Don_Serl

one of the easiest ways to "get high" in that neck of the woods is to drive the road to Miner Lake, then continue to the old minesite on the flanks of Perkins Peak. this takes you out into VERY extensive open alpland, dotted with beautiful little lakes. take the left fork about 2km before the minesite and the right branch 3 or 4km further along, and you can drive really high on the E slopes of Perkins [2842m], which is just a high, easy, half-day scree ramble - with superb views south into the Waddington Range, etc! don't miss Chilko Lake - the views from the Nemaia valley make it the finest piece of scenery of any kind in British Columbia. if you want to just ramble, take the logging roads west of Klinakleen up into the McClinchey Creek country, and follow your nose - there are spurs to near treeline, and the open country (dotted with literally hundreds of tarns) extends for dozens of km to the west to and beyond Wilderness Mtn. the whole Chilcotin is ideal for "drifting" - i never tire of the place... cheers,

naitivity is no crime - remaining ignorant by not asking questions IS. most board members at MEC don't understand the issue either, but that hasn't stopped most of them from acting on their mistaken assumptions again and again over the past two decades. the short answer to your question is "one doesn't". in other words, in order to change "the system" so as to allow one to lower the retail price, one MUST absorb higher costs, cost which otherwise are carried by some other organization, some other part of the product delivery supply chain. i'll explain by describing (in rough figures) what i went thru as sleeping bag designer/buyer 20 years ago. we carried synthetic bags made by a canadian factory, but deliveries were consistently late, the quality was only moderately good, getting "fill" (in season) orders was pretty much impossible (cuz we were a huge proportion of their production), and the prices (while acceptable) were not cheap. we changed all that by getting into business with a supplier from Hong Kong. we had been buying our Nighthawk bags at about $90 cost, and retailing them at $120 (33% markup over cost [$30 "up" from $90], or 25% margin - the proportion of the final retail price which exceeds cost [$30 as a proportion of $120]). in the new arrangement, we landed the bags (duty and ocean transportation paid) for about $60 and retailed them for $100. the markup increased to 67% [$40 markup vs $60 cost]; the margin increased to 40% [as a proportion of $100...]. the co-op increased its income per bag, and the members decreased their expenditure per bag. as well, the sewing quality of the bags increased dramatically, shipments were generally on time, and re-orders were easy cuz we were only a few percnet of the business in a very large factory. it might come as no surprise that thru taking these actions sales of synthetic sleeping bags at MEC increased 5 fold over 3 years! and to do so i had to directly contravene instructions from the board - i had to purposefully RAISE the margin. so the key question is: why was it necessary to raise the margin? why not just continue to mark the bags up 25% and pass all the "benefit" along to the members. well, quite simply, one commits to considerable costs to change the sourcing "structure". and unless those cost are covered, you lose money and eventually go out of business. 1. products do not come into being out of empty space, and design cost money. as does researching and evaluating potential fabrics and other materials, field-testing possibilities, etc, etc. most companies to which design is important will spend several percent of their total revenues on R&D. MEC, which sells something in the general area of half its goods based upon MEC in-house designs and carrying the MEC label (i.e. roughly $100 million dollars), spends less than half a percent on R&D. shocking!!! 2. someone has to dig up the factories, visit them to insure that they are capable of building the required goods, that they are a good business fit, that their employees are well treated, etc etc; and someone has to visit from time to time to insure that production is running smoothly, and that goods are "on spec" - even the best factories can screw up if they are not given appropriate guidance. this also costs money, altho generally you can do a very good job for 1/2% of sales, which is about where MEC lies. 3. you pay for offshore goods by L/C (letter of credit), which means the money goes to the seller when delivery is made. in fact, you need a line of credit available to cover upcoming L/C's as soon as the goods are ordered and the L/C pened, long before they are built, much less shipped. because of shipping times from the orient, this means you pay for the goods a month or two (sometimes more) before they are received. contrast that with buying from a local distributor, whom you pay 30, 45, 60, or even more days AFTER the goods are in your hands. in one case, you pay bank charges; in the other, the supplier "carries" you while you sell the goods. MEC used to run with accounts payable at or over 50% of total inventory cost (i.e., about half of the on-hand inventory was not yet paid for); more recently that figure is more like 20%. with $60-$80 million dollars worth of inventory on hand at all times, that implies carrying an extra $20-$30 million of debt for an additional 2 to 4 months. money is not free, and the net result is an additional cost of maybe 1%-2% of sales. 