Beck

Oh my gosh, I'm about ready to piss my pants, I'm laughing so hard! Send over GORT BOY!!! Oh my gosh, TR on two half ropes tied togther, he couldn't tie into the end of it, AND he's tied into some biners! LMAO! HILARIOUS! MY FACE HURTS! STOP IT GORT BOY!

I think he's tied into his belay biner! look at the angles...

Gortboy in love with sorry, you're not so much threating as irritating.

he's wearing gorts! I read four years climbing experience, with some of that in the gym. And he's been skiing one year. he's GORT BOY! nice pile coat too! let's climb ice in gorts and a pile jacket, that's it! oh, and he's annoying and immature and boastful and stupid.

ID Svarsky guides siltarp, sleeps 1-3 depending on comfort, 13 ounces. two peak tunnel vents. i'll sleep in it in the winter, but not much above treeline. Wintertime, I've dug it in a bit, set it up on skis, and had a standup shelter for two in no time. SHWEET! For that, there are a few four season tunnel tents that weigh under six pounds, thats three pounds a person for shelter. Respectable for Denali or Rainier mid winter. Single wall, non breathable tents will be quite damp, but if you get one, get the classic x-style frame, this will at least be strong for snow loads. Eureka makes some affordable lightweight DOUBLE wall x- tents. the four season hoop tents are still relatively expensive but very bomber if pitched correctly. or you could always go with the 2.2 pound betamid, a very stout single wall "tent" hope this helps

nowhere have I said expert skier, but thanks for the compliment, alpine k... you are the best skiieer in the wurld, boss... But i have been skiing since 1975. and mounted my first pair of ski bindings in the seventies as well. I cut tele turns in 1982 and sold my alpine boards in 1984 (partly to finance a trip to Lake Placid for the winter, but that's another story) and have never looked back at fixed heels. So maybe that's why I'm not an "expert" and I have no claim to such. I skied in the American West in 1986 when I lived in Nevada for a couple of years, and have been skiing the NW for a decade. I've always mounted my own bindings. well, since 1978 or so. and you, cracked, you youngster, how many years have you even been doing this kind of stuff? your website says, like four or five years? you might need to use a template. chord center on the riser for a G3, just line em all up and scribe the mark. easy as pie.

it is much easier to NOT keep a road open, fairweather. spend time listening to snowplow crews, this is the prevailing attitude towards a seasonal road. And this attitude is backed by administration because of fiduciary concerns. Not so on roads that are suppossed to remain open all year, like Donner Pass (very impressive snow moving operation) and Snoq passes. did you know, for every HOUR the pass is closed, Puget Sound business lose and estimated $485,000 in lost productivity (DOT figure) due to delays over Snoqualamie Pass alone. It's a shame about 20. no quick trip to Harts Pass to poach those bowls... Less plowing, more $$$ left in the discretionary fund.

it's closed, and they are going to leave all the debris, etc until after the winter. that will make opening up slower as rocks and trees slow down the snow moving equipment.

This spray on this thread has been moved Beck has his own method for mounting bindings which may interest some, but his post seems better suited to spray. 2nd edit: Here's the goods.

templates not to true size, downloaded over the internet, will be a very inefficient way to mount ski bindings. It is general consensus in the ski shops that templates suck. for home mounts, simply: take ski, find chord center. extrapolate binding position on ski. use awl or center punch to place starter marks. drill with stopper. Don't forget to tap thry metal top sheets. And good luck. but don't even try to use a missized template unless you are an idiot.

I never felt wet the entire weekend fern! wool layers and a thin shell that isn't waterproof will usually keep you feeling drier. and wool as the base layer of it all is an amazing performer. I think that was my leprechaun costume i packed over to leavenworth this last weekend, though. but you're right, dryad, the irish and their little cousins have the wet weather figured out- I like a wool sweater as my outer layer lots of times. try it, you might be really, really comfortable at the end of the day.

make way thru steep hills on rock and ice and snow,then- topping out! Glorious. I still want to see in blossoms at dawn, the face of the mountain god.

the bigger the tarp, the better the ventilation!

Ski ascent of Rainier, monthlong ski vaca out to colorado, mt and wy circumnavigation of Glacier in eariy spring. spring high camp on honeycomb glacier. another ski bunny. and Forbidden traverse if anyone is game.

if you can get them, get them, they are handy to have in the bag. early morning, spring tours, they are also nice to put on when you've got just twenty or thirty feet to surmount a ridge line or feature after a long downhill run, much quicker to put on and off than taking skis off and putting on skins. and the points messner made about the energy expended by body posturing on steep icy traverses vs having ski crampons on is very true. I like them for many steep traverses on firm snow. you certainely don't need them much in feburary around here. and the skalps mount shweet for tele if you ride a short 6-10 mm riser plate vs the big 20 + mm that comes with many bindings nowadays. Voile 3 pin cable, rivas, straight 3 pin (they still work just fine) all can accomodate a skalp cramp quite easily. I have the half moon base plates on a couple of decks, just in case. case in point. june trip up over glacier peak and out via the dakobeds i brought ski cramps and left the full poons in the car. Steve B brought his poons but not ski cramps. I used mine on an icy traverse on the upper sitkum and climbed a steeper line as well, steve carried his poons and never used them and skied a lower angle track up the hill. I like my ski crampons.

