take us there- not weekend mountaineers.

Thanks everyone, keep the reports coming. I'll do the same. These ice topics have been a breath of fresh air, reminiscent of the early days of this site. Perhaps the non-climbing sprayers just haven't found them yet? Anybody seen the condition of the broad ice wall or the gully ice pitch off to the side of the muir snowfeild at about 9,200 ft. lately ? They always get water.

I haven't read the article since I am a rock and ice subscriber. I completely disagree. I f anything, ice and mixed climbing is more pure and free than it used to be. Not that I have been ice climbing that long, but when I got into it, if you clipped a sling from your tools to your harness and hung to place screws it was still "legit". that practice has gone to the wayside quite some time ago. Also boltclipper, many of us are chosing to go leashless.

When I mention to others about how far behind the times we are in WA with new steep mixed ice routes, people agree. All we seem to want around here are the thunker ice routes. Sean Isaac told me about a dude who had developed an entire new area up by Mount Baker that had lots of routes up to M8. I had never heard the dude's name before. Anybody know the details? Where? This guy is keeping pretty mum. I'll stay off his projects. _______________________________ We will never have what it takes to be great ice climbing destination area. Instead, mixed climbed could be awesome here in the Cascades.