Stefan

And.....another update.....both sides met yesterday....... http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/regions/northcentral/Maint/Area3/nc2003/default.htm

I have empathy for him.

You were right.

Yes, those are my ankles. No the ankle is NOT swollen. The instep on the right is bone. That will be with me for the rest of my life. I have been out snowshoeing several times. Funny thing is I am not having any problems with the right foot, just the ligaments on the left foot. The left foot didn't require surgery but did have broken bone, which is healed.

Do not break your ankles or fall in a climb. This could happen to you. These pictures were taken on 4/2/03. http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=539&papass=&sort=1&thecat=997 http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=540&papass=&sort=1&thecat=997

just bring this to the top due to the update on their website....

I was wondering, if lack of oxygen kills brain cells, does Anaerobic exercising contribute to the killing of brain cells? So then I started thinking of my biggest friends who like to do a lot of weight lifting. In my opinion, they appear to not have the most "pistons firing" compared to all my other friends......

No Dru, no before and after scans....it's a documentary and they are probably ruled by a budget....cat scans aint cheap. Like I said, I don't recall the exact way the documentary went. What I got out of it is this: The less oxygen to the brain, the more brain cells will die. It happens to drowning victims too....

I saw a documentary on cognitive results at high altitude on Everest. Don't take my word for it, but I think they also took brain scans of the people before they left. Ed Viesturs was one of them. Somehow I remember the doctors saying that Ed Viesturs had significantly less brain cells compared to the average human as a result of looking at his brain scan.

Anybody been to the Chigmit Mountains in Alaska..... looks interesting..... http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np-image.lacl1646.html http://www.pollackphoto.com/us/ak/lakeclark/F0089-01.htm

I am still waiting for evidence of chemicals in weapons......

The money is really only to pay for people who use the dog routes (mainly feces and garbage administration). I still don't agree that money should be charged for non-dog routes becuase those routes do not have toiletry services.

I think the General Nutrition Centers (GNC) had a sale going on, but I don't know if it is currently continuing.

I never been to one. What time do people show up?

Interesting. I am not knowledgeable in this area. Would like to know what you come up with for choices. One thing I try to do is drink lots of orange juice in the car on the way to the climb which is very high in carbohydrates and tastes great! I usually try to suck down about a liter before the car stops at the trailhead or roadgate.

Dru, are you trying to find the most caloric food with the least amount of weight? What about that stuff that the Polish climbers eat? What is that stuff and its name?

Stefan would show up if it was in Tacoma.

I think you have to drive to 3400 before you dip back down to the trailhead at 2500 due to the detour. I am not sure about this though.....

Okay, posers, try ballancing the egg today. I think it will be 5:00pm PST. http://www.witchvox.com/holidays/xostara.html Try this sometime with your children or a young niece, nephew or cousin: on the day of the Vernal or Autumnal Equinox, just a few moments before the exact moment of the equinox, go outside with a raw egg. Find a reasonably level place on the sidewalk or driveway. For a few moments just before and just after the equinox, you can balance the egg upright (wider end down) by simply setting it down on the ground. No kidding! It will stand up all by itself. Kids love this, and most adults are amazed and delighted, too.

I was just there. I bought a new Sauvage Jacket Goretex XCR for $100. They also have PacLite jackets, Goretex XCR Bibs for $100 and nylon pants as well as down jackets, pants, and some shorts. Although the deals aren't screaming, they are decent prices. Part of the store is also Roffe and Pacific Trail stuff too. Most of the stuff I believe is last year's models. Located on SW16th half way between Oakesdale and Lind Ave which is south of I-405. In the same complex as the old HomeGrocer.com And by the way I know most of you are not employed. They are looking for a "Manager 1" for the store. Maybe not a lot of pay, but maybe an "in-between" job.

I was in the nearby area on March 9th (after the big snow dump we had) by Tyler Peak. I was able to drive to 2600 feet in a Honda Civic without snow problems. Higher clearance vehicles could probably have made it to 3000 feet. Snow accumulations on the ground didn't really start until 3500 feet. When I was at 5000 feet there was probably about 2 feet of snow. Due to this information an early season trip into this area definitely sounds possible.