i have a friend with a coca plant in his house, it's nasty stuff unless you chew on alkaline lime or something to counter their massive nastiness. I will wear a cotton shirt and cotton shorts for most summer. And I am experimenting more with less raincoat. over the ropeup weekend, i wore cotton and wool soft shells and never put on a rainjacket. yesterday, i walked around seattle in the morning in a wool coat and an oiled cotton and wool hat. again, no raincoat, and i was more comfortable than 10 minutes in a goretex coat. and as testimonial to wool working better as a base layer (this is subjective) on many winter patrols of Rainier, after a long hard day of skiing, i can stand comfortably in what i skied in all day and not experience any undue cooling. by contrast, those people skiing in polypro and their shell clothing began to go hypo and chill rapidly after our ski. usually i can wear the clothes i skied in while making dinner down at the cabin in longmire. another case for soft shells. Mount adams SAR in a blizzard and heinous winds. softshell all day (dimension jacket, cracked- go buy one now! LOL) Some of the other team was putting on their second, backup shell during the search. We find the guy and decomission the search. By the time we ate dinner at hood River, my jacket was dry and i used it as a throwblanket on the drive back to town. Try doing that with a goretex shell! so this soft, wool, and cotton approach does work. some troops like norwegian military use cotton as shell for artic conditions. nuf said.

sick! but if you dig that type of stuff, rent "attack of the killer clowns", a very bizzare, well done horror film... it brings a lot of signature effects of the genre into play in a bizarre, sick, perverted film that i couldn't take my eyes off of when my buddy put it on the tube. i don't even like horror films much, but this one was fascinating..

and jubelale at work is a rightous way to enjoy it! way to go, Timmay, I am glad to see some of us have a few priorities all sorted out at the workplace!

not a tranceiver tool, although my posture on this site is often confused with that personality... no, i think its a matter of how hard they've been abused, like dropped onto concrete, etc. I certainely use my going on six years old F1 and have no intentions of replacing it anytime soon. And my bad, i thought the M series had two antennas, but it is analog. I know that. the digi was just the display, it had no screening filters to manipulate the signals like the barryvox, the x1 and the SOS BCA. I will still talk to Minot. And, an F1 is a fine avy beacon with superior range, i would recommend to the original poster to spend an extra 30-50 bucks and buy a new F1... try the alaska avalanche education center and tell them you want to do a group order. you can usually get f1s for 10-15 % off

let's see... field test? comparing new to old? at Rainier on a avy seminar taught by one of the fellas at NWAC for park service folks? pretty much, seemed 60% ...

my five year old f-1 transmits at about 60% of original range and still receives at 100%

It is difficult to follow such an erudite post, Lowell. My reply pales in comparision. Contributions to Northwest climbing by Beckey is obvious. look at the CAGs. these "Beckey Bibles" , like the actual good book, should be taken with a grain of salt. Fred is a brillant artist and writer, taking a sketchbook approach to the Cascades. He's got information about pretty much every peak. what an invaluable resource for those of us to follow. most other areas the expanse of the cascades need about twenty guidebooks, and then there still isn't a complete picture. I like the fact I can look at a map of WA and some southern BC, then go to the Beckey bibles, and find a route up something. Pretty much guaranteed. In the field, guidebooks are meant to be that, merely 'guides.' do you hear of many people dissing Fodor's or Lonely Planet guides because " that bus line wasn't reported accurately" or this type of dissent? If you look at a book like 'high adventure' by B and I Spring, published in 1951, has a few crags featured, and wrong names on things. and a reference to young 'Louis Whittaker' and 'crag rats' and a feature called 'the chisel' which i can't find in the guidebooks... And as to the fellows around the NW that contributed to skiing and climbing history, it is always a pleasure to listen in, and hear the history if they happen to want to talk about it. overheard at REI during a Mountain Skiing presentation... "I said, 'Reporting for the tenth mountain division, sir!' and he said, 'Son, as of now, you ARE the tenth mountian division!" a recounting of reporting out west for duty during WWII by the first recruit to the vererated mountain division. And a getting back to mountian trivia (culled from the beckey bibles) What peaks were going to be named 'the three dicks' by the FA party?

I'm not going to do an internet search on a topic that I am aware is valid. my source on crystal degradation: Gary Brill, and personal field tests with new vs older beacons. I will check with Minot Maser in the next couple of days. He is a rep for BCA. I will also call Brill and maybe the folks at NWAC to check it out. Again, I don't need any convincing about avy beacons. They get compromised with age and hard knocks.

the m1 and m2 were analogue avy beacons with digital screens. sorry to be posting intoxicahte.

thanks snoboy for putting a spin on things, but i think the M series had two directional receivering antennas,gave a digitally rendered directional as to where the dual receivers said a burial was.. and i din NOT know the new beacons got away from crystals, that is news to me... I guess this is technology... does the x1 still have crystals in the transmitter matrix? I hope so, the ortovox products always had extremely high sensitivity and range...