Beck

I've put in a winter season in the Patagonia Dimension jacket, wear a three year old Scholler athletic cut jacket, and worn soft shell Sholler trousers for five years in most all winter conditions- the other users have it right, you wind up best off with a combination of coats- the truth about soft shells, once you start wearing them, the hard shell begins to live in your pack 90% of the time - it's not the best in slop at Snoqualamie if you are riding the lifts in rain or supersaturated wet snow, but still works in less than heavy rain, rain/snow showers, mixed rain/snow, etc., but always having a backup hard shell nearby. I've taken to leaving hard shell pants totally behind most day tours, and just have a micro rain or light mountain parka as backup. Following is personal user testamonial. Fall 2001, out on a search on Mount Adams in a full blizzard, super heavy winds, sustained 70 miles an hour, all day search till nightfall, below lunch counter, in wool long johns, wool sweater, under Dimension Jacket, Scholler pants. Full Blizzard. Other Mountain Rescue crew were saturated in goretex, wound up pulling on second goretex shell by days' end. I'm still trudging away in Dimension Shell, moving on snowshoes thru full conditions all day long. Guy stumbles out, we come down and decommission the search, head to dinner in Hood River. I'm still wearing the same clothes, drying out, used the Dimension jacket as a blanket, sleeping in the truck back to Seattle area. Also, extensive use of Scholler and Dimension shell tops on Muir Snowfield and in the Tatoosh- Scholler is wind permeable at 35-40 mph, the Dimension jacket seems totally windproof, the scholler dryskin seems to shed the wet snow better than the dimension jacket- I also have been trying to push the soft shell envelope around town, I wore it walking around in the rain on Wedsday for a half hour, wearing a wool sweater, pretty continous rain, got to work, dry (feeling) sweater, coat dried out in fourty five minutes or so. My read on this stuff is , YOU GOTTA TRY IT!

Patagonia as a company rocks, kudos to Patagonia- they pledge at LEAST 1% of their sales, or10% of the pretax profits, to environmental rights groups all over the world- I have a copy of the 2002 environmental initative-$ 1,862,901 distributed to everyone from the Access Fund to A Pas de Loup, france; Afan No Mori Kikin, Japan;Crocevia, Italy; Defensores del Bosque Chileno, Chile-and the list is immense! I cannot think of any other single 20th century climbing dirtbag who has given more to the nonclimbing community the world over as Yvon Chiounard, A Million thanks, Yvon. not to mention all the damn fine pins, gear and clothes over the years.

Haiku- wide planks,strap to feet follow path to mountain hill, shred the pow, divine. #2 Snowy hills beckon, travel white blanket on skis, point downhill,gladly. Beck

I was at the flagship store Thursday night, it was actually cool, ran into Pete Whittaker and got to talk to him about a rescue we were both involved with, then saw a cool slideshow of a lady who was skitouring in Greenland....beautiful pictures, great story. I noticed on their sales floor on the way out, there were no tents set up. REI must figure people don't use tents in the winter. Also, that winter sports flyer, couldn't find AT or telemark gear... It also had a conspicous absence of winter safety gear. As if the advertising team figured "avalance" avoidance equipment would kill sales with it's dangerous connotations...

Being a not so computer savvy idiota, I think this new board bites, not easy to use not easy to view, a lot less tuned into reality of viewing and spewing. Sure if you're a geeking computer head, maybe it's exciting... but I'm betting you will be getting less hits, less posts, less good information as the CC.com becomes a little club clique...see you at a pub club, maybe, but I'm sure not going to try and distill useful information anymore on such a difficult to navigate site. Waste of effort and how do you find the latest posts? Later, debators.

this new internet provider CC picked SUCKS they have killed cc.com

this weasel showed up at ten, was working late, putting togther blackdiamond ski poles and getting paid to listen to Gary Brill talk about avalanches. if anyone wanted me to buy them a drink or talk about rodentia, you must have missed me.

buy a "oneup" ticket at crystal, this lets you ride partway up the hill, register with the ski patrol for a Backcountry tour to "bear gap" and then just GO! skin towards threeway peak, pick a notch to top the ridge, then cross over. f*** the crystal ski patrol, if they want to stop a winter camper on a registered backcountry tour. it's not private property, it is federal lands. the problem is, they will try to do their jobs. I 've had many issues with recreationalists inside MRNP who don't want to listen to issues about dogs, sleds or fires in the national park. of course, restrictions on use inside an officially designated national park should be respected by users out of their humanity, more than restrictions imposed by profiteering leaseholders of federal forestlands.

you can get high vis, reflective, or tem mile blaze orange duct tape for use on wands. My impressions on wands: you may want to reuse them, and surveyors tape is NOT the durable choice. rigid tape makes flagging stand out better than a surveyors' tape or nylon. the flags last even longer on the wands if you actuallly split the bamboo pole, and get a the flag worked like a wedge between the two split halves, and reinforce with tape below the flag to stop split. a 3-4 inch square flag is visible at easily twice the distance than a NPS "standard" flag size of , like one by two that you see on Rainier, and better than than three times a surveyors tape wand in full whiteout conditions. they just "pop out" at a greater distance, it's pretty significant when seen in inclement conditions on a route wanded by different parties. This from a guy who has spent at lot of time up on Rainier in whiteouts, looking for lost folk. colour, the old photo farts said red always helped sell the picture, it stood out the best in mountain photos, so I'm down with red. finding a nice, OSHA approved, fabric backed, red/reflective floor/ hazard safety striping tape sounds like the best bet for a alpine route wand. and take them back down the mountain. it's a no litter zone.

