Don_Serl

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,

i had to carve back the underside edges of the heel blocks on my boots a bit to get the spirlock side-arms to engage, but now that they'll go on, they seem secure. the leverlock is probably easier to use. i don't look forward to fiddling these on at -15ºC in a foot of fresh snow. only used 'em one day on the seracs at baker and was quite impressed by how they placed. i guess the big advantage is lightness - the big DISadvantage is they're light because they are "unit" crampons, i.e., no interchangeable points - when they're gone, the crampons are dead. judging from how fast i wear back the front points on my G-14s, the sarken's might not have a long life. we'll see over the winter how durable the metal is. cheers,

me too. imho, the finest all round crampon. if u need ONE crampon to do everything, this is it. super-tough, effective, flexible, adaptable, effective antibots. good with mono, good with dbl. wide range of fits. a touch heavy, but tough comes with a price. i only wish they were rigids. (strangely, while the G-14s work fine on my sz 46s, rambos won't go on...) cheers,

straight shafts in 2004? seems like buying a 1984 Oldsmobile Century for commuting, or a dot-matrix printer. there are 3 long-term dependable ice-tool manufacturers: Black Diamond, Charlet, and Grivel. each of them provides a relatively simple, gently-curved-shafted tool which would be fine on water-ice, decent on mixed, and a pleasure in the alpine: the Rage, the Aztar, and the Light Wing or Alp Wing. [simond seem to have their great moments, but never have quite broken thru. i got to briefly use a Vautour last weekend, and was quite impressed.] the key advantage of the bent or curved shaft in the alpine is that your hand gets less pressed against the surface, so u stay warmer. if money is a really big issue, go for an older "good" tool, not a newer poor design. BD Black Prophets long had a great reputation, and were very popular in the USA, so there ought to be a fair number available used; the Shrike was also solid. Charlet's Quasar (my personal favorite from the '90s, by far, which i used on lots of alpine ice faces and gullies) was a big step forward on ice altho the knob interfered with shaft-plunging in snow; the Charlet Pulsar was the earlier standard, altho kinda heavy. Grivel's Rambo pulled people up some wicked routes. going waaaay back, the Simond Chacal was effective, but is dated now; the Piranha worked well and was lighter; the Naja didn't have enuf "hook" for my liking... the direction-of-pull issue is a red herring, as we can see from the Grivel Monster. for mixed, based on very limited experience, i can say: 1) it's far easier to hang on a bent shaft than straight, 2) more shaft clearance is better than less for getting the pick-tip onto and/or into holds, and 3) when movement gets complicated, leashes get in the way - but i'm not strong enuf to do without. all considered, straight shafts are not a good choice for mixed. bottom line, 1st choice ought to be "basic modern"; 2nd choice could be "technical old". avoid "dubious", old or new! how's it go? "the pain of poor performance lives on long after the thrill of low price is gone" cheers,

interesting. i guess it all depends on what kind of temperatures and surface conditions (wet or dry) you encounter. maybe also physiology, cuz i don't think i "run as warm" as i did in younger days. for me, light gloves just don't have enough warmth for winter climbing of any sort, especially for waterfalls, where there's almost always surface water present. i thought the MEC Mixed Master was the ticket over the past cpl seasons - Gore-Tex Direct Grip lined shells, with removable fleece liners - but they've been dropped and MEC no longer has a warm glove suitable for ice climbing. they have the "Out O' Bounds", which is a lot like the Mixed Master, but it's got a buckle at the wrsit, so is designed for skiing, not climbing. i suppose u cld cut the buckle off... at the light end, i bought a pair of Cloudveil Ice Floes too, but i used them one day at Baker, and in 2 "runs" up a 10m serac my hands were sopping. Schoeller is nowhere near waterproof, not that i expected it to be, but i was surprised and disappointed by how quickly moisture penetrated. sure not the kind of handwear you'd wanna take onto a waterice route. maybe roadside dry tooling? i returned the Ice Floes ("didn't meet my expectations") and bought MEC Jackals (Nikita for women). same lack of waterproofness, but less than half the price: CDN $29 vs CDN $68 for the Cloudveils. good materials, good construction, pretty good fit too - maybe CV and Black Diamond offer a bit more sophistication in the fit realm, but i wonder if that's worth twice the bucks... for me, tho, bigger gloves with android leashes are the way to go - stay warm, still get to manipulate the gear OK. fact is, i still slog around in BIG insulated mitts whenever i can - warm hands are not difficult if you dress for it. cheers,