4. the retail price drops, but the effort required to sell the goods (in a properly informative manner) does not. so, whereas selling 1000 $120 sleeping bags generates $30,000 to cover the various "costs of doing business", reducing the cost to $60 (as in the previous scenario) and leaving the markup at 25% generates only $15,000. true, some costs are independent of volume, but many are pretty strongly "sales-linked", and extra money per item needs to be "captured" or you'll go out of business selling cheap! about half of MEC's cost of doing business is salaries (i.e., very roughly 15%, of 30% total), and about half of that total salary bill lies in the stores. if you double the number of ITEMS you sell (for WHATEVER price), you're gonna have to add at least 50% to your staffing costs, not matter HOW much more "efficient" you think you can be. in fact, the lesson of history to be learned from MEC is that bigger not only does not equal more efficient, exactly the opposite is true. bigger organizations are more complex, and coping with complexity is amazingly difficult, and surprisingly expensive. size does bring benefits (mainly the ability to do things that you couldn't do when you were smaller), but it's a lie to say you can do them more cheaply. ignoring the early days, as MEC grew from $20m to $200m, the costs of "coping" with those complexities added perhaps as much as 5% to the fundamental, non-discretionary cost of doing business. 5. offshore business is much more complicated than domestic; again, more complexity equals more cost. moving from sourcing the vast majority of goods within canada to bringing in maybe a third of the stock from offshore porbably has increased the cost fo doing business another percent or two. 6. doing your own thing means you get exactly what you want, BUT you accept ALL of the risk (and mistakes DO get made). MEC used to pride itself on NEVER having sales. these days, millions of dollars worth of merchandise are discounted at the end of each season. much as you try to minimize this, it's inevitable, and 1% to 2% of total potential margin disappears each year this way. 7. you are also responsible for ALL of the costs of "promotion"/education/merchandising. buy from Patagonia and you get the image and the info that goes with their wonderful catalogs; replace that stuff with MEC equivalents, and the gear will die a death unless people know about it. MEC has always been terrible at this aspect of their business, spending under 1% to "tell the story". many superb products have disappeared as a result. this miserliness contributed to the downfall of Serratus (altho bigger "global" issues were more important yet). a vaguely reasonable minimum would be double the current spending, and to really "carve a niche" more yet would need to be dedicated, not just once, but year after year. i could go on, but i won't. the bottom line is that to do a good job, to be a world leader in the outdoor industry, MEC (in my estimation) needs to spend about 5% more as a percent of sales than they currently do. there is as much chance of that happening in the next decade as there is of finding great ice in Lillooet this weekend. even in the midst of this tirade, however, i refuse to be entirely bleak. there are still a vast number of highly talented, incredibly motivated people who work for MEC. most of the merchandise department (the people responsible for the products) "care" a GREAT deal - hatchet incidents notwithstanding. even the board members are devoted and entirely well meaning - they are simply up against challenges that are beyond their capacities to cope with. they don't come from backgrounds that prepare them for the decisions that need making, and despite their best efforts they choose badly. they are wonderful "people" but that's unfortunately not sufficient. MEC will thrive in the hardware areas, cuz there are lots of "do-ers" in positions of influence in the merchandise department, because MEC is particularly strong at putting together really broad selections of "branded" goods at really attractive prices, and because much of the "story-telling" happens elsewhere. the sewn hardgoods areas (packs, tents, bags, etc) under MEC label ought to carry on pretty well too, cuz there still is considerable legitimate design energy available. the functionality of the outdoor clothing, however, cannot do anything except deteriorate. it's one thing to put together attractive organic cottons or athletic tops (which MEC does a great job at); it requires quite different skills and experience to do a world-class job on techie clothing for the mountains, and those skills do not exist within today's MEC. (this is not to denigrate the obvious talent, skills, energy, and dedication of the current designers - they just simply aren't equipped for this part of their responsibilities.) about a decade ago REI went down a similar path to that being followed by MEC, chasing the mass market and lower priced goods. at the end of that road, they found themselves selling "bottom end" goods, undifferentiated from any of a myriad of very big and very capable competitors. and they found that they had pretty much destroyed the "value" of the REI brand. much to the credit of the board and senior management, the problem was recognized, and the threat appreciated. huge amounts of money and personnel were thrown at the problem, but it took 5 or more years to turn things around. REI may still not be the leader of the outdoor industry, but they're making some pretty fine stuff these days - much, much better than the sad situation in the '90s. MEC seems destined to follow the same path, but given the current political process at the co-op, there is little hope there will be the vision and leadership at the top necessary to solve the problems when the crunch comes. doing so will require massive commitment of resources (read: "spending"), and nothing in MEC's past or culture indicates any possibility of that ever happening. but enough theory: this is just my hot air; the evidence (one way or another) is (and/or will be) in the stores. the results of organizational changes made 2 years ago will be starting to filter thru into the line now - ask yourself whether what you are seeing is better or worse than what you were used to in the past. and keep asking yourself that question over the next couple years - big changes are slow to come to fruition. if you remain satisfied, ignore me! my problem, having been an insider, is that i understand what might have been. i can "see" a different, and better, co-op, so i can never quite view the current state of affairs with equanimity. i guess, like Shaw, "i dream of things that never were, and ask 'why not'?" cheers,

