Beck

the lowest class dirtbag climber in U S has a much better standard of living than many of the rest of the global populace;I feel VERY lucky I didn't grow up in Uganda or the UAE

icegirl, we've got a complete stock of repair parts for many stoves at, you know where- glad to hear your are using one of the most reliable stoves out there. i'm there T-W-T-Sa-Su this week if you need some help with the 123.

Dru, it sounds like you're getting some good plub, and I hear from John something is cooking with the you and a certain mountain Journal, you touque wearing, north-of-the-border miscreant!

Being an early proponent of the Cascade Climbers "We're Drinking Now" Pub Club, and believer in proletariat representation of drunk climbers across the greater Northwest, let me squelch any disparities between the virtual scrum of intoxicated Ballardites & other emerald city inebriates with the smaller cadre of T-Town tipsters. We need not get drunk only one day a week! My Proposal: Seattle venues and other cities shouldn't overlap. A trip to Tacoma Thursdays might supplement a Tuesday out on a deck or park in Seattle. Why don't we come together in a spirit of solidarity and recognize a well founded desire to go out, as well as stay close to home. Climbers drifiting afield could more easily drink, and with more opportunities for , who can complain?

stand corrected about the Backes beta, that's right, they didn't use sleeping bags, but at some point, either at the slide show, or at pub club afterwards, during most of their trips, as they dialed their systems in, that he was using about a twenty degree synthetic bag, and Twight was using a fourty degree bag... I'll putting two and two togther and imagining Twight was referring to this as a sub two pound synthetic bag.

The planning for a ski traverse across Glacier Peak and into the Dakobeds had been in the works for over a year. Reconnisance photos, scouting trips to find exit routes and escape strategies all pointed to excellent ski touring terrain across the south flanks of Glacier Peak. With a promising weekend weather forecast for the first weekend in june, I met up with Steve Barnett (for all you old ski farts out there, that Steve Barnett) at the Darrington IGA Saturday morning to embark on a ski traverse of Glacier Peak. Steve had it on the back burner for over two decades, and I had been eying the terrain around Glacier Peak since I first saw photos of it in the Cascade Alpine Guide. Our Plan: Ascend Glacier Peak via the Sitkum Glacier, then descend around the back side of Dissapointment Peak onto her southern icefields and make an exit off the White Chuck Glacier onto the northern slope of White Mountian and out the White Chuck River drainage. 30 or more miles in some of the more desolate reaches of the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Our gear: minimal. No tent, just a bivy tarp, lightweight ski gear, to allow fast travel. My setup: Lightweight tele skis with ski crampons, voile 3 pin cable and leather Asolo Extreme 3 pin boots. Steve chooses an even lighter setup of Fisher Outbounds waxless metal edge skis, the Salomon SNS backcountry binding, and a Salomon Raid X Ski boot. 10 AM at the IGA puts us on the Kennedy Hot Springs trail at 11:30 and we trudge our way to the climbers camp at Boulder Basin Saterday afternoon. Finding a cleared patch of moraine with a rock wall gives us a great campsite for the evening. Blue skies in the evening gives rise to a gusty winds and a small cloud cap on the peak Sunday morning. We decide to go up and off the mountain as fast as possible in hopes of beating the weather, and set off at 7AM, climbing right out of Boulder Basin on skis onto the Lower Sitkum Glacier. The weather cooperated, with an intermitent cloud cap and strong but not hurricane winds. 11 AM found us ducking around a rock rib at about 9,000 to get out of the wind and enjoy a brief lunch. The weather is cooperating as we climb off the upper Sitkum on steep slopes to below the summit cone. There was a layer of rime over bluewater ice on the summit rocks, and with the clouds returning, we forgo the last scramble to the summit, and point our skis toward the Cool Glacier and Dissapointment Peak. We peel our skins off on just above the Cool Glacier and look for an enterance over the bergshrund. The shrund allowed easy entry onto the Cool Glacier, and we ski cautiously around a few gaping crevasses with an eye on our altimeters to guide our traverse onto the Gerdine Glacier at 9,140 feet. Skiing around some gapers to either side of a series of nunataks puts us on the compression zone between the Cool and Gerdine glaciers, and with an easy transition over some blue ice blocks and holes, we enter the upper Gerdine glacier for a long run of over 3,000 vertical feet on lightly crevassed terrain. The weather turns for the better, and we spend the rest of the afternoon making sweeping runs up and along the Gerdine and Suiattle Glaciers towards our next high point, Glacier Cap. this glacier cap divides the watershed of the Suiattle and WhiteChuck rivers, and we touched the headwaters of both that afternoon as we skied across the cap and onto the WhiteChuck Glacier. Ominous afternoon clouds gave use good cause to make an exit route clear for escape, so we camp a thousand feet lower than planned in case bad weather closed in overnight. If the weather holds, Monday will find us touring up the Suiattle Glacier and onto the expansive Honeycomb Glacier. Monday morning we awake in the clouds. No visibility and a heavy mist that isn't breaking up. By ten am we make a decision to bail out. We break camp, and navigate our way thru the fog to easier terrain. Route finding didn't present much difficulty, with only one wrong try that resulted in us reclimbing a gully, to put us smack dab on the trail across a crucial bridge at 4,900 feet just as the snow ends. A perfect navigational tour to the exit point we were shooting for put us twelve miles away from the cars, and by 7PM Monday night Steve Barnett and myself were back at the cars. A sucessful ski traverse of Glacier Peak across a series of five glaciers, thirty some odd miles and over six thousand feet of ski descent over three days was completed in fine form with lightweight ski gear.

