Don_Serl

Patagonia Puffball (and the myriad of other similar choices) are not designed for winter. they are great for what they are, but they generally have only 3-5 oz/sq yd [100-150gms/sq m] insulation, so they're kinda analagous to a summer sleeping bag. for full winter, you generally need 6 oz/sq yd [200gm/sq m] or more of synthetic fill, which gets a bit heavy. a nice (and much-ignored) possibility which i've had lots of seasons of use out of is the Integral Designs Dolomitti jacket. 5oz Primaloft (borderline for full winter). i find the elastic cuffs and hem simple and really effective, despite the current unpopularity of this construction. it's cut nice and roomy, so it layers easily over everything. i cut all the contrast fabric off the shoulders and pocket flaps, cuz it's taslan and snow clings to it - plus, makes it lighter. see: http://www.integraldesigns.com/product_detail.cfm?id=696 FF makes superb down gear, but i'd advise against shell fabrics with restricted breathability, such as Epic. true, this provides better resistence to puking wet snow, but more of the time it tends to hold moisture within the jacket, which leads to condensation within the insulation layer on the inside of the shell. this isn't much of an issue for day-use, but will be a serious problem if you're out for a week or more. Mountain Hardware has a great down garment selection. MEC in Vancouver is worth checking out. Taiga Works in Vancouver makes pretty darn nice down stuff, and they're cheap, but they don't even have a website, so you'd have to visit the store. cheers,

what's my prize? a copy of the new guide? ... or just the knowledge that I am snarter than dru and lyle secure in that knowledge... (but if you're so "snart", how come u can't spell?) tee hee,

RWW is superb, without doubt. only issue is that the column comes in late, and since it's a 1 1/2 - 2hr approach, it's nice to have an idea whether it's "ready to go". you can scope it from one high point on the Duffey... and the bottom pitch of Tre's Burly, a superb 55m WI4 which i'm treating as a route in its own right [Not So Burly] is well worth the walk too. Tre's Burly itself virtually never forms. fact is, Copper Creek is a wonderful approach valley - there are some quite amazing creekside cliffs that one day might host some VERY steep sport-climbing. plus there are several "culturally modified" cedars, with BIG rectangular chunks peeled out of the bark. maybe primeval ice climbers marking their FAs? as for the bolted line, that's still an Andrew Boyd project. there is potential for other lines too - it's just a ways to go... cheers,

Fern wins! good work, lass! the late, great Chris "Beeker" Romeskie on Farmer Finestone, up on Blackcomb. Jia Condon photo. 20m WI5. note the absence of the cord... Blackcomb has become one of THE 'hot-spots' (to use an inappropriate metaphor) for ice and mixed climbing. there are 32 routes in WCI2 on Blackcomb Mountain: 11 mixed-cum- alpine dry-tooling on Husume Buttress and Flanks of Phalanx; 7 at "The Office"; and 10 (including the pictured column) at "The Farm" (all ice there man-made, btw); plus 4 more scattered about here and there. it's becoming a great place for winter climbing. yah, it costs you $30 or so for the single ride lift ticket (cheaper than gas to Lillooet...), and yah, you gotta have the avvy stuff to show (beacon, probe, shovel), but the terrain is high [above 2100m on Husume; about 1600m at the Farm] so the season is long. and it's kinda fun climbing in the midst of a ski-resort, i find. lotsa trendy clothing to check out! lotsa coverage in the guide, of course... one tip if you're going: try to get your tools INTO your pack. you have to ride at least a couple lifts to get to any of the areas, and i hung up my pick on the seat-back when i went to get off one time last year. kinda embarrassing: had to ride "round the bend" and trip the stop lever before i could get free. i'm not much beyond being a complete fuck-up when it comes to skiing anyway, but this was particularly poor form! (the liftie was nice enough about it, but i felt pretty stupid...) cheers,

Another vote for the Michelin LTX M/S. They're great on the highway, and do alright on typical muddy/snow covered logging and forestry roads in BC. I've got close to 100k km (5+ years) with them on my Pathfinder, and expect that they should last through to next fall. i came close to buying the Michelins, but my tire guy convinced me the Bridgestones were a bit tougher for the backcountry. for a pretty heavily-lugged tire, they are suprisingly quiet on pavement, and they've got excellent wet-weather grip (special compound), which is very important around here. i can't comment on the ride, cuz even my 'new' (11 year old) land cruiser is kinda harsh anyway. i think either is a great choice. the one thing you DON'T want to do is to "buy cheap". i made that mistake once on my 'old' land crusher and lost a week of backcountry mountaineering when i had 2 punctures on a single trip out into the Chilcotin backcountry. plus they were shit to drive on even at the best of times - noiser, poor traction in the rain, not long lasting. and, yes, i've punctured them all! cheers,

omg, where was this photo when i was looking for covers??? btw, not millar's pillar. or like a rocket... cheers,