tks for the update gord, and tks for continuing to produce "real" stuff. one only has to read your post about the siltarp issue to be confronted with yet another problem with the new "low-cost" MEC - lack of information. MEC has never been good at "merchandising", but at least in days of yore the catalogs contained a fair amount of background "educational" material, accompanied by relatively thorough, unbiased, balanced presentations of the products on offer. every product out there has its positive attributes, and its limitations. no product is ever "perfect" (and the growing use in MEC's catalog of this meaningless attempt to say something good while conveying no information whatsoever is at LEAST as telling as the appearance of a hatchet in the mix!) the key in a REAL member-driven organization would be to: a) provide the members with the information and context with which to make a decision, b) describe the various products within those contexts, then c) stand back and let the member choose. in the real world, a surprisingly large majority of customers are incapable of making their own decisions totally independently, so one needs to guide the choices, but the point is that if you've done your job right in selecting/designing/merchandising the goods, there is no need for the organization to be "active" in "pushing" one choice or another. if the member genuinely wants product A, they purchase it; if B suits their needs (and budget) better, they purchase the other; etc. MEC benefits in either case, the cutomers are happy with their choices, and the loyalty is intense. however, the vast majority of outdoor users are pretty mass-market, undifferentiated, undiscerning, and undemanding. for them, "anything works". and because of the demographic (and sales) weight represented by this mass market, the nearly irresistible pull it to go down-market, with the goods, with the info, with the service, and with the respect for the customer's intelligence. don't get me wrong - these people have needs, and it's vitally important to cater to them. BUT: 1) they are often "members-of-convenience", who only join to enable them to buy a few things, and who have no interest in nor commitemnt to the co-op and its principles, 2) they care only about colour, size, style, and price. technicality is ignored, or even viewed as confusing. as a result: 3) technicality and functionality (and the explanation thereof) gets degraded in the line in general, which "costs" those to whom it IS important. in days of yore MEC in general provided better goods than required by most customers. they got exceedingly fine quality for very modest prices, while the "real" users got what they needed. the higher-than-they could-be prices undoubtedly restricted growth, but in compensation the organization gained members who knew what they wanted, and who CHOSE MEC. the push now is to be cheaper, and there is no free lunch - stuff costs less because you choose less expensive materials (usually with somewhat poorer qualities); and/or you sacrifice some level of functional refinement to simplfy the design; and/or you "push" your factories a bit harder (which just makes it harder for little old Chinese ladies to make a decent wage); and/or you cut back on staff, on training, on signage, on the catalog, on the website - on all the things that allow you to transmit knowledge to your potential customers. call me elitist, but i reckon the former system was the one that worked best for the long-term benefit of both the members and the organization. there is little loyalty when there is little understanding. as a result, MEC is caught in a terrible never-ending process of trying to attract new members, feverishly chasing their new dollars - but not committed to any of the processes that would KEEP those members, aside from "surface" and/or "ancillary" issues. Pleasant stores and ethical sourcing are important, but they are neither WHY people shop, nor WHAT they buy! the current board and senior management at MEC believe that the goods provided by the organization need to be cheaper, and are acting upon those beliefs. meanwhile, they pay no heed to the efforts required (and costs involved) to MAKE things less expensive. yes, you can source offshore and reduce retail prices considerably, but that does not come for free - people have to travel to inspect factories and goods in construction, etc, etc, and the irony is that if you put out the effort to bring a product in at $80 which used to be $100, you suddenly have fewer dollars available to the organization to source/merchandise/sell these goods. the solution is simple: you raise the MARGIN (i.e., the proportion of the retail price in excess of the cost of the goods) to cover those increased internal costs, while simultaneously lowering the retail price. the members get cheaper goods, the organization thrives. do you think the board understands such a basic financial principle? NO WAY! they focus, with absurd single-mindedness, on reducing the margin. this has been the situation at the board level in the co-op forever, and i have no hope of it changing anytime soon. the people who run for and get elected to the board are those who "believe" in the co-op. those who have some business acumen probably see the problems clearly enough to not want to have anything to do with them. now let me be a bit radical: businesses exist to add costs to things! of course, in the process of taking a pile of inexpensive nylon (which is of no use whatsoever to most people) and turning it into a pack or jacket, you want to be as efficient as possible and to add as little cost as you can, but "value added" is not just an empty phrase, it's the very "meat" of economic existence. if the "rulers" of MEC will not require the members to pay to bring on staff high quality apparel designers, the functionality of the clothing will decrease. if they will not pay to provide excellent, thorough, balanced product information, buyers will choose in ignorance, and price, style, and colour will be the defining characteristics from which to choose - and it's a BUSY marketplace out there, very busy! if the powers that be consider only lower margin, and not value-to-market, the slide of MEC into the turf (and cluthes, i daresay) of Canadian Tire and Coast Mountain will continue apace. both those companies are VERY good at what they do - only a management team bereft of ideas for alternatives (and/or ignorant of the risks) would "go that way". anybody out there ever read "Built to Last"? you might not agree with every one of the choices, but the theme is impelling, and i believe, correct. long-term successful companies CHOOSE what they are going to be, which products and services they will bring to market (and which they will bypass), who they are going top serve, and (vitally) who they are NOT going to serve, and then get with doing what they've chosen. they are VERY rigid in enforcing this choice, with staff, with services, with products, and with "the message". MEC has never made a choice of this sort. it has drifted for over 30 years, mostly successfully, but always "at risk". there are advantages: flexibility, adapatability, and popularity are generally good things. but there are costs and risks too, most seriously the disappearance of the core reasons why people joined and shopped in the first place, i.e., fine, functional gear and accompanying respect-based information at reasonable (not lowest!) prices. actually, i probably am incorrect when i say MEC has never made a choice. over the past 2 or 3 years, the choice has been to focus on lower prices. i believe that choice is wrong-headed, and that MEC and its members will suffer as a result. stay tuned... as for running for the board, thanks, but no thanks. the products and the "business" of MEC are what matter to me; the "religion" of MEC is what has mattered most to virtually all board members over the past 20 years. don't these people realize there is a $200 million dollar business to run when they submit their applications? are they so blind (or egotistical, or unbalanced) to think that just ANYBODY can do that? well-meaning they are, to a fault, but that doesn't go far when the real world intrudes. i can't see myself enjoying that sort of company, much less remaining civil, and i've had quite enough frustration for this lifetime. sorry about the long-windedness. i try to avoid getting into "the co-op", but something triggered me here... final word: it ain't all bad. there are still a raft of very fine products, a bunch of good people, and some killer deals. that will erode, but a huge amount of "good" will remain. the shame, and source of my frustration, is that it could have been so much better an outcome. cheers,