Twight was probably referring to his sub two pound fourty degree bag. Scott Backes talked about their different sleep systems, and he said on Twight, House and his ascent of the Czech Direct route on Denali, Twight used a fourty degree synthetic bag, and Scott used a twenty degree synthetic. I tried my sub two pound fourty degree bag for two nights in conjunction with a belay jacket on a ski traverse over Glacier Peak this weekend and slept warm.

Scott Backes had some great, inspiring passages he read about what motivates the climber in every one of us, the passion that it arises from and he is one badass climber- everyone should have seen the pics of their climb up the mostly vertical Czech Direct route up Denali- His inspirational stuff he read was way cool- Scott Backes is the Henry Rollins of the vertical rock world!!! and he came to pub club!

ya, I just talked to Peter from the AAC,and Scott is in Moses Lake, and intends to be in Seattle tommorrow morning..

well, there's going to be Scott Backes...

"Teddy Ruxpin and the Twin Towers of Doom" Prelude: The respect for climbers accomplishments in the vertical arena stick to the forefront of mountain legend. Some are long held dear by the climbing community. Some won’t go away even after the free buffet’s ended... Such is the unfortunate fame of esteemed ursine alpinist Teddy Ruxpin. Teddy barreled onto the climbing scene back when the soviet curtain wasn't even heard of. Seemingly Eurotrash in mannerism, Teddy’s origins and ethnicity weren’t clear. Some said He was Russian. Some said black. Others speculated the silver in his fur pointed to the Polar regions. When asked about his family history Teddy’d reply “I’m just a Baa-hstaard bear” in that self effacing way everyone loved. Whatever his roots, It was clear his heavy coat of fur definitely gave him advantage at altitude. Although Teddy Ruxpin never would admit to possessing a valid passport, he was found sending first ascents along with Royal, Salathe and that wild bunch of derilects inhabiting camp 4 . He climbed in India and the shadowy regions of Nepal and Tibet back when Himalayan climbing meant more than buying into a trade route on overrun guided highways for the rich and famous. This recounting of his failed expedition on the Twin towers of Doom serves as a cautionary tale of what can happen when grizzled old schoolers meets climbings’ nouveau garde in the alpine arena. Albeit horrifying in places, this story may serve to inform the reader what happens when you mix high altitude with hijinks. Teddy’s fame as a climber started back in the early days of Camp Four,lost arrows and free love. He was found out on the big walls in Yosemite valley with Harding and Chouniard when the concept of ‘free’ climbing was just a dream in some britons minds. He was out hammering up overhanging aid pitches in long weeks spent solo out on a big wall somewhere; his habit of scratching a skull and crossbones at the base of the climb would generally discourage any climbers intent in following Teddy Ruxpin up the rock. He disappeared from the scene in the early eighties. He was said to be making a killing in land deals with some friends of his in the local savings and loan. They were trading lands around Telluride that started out dirt cheap and spiraled into multi million dollar plots. Dry plots, too- not a drop of water to be had! When Teddy Ruxpin disappeared from the colorado land swap scandal, he wasn’t heard much of for several years. Rumors of him, living the itinerant life in Chamonix and Oslo, when he wasn’t climbing tough routes in the Alps, or sending V13s on chossy sea rock along the Mediterranean coast. Though there were rumors of scandals involving illegal boarder crossings and chocolate smuggling across the Swiss alps, Teddy was always exonerated fully of any wrongdoing. Teddy Ruxpin- the next time he showed up in the climbing scene he was in the Himalaya, climbing as a team with two tall, lanky blonde Swedes by the names Inma and Helda- these two women, sexy, sapphic, and deadly, were what led Teddy Ruxpin the esteemed ursine alpinist, down the path of bad decisions. These two rock dominatrix, ripped and buff examples of femininity and power, were the “Twin Towers of Doom” that, quite literally, brought Teddy to his knees and beg for mercy.