Bridgestone Dueller A/T Revo. cheers,

good work on the front cover dru: this is Graham Rowbotham on the 'main' pitch on Red Wall Wanderers - a wonderful route in a superb location, BUT this pitch takes a while to come in and is often/ usually wet . still, VERY worth the walk. 2 beautiful grade 3/3+ pitches below the column, then 25m-30m WI5, then 4 ropelengths above, each including a 15m-25m step of WI3-WI4. back cover is NOT "the strand", which was what we ended up calling the lttle column in the 3 sisters area 10km W of Lillooet, altho that's a good guess - a quite similar formation, altho the strand is maybe 5m longer. cheers,

so sports fans, can anybody identify the routes on the front and back covers? cheers,

printer time 5-6 weeks + 1 wk for Christmas. eta to Elaho in Squamish Jan 10-15/05. eta to local stores (Squamish/Vancouver) 1-2 days later. eta to Bellingham/Seattle 1 wk - 10 days later. (apologies for the lateness. the objective was pre-Christmas, but there were quite a number of detail edits which I needed done before signing off - I'll take the stick - it's not Kevin's fault...) i had an inquiry about ordering direct from Kevin McLane at Elaho, and he says this will be possible, but i do not have details yet. (e.g., payment by Visa, or what? cost for surface post; to Canada; to USA? cost for air post? courier?) will advise once i get details. if you're an MSN member, you can view a copy of the cover at: http://ca.msnusers.com/WestCoastIce/Documents/wc5%20%2D%20cover.pdf (sorry, it was too big to attach here, and i don't have Photoshop myself to cut it down...) cross your fingers for cold weather! cheers,

well, there's another positive vote... my comments are made after using Ergos 3 separate occasions on waterfall ice up Lillooet way last winter, plus a day of playing at Baker. i fully agree - you can't judge much from in-store swinging. cheers,

based on a day at Marble Canyon and a day on the seracs at Baker trying a few different tools including the Omegas, my judgement is that they still have a ways to go to catch up to the standards shown by BD, Charlet, Grivel, and Simond 10 years ago. the Alphas don't look they're gonna break, but they take a bit of hitting to get to place; they have a very metallic, undamped, jarring feel when they hit the ice; and once they're in, they're sticky to extract. Quasars, Rages, Rambos, Pirhannas, Pulsars - buy something else used instead if money's a serious issue. or just go full shot and buy Quarks or Vipers or Cobras or Wings - there's never any doubts when you've got top-shelf tools... (unfortunately, that removes one of the sources of excuses for failure ["my tools were sticking like pigs", or whatever] but there's plenty more for the bar afterwards if you're just imaginative...) btw, i'm not totally down on Omega - they're doing a pretty nice job with their screws these days. not quite BD express in ease of placement, but very, very usable. as for "overpriced", the market doesn't seem to think so. "expensive", yes, but that's a different thing. cheers,

funny story: when they were both young and still living in Victoria, Greg Foweraker and Peter Croft decided to try out ice climbing one winter when it was very cold and there were drools on the cliffs at Fleming Beach (local bouldering area). they borrowed a couple wooden shafted ice axes from someone and away they went. of course, there were no leashes of any sort on the tools, so Peter gets up about 15 feet, pumps out, loses his grip, and plummets back to the bottom - with both tools still solidly in place in the flow above. maybe we've made some progress after all... come to think of it, i also recall a similar incident involving Laurie Skreslet on a route. maybe you had to undergo some 'rite' of this sort to become a great climber. and there were various means of coping too - special tape, klister, whatever. sheesh... cheers,

Marble Canyon, between Lillooet and Cache Creek in southwest interior BC, is the ticket. there is info available on bivouac.com at: http://www.bivouac.com/PhotoPg.asp?PhotoId=4761 (u need to be a member, but it's a great info source. anybody serious about climbing in BC ought to get great value for the $20) also see: http://www.aranet.ca/icybc/ not complete, but worthwhile coverage. or, wait 6 weeks till the 2nd edition of West Coast Ice hits the shelves - should go to the printer TODAY! cheers,

point taken. perhaps i'm not trying hard enuf to learn. however, don't u find that because your wrist is still in the "neutral" position when you get the tool to the position at which the pick impacts the ice, that you miss the "snap" of the wrist, and you end up kinda "pecking" at the ice? that was my experience... cheers,