the Mountain Technology Verige was the worst technical ice tool i ever had the (dis)pleasure to whack against a piece of ice. horrid vibration (felt like beating a rock with a pipe, which - come to think of it - wasn't far off...), difficult to get to hook, then nearly impossible to extract. i shared this dubious joy with many others at an ice demo day at the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City a few years ago, and we all went away shaking our heads and sharing sideways glances with each other - the owner of the company (a nice enough guy, and a good party-er) was in attendance, and nobody wanted to embarrass him by telling him what we REALLY thought of his tools. runner-up position must go to the Omega Pacific Alphas - they look pretty hopeful, but they're sure not much pleasure to use. those boys got a lot to learn yet... honorable mention is reserved for a Lucky ice hammer, the hammer head on which broke off while i was using the tool to flatten a soup-can while compacting garbage before flying out from a Niut Range spring climbing trip a few years ago. speaking of garbage... cheers,

i beg to differ. used to be u cld climb stuff by the weekend of the banff film festival (1st weekend in november), but warmer winters and later starts make november pretty sketchy now. however, by the end of november / beginning of december, lots of stuff is in, including at field, and often even down at golden. last year we did a nov 28 - dec 2 trip and had excellent conditions on louise, weeping wall, and carlsberg. (saw several cc.com'ers out there then too) fact is, kronenbourg was formed early, but fell down later when the cold snap hit. and it's usually not as cold late nov/ early dec as at new years. cheers,

looks pretty fine down your way alright, especially out on the east side - see wenachee: http://www.weather.ca/weather/cities/usa/pages/USWA0487.htm but check out the situation up this way - whistler: http://www.weather.ca/weather/cities/can/pages/CABC0322.htm there's already fresh snow at higher elevations, and it's gonna be below freezing at valley height mid-week - then freezing rain and/or snow next weekend. not gonna be doing wedgemount, joffre, whitecap, goldbridge, etc routes any kindness. much less the remote chilcotin stuff... maybe time to come south for a few days? cheers,

...and janez did the rethel/parkhurst/slot link-up the same day, in what i recall him saying was 9 hrs hut-to-summit of wedge. rethel was all ice, but it's not steep, so took only 2 hrs from hut to top. scrambling down from rethel-parkhurst col turned out to be much easier than ade and i had imagined last year (we declined, and walked over to the parkhurst-wedge col to descend after rethel). parts of the parkhurst couloir were melted out, so there was a bit of entertaining mixed. the entry to the slot was a short, delicate, free-hanging curtain, then the 1st half was OK. the upper half was snow-covered, and had some tricky melted-out steps. apparently the traverse from the couloir exit across to the upper west couloir was the crux of the trip - thin fresh snow over frozen gravel, above a big drop - scary, scratchy cramponing... and now it's snowing, so indian summer alpine ice season is probably over... cheers,

dream on: http://climbing.com/current/alpine03/ observe the masters, be overwhelmed and humbled, and learn: http://www.planetfear.net/climbing/highmountainmag/mountaininfo/feb2004/mtninfofeb2004.htm there are so many more examples it's stunning. ...just say "YES!"

Bernard and Christine Schulmann. They've moved to Victoria - no work in Lillooet. PM me and i'll fwd u the e-mail - they might attend the fest - they're still keen. cheers,

