Beck

well said, Man of seamless cool. I'm going to go for a choss hike Saturday to a boulder problem at 8700 feet, never been over that way before and want to check it out. Anybody want to go along, it should be veddy nice, veddy pretty, walk with your head in the clouds kind of day. Union rules on the smoke breaks.

planning to go on a lowclass dirtbag choss scrapple up to boulder Colchuck balanced rock via Asgard Pass on Saturday if anybody would rather go high than crag. look for a granola eatin' treehugger type around Bridge creek Friday night or PM me.

Le Grand Beuverie- That's a must read! The forward alone is worth picking up a copy of "A Night of Serious Drinking" "It was late when we drank. We all thought it was high time to begin.What there had been before, no one could remember. We just said it was already late."

I want some Scholler knickers!!! With built in suspenders, please. Soft shells prices are expected to drop substantially in the next coupla years, but if you not wearing Scholler yet you're missing the boat.

Dru, that's BEAT! man. My weekend just ended 8pm tuesday- three nights up Glacier Peak, Kololo Peaks, White Chuck glacier, BEAUTIFUL weather, moon crested snowcapped peaks in alpenglow.

Thanks, Will. Great read, do you know what publisher? Shambala ?

CAC hut to hut out on the Wapata, if it's a winter thing you're after, although I hear that's much nicer in Spring.

beer, slides, gear raffle, hmm, how bad is that?

The Optimus Nova- yet another attempt to engineer a better stove, only to have it be a POS. I took a look at the Nova at the stove when it was introduced and gave it a basic idiots' once over- DO NOT BUY ONE- there's some kind of "field maintainable" something on it, anyway within 10 seconds I had undid a little stopper that LAUNCHED a little piece out of it, and a spring and ballstop fell out, No thanks. How high do you want to go with a white gas stove, anyway? I'd think an expedition would have canister stoves for going above 4000 m regardless. I'm still going to assert that among white gas stoves, for heavy dirtbag use, a Svea Climber 123R is still the way to go. An XGK for melting snow is a good friend to have around, but using a Svea is almost as easy as turning on a light switch, while using a MSR stove (or probably that Nova as well) is more like taking a cat for a walk on a leash. When it's raining. My thinking is this whole notion of putting a pump in a fuel bottle to save 4 ounces isn't worth the added headache of having a multi piece plastic dohickey you need to f*** with while you're out in the thick of things. There's an Optimus #45 up on my bookshelf I'm looking at and, while not suited for packing, really is a beautiful example of a well crafted stove I'd reccommend people go get a Svea123R. Try it out, Easy. reliable.Bomber. two hours simmer time on 6 oz fillup. Idiot proof. two user servicable moving parts, the fuel key and the cap. Self cleaning. You won't want to go back to any burner/fuel bottle combi stove, which are flawed by the very nature of their design.

...going in to Whitechuck glacier and Kololo Peaks this weekend if weathers good and up to Harts Pass if weather goes pissy...any other BC skiers anxious to break out the planks this weekend? I'm also up to alternate suggestion destinations as long as it doesn't involve the Muir Snowfield. or the hut.

...a rather difficult issue, and one which has turned conventional environmental wisdom on its' head. Maybe its' really win/win for the enironment AND the timber industry, at least in the short (decades) term. I wonder who thinned the forests and "regulated" fire dangers before the loggers changed old growth to secondary forests in the last 100 years..."the wedges of development are being driven hard and none of the obstacles or defenses of nature can long withstand the onset of this immereasurable industry." John Muir, writing about the Northwest. and,..."Fire, then, is the great governing agent in forest distribution..."

... some people think Dru may need some help attempting to define scrambling, Karen!!!

... some people think Dru may need some help attempting to define scrambling, Karen!!!

Events, Pub Club, Techniques, Dru News, FRESHIEZ...Battle Cage WAS a popular theme a while back

There are recurring cases of this type of poisoning out in Darrington; may have something to do with that town's rather stilted nature. Good thing the state keeps the Darrington liquor store open or things could be a lot worse!

...WATCH OUT EVERYBODY, the appeal of golf is contagious, particularily in the aging demographic...

A Backcountry Boarding forum would be a worthwhile addition, you could call it, "FRESHIEZ"

That's okay, don't worry about us out here in cyberspace because this whole internet thing is just a fad, I don't think it's going to last. Maybe there's a better conduit for NW climbers to communicate thru but I certainly can't figure out what that would be- the bulletin board at Marmot, maybe? No, wait, there's a bulletin board at REI....

Links to NWAC.org or NOAA would be good. I think a seperate forum for skiing would make sense. Admittedly, skis make their way onto many approaches/descents, but there's a totally different style/focus between say, skiing the Ptarmigan Traverse vs. on foot, going to ski around the Kololo Peaks or climbing there, climbing Pinnacle or Castle vs. doing a ski tour there. I think it would make it easier to access ski-specific reports/beta, and a great forum addition for winter- if any posts give enough TR beta at the end of the season maybe they could be cross posted to the regional forums.

