kevin

despite the massive hoards of people wandering around by the road, I spent sat on Careno crag and sunday at bathtub dome and saw a total of three other parties climbing near us the entire weekend. Sunday was sure windy up there at bathtub. I had never been there before, but the climbing was great and the views of dragontail and colchuck peaks were phenomenal.

As for the passes, I think the pass area begins at the big campground just across from royal columns. Right before the campground there is a big turnout that is before the first "pass required" sign. I parked there several times last year and never got a ticket. The ranger even stopped by once while we were unloading the car to tell us the bridge was out and didn't say anything about us parking there. If you want to park down by the elk parts barrel and the other bridge,then I guess you'd need a pass. No guarentees, but it worked last year. thanks for the info

Does anyone know if Tieton is still closed for eagle nesting? And if so, is there any date set yet for when it will open?

sorry dru the bear comment wasn't to be taken seriously. However, I have yet to find bug juice that didn't contain added scents, which, if you want to get picky, are attractive to bears. The only message I hoped to impart with my post was that, in my experience, bugs will bite regardless of bug juice. And, as a suggestion for those who haven't ever had to battle with the buzzing swarms, the only real pretection is a physical barrier, ie loose fitting, light clothing. If your sucseptible to "bug stress" it can make all the difference.

Sierra mosquitos can be horrendous in june, but during the early summer they are going to be mostly at the lower elevations (6000-9000 ft) if you stay at the higher elevations above the snow line, they shouldn't be bad. As the snow line moves up, so do the mosquitos. I've spent months at a time in the high sierra, and have found that you might as well leave DEET at home. If you get the mosies bad, its useless; plus it attracts bears and makes you feel greasy. Bring a light, longsleeve shirt (old dress shirt is great) and light pants and tuck a bandana under your hat. Its the only way to keep them off you, and it protects you from sunburn under the intense sun.

Iceicebaby thank you for the recent review of your BD equipment. I will add it to my archive of information. Someday, I will probably hear another negative review of BD equipment. If, in the future, I have negative experiences of my own with BD , I will stop purchasing their equipment. Thank you very much for you opinion kevin

If any part of canary is harder than 5.8 I would say its the first pitch, and even that is pretty consistant with Leavenworth standards. For a hard 5.8 try South Face on jello tower. As for the step across on the second pitch of canary, it is pretty challenging if you step around the corner and go straight up. However, if you take a step down and left it isn't too bad. I only state these specifics cause I just climbed it two days ago so its fresh in my mind. Sure was a fabulous weekend for climbing at leavenworth, though, wasn't it!!

Actually, Lee Vining can be quite good in the early spring at times. In fact, April Fools is named that because it doesn't usually form up until april. Other routes may be in if it stays cold. Like ice anywhere, you'll never know until the time comes. I wouldn't count on any other ice in cali, though, in march. The alpine routes can be fantastic, but not ice, just good snow climbs which will be frozen pretty hard in early morning.

Bascially, everythings in. Lee vining is usually in all winter with few exceptionscherck out these links for very current info http://www.sierramountaincenter.com/ice/iceinfo.html http://www.themountainguide.com/icereport.htm

I think many good posts have been made, but i would argue only one point. I think that spending that week at 6000 in montana prior to the climb would be very beneficial if it can be done. Taking several days to climb, as has been suggested, is probably more important, but if both can be done it will be that much better of a trip. My experience is that after trips to elevation of a week or more I usually retain some acclimitization for several days to a week. This will certainly make to trek to high camp more enjoyable and allow time there to be spent preping for the climb rather than recovering from the approach. however its done you'll probably have a great trip

Dru you quote some guys saying its 13b with ppg or 13c if placed on lead. How can that be?! Every knows that placing gear on lead is far harder, but it doesn't change the rock so how can the rating change. You couldn't go and say that classic crack is only 5.8 if you top rope it but 5.9 to lead. Maybe there's some variation to ratings once you're climbing in the teens? fill me in...

Anybody know if Cooper Spur is considered to be a good winter route on Hood? I climbed the route several years ago and remember it pretty much following the ridge which seems like it would minimize avalanche danger, but I just saw some description on the web which said it had high avi danger. Any other good winter routes you might recommend?

fern just to defend my comment about the technology, i completely agree that the tech is peanuts compared to other stuff out there. My point is simply that it is still an object. Go out there and see how much it costs to have an electrical engineer design a beacon. Do some R and D on it to refine the design, produce a template for the circuit board and have them printed. This is a fixed cost in development. If you then sell a million of these devices, the cost can be recovered without increasing the cost per device by very much. I wonder how many avi beacons are sold per year? As for GPS, how many people own a GPS in comparison with the number who own beacons. It isn't even comparable. All that said, I know nothing about the true cost of a beacon, just that its hard to produce a piece of specialized electronics for a very small market.

welcome to the world of climbing gear! have your not ever spent $50 for a cam or ice screw? The technology in an avi transciever is not simple and companies must recover their cost of developing that technology as well as the actual cost of manufacture plus make a profit. If it were a cell phone it be much cheaper, but for some reason avi beacons haven't made it into the hands of 95% of all americans. If more people climbed/skied, all these items would become cheaper, but is that really what we want. The manufacturers aren't trying to jack you, they're simpling trying to survive with a very limited market

I cleaned my bag in the bath tub once. That kneading process Dru was talking about works, but it takes hours, literally. I wasn't super impressed by the results I had either so I started taking it to the dry cleaners instead. THey did a far better job of restoring the loft. It comes back with a funky chemical smell, but it only last a few days. I think it usually cost about 20 bucks, though.

