robert

Check your PMs.

I have the same recollection as Josh. I few feet of not that steep snow followed by a little scramble and it was done. I do remember seeing some webbing around a horn and thinking what was somebody doing repelling this? If you want to bring a rope you will not be the first group to do so, but we made it without one.

There are a few ropes that can be used (read "are rated for use") both ways. The PMI verglas is rated both ways. Those that are rated for use only as a twin or only as a half should only be used as they are rated. Using a twin as a half could result in too much elongation or a failure and using a half as a twin could result in a failed piece of pro as there is not enough elongation.

CBS, Can you elaborate? Is it something about the diameter that makes them more prone to snags in the sheath, thread count to radius or something? Is the material slightly different? If you are meaning that it won't hold as many falls I can understand that, but I don't understand why it would not wear as well as a 9, 10 or 11mm rope.

That sounds remarkably like it did two weekends ago. It made me wish we had climbed a bit faster or started a bit earlier. Oh well. Motivation to come back when the weather is better.

We left the lodge about 1:15. We were at the Hogsback about 6:30.

Here is one report. The force did not appear to be with them.

I thought so too, but it wasn't there. This was though and it was true. It seems the bride and groom got more than they bargined for from their wedding video. I Bull Terrier seems an odd choice, but I guess she was what was available.

The presence of an obvious boot track will depend on the weather before you go. If it has been sunny for the last week you should be fine. If it snowed significantly on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday then you may be on your own as you will be going before the hordes descend on the weekend. I would say that the chances are good though. This website will give you the current snow depth at Paradise and give you an idea about how much of the trail will be snow free. Given the low snow year we are having there will probably be big sections of the lower portion of the trail that will be snow free, but you never know. Will you get good weather? I hope so, and there is a good chance, but there is at least an equal chance that it will be cloudy or worse. I generally say that if I didn’t go when the weather wasn’t perfect I would never get out, but I don’t think I would give that advise to you on your first trip up to Muir. The last time I was up there it was pretty cloudy and a very experienced mountaineer got lost and died. I don’t want that to happen to you.

The hike to Muir is not much like Mt. Si. On Si you have a maintained trail to follow whereas on the way to Muir you have at best a good boot pack and at worst new or wind blown snow obscuring any tracks at all. Add to that the consequences of wandering off of the Muir snowfield and on to one of the adjacent glaciers and it is a much more serious endeavor. The altitude as you noted is a significant difference as well. You never know how your body will react, but if you drink plenty of fluids you should be fine. That all being said I totally think that you should go for it. Pick a weekend when the weather is nice, make sure that you are confident in your navigational skills and you will have a great time. If you are in good shape and have the proper equipment it is a great hike. It is a good ski too, but one thing at a time. Make sure that your tent is ready for the winds that it will face. You can check the forecast winds at Muir on this website. Start early so that the snow is firm. I have not spent the night at Muir when it was not as part of a summit climb, so I am not sure what the regulations are on permits, but you should check with the ranger.

Climbing a route with significant exposure that you can't see because of whiteout conditions like on Sunday qualifies as hardman in my book.

Thanks guys. I think that we all had a good time. It was a good training climb for our trip to Baker next month. From Tline to Hot Rocks the snow had a pretty good crust during the ascent. It was breakable in a couple of spots, but not even boot top then. On the decent is was pretty sloppy from the top of Palmer to the lodge. What snow had fallen the evening before had done so during high winds and there were pockets of wind packed with other areas of scoured crust. The areas of wind packed did not exhibit any significant slide potential and appeared well bonded to the crust. In the crater the snow was mostly 6-12" of unconsolidated over a firm if somewhat wet looking base. The loose stuff around the 'shrund created some areas that looked solid, but were only a foot or so thick and very soft. To find a solid crossing we had to go quite a bit farther right than it looked like we would. On the slopes above the snow was soft with a firm base which was quite secure.