that'd be SOOOOO funny if it wasn't tragic. have you SEEN the new catalog? flip it open to page 93, and think carefully about where MEC is 'at'. there are things you carry if you're a serious shop, and there are things you do NOT! and the HATCHET falls into the latter camp. it's not just that a hatchket is a fzcking useless tool (compared to an axe, which at least does the job it's designed for); it's that this device has NO place in a store that claims to be serving self-propelled wilderness oriented outdoor recreationists. doesn't anybody in authority in that organization GET IT? you define yourself more by choosing what NOT to carry than by what to include. if you sell stuff that brainless car-campers want, you'll end up with a membership composed of brainless car-campers. to tell the truth, that's the most likely agenda for MEC. for quite a few years, much of senior management has looked to the Forzani/Coast Mountain model as the biggest "competitor" to the co-op. true, Coast Mtn sells lots of outdoor "stuff", but it's just that - stuff! the "choosing" at Coast, such as it is, revolves around what'll sell, and what'll generate the most margin, and which supplier provides the biggest support budget, with nearly complete ignorance of what's appropriate for the job, and what works best. once upon a time, buyers and managers at MEC applied function-first standards. MEC had a reputation for carrying stuff that WORKED, and for avoiding stuff that was borderline applicable for "the mission". the staff and/or buyers were harsh in their criticism of poorly functioning products, and those that DID manage somehow to slip thru the gauntlet "died a death" in the stores because the staff were down on them. now, it seems to be "sell, sell, sell". the co-op pays attention to the sales of outdoor equipment and clothing at Canadian Tire, fer chrissakes. as they should, because the MEC organization is addicted to growth - and i mean that seriously - there will holy hell to pay when the sales plateau out - 60-some-odd people lost their jobs 2 years ago because the board and senior management didn't have the courage and understanding to MAKE MEC something. they couldn't see beyond just plain growth. they weren't brave enough to tell the membership that doing great things costs money, and that being great requires making choices, not just caving in to the pressure of "the mob". you don't cut your way to greatness! my prediction 2 years ago was that MEC would go on to be huge, financially viable... and increasingly irrelevant. the equipment will be fine for a very long time, but you can expect the functional outdoor clothing to start to deteriorate - the current clothing design staff simply aren't active in "real world" backcountry activities, so they understandably don't know how to solve the problems, no matter how good their other design-related skills are. already, you can see some of the issues - Ferrata Pants that are "styled" rather than designed is a "favorite" of mine. say goodbye to your old co-op, boys and girls. it has succumbed to the cancer of uncontrollable growth and the mantra of "low prices". all in a pleasant, inclusive, caring, socially and environmentally conscious way, of course - but hopelessly perverted, all the same. the REAL tragedy is that lots of good people (two of whom are posting on this topic on the thread) will continue to drive themselves WAYYYY beyond the call of duty in an attempt to alter this outcome. without the board and senior management knowing the difference between "big" and "meaningful", they haven't a hope - i should know; i put in 25 years there, the last half-dozen years of which as the prime motivator in exactly this futile quest. a hatchet... who'd have thought...