Martin 's shop in North Bend's got them, or the Scarpa version, for 40% off right now.

Oh , yeah, fine weather this weekend in the Enchantments. How did Prussik Peak go? Did you see many other parties? We must've seen you at the lot if it was the NW route Colchuck, there was nobody else up there.

The plan was hatched at last weeks' Pub Club- an overnight trip into Colchuck Peak from the west side. Treadtramp and I left Sat, morning, following a Friday night Bob Dylan concert that Treadtramp had been given some tickets to at the last minute, (one of the best trip kickoffs I've had, way to go, Treadtramp!) We pull into Leavenwurst at 10:30AM and, dutiful and law abiding climbers we, stopped into the ranger station in hopes of scoring an open permit for the Colchuck or Stuart zone. We were pleasently surprised to find that the area we intended to camp was out of any zone and did not require any permits. Hitting the Stuart Lake trail with a strict Mediterranean start time of noon, we hiked to past the Colchuck Lake junction about 15 minutes and found a likely spot to cross the bog. A couple minor stream crossings and then it's up in a traversing bushwack to some likely camping spots around 5600' Our navigation brought us up to a nice sheltered bench with water by 4 and we set camp. After dinner a little recon revealed an nice egress to the next day's route. Sunday morning showed with blue skies and we head out by 8. The north west route proved to be an enjoyable scramble. Head up into the basin S of point 6991 then up to remnant of a pocket glacier and up its' lateral moraine to entrance onto scree and broken rock 300', then traverse right along gravelly ramps to more solid rock for the last 500 feet or so to the summit. Just below the summit block you find a catwalk of rock on it's west side; here step around the NW ridge at a big chockstone and walk the last 20' on sand and heather to the summit rocks. An enjoyable climb, we hit the summit by 11:30. We had brought the rope but didn't need it. After lunch we retraced our ascent back to our bivy site and packed up. On the downhill bushwack Treadtramp had a run in with a hornets' nest but he came out of it luckily with only a half dozen or so stings. Otherwise stayed on course and dropped back to the bog crossing and arrived back at the trailhead by 6:30. It was on to an appointment with Doctor Hidelburger in Leavenworth before heading home. Summarizing, this is a wilderness route with some easy scrambling on fairly solid rock, very enjoyable, moderately strenous, 3,000 feet m/l from good camping in the basin(no permit required!), very managable Cascade Bushwack Grade II on the approach to a not often visited side of Colchuck Peak. [ 10-07-2002, 11:50 AM: Message edited by: Beck ]

I think this site is The #1 NW climbers site that continues to provide an invaluable cyberspace AND tangible meeting place and infospace for NW climbers, cheers to everyone for all the good stuff, especiallly the founders!!! When I post a Teddy R. trip report I'm trying to add some climbing themed, self effacing humor (of dubious quality)-I promise I'm not trying to detract from the site!!! I hope nobody mistook it for a real Trip report? Maybe I'll have to add some TRs of my own to add to the reality based quantity of my posts. "Teddy Ruxpin and the Twin Towers of Doom" will be posted in spray, that's for sure!

...so unfortunate to have the "well known" NW climbers don't like Cascadeclimbers.com anymore, maybe they have got their own little site called NWelitistclimbers.com, but I bet it's really lonely AND boring. this site has added remarkably cogent value to the NW climbers scene and probably provides the BIGGEST and MOST direct information/communication conduit for NW climbers to communicate in, if they choose to. If they don't I think it's their loss, not CC.commers. It's equalizing in its' democratization, this wacky internet phenomenon- I think it's just a fad It's certainely more direct for your average NW climber than hanging out at Feathered Friends or the rock gym, trying to get beta or whatever, or going to mounties' annual banquets (not that any of these are bad things!) I reccommend more crag parties and PubClubs, way less stuffy! It's true, too, that this site appears to have sparked more than a few climbing trips and climbing relationships. Dwyaner, it's okay. You can go look for BigLou. I'm still climbing with Teddy Ruxpin.

...so unfortunate to have the "well known" NW climbers don't like Cascadeclimbers.com anymore, maybe they have got their own little site called NWelitistclimbers.com, but I bet it's really lonely AND boring. this site has added remarkably cogent value to the NW climbers scene and probably provides the BIGGEST and MOST direct information/communication conduit for NW climbers to communicate in, if they choose to. If they don't I think it's their loss, not CC.commers. It's equalizing in its' democratization, this wacky internet phenomenon- I think it's just a fad It's certainely more direct for your average NW climber than hanging out at Feathered Friends or the rock gym, trying to get beta or whatever, or going to mounties' annual banquets (not that any of these are bad things!) I reccommend more crag parties and PubClubs, way less stuffy! It's true, too, that this site appears to have sparked more than a few climbing trips and climbing relationships. Dwyaner, it's okay. You can go look for BigLou. I'm still climbing with Teddy Ruxpin.