well, meganerd, it makes the enchantments a third less accessible to the average citizen in favor of commercial access to publicly owned land- to a someone willing to pay almost $200 a day to"recreate"- it is absolutely reprehensible to have the publics' access to public property restricted in favor of for profit business access to same-

my beta shows: 30% guaranteed permits, with interested guide services lobbying for a greater % of the permits for camping in the enchantments in the future- that means, when you,JOE PUBLIC, applies for enchantment permits, are competing with 30% fewer spots available, because the "Guide Services" have got the permits tied up... sounds like a RFU, IMO.

stitch plate w/ spring, modulation supreme..

I think some of us relish the idea of drinks on Tuesday AND Thursday, so let's not disallow quaffing brew tonight, but as for Thursday night, yes, Scott Backes show is FREE, with a gear raffle to raise money for the Access Fund- win free shwag! Afterwards, having drinks at Madame K's desk sounds like an excellent idea! I'll lobby the american alpine club to buy the first round for everyone- Thursday night in Ballard, don't ya know?

sorry, Dru, I got a little confused by this one- but I'm imagining most people don't know powershield is really two fabrics glued togther, just keeping it real - i didn't think we were arguing dru...

for camoflage soft shells the clandestine climber needs to visit cabela's and powershield doesn't breathe thru the glue, dru- that makes it inherently less breathable than a fabric that is uniform bicomponent construction like scholler dryskin,skifans, dynamic, or Tweave. or 60/40 parka, one of the earlier soft shells- if anyone knows where to buy a scholler blazer, i'm looking for one for around townwear... and some people look flattering in clothes that are shaped like garbage sacks hence the desire to own one

and give a kid a copy of the whole earth catalog and you'll have a hippie on your hands before you know it- what's a good read for climbers? Bone Games by Rob Schultheis " Extreme sports, shamanism, zen, and the search for trancendence" he talks about mountaineering parralleled to mans search of the divine... very intriguing read

I've been getting rxd julbos for over twenty years now, and have found out a few things about prescription sunglasses. i'm suprised to hear the Julbo sherpas gave someone eyestrain; the company rates all their lenses as category 3 or 4 out of six on a european sunglass scale- but as for lenses, YES, its true, glass has inherent UV blocking characteristics wheras plastic lenses will always rely on a anti UV coating that will eventually wear off the lenses opticus is expensive, but they have got better lens options than they offered a few years ago; you can get your local optitian to do the same thing for you for less. What to ask for is a glass sunglass lens tinted for high altitude or ocean use, with dual gradient tint, polarized coat and a mirror finish- these shoud set you back less than 150 bucks from your eyedoctor- if they say they can't get you glass, or dual gradient tint, go to a DIFFERENT optitian. And Grey gives better color definition while an amber base tint gives you better contrast definition. For less than high altitude sunglasses, Lenscrafters can set you up for a hundred bucks with shades good enough for a full day of skiing without eyestrain, but a bit weak on the glaciers. and as to matts queries on cheap sunglasses, no. Cheap gas station glasses usually offer false claims of %100 UV on the lens sticker when they actually block only visible light - and to keep in mind the UV levels due to ozone deteriation is only going to get worse, so cover up! Allison may take offense at this beta, but i hope its helpful

The '03 July 14th edition of Rock & Ice has a good comparison review of "autolock" belay devices plus a good chart on many of tube and stitch plate others...

Powershield relies on "discontinous glue laminate" to provide breathability, it doesn't breathe thru the fusion of the inner and outer shells. Quite a bit different from a bicomponent weave .....

..selling climbing gear all weekend, also working promoting my newspaper, and planning the October rope up- CLIMB ON! you lucky bahstards, I'll be in Leavenworth next weekend!

i gotten a few prescription sunglasses for a hundred bucks a pop at lenscrafters.... its a great way to go if you wear glasses ...otherwise, most julbo glacier glasses readily take Rx ing.

...i think a high strength tie off to a Samoan rugby team is all you need in this situation...

I bought some scholler wb-400 bibs this spring and have found them indespensible for ski mountaineering- I wore them last weekend on Mount Hood for early morning uphill slog- 4 way stretch, very stretchy, 30% stretch, like a tight. rainbow butt, 4 sliders, high torso all around for wear as a stand alone piece, big chest pockets/ scholler dryskin top to aid breathability. bought them for $175 and tax. they were closeout, so currently unavailable.