i don't feel any need to fight other people's battles for them, but people who cast doubt other people's achievements because the feats are somehow "unimaginable" are simple pests. and anonymity makes the slanging easy. the so-called "facts" are usually wrong, and the "logic" is flawed, but there are no consequences. despite the "logic" displayed by our anonymous doubter, i have no problem believing colin. and there's logic on his side too... approach: he says he biked and hiked to helmet col on friday - no issue (altho i wouldn't encourage trudging solo on rockies glaciers if a long climbing career is the desire). i tried the north face only once - drove overnight from vancouver, then walked in (no bike... 15km to berg lake) and scrambled up to bivy on the highest rocks beside helmet glacier [2600m-2700m] in an easy day. got rained out, but the point is that it's not really that far from the highway to helmet col, not if you want to GO and you're fit. especially if you reckon on a quick trip and pack light. as for the climb: helmet col is just under 3300m, the schrund is maybe 3200m, the crest of the ridge is maybe 3900m, the summit is 3954m. that's 700m of alpine ice - maybe some scrabbling on thin stuff over rock, but jeez, gentlemen, let's get some perspective. this is mostly just alpine ice. guys SKI this stuff! i've seen colin solo 600m of ice on blackhorn in just over 2hrs. see: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/251496/page/7/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1 while robson is steeper [average angle is about 53º, vs about 48º on blackhorn - calculated from TRIM maps], even an old fart like me can climb 250m to 300m of alpine ice per hour. exit: so u zip down the SE ridge [losing about 450m in 1.5km], downclimb the kain face [about 250m high], traverse about 1km back to helmet col, and follow your tracks back out. total distance covered is an impressive 45km or so, but nothing close to 100km. where is the problem? no superman needed here! beyond average, yes, but easily human. in the end, my rant is more about attitudes than doubt or belief of colin's activities. climbing is about possibilities. it happens you discover limitations along the path, but if you start with a doubting mindset, you're never gonna get close. nor am i encouraging recklessness, but you have to take risks, you have to push some. most of the great alpinists that i've met have been impressively open about possibilities, coupled with a very wise modesty about their ability to achieve any specific goal at any specific time. they seem to think things through, to set off open-minded, to give it a good hard try (while watching for trouble), and to quit and go away when their inner voice tells them things aren't right. the REALLY great ones manage to fight thru even when the situtaion gets way out of control, but the survivorship ratio at that level is somewhat worrisome. they certainly don't slam someone else's accomplishments because they are beyond imagination. that sort of thinking gets the nasty side of me reckoning that this sort of person doesn't have imagination enough to see beyond their self-imposed limits, and that they should stick to limiting their own potential, quietly, in private, not digging at others. but as i don't know this particular fellow, i'll try to keep those thoughts on the shelf... cheers,

OK, so that's the SE buttress of the second tower on 2650, right? where's the TR? see any lines worth going back for? or would that be giving it away? but now it's winter anyway... cheers,

...or you might try taking the road all the way to the end of the west fork of tipella (last km not drivable). then there is a bush-crash from hell around the head of the valley about 1km to access the lake in the valley northwest of the mtn. this valley is wide open - boulders and scree the whole way. very cool area. and an excellent panorama point: baker/shuksan/slesse/redoubt/etc in S, to matier and perhaps whitecap in N; wedge, garibaldi, mamquam, the lions, etc prominent NW to W; mason, cairn needle, breakenridge, urquhart, old settler, anderson river peaks ranging across the E. and a great treat to be on top of the 'master' peak of the chehalis, after all those years of staring northwest from clarke, viennese, ratney, grainger, and so on, wondering... btw, there is a tiny lake in a tight bowl at 1380m, 1.9km WNW of the peak, that has glacial ice calving into it! (that's about 4500 feet, not much different than the top of mount seymour...) oh, and dru exaggerated the approach. it's not 3km, it's UNDER 2km (from the end of the road)! plus 450m elevation gain. but it DID take us 3 1/2 hrs. gotta love that chehalis bush... cheers,

nothing much done on the north sides in the lucky four. foley: fairley notes berntsen and company's FWA of foley as SE ridge, but i recall that as being E face to SE ridge. oddly, it seems the neighbouring NE ridge directly from the old lucky four mine has no recorded ascent. it's not that steep... there's not much of a N face on foley; the N ridge is not that far from the NE. welch: big N face. i wouldn't call it awful; maybe more like awe-inspiring. there may have been attempts, but the only N side adventure i'm aware of is an attempt on the NE ridge by dave jones and i many years ago. we made a bit of progress, but the snow was falling apart, and having cornice debris narrowly miss us convinced us we should go away that day - we never found another day to come back... good luck, cheers,

actually, light is right! kevin at elaho has gotten quite a lot more efficient over the years, and i've learned to tone down my verbosity (a bit, anyway). the 1st edition covered 136 routes in 160 pages (much of it intro), with 43 photos (some half page). the plan for the 2nd edition is 436 routes in 228 pages, with about 80 full-page photos (final layout not yet 100%) - and, no, that is not 8 point type... it may be no bad thing to leave the spare tool, but there still needs to be space for the scotch! cheers, don

fingers crossed... all the materials are off to the publisher, and the hope is to JUST sneak the books into the stores by christmas. it'll take everything ticking to do that - the slightest glitch at any stage and we'll miss. but, the project is pretty simple from the concept and layout/layup point of view, so it might just make it. and i'm certanly motivated enuf to keep bugging the publisher and printer waaay too frequently. i'll update once it gets out of pagemaker and off to the printer - the ambition is for that to be at the end of oct. cheers, don btw: 436 numbered routes (plus TRs, etc), up from 136 in first edition. jeez, people been busy!