Climb: Mt. Hood-Hogsback Date of Climb: 4/24/2005 Trip Report: I took my wife and three teenage girls from our Camp Fire outdoor group up the Hogsback on Sunday. The weather forecast sounded doubious, but we decided to go for it anyway and were rewarded. We ascended all the way to the 'shrund in great weather. Climbing under the full moon with no headlamps is always nice and seeing the shadow is quite cool. We roped up at the hogsback and skirted the 'shrund on the east. I was surpised at how open it was and how poor the snowbridges were. I placed one sketchy and one pretty sound picket between the gates and the 'shrund. The weather totally socked in the summit while we were climbing through the Pearly Gates and by the time we neared the summit ridge you couldn't tell the snow from the sky. I could only tell we were at the ridge by feeling for it with my hiking pole. The weather made the decent more interesting than it needed to be, but it all adds to the experience. This was the first roped summit climb for my wife and the girls and the first big trip since my wife's ACL surgery, so it was pretty cool for them to make it to the summit even if it wasn't an FA or a hardman route like Mike and Ivan have posted. Gear Notes: Ice Axe, crampons, 2 pickets, 50m rope.

Hey! There are two commas in it.

That assumes that you are paying for dialup. Netzero

I heard your summit scream. I was with a group of 5 hunkered down about 50 feet below the summit on the south route. Too bad you over slept; the night was perfect. We never needed our headlamps because the moon was so bright. Good job on the climb. I too felt like it was going to be a futile effort, but the weather cleared just long enough.

For video editing you will need as much RAM as you can afford with a decent processor and a big screen. The big wide aspect screen will cost a bit, but it will also make watching DVDs much better. For DVD watching you need a DVD drive and not much more. I would expect that if you want to edit video you will also want to burn DVDs so get a combo burner that writes +/-R and RW. For storing piles of music files you will need a big hard drive and for playing them you will like a higher RPM drive. I would get a Dell. They work really well, their support and service is by far the best that I have found and their prices are really good. I think an Insipron with 1-2 GB of RAM (all that you can afford), I would got for the Centrino system, but all that is really important is the Pentium M processor and a wireless card that works on 802.11G. Then I would get the biggest hard drive that you have money left to buy. If it isn't as big as you wanted you can get an external hard drive for cheap and use that. I just built an Inspiron 6000 as decribed above for $1,635. That is a good place to start price wise.

PA was at the heart of a similar issue with government run internet access competing with other ISP's. Some people don't think that competition is a good thing.

This sucks and while pretty much everyone sees it every day almost nothing is done about it. In the spirit of "Think Globally Act Locally" if there were more native plants used in landscaping it would be a small step in the right direction. If anyone wants more information on native plants check out the Washington Native Plant Society or go to their Plant Sale.

Last spring my wife and I flew to Italy and found that a travel agent had the best deal on tickets. We tried all of the travel sites, the airline sites and even the meta search sites and could find a deal within $125 of his deal. You might try your local travel agent. PM me if you want contact info on my guy.

Okay, you guys are starting to freak me out! What is going on up there! Is this another mysteriously unfinished trip report from the south side... "Okay son, if the snaffles are moving in on your position and you can't talk, just click your mic twice to indicate that you are still okay." Oops, there it is. Glad to hear you made it out of there. What is up this morning? When I checked this post the first time is was just the trip and the date. I come back and there is a report. It sounds like you had a similar experience.

Anything to say about the trip? How was the snow, weather, is the 'shrund open, that sort of thing.

Almost seems like it may have been in response to the great thread in spr4y.

Whoa. When Dru says not work safe he means you may get fired if you click this link. Damn my crappy spelling.

Jens, If you go into your user settings there are some options that you could play with to see if they help. One is to view in threaded if you aren't already. That will bring up only one post at a time. You can read it to see if the rest of the thread is worth downloading. There are also three radio buttons dealing with pictures and signatures which you might click to no to speed up your page loads.