Not that its really that important, but as I heard the story they weren't even bailing. They tossed the bag from the top of the east ledges.

I just read the other topic, it all seems so clear now.

Anyone else think its odd that these two guys alone managed to fill a thread with 13 posts in just over an hour? Perhaps you should exchange phone numbers and have it out in real time.

In my opinion its pretty hard to find a boot that will "do it all" If you try to compromise you may end up with a boot that will do a lot of things ok, but will do nothing great. That's what I found with my Super Mtn 9s at least. I sold them and got a pair of Lowa Civetta plastics and I think it was the best thing I ever did. Believe it or not, they are actually far, far more comfortable that the big leathers were. I think the important point is finding the boot that fits you right. I got so excited about the Super mtn 9s a few years back that I just found the right size and bought them. I soon realized that they would make my toes numb for weeks after a trip. I've done ten mile trail approaches in my Lowa's and find them to be one of the most comfortable boots I've ever worn. So that's my advice. Pick an activity and buy boots that will do it well. They'll still do other things and if you find you self spending most of your time doing a different activity, then down the road you buy another pair of boots. And ultimately, don't concern yourself too much with what boot someone else says is great becuase it might totally suck for you. Good luck kevin

Just a note about the redundancy of belay loops. I can't be positive that this is true for all harness, but on most there are actually two belay loops. They are sewn together for a neater setup, but take a close look sometime and you will probably be able to see what I'm talking about. Therefore, belaying off the belay loop actually is still redundant.

Just to add a bit more to the issue, I was at Minnehaha (crag area in Spokane) just a couple days after I first reasd about the hangers missing in icicle and found several chopped TR bolts that had been there a week before. According to a friend who had been there the previous weekend they were still in great shape and from what I could see of the chopped studs they were 3/8 in stainless in good rock. Is there a de-bolting conspiracy in WA?!?!

I climb in parties of three fairly often and always use double ropes so both followers could climb at the same time to keep things moving. I used to do this using two munter hitches. This worked but you have to be very attentive to make sure you're giving both a safe belay. This fall I got a reverso and love it. Belaying both climbers becomes easy and even safer (I think) than the two munter hitches. As for lowering the second, I've only done it once and it was a fairly light climber, but I was able to simply grab the second biner and pull it down to release the autoloch and then lowered her a few feet. For a heavy climber being lowered a whole pitch, this probably wouldn't work so well but its seems to work fine for lowering a climber just a few feet, which is usually all that is needed.

daler I agree that there isn't any 5.10 on the gendarme. which pitch have you heard people refer to as 5.10?

lambone we climbed on sunday so we wouldn't have seen you up there although I did talk briefly with someone in the parking lot saturday night. Good job on climbing the whole ridge. What did you think? I've heard mixed reports about the quality of climbing on the lower portion. We were on the Gendarme right in midday, and still almost froze to death with that cold wind and shade. I feel your pain.

I took full advantage of the great weather last weekend and pulled off a one day acsent of the N Ridge. We left the car at the Engles trailhead shortly before 3am and hiked up to the notch in the ridge where we took a short break at 8:30. The temperature was quite warm, but a constant breeze kept it feeling a bit more alpine. Rainier looked beautiful from goat pass catching the first morning rays. We roped up and climbed to the base of the Gendarme in two or three pitches of simul-climbing. As intimidating as that thing is with only a small alpine rack, we decided to go for it anyway. The 4 camelot is still fixed in the offwidth and doesn't look to be going anywhere for a while. We'll see how it survives the winter, though. It is, however, near the top of the offwidth section, and having a 3.5 inch piece is still not a bad idea if you want to be well protected. With the Gendarme behind us we got cliffed out on top of the next big tower, came back down a few feet and decided to use the rapel slings for a short (40-50 ft) rappel and then climbed back up to the notch just beyond the tower. I'm curious how other people have gotten through this area. In hind sight, I think we could have found a way to traverse around the tower, but we saw the slings and a way that would work so we took it. Sticking to the ridge would have been a bit better style, though. The rest of the climb is pretty straight forward. We were on the top by 4 and found the long's pass trail just before dark which returned us to the car a little before ten. I felt like the one day push is a great tactic for this route if the weather looks good and you are reasonable confident in you abilities to move quickly up the ridge. It is well worth the long day, to be able to really enjoy the route without heavy packs and bivy gear. [This message has been edited by kevin (edited 09-13-2001).]