Don_Serl

the issue these days is more who's gonna ski the couloirs on either side of it, eh? or, would be if it was up Whistler / Duffey Lk way instead of 'lost' in the Cascades. cheers,

good eye, lad. get in there and climb that thing. i suspect the absence of repeats on Stewart is mainly attributable to the reputation that the whole Cheam range has for poor rock. that reputation is well deserved for the most part, but there are areas of decent rock too. you never know till u rub your nose in it - the whole group is really spectacular, and i suspect gets far less traffic than it did a cpl decades ago when 'mountaineers' just went out and climbed stuff, rather than focussing on more technical routes, which necessitates better rock. the access up there is pretty good lately, too, eh? cheers,

...and THOSE are tire irons for a Euclid. cheers again,

can't fool me! that's not an ice screw, that's a narwhal dick! cheers

sure does. i can't convince myself why it's considered progress to artificially make hard climbing harder. case in point - i watched a couple climbers i greatly respect for their abilities struggle like hell on a gnarly problem at Marble Canyon last January - both were using leashless tools, and getting crazy pumped. when they finished up, i had a go, and cruised the climb - mostly cuz i could focus my energy where it was needed, i.e. making the sticks, placing the feet, and making the moves, not desperately hanging onto the tools and continually running the mental calculator on how much "time" you had left before you dropped off like an over-ripe plum. these guys both are better ice climbers than I am, and stronger too. they just were wasting a huge proportion of their 'ability'. I'm old enough and comfortable enuf in my skin to not give a rat's ass what 'fashion' dictates, especially when that fashion is being propounded by bored, hyper-ambitious (and, admittedly, superbly strong and talented) Frenchmen dependant for their living upon having you buy the fruits of their influence. leashless tools are undoubtedly the ONLY rational choice for modern dry-tooling/ mixed routes - but that's not what I climb. meanwhile, every leashless tool I've swung so far (and I HAVE tried lots of 'em out) swings like a Neanderthal gardening implement on pure ice routes compared to a wide range of modern-day waterfall axes. heck, they swing and place considerably more poorly than the heavy, straight-shafted tools I used to use 20 years ago. and that's BEFORE you tie strings to the back end of them to interfere with what balance you can get into the swing! swing them that is, if the strings don't get tangled in something and cause you to waste yet more energy trying to sort out the cluster-fuck... one of the two or three homilies than I run my life on comes in its most succinct form from N.A.M. Rodger: "The only useful measure of quality is fitness for purpose". a pair of Quarks with a pair of Androids on them, thank you - THAT's "quality", not some stupid system of strings and elastics to keep you from dropping your effing tools when you're so pumped you can't even close your hands around the grips any more. aw, shit, don't get me started... cheers,

the "Duffey North" portion of the proposal does not impinge on the Marriott Basin backcountry skiing area, which lies across the divide immediate to the SW of the proposal area (north of their "Duffey #2" staging area). nor does the proposal impinge into Lost Valley Ck , which is sometimes used by backcountry skier (marked on the map); Downton Ck, almost never used for backcountry skiing, per jordop (also marked on the map); or Melvin Ck, rarely used for backcountry skiing, but the site of Al and Nancy Raine's controversial ski developemnt proposal (south of Downton Ck, NW of Cayoosh, E of "Duffey North"). to me, speaking as a vaguely informed non-skiing outdoorsman, isn't the real 'threat' in the "Duffey South" area? this is the Steep Ck drainage, which recently has become really popular for backcountry day-trips, and which i understand the snowmobile-assisted approach crowd use a LOT. not my issue, but do write if you care at all - "silence gives consent"... cheers,

so spaget, bcalpinism.ca seems to have disappeared (what happened?), but does dru have your line (the dbl cracks, then the shaded RF corner) correct in his photo description? cheers,

umbilicals were a bad idea 30 years ago in the early days of ice climbing (forever hooking on icicles and screwing up your moves, hampering the balance and freedom of your swing), and i find it more than a little humorous that they've somewhat come back into favor for use with 'modern', leashless tools. how does it go? those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it... cheers,

cheam, trail ran up thru forest immediately left of avvy swath/runout that u are hiking up right side of. not sure of current condition. maybe check with Jack Bryceland (he's in Chwk), or go have a look in the rain this weekend and let us all know... good luck, cheers,

so you had to walk the extra 4km or so from the gate? and, yes, it does look snowier than when we were up it the week previously. i love the photo of the crampon soles in the steep narrow section btw - too bad there wasn't 500m of THAT! cheers, don