omfg; she'd better not cruise this site, or she'll be your "has been" girlfriend, not "so-so"... in which case, the issue will be VANISHING breasts...

jordan, your point is absolutely correct, and i AM guilty of selectivity in the weight cutting game. i'll carry a 500ml Parmesan cheese container instead of a 4-cup cup to save 75gm, but i still pack around a dozen old ovals at 65gms each when i could be investing in ultra light wiregates at less than 40gms. etc... part of it is just habit; part is expense. you can save 500gms on carabiners, but it'll cost you $200. saving 150gm on the helmet will cost $60-$100, plus i've never found anything that fits me better than my Edelrid. you can't do much better than the Sarkens, but that was $200 to go 150gms lighter. you suggest 7.5 mil ropes, and a pair of 60's will come out 1.2kg (!) lighter than 8.5's, but that's a $300 investment, and there is the serious disadvantage of having to clip both strands to get adequate strength. the other way to go is to shorten the ropes: 50m 8.5's are 250gms each lighter than 60m's. it's all food for thought. speaking of which, judging from most of my recent outings, taking less food onto the route would be an easy way to save a 100gms or 200gms - BUT, if you don't get up the thing, and have to spend the nite out, the extra chocolate/ sausage/ whatever is gonna be well appreciated. and in some cases, you simply HAVE to carry extra wt: trying to find the start of our route with a Tikka would have been a joke - even my Zenix was inadequate - Andrew's Myo did the job. OK, that's 100gms extra, but it's "weight well spent", contributing to success. anyway, your comments have got me thinking - it's always good to re-examine your practises and prejudices - i suspect i'll pop for a dozen or 20 light biners, for instance... tks, cheers,

the short answer is "no", there is not an easy route. you might be able to work down Splendour Glacier, over by Grenelle. Beckey did, in 1942 - i doubt anyone else has tried... you could climb Munday, then come down the E ridge of the Don or the thing that spews out westward between the Don and the N summit (mistakenly labelled Bravo Gl on some maps). you could climb the Dais couloir, traverse into the W-C col, and come down the Tiedemann. none are easy. ro you could go way far east and come down Welcome Gl, east of Marcus. easiest, but long... good luck, have fun. cheers, p.s. it's "Plummer", not plumber...

shit, I gotta cut down on all that rack that i carry! cheers,

i'll second that. sorry about the mistaken identity Toby - i was emailing back and forth with Jesse right up until friday, and it was him and Fern... and too bad u didn't have time to stop by on the way out. there was whiskey left... cheers,

didn't Twight write something a ways back describing a rack with which you should be able to climb any alpine route in the world - and wasn't it something like 6 pegs, 6 nuts, 6 cams, and 2 screws? anybody got that lying around? dru? anyway, point is winter alpine climbing in the Coast/Cascades seldom features very long sections of "steep" ice (by which I mean WI3 or steeper). and considering all the other extra stuff you gotta carry in winter to stay warm and energized, the rack is the prime place to trim. besides, you're generally looking for rock pro/belays. and, like I said, you just can't be falling off on this stuff anyway... and, never mind screws, now that i'm warmed up, here's my rant about pickets. i suggest all you folk who carry these things around take the time on your next trip to an alpine location or a ski area (one with snow, if that exists...) to pound one in, clip in a rope, tie yourself to the other end, and slide off down the hill to see what happens. i don't think you'll be very inspired by the results. fact is, pickets work just fine in consistent firm snow, but they are remarkably weak in typical winter snow (crusty, sugary, powdery) unless they're T-slotted, and if you're going to go to the trouble of T-slotting something, why go to the effort of carrying an extra chunk of otherwise purely decorative metal for the job, when one of your tools does an equally good job. did I mention weight is the enemy? ya, i know i did - i mean, did I mention that TODAY? cheers,

turns out they did the NE ridge on Foley - got this in an e-mail from Jesse: "NE ridge went down nicely, stellar route with only a pitch and a half of loose rock, scary, top section which finished on the summit cairn was beautiful water ice, through a chimney type thing, just stellar!!!! we stayed on the ridge proper right till the top." good work! FWA, plus no prior recorded ascent, altho it's in-your-face obvious, rising directly from the Lucky Four minesite, so it might have been done earlier... cheers,

since breakfast was going to consist of half a pound of bacon, bagels fried in the grease, and BIIIGGGG views, nothing could have convinced me to come down before noon! good job yourself, btw, on Davis. hard core! what an effing winter, eh? and still a week left... cheers,

tks for the photo-post dru! red line start is correct. angle right redline OK. angle left redline OK to first snowy break, then: go right to top of snow halfway between red and green. this is the "Y" i spoke about, at which we chose between continuing right (to join green line, and actually to drift further left yet, finishing left of the summit block), or to go left. we went left: up gently left on snowfield to its top, then directly thru what appears in this view to be a black chevron rockwall - this was Andrew's ice pitch. then to/thru cornice at about greenline exit, or maybe left end of little guarding rockwall - there is less snow/ice in your view, so can't be sure. believe it or not, i actually have software to deal with this, but my computer is crashed and i'm on my wife's... i'll see how the photos turn out and maybe get a couple scanned. p.s. good luck with all that steep black stuff on your green line! not in my lifetime, i don't think... cheers,