Hmmm. My search didn't come up with anything....I wonder if my search parameters sucked to find if there was a previous post. Thanks for showing me!

Don't know why this wasn't brought up earlier.... http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=bizbriefs14&date=20030314&query=mountain+equipment Portland sportswear company buys California apparel maker PORTLAND — Columbia Sportswear, a maker of ski clothing and other outerwear, agreed to buy Mountain Hardwear for about $36 million in cash and debt. The company will pay about $30 million in cash and assume $6 million in debt for the Richmond, Calif.-based maker of mountaineering apparel and equipment, Columbia said. The transaction is expected to close March 31. Columbia expects to boost sales of Mountain Hardware, which had $31.4 million in revenue last year, by as much as $100 million over five years, spokeswoman Sarah Stephan said. Columbia wants to expand sales of Mountain Hardwear's gear through high-end retailers and international distribution, as well as broaden the range of products the company makes.

Ron Gregg.......

Here is a trip report of a friend of mine. Completed around 6/30/2001. Buckindy. The group was five and we climbed the major peaks on the traverse. We were successful in accomplishing the goals. However I was very surprised how much effort it took to pull it off. We summited Misch, Buckindy and Mutchler plus I was able to get a couple of bumps enroute. I had hoped to get Chaval but slow travels prevented. After summited Buckindy we noticed the last entry in the register was 9/3/95, it pretty much told the story. During the trip we saw absolutely no sign of previous human travels. Few parties ever make it into this area. I am guessing most that set out following Beckey's route fail for various reasons (difficult terrain, routefinding problems, overall more difficult, under estimating the time, etc). I purposely led this trip early season hoping for good snow cover making travels much easier and that was the case. We had pretty much clear weather conditions but it was too hot for full day travels. The snows were pretty consolidated in the morning and very soft in the afternoon. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous and views were super except for the last coupe of hours when dropping to the car. Having such views made time pass so fast that 5 days seem much less. After the trip was over, I felt very relieved to have completed. A couple of us shuttled a car to the Slide Lake (Otter Cr.) on the illabot road Friday evening. It took us about 45 minutes to drive the illabot road the 20.5 miles each way. The road was in excellent condition. We reached the Green Mtn TH near 11pm where we quickly set up a tent and fell fast asleep. We awoke at 6:30am Saturday morning. The others arrived at ~7:30am. After distributing the group gear and going through the route, we hit the trail at 8am. One party member was not feeling well and within the first hour had fallen 15+ minutes behind. The rest and I were a little concern but that never happen again. We reached the shoulder of Green Mtn at 10:30am. We took a nice break and studied our route. The first leg has us getting to Lake 5371. The first and last 1/4 was snow covered. The other half was bare steep slopes which were slow traveling. The hellebore was just coming out and we did find some faint track to follow at times. Dropping to the lake was much steeper than I expected and treed. From the lake we dropped down to the trees (5200') before making the cut over the next rib. The trees are old growth and this went well. For the next leg we were not clear where to go. Nothing looked good. We had a couple of choices. Go around Pt 5890 on the north or south. We ended up going around to the south but it was very brushy go down to the basin at ~5000' and climbing an open slope back up to 5400'+. It may have been better to cut through the 5760'+ gap and going snow-covered ground to the 5360'+ col. However we managed to get to the 5360'+ col from the east. We reached this point at 5:30pm and decided we were too tired to continue to the 5200' camp (estimated it would take us 2+ hours to reach). We found a nice place to camp on snow. As we were turning in around 9pm, we got the only rain of the trip, which were a few drops. Thunderstorms just missed us. The second day brought us overcast skies in the morning. This made for nice traveling. We headed up the difficult looking north ridge from the 5360'+ col. There was a game track that were well and we quickly reached the point where we left the ridge (6400'). We scramble snowfree slope to the next rib. We dropped on a completely snow-covered slope to the 5200' basin reaching at 10:25am. This leg went fast and easy. Next we headed up to a high moraine below Misch peak and this was on mostly very soft snow-covered ground. Took a long lunch at the moraine and