Hey Bob, getting keened up about the upcoming season, i see. 1. yes, Hit and Run and Air Care both climb the ice in the corner at the left end of the upper tier at Marble Canyon. given the completely different nature of the finishes, however, (one with rock gear and tricky drytooling, the other going right on pure ice) it seemed logical to me to treat them as separate climbs. how else to ID what you've climbed? "we did Air Care with the lefthand rock finish" is too awkward to bear... 2. again, yup. Fender Bender is the route that climbs the curtain between Air Care (in the corner to the left) and Icy BC (the main column in the centre). it doesn't form all the time, as you can see in the photo on page 143: Icy BC is a fat column, Fender Bender is a fringe of icicles, and Air Care/Hit and Run is hidden behind the tree at the left. cheers, don

Here's a couple photos: RT getting an introduction to some lovely alpine gully ice at mid height in Zero Gully. Fishstick into a snowpatch in Zero Gully, with DS on ice below. cheers,

re-reading the above, I realize I meant MINUS 5 and MINUS 4, not "point". apologies if this created confusion... thinking too much about Scotland, i guess. (there is a "Minus Point 5" in jordop's definitive nomenclature, way over just left of "Zero".) cheers,

Sunshine Valley, 12km east of Hope on Hwy 3. close to home for you, cc - check it out - it's a spectacular valley head. cheers,

all 7 would have been welcome - there was quite a bit of pretty deep flogging where the spindrift had packed in. then again, there were some cool sections of 50 degree HARD neve too... way different than 'last time'! ain't snow and ice wonderful that way. cheers,

Trip: Sumallo Headwall - Zero Gully Date: 10/27/2007 Trip Report: I was gonna head back down to the seracs on Baker with a few buddies, but one of the guys I contacted mentioned doing something in the alpine cuz the weather was gonna be suitable. This got me thinking, and Zero Gully seemed to fit the bill - fairly close to town, short approach, and a nice climb for the autumn. In the end Fishstick, GR, RT, and I left town at 5 and arrived at the end of the road at 8 after a lard-puck stop at McDonald in Hope. Btw, there's a gate on the upper valley road 1/2km beyond the forks, but while it's chained, it's not actually locked. We got Graham's RAV4 to the flats below Silvertip - beyond that, it's now ATV terrain. We got away from the car just before 8:30, hit the end of the road in an hour, and crossed the meadows and scree-fields to the snow in another half-hour. Here we cramponned and harnessed up, and by about 10:30 were crunching up hard neve with 5cm-10cm of surface snow of varying consistencies. Once into the gully proper, we encountered wildly varying conditions, from sections of very hard old neve to deep, punky, energy-consuming spindrift-slabs to a few places where the points actually scrabbled on dirt and/or rock. A couple hundred meters up, RT (who's a newbie) reached his comfort limit for soloing, so I roped him up and led and belayed a couple pitches. However, belays were pretty much non-existent with the gear we brought ( a few screws - useless! and a half dozen tri-cams - managed to place one... ), and we were gonna have to downclimb the route (very time consuming), so at 12:30 at about half-height I decided to shepherd RT back down while Fishstick and GR continued to the top. By 3pm we were back at the road-head, and at 4 the others caught up to us, having taken another hour to reach the col thru some "very funky snow" and "badly rotten ice". Sporty! By 5 we were back at the car, and it started to shower at 7:30 just as we got back into Vancouver - I love it when it happen that way! Summary: the cirque is awesome, the approach is cake, and the route conditions are 'entertaining'. take a handful of thin pitons and leave any and all other gear at home. it'll stay good till we get heavy snow... there's a Michael Layton photo in the gallery that shows roughly current conditions: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=27&size=big&cat=&si=zero i'll try to get a cpl more up once i get some digitals from GR. cheers,