Climb: Welch Peak-NE Face FA/FWA Date of Climb: 3/13/2005 Trip Report: The relatively poor rock in the Cheam Range is best enjoyed when nicely frozen together, and it's no surprise that the few hardish routes that exist in the group are mostly winter climbs. And given the fact that the 15km of approach road via Jones Lake is usually impassable because of snow from December thru March or April, it's no news that such ascents are very rare. It does surprise me some, however, that the biggest face on the highest summit in the range has apparently passed thru the 80 years since the first ascent of the mountain without (so far as I am aware) a single attempt, especially since the discerning eye can pick out a pretty reasonable-looking line weaving around and between impregnable cliffs. With a high snow-line, several weeks of warmish daytime weather to consolidate the snow-pack, and a solid weekend forecast, it was obviously time to go. Andrew Rennie and I relaxed out of town mid-morning and started the walk up the Lucky Four trail at 1 p.m. Actually, the first hour-and-half of the walk is on old back-filled logging road [from about 750m to about 1220m], but after that the trail is remarkable pleasant. At 5 p.m. we pulled into camp, on a super-scenic knoll at about 1650m. We could see Fern and Jesse camped about 200m higher, but we were headed off on a traverse next morning, so there was no point in climbing further. We set the alarm for 2 and got away at 3:15. We surprised ourselves by reaching the glacial basin beneath the face in only 1 hour - fast cramponning on hard-frozen crust, but a considerable strain on our ankle ligaments. We had a bite and put on the harnesses on the flats [about 1700m], then started up the still-dark initial slope at 4:45. There were two or three crevasses to cross/bypass, and a sorta sketchy bridge at the schrund, but the snow was good and the frost inspired lots of confidence. We gained about 250m, then left the major snow-cleft leading to the col between Welch and the eastern gendarme and angled up right maybe 50m or so to confront our first significant challenge, a 10m Grade 3 waterfall step. 5:45, the ropes and gear came out, a belay went in, and the fun began. I got the first lead, placing both our screws in the ice to back up the rather mediocre belay, then climbing a right-angling snow-gully beyond to a good rock belay on the left at full 60m length. Andrew climbed the remaining 20m of the gully, then fought thru a short squeeze chimney, then continued up snow with intermittent ice beyond. I abandonned the belay and moved up about 10m to allow him to reach a secure stance - it pays to be sure of your partners in this kind of climbing, cuz you can't really communicate effectively, and you need to understand what is going on at the other end of the rope, and to have confidence that the other guy is not going to fall off for no good reason. My practise is simply to give a big yell when there is 10m of rope left, to give another big yell when the rope runs out, and if tension stays on the rope for a couple minutes, to tear down the belay and start climbing. I popped around the corner from Andrew into a left-angling gully, the key to the upper face, not visible from the campsite, but plainly visible from back down the valley. This had a tricky, thinly-iced exit, then we had to move together nearly 30m for me to reach a belay on the left side of a snow trough. Andrew continued right up the trough, passing above a little promontory and climbing a couple ice-steps. I moved with him about 20m to allow him to reach the rock-wall at the top of a major snow "Y". Here we needed to choose. We could continue right up and across a snow shelf maybe 2 pitches, then break back left thru the final significant rockwall to reach the summit snow-slopes, or we could go left and kinda end-run the rockwall. I went left, and in 60m just reached a flow which took 3/4 of a screw, backed up with a poor nut, for a belay. Andrew climbed the flow and disappeared around the corner. The rope fed out slowly while I got colder in the intermittent north wind, so I knew there was "interest" to the pitch. He finally ran the rope out and eventually a call came to follow - and what a fine pitch it was, with considerable ice, and two short vertical steps. Unfortunately, there wasn't much gear, most of what there was was poor, and since we only had two screws and one of those was most of my belay, his belay consisted of his two tools buried into a snow-fluting. Most uninspiring, but you can't be going falling off on these things anyway. The cornice beckoned a ropelength above, and I got a pretty good screw into ice after maybe 10m and another at 30m, then 3 rock pieces into a wall 5m below the crest. The snow under the cornice was horrendously powdery, and collapsed away underfoot to reveal slabby rock, but I managed to squirm my way up to where I could reach the crest by kinda semi-chimneying between the snowy slabs and the underside of the cornice overhang. There was a crack that I had convinced myself would be easy to enlarge to enable exit, but I fought and hacked and pulled and struggled and swore and came close to pitching off a couple times over the next half-hour before finally managing to belly-flop out onto the sunny east ridge. It was 2:45, and we were up. We were tired, and it was late, so we declined the pleasures of trudging up thru the sun-softened snow the extra couple hundred metres to the summit. We rapped once on the east ridge, into the first south-facing gully, then the descent and trudge back to camp were uneventful. By 8:30 we were well-fed, well-hydrated, and soon deeply asleep. Fern and Jesse must have cruched by sometime in the dark (ah, the perils of Monday to Friday work...), but we didn't hear them, and after a fine breakfast and a relaxing morning, we wandered out to rejoin the world Monday afternoon. Seldom can I recall a climb of such seriousness coming together so smoothly and - despite wishing it otherwise - I'm sure it'll be quite some time until the next such event. Isn't it just so great to be alive when these special climbs and special times happen though? Gear Notes: 2 screws (4 woulda been nicer) 6 nuts (smallish to medium) 5 cams (finger to wide hand) 7 pitons (2 long thin LAs - don't ever leave home without them! 1 medium blade and 1 long blade. 1 baby angle. 2 Leepers, which we did not use. Approach Notes: the Lucky Four Mine trail is a delight! go there!