only if it's non-technical (i.e., snow/neve, in which anything works). and you can hardly imagine how to fall off anyway. why would you want anything less than the easiest placing, most secure tool in your quiver on, say, a 400m alpine ice route? you're probably simul-climbing, or maybe soloing. what's that, maybe 2000-3000 placements? isn't it important to make each one of them with the minimum energy output? and to be comfortable and confident of every one of them? gimme good tools, and screw the concerns with shaft-plunging. as for boot-axe belays, again, not on a "real" climb. T-slotting the tool is better, but even that's pretty sketchy. cheers,

here we go again, but me too. why rely solely on grip strength (limited, in my case)? feels like turning 5.9 into hard 5.10 every time it try them... and besides, the leashless tools swing like crap compared to "real" tools. fact is, they're designed to optimize the hanging grip angle, not the swinging motion. that might be beneficial on a picked-out competition surface, and it's no problem when you're carefully placing tips into holds on dry-tool surfaces (in which situation it's a great advantage to NOT be attached to your tools - way more freedom of movement is possible), but it sucks on waterfall ice. horses for courses... cheers,

you've got to develop the habit of climbing with your face out of the line of fire. always... (it helps "lead" your body into better position under your higher tool that way as well.) cheers,

it's early season, gentlemen, stay calm. Janez went out for 5 days over last weekend, arrived as it chinooked, drove 2700km, and climbed 60m of ice (Amadeus). and, yes, Barry did climb Terminator, but an attempt at a follow-up 2 days later came to an end after 2 pitches cuz the party were completely sodden - more waterfall than icefall. OK for locals; maybe not so hot to drive for. patience...

4 of us there 11/11 too. superb day. but VERY platey ice - HUGE fractures nearly every placement on the shady walls. not a good idea soloing (at least, no more than a few feet off the ground, or in the sun where the ice had warmed a bit.) cheers,

4 of us spent the day on the seracs at baker on thursday. the ice had gone quite cold, so was VERY prone to shattering and huge plates. there were a variety of tools in use, and the tiny pick on the quark was clearly superior to the cobra (and anything else). that said, i'm convinced u could "tune" the tip of the cobra pick by rounding out the upper corner to reduce the size of the contact face, and reduce the ice displacement. no way i'm gonna trash-talk the cobras (superb tools), but everything about the quark "works" for me. my ONLY concern is that the pick is soooo small that i wonder a bit about its durability for drytooling. petzl gives good advice on this matter: "Ice axes used for dry-tooling should be reserved exclusively for this activity, and must be carefully inspected before each use: verify the integrity of all elements of the tool, from the pick to the grip. Most importantly, do not use your dry-tooling gear on adventure climbs (long mountain routes, icefalls...). The fatigue caused by dry-tooling could result in a catastrophic tool failure on a poorly protected route, or on a multipitch climb." at very least, reserve a set of picks exclusively for dry tooling. the cobra comes with the Laser pick (which u could tune thin for ice), then u cld buy a pair of Titans for drytooling durability (and/or alpine). cheers,

btw, the key negative to the jubilee exit is that it's high, so requires decent weather. if it's puking, the alternative would be to exit via the franklin glacier and valley - you cld then float-plane out from the franklin camp. check whether the camp is occupied before u go, otherwise u either need your own radio, or you'll have to live with a pre-arranged pick-up date/time. cheers,

...missed the end of october for sending to the printers, but only a few days away now. not much chance of it seeing the stores before christmas unfortunately (unless there is a miracle at the print-shop), but VERY soon thereafter. i'll keep folk updated... and all chances to share dalwhinney gratefully accepted! cheers,

hey, there's a good idea! i don't "ski" either, although i've spent several weeks on skis in the range. you've got the right ideas - i reckon your #1 plan of starting somewhere munday-ish, touring and climbing a circuit of the upper franklin drainage, then exiting from jubilee to devereux lake is pretty classy. the necessary air service info is in the guide. you might want to check with NOLS - they tend to run a trip or two a year in and/or out of Devereux and/or Canyon Lakes, and might have some useful beta. i think i heard rumours of the scar creek camp scaling back: dru, know anything? the trip from bifrost pass out to the coast is a very different thing than hanging out on the glaciers. one's about travelling, the other incorporates travel. and the plummer hut is a poor choice for skiing. the upper tellot glacier doesn't have enuf steep terrain. PM me if u want - like i said, i don't really ski, but i'm pretty familiar with the terrain and what goes on in there. cheers,

brilliant. would also allow one to buy the sarkens with the leverlock, if the spirlock or sidelock bindings don't work on your boot heels (or if u don't like 'em), then buy and add in the dart fronts. tks, might try the darts that way... cheers, aaah, but not so fast... i've got the spirlock heels [simple wire], which will be incompatible with the dart toes, which ONLY come with the sidelock heel and wire-bail toe. you need a "moving" heel-bail of some sort to function with the "non-moving" toe bail. oh well...