No, Ralph, the Bellvue Nordstrom's doesn't offer any avalanche beacons in our winter sports mailer either !!! I just saw it as a total misreprentation to the masses, what REI wants to push sales wise, for winter adventures, and as to what "Winter Sports" means to the advertising jockeys at REI Renyolds. Did they think offering them in a mailer would decrease sales, due to negative connotations associated with the word "avalanche?" I do know a couple of stores on the east side where you can still buy avalanche beacons from people that consider them rather important winter sports tools.

Well,i just went through my glossy, sixteen page "Winter Sports" mailer from REI again, pulled it out of the recycling bin to take a look, and saw NOT A SINGLE beacon, one shovel, no probes, not a single cable or AT binding in the catalog, asnd it appears they are paired with TNF and who is it, Esprit, Or some other fashion house ? to make its stuff with child labor all across the pacific rim.

Thanks, Allison, I was testing gear for MSR when they sold, knew that, just poking fun at a co-op who continues to expand user group focus to compete with Big5 and GI Joes, want to get bighair, mullet wearing families to drive the pickup truck from the trailer park to the store with all the kids in tow.

Remember, the avalanche never knows if your're an expert! But, absolutely, snow science and the practice of avalanche avoidance are ESSENTIAL tools for winter backcountry travel. Sadly,true, however, that the proliferation of fastforward winter sports puts many, MANY people in the danger zone without knowing it. Beacons, PRACTICE, Rutschblocks, DO THEM. Hasty pits, DIG THEM. observe snow conditions, teammates, and weather throughout tour.

It looks like REI is selling DOWNHILL SKI packages now. Maybe the've got a deal to sell Mountain Safety Research and,...

a new helmet every seven years sounds like an appropiate schedule- It deninetly needs to be done at sometime approaching the decade mark- have you ever seen someone put their fingers thru a nalgene bottle that has seen extended UV exposure? BRITTLE, and I'm sure a glass or plastic lid also has similar reactions to sunlight/use.

snowmachines, great tool, two strokes entering the national parks in unlimited numbers, maybe not. Interestingly enough, the previuos administration was all set to ban two stroke technology in national parklands, but than an oilindustry admininistration stepped into office and the whole notion of "environmental stewardship" went out the window with the West Yellowstone/skidoo issues, the park staff was ready to file health and welfare suits with OSHA, the pollution at the winter gate is so bad.

anyone that calls me a weasel better be ready to say it to my face without their friends holding their HC's for them. If you think I'm a sleaze, let me buy you a drink next Tuesday, you might get lucky.

"i've been getting glacier glasses from any personal optometrist for the last twenty years in Julbo frames I bring in, and they have NO PROBLEM getting you high altitude, dual gradient, mirror finish polarized glass lenses for around 125 ducats.

Oh, and one more thing(although I do know it's a faux paus to double post)Terrible Ted, and TLG ,your advice on beacons are both pretty bogus.

Practice, practice, practice! both beacon work, snow analysis, avy awareness, to keep your and your partners safe, both in avalanche avoidance and recovery skills. After being at work for twelve hours, I 'd love to wax, at length, about beacons, but fatigue and drunkeness preclude this; however- In personal extensive field testing, strict analog beacons have a higher sensitivity (and correspondingly, range) as they are operating like a radio picking up distant AM stations. A soon as a digital proccesor is added to a radio receiver of any kind, sensitivity is reduced, similar to how a digital tuner never seems to pick up as many radio stations. This being said, the new, Dual "digi-ana" beacons strive to combine the best receiving range of analog peeps with the search finesse, directional prompts etc. you see in newer dual antenna, avy transies. In actual, extensive, realistic condition, field tests with many many people on beacon tests, the Ortovox F1 has an incredibly superior range. I've also watched 10's of people with Trackers fail to even register a test burial at more than fifty feet on 30 degree slopes. Individual comparision between beacons, Barryvox, complicated, and LCD??? Wow, I hope it doesn't get cold or anything... Tracker, best no brainer beacon out there. F1, beacon with most realistic range. I haven't tried the X1, looks like a winner. As for actual scenarios, although I haven't had to dig a partner out of avalanche debris, I have been on enough emergency events in the mountains, and extended realism practice in avalance scenarios, to say it needs to be as simple as possible. Tthe whole emergency of the situation "amps the event so much, it's REAL easy to make mistakes, and the easiest, most reliable safety tools are the best ones.

Oh, no one needs to go up into the Dakobeds, it's pretty boring, i was up there last month too, so probably not be of much help. They did look snowcovered next to Glacier Peak this morning, though.

Sisu soumi, if you know about the Sweetwater, you've not been away from the Yoop for that long... that used to be 10 o clock Charlie's, and the owner had to sell after the bottle thrown in bar fight took out patrons' eye. But hey ,the Congress lounge in Ishpeming has some damn fine pizza, and you can ski right after lunch. I would go ski 5k or so at lunchtime when I worked UP there.

hey, i've done the math, at opticus you don't get double gradient, you don't get glass, you don't get polarizers. REI sells RX glacier glass frames for $19.95 and bringing frames into RX, you get julbos, from YOUR eyedoctor. under 200 ducats. [ 11-19-2002, 05:33 PM: Message edited by: Beck ]

hey, the selection of fly rods, mountain skateboards and basecamp tents at REI is the best! I've scooped REI for deals for years in the old gear basement, loved that aspect of the old REI- What I've seen sometimes, at REI, both old store and new, is an item priced at 10% or so ABOVE msrp.- seemed to be a hedge on the dividend. The board of directors is kind of hazy on that whole co-op issue, you know.

bring Julbo frames into optometrist, ask for double gradient, mirror coat, polarized glass lenses, gets you out of there for 130 or so for lenses, plus what you've paid for the Julbos. I've done this for three pairs over twenty years and have been not going blind yet. I don't reccommend Opticus or mail order houses as their lenses are suitable, but not the real deal.