good god, it's spreading... cheers,

i don't think the Blanca is as busy as it used to be before the whole Shining Path thing cut tourism in half, and there is tons of accomodation in Huaraz, but there are definitely places that are more climber-friendly than others. these places can provide help buying food for your mtn trips, arrange for burros and an arriero/camp guard, and help set up transportation to wherever you're headed. you can deal with all of this yourself, of course, especially if your Spanish is good, but it doesn't cost much for the various services and the results are often more satisfactory and more efficient. and - face it - we're rich compared to most of these people, and it's nice to spread that around just a little bit when we're abroad (personal opinion...) Jim Elzinga and i stayed with a guy who specializes in hosting climbers/trekkers when we were down there in '96. the 'digs' were pleasant, the location was convenient, the food was good, and the service was brilliant. Jim guided groups in Peru many times, and always stayed at this particular hostel, called Edwards Inn. i realize a decade is a while back for a recommendation, but there is info available on the web, and it sounds like the business hasn't changed. see: http://www.andeantravelweb.com/peru/hotels/huaraz/edwardsinn.html and others; search: edwards+huaraz. enjoy your trip. the Blanca is going to totally blow you away - easily the most spectacular mountains i've encountered, and that includes the Himalaya. great country to walk thru, friendly people, cheap living, no restrictions. if you could only avoid getting the shits it'd be about perfect! cheers,

btw, Andrew Rennie soloed the FWA of the N ridge of N Nesakwatch Spire saturday. not much snow on the ridge, but a bit of a thriller up top with snow/ice in the finishing chimney, it sounds. the report is on bivouac.com, for those of u who subscribe. see: http://www.bivouac.com/TripPg.asp?TripId=5463 cheers,

man: the tool-maker... no point leaving something alone when you KNOW it'll work better if you change it, eh? cheers,

i retroed several of my old BDs this way. take a file to the outer edge of the hanger to let the grinder fit deeply enuf so the threads will bite. cheers,

pat's happy to have the photo posted - now, let's see if i can do the business... cheers,

a worthwhile addition to the "what shall i do today" list. and certainly a place where NO ONE will EVER need a rope, eh? cheers,

not my pics - i don't shoot digital. brad may fwd me some shots, which i can post if they're decent. as for the refs to bivouac.com, yup, u gotta pay - which i'd encourage anyone interested in mountaineering in BC to do. there is a huge amount of info available, which has taken many people unimaginable amounts of time to compile. cdn$25 for a year is enough to cause some people pause, but i'm into supporting the efforts. p.s. the alternative - for me to simply copy the photo from biv.com and re-post it here - disrepects the photographer and his copyright. the net may be redefining such things, but i'm old enuf and trad enuf that this still matters to me. so i'll contact Pat and see if he'll give me permission to do so... cheers,