cheam, per any of the relevant guidebooks (Culbert '74; Fairley '86; red Fred), the N face was climbed by Fred and Jim Douglas in 1968. i have never heard of a 2nd ascent of the face, much less a winter ascent - anybody know different? there was a winter ascent of the peak made in March 1958 by Hank Mather and Elfrida Pigou, but that was via the E buttress, during a traverse of the full Pleiades/Larrabee group - now, THERE's an outing that was ahead of its time! as for getting there, once the valleys snow in, you're faced with very long approaches up Slesse Ck, Tamihi Ck, or via Twin Lks/High Pass. and considering the commitment involved, you'd definitely want to have done the route in the summer so u were aware of where it went (which is not very clear from the guidebook descriptions) and what kinda of climbing and gear were involved. I suspect lotsa face climbing, and lotsa thin pitons, but that's a wild-ass guess... good luck, cheers,

and more... MEDIA RELEASE For Immediate Release Vancouver, October 16, 2007 Krzysztof Wielicki (Poland): K2 Winter Odyssey When: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 7:30 pm Where: Centennial Theatre, North Vancouver, 2300 Lonsdale Avenue Tickets: $15 in advance, $17 at the door, available at Centennial Theatre, 604 984-4484, and at Mountain Equipment Co-op (Vancouver and North Vancouver stores) Presented by Vancouver Int’l Mountain Film Festival as part of Fall Speaker Series Vancouver – Krzysztof Wielicki (Poland), one of the top world’s high altitude climbers, will be bringing his images, films and stories to share with the Vancouver public. Wielicki is the first man to climb Mount Everest in the winter time. He also climbed 2 other high Himalayan peaks in the bold winter first ascents - Kangchenjunga and Lhotse. He is the 5th man to stand on all 8000m peaks in the world, and he also climbed the 7 highest peaks of all continents. He keeps on pushing his luck on K2, the “Savage Mountain”, still unclimbed in the winter time. Wielicki will be coming to Canada to participate at the Banff Film Festival, and before heading to Banff he will present his multimedia program to the Vancouver audiences at the Centennial Theatre on Tuesday, October 30 at 7:30 pm. He will be assisted by his fellow country man Jacques Olek who took part as some of the earlier reconnaissance expeditions. This is a unique opportunity to take a glimpse into the life of a very special person obsessed by the hardest climbs in the world and one of the most successful Himalayan climber of all times. More information is attached in separate files. For interviews, more information and images please contact: Alan Formanek VIMFF Festival Director alan@vimff.org 604 990-1505

holy moses, is that flick showing a hawser-laid rope? leashless tools, stylin' 'poons, and ropes from the 50s? what a giggle... cheers,

forwarded from Alan Formanek: I am sending you some information on the multi-media show we will be doing with Krzysztof Wielicki and Jacques Olek, "K2 Winter Odyssey", on Tuesday, October 30 at 7:30 at the Centennial Theatre (23rd and Lonsdale, North Vancouver). Please forward this info to the people on your list who may be interested. You probably know that Wielicki has been one of the most prominent high altitude climbers and has many great climbs to his credit, above all the first winter ascents of Everest, Lhotse, and Kanchenjunga, as well as a few first ascents and fast 1-day climbs. sounds great - a TRUE hard-man... cheers,