discussed what to do next. Upon first look the high snowfield looked too steep to traverse but once we reached it, we found it 45 degrees and okay to traverse. We crossed the rib and head up a very loose gully to the summit. The loose rock fall was BAD. We reached the summit at 2pm and spent 1.5 hours enjoying the views and registers. There were two registers and one was pretty much devoted to discussing the name of the peak. party (10/7/2000) was last entry and it was amazing that he did it in one day. set up camp on a fairly level snowfield below Buckindy while we summited Misch. We got into camp at ~5:30pm. We found running water on some nearby rocks where we cooked at a great spot. After dinner Matt scrambled Caradhras for sunset photos. I had hoped to join him but my energy level was low and I passed. The third day we awoke to clear skies and hard snow conditions. We got up around 6:30am and enjoyed breakfast in sunny conditions. We cramponed up to the ridge just below the summit of Buckindy. The route described indicated a Class 3 scramble to the summit. However we used the rope to climb a class 4 gully to the summit. Beckey's route is a bit under-rated. We spent 2+ hours on the summit of Buckindy and another highpoint. Views were so great it's hard to describe. The plan was to stay a long time on the summit hoping the decent would now have soft snow and were able to plunge step to camp. We quickly broke camp and headed out for Kindy-Buck pass at 1:30pm. I had hoped to have time to climb Dol Amroth, at cool look spire but I had to pass due to time. We followed Becky's route that had us going west of Pt 6495 but it would have been easier to go just east of the point. We had planned to camp at the 5975 tarn but the pass look more pleasant and it was a great place to camp. We reached camp at 4:15pm. After dinner Matt and I checked out the down route from the north Kindy-Buck pass. Much to our surprise we needed to rappel it but were not sure the ropes were long enough to reach. Matt went to get the ropes while I scrambled Pk 6680+. Matt rappelled to check out rope length and they were just able to reach with a few feet to spare (we had ~125' ropes). Tuesday we were awaked to Sun on the tents before 6am. We took are sweet time pack and enjoying breakfast. Left camp at 7:30am and it took the next 3 hours to complete two rappels on north Kindy-Buck pass. However I screwed up by leaving my Ice Axe at the top of the first rappel and it cost a little time to get it. We dropped to the basin ~5100' and traversed to the 5800' pass south of Mutchler Peak. From the pass we studied the route options. Nothing looked great but we took the lower option which was pretty much level with pass. At the pass we baked in the hot conditions. Temperatures must have been in the 80's. We left the pass around 12:30pm and reached the ridge at 6900' just west of Mutchler peak at 2:15pm. Here we cooked some more in the sun before heading to Mutchler peak. Below the summit, its best to head up on the snow/glacier but the glacier could have some crevasses later. We found no summit register (3:30pm). We were now running behind schedule and spent only 15 minutes on the summits. Snowking was just in front of us. We discussed camp options and decided to head for the pass north of Pk 6995. However as we headed there on the south side of the ridge the terrain looked like the drop to the basin at just under 6000' would not go. We decided stay on the south side to drop. This went pretty fast on mostly snow-covered sloped. The views of Chaval were outstanding. Upon reaching the 5900 basin, we were treated which a deep-scared glacier carved cirque. Pretty much polished rock everywhere and very beautiful. The glacier receded and has formed a couple of lakes that are not shown on the maps. We camped on snow-covered moraine 50' above the lake. Found running water nearby and made nice kitchen on the rocks. Our last day we headed out at 7:40am. The plan was to reach the car early afternoon. We had eyed a snow gully to gain the ridge west of Pk 7015. We dropped from the cirque on the NW end. There was some polished rock but found a route down and dropped a couple hundred feet. We traversed to the snow gully and then headed up to the ridge at ~6800' below Pk 7015. The north side was completely snow-covered and this leg went nicely. We were able to stay on snow pretty much to where the ridge turned north. We gained some to traverse open sloped below Pk 5897 (Ottabot). I managed to quickly scramble Pk 5897 but found the summit very block and tricky. We continued down the forested ridge crest to the car. Encountered some large boulders, brush, and old clearcuts during the drop. We reached the Slide Lk TH at 3:15pm. We quickly washed-up before heading back to Green Mtn TH. It was 6:40 went we reached Darrington. We decided to have dinner in Arrington at The Fountain. Home at ~9pm.