Climb: Welch Peak-South Ridge Date of Climb: 2/26/2005 Trip Report: I don't usually bother with TRs, but conditions in the alpine are quite fine now, and we might be going to have a good early season to make up for the lack of ice, so people ought to be encouraged to get out. Graham Rowbotham, Brad Winter, and I drove Foley Ck FSR and the Williamsom Lake Road spur (well described in bivouac.com; see: http://www.bivouac.com/RoadPg.asp?RoadId=234 ) to about 960m, where the road enters trees, and the shade has prevented snow-melt. There was a Ford Ranger parked here, so we obviously had company ahead of us. There was easy walking up the road to the basin at about 1150m (30mins). We followed old and new tracks left to the lower left corner of the forest-band beyond the upper clearcut and followed the well-marked trail (mostly on the duff, not snow) to the ridgecrest at about 1450m (1hr; onto snow here). Most of the tracks soon veered off left to traverse/climb to Williamson Lake, but we continued on up the crest, soon emerging from treeline into steep meadows, still mostly without snow-cover till we reached the shoulder at ~1750m. From this point we saw our 2 "companions" starting up the snow-slopes above Wmnsn Lk. We continued to the crest at 1925m (3hrs from the vehicle), where the S Ridge kinda turns into a "real" mountain feature. The other pair reached the Welch-Foley col about this time. There were tracks (maybe a week old?) still followable, which eased travel a bit, cuz the SE facing snow on the right flank of the ridge was softening a bit in the sun, but I was surprised it took 2hrs to reach the S summit [2365m] - but perhaps that's not too much of a shocker, as there is over 1km of terrain involved, with several sections of exposed rock-scrambling, a cpl short snow-aretes, one exciting cornice bypass, and a fair amount of pretty strenous step-kicking in semi-rotten snow. It was very wintry on the short descent from the S summit. The short, imposing-looking rock wall beyond goes easily enough on the right, then there is a section of rock/snow arete that demands care. The final challenge is a rock section on the ridge - from my earlier ascent, i recalled downclimbing a cpl bodylengths to the right, then traversing the E-facing slopes beneath this rock, and this still seemed the right thing to do. The snow was worrisome, so we broke out the rope, got a superb LA belay in a fine crack on the left, and dispatched the slope. I kicked off a couple point-source surface slides, but nothing worse. The ridge was regained after 50m, and with "terrain protection" (and 2 slings along the way) we carried on to the summit [2431m]. The upper section (only 250m long) had taken us nearly 2hrs (7hrs total from car). Views were superb, of course, and we enjoyed ourselves for a half hour before tackling the descent. The easiest line lies down the SE face, but this is steep snow (which had been baking in the sun) with cliffs below and no possibilities for belays. However, it was now 3pm, so the sun was oblique (or, in parts, off) the face, and as we tentatively started down, we discovered conditions were safe. There were some quite icy sections, but mostly it was sugary snow over a hard crust. Steps were firm enough after 2-3 kicks, but the crust prevented effective shaft penetration, so we moved slowly to remain secure (unroped, of course), and it took 1 1/2 hrs to downclimb only 250m to reach the safety of the basin. (The S ridge and SE face are superbly shown in Pat Graham's shot of Welch at: http://www.bivouac.com/PhotoPg.asp?PhotoId=5210 The downclimb lies directly beneath the summit, between the minor snow-ribs, then angling right.) There ensued a frustrating bout of intermittent plunging to mid-thigh in rotten snow to reach Williamson Lake [1650m; water in the creek here], from which we dropped directly down the headwall to the road. The car was regained just at dark, 11hrs after we set off. There was evidence of several parties on the mtn. There were (astonishingly) tracks coming up out of Airplane Creek onto the SW spur, then joining the S ridge. There were also (probably 2) set of old tracks following the lower crest, and tracks climbing snow NW to the S ridge from Wmnsn Lk. Plus there were a set of old tracks up/down the SE face. Good to see there are others out there! We found an ice-axe low on the descent below the lake (perhaps from the pair in the Ranger?) - the owner can claim it by identifying the model... A final word: a personal perspective (if you have patience to read further). This climb comes 27 years and 1 day after I made the FWA of Welch via this route, way back in '78. I had intended to have a look up around Rexford, but the weather was coming in from the south, so I just took off to see how high I could get on Welch, which had looked superb in the sunrise light from the Chilliwack River road. There were no high logging spurs - the trail left from the outlet of Foley Lake [550m], but conditions underfoot were superbly firm - I had my crampons on less than an hour up the trail. Up on the ridge the snow was that lovely punky stuff, with easy steps and excellent security. I recall doing the traverse up high (which we belayed) with no hesitation. Ditto the downclimb of the SE face, which I kinda "felt" my way down. There were no views - the weather had crapped to the point where I could barely see the S summit by the time I reached the main summit, and I didn't tarry before setting off down. I was fitter and faster back then than I am now, but I was shocked by how quickly the day progressed: 6 1/2 hrs to climb 1900m, and only 3 hrs to get down. There's really nothing better than good conditions in the mountains in the winter, when (and if) you encounter them! A shame they are so rare... Cheers, Gear Notes: 60m 8mm rope, 1 long thin Lost Arrow (we took 4 pitons), a couple long slings and a cpl regular length, a few krabs... Approach Notes: see TR...

as dru correctly pointed out, this is Duffey's Delight, which lies about 200m right of the Tube. glad to see you found it in semi-fat condition. when Janez and I climbed it last year (probably the 2nd ascent, 19 years after the FA), it was VERY thin and sketchy. congrats on your climb - it's not 'in' very frequently. That long icy climb yup, Belmore. a.k.a. Slog of the Titans. again, u got good conditions. with more snow, the thing really isn't worth the effort, but when you find it icy, i imagine it would have been a very enjoyable outing. the photos make it looks great. shame about the descent... cheers,

nary a drop to be seen. cheers,