not that i'm aware. cheers,

kraken, for comfort, weather-proofness, lightness, and versatility, synthetic bags cannot compete with the combination of a high quality 3-season down mummy with a synthetic overbag. the whole overbag concept came out of the fertile brain of George Lamb, founder and design-genius of 'Camp 7', way back in the late seventies. the company died in the early '80s, but MEC in particular kept the concept alive. the starting point is that down bags are far more comfortable, warmer per unit weight, faster-warming, and vastly more durable than synthetics. the fundamental understanding is that the primary source of dampness (and therefore the mortal enemy) of a down bag is the body within it. in cold conditions, the moist air percolating out thru the bag will fall in temperature to dew point somewhere within the insulation layer and condense out, wetting the insulation. over a very few days this will lead to collapse of the down, and a highly suboptimal sleeping experience. however, slapping a thin layer of synthetic insulation over the down bag keeps the condensation from happening within the down layer - it happens in the synthetic layer, which gets damp and/or frosty, but it's 'resistent', and overall sleeping comfort and warmth is not affected. i have used this system for nearly 30 years now, in the Himalayas, in Peru, in Kluane, on Denali, and on innumerable Coast Range and Cascade trips in winter and spring. despite the seeming 'insubstantiality' of the combo (currently a Western Mtneering Apache MF - way earlier, a rather basic North Face Gold Kazoo {GTX shell} - first with a Camp 7 overbag, later with an early MEC overbag), i have NEVER been cold, and i have NEVER had a damp down bag while using the system. i repeat: NEVER! bottom line: the overbag turns a 15F-20F bag easily into a weather-proof 0F bag. i've used the system to -25C (-13F) by slipping a VBL into the bag to get it warmed up at the beginning of the nite. and I've used a warmer down bag in the overbag to cope with -30C at altitude in Nepal in the winter - not that I'd ever want to repeat that particular experience. there is a weight penalty, compared to a full down winter bag. a believable 0F down bag weighs in the 3 lb to 3 1/2 lb range. my combo is 1250gm of Apache plus 625gm of overbag, for a total of about 1.9kg (4.2lbs). but the down bag is moisture sensitive. as for 0F synthetic bags, my experience (a fair number of nights out, plus more than a decade as`sleeping bag buyer and de-facto designer at MEC) tells me that anyone who claims to be able to produce such a bag for under 5 lbs is 'stretching the truth'. plus the bag will lose about a third of its loft and a quarter of its insulation value in the first few months of use. the only negative is that MEC has recently kinda "lost the plot" and allowed their 'Penguin' overbag to balloon from 625gm to 850gm. sure, it now has a hood (which i have never found necessary, as minimal moisture condenses in the down hood - but which allows them to secondarily 'sell' the product as a summer bivy bag as well as an overbag), and two half-zips allow them to stock just one product instead of having to stock both lefts and rights. the 'true' concept is about maximizing usefulness in harsh conditions, not compromising a specialist product into popularity. but that's all too typical of the outdoor industry today - 'business' trumps 'functional specialization'. despite my diatribe over 'what might have been/was', the Penguin still is 250gm lighter than George Lamb's original overbag, so we're not quite completely without progress. if you're a mountaineer, you almost certainly already own a 20F down bag. do yourself a favour and try the overbag - there are few things in the outdoors that i am more sure of than the efficacy of this system in scuzzy, cold conditions. blow off the hefty synthetic bag and sleep in comfort in 'the`system'. cheers, p.s. to be clear, i haven't been employed at MEC for a half-dozen years, so my 'pitch' for their product is NOT commercially based...

the key is to simply avoid difficulties on the left. provided you're smart about your route-finding, there's precious little that is above class 3 - probably only the "gully... [thru the] cliff band at the top" (to quote Fairley). this cliff-band is actually more like at the base of the upper summit pyramid than "at the top", but it's obvious when you get there. cheers,

...dug out the 'heel-grabbers' - they were made by Da Kine - sewn in Hood River Oregon, matter of fact. actually, they are half rubber, half Uretek. nice... cheers,

gene, i don't think you'll get anywhere near as 'snug' a fit with any plastic boot/liner combo as with leather. the basic problem is that the plastic shell is too stiff to transmit the necessary lacing pressure through to 'drive' your heel back into its pocket. however, i do have some experience with a little device that helped with Intuitions in my Scarpas Vegas. the device is basically a Uretek (rubberized fabric) cone with the top removed. this forms a bevelled 'ring' that fit around your heel: under it, up both sides, and across the Achilles tendon area. the ring is constructed of two parts, sewn together, on the ones I have. sewn to opposite sides of this 'ring' are two pieces of Velcro, hook one side, loop the other. you fit the ring around the heel of the liner, tug it pretty hard into place, and slap the Velcros together. presto, you've just 'driven' your heel deep into the heel pocket of the liner, and you've pretty much immobilized it relative to the liner. movement of the liners themselves inside the shells can still be somewhat troublesome, depending on fit. i got these devices years ago at a downhill ski shop - i have no idea whether they are still available commercially. you could probably get a cobbler to sew something up once you'd settled on the pattern/dimensions. btw, I thought intuitions were a big step forward in warmth and lightness (excellent for Kluane, for instance), but they do pack out, and without these 'devices' I never found any way to keep them from slipping around in the shells. overtightening the laces on the outers just leads to foot fatigue and coldness. good luck, cheers,