hint: your photos show u way out in the middle of the glacier. no surprise there were multitudes of crevasses. next time, walk ALL the way southeast between the ice and moraine, then travel the extreme east side of the glacier. did u cross paths with janez ales? he too bailed on his attempt... cheers,

The snow just hovers above the ground for the rest of the year eh? Masset annual precip 100cm/yr rain (40"), 28cm/yr snow (11"); ave temp in winter 4ºC; only 20 days frost per year. unlikely to become an ice climbing mecca unless the Japanese current fails...

dead on. i recall a comment i read many years ago from Paul Petzoldt, who claimed that the Americans only failed to climb K2 on their 1938 expedition (of which he was a member, and the one who reached the high point of around 7900m) because many of the team members were not good campers. unless you're comfortable LIVING in the hills, you can't "step beyond" to deal with the climbing. (well, actually there're lots of uncomplicated, accessible, day-trip alpine rock routes that don't demand much ability to deal with complication, and they are good places to start. but that's not generally what we think of as quintessential "alpine climbing", i.e., rock, snow, ice, glacier, mixed, longer, more serious...) cheers, don

Simon Richardson, an alpinist of respectable credentials and experience, tells me he has gone back to 50s for alpine routes. he notes (obviously, but strangely overlooked in these days of "light is right") that longer ropes are heavier, and that because of the broken terrain one often encounters in the mountains, they are TOO long for most "comfortable" pitches - especially when u want decent communications between partners. not everyone has the moxie to go against the grain, eh? cheers,

gord betenia, the king of the baker seracs, has already been down - he can't even wait till autumn, poor fellow. the report is that the seracs are more mellow than last year, which is good, cuz last year was pretty restricted to gently overhanging and radically overhanging formations. cheers,

yup, those are the rules, and the only criticism i'd make of Steve House's otherwise excellent and inspiring account in Alpinist 8 is that in his epilogue he says, "Our sole intention was to try to climb the north face of North Twin in winter by whatever path seemed most logical..." The ascent took place April 5-7, so excise the words "in winter" and you've got an accurate description of events - a phenomenal climb on a big, awesome face. in the published report, the summary (Alpinist 8, page 47) lists this as "The House-Prezelj Variation... to the Lowe-Jones..., north face, North Twin..." doesn't seem like Steve and Marko themselves are claiming anything beyond what they did. in the context of the other climbs that are being talked about on this thread, the question that occurs to me is, given a long track record of hard ascents in the Rockies taking place in March and April, given the generally poor weather and conditions in the Rockies in so-called "summer" (July and August) - witness the reports and photos from the various recent attempts/routes on Mount Alberta, for instance - and given a track record of stable weather in September and October, why do so many people continue to suffer through storms, wet rock, crap snow, wet ice, and rockfall to climb in the Rockies in "summer"? is it just that the temperatures are less harsh/challenging? or that "traditional" holidays occur in July and August? wouldn't it make sense to pay attention to the locals and to history, and climb the harder mtn routes in April and September? just a thought... cheers,

It must be admitted that sport-climbing tends to be warm, controlled, and safe, while ice climbing looks like it's cold, chaotic, and dangerous. I'd say that's looking at the surface only. 1. as Rockies winter climbing legend Jim Elzinga told me many years ago, if you're getting cold, you're doing something wrong. I learned something important that day! little excuse, these days, with superb clothing and footwear... 2. there's quite a bit more "going on" ice climbing than sport climbing, but if you can build a gear belay and if you have the rudiments of how to protect a gear pitch (especially how to sling placements and rope-handle to minimize cluster-fucks), you can learn readily how to control the chaos. even if your experience is limited to all-bolt routes (incl belays), if you're "clean" in your ropehandling, you're started OK. 3. frozen waterfalls and gullies are definitely more dangerous places than bolted sport-crags, but it's not beyond most climbers to learn how to think about situations and judge winter conditions. perhaps the hardest thing to do is to overcome the "just try it" attitude that usually goes with sport-climbing; the consequences of failure are usually limited to whanging off a few times, lowering, pulling the ropes, and heading home disappointed. you've gotta be able to listen to the little voices in your head on ice routes, and on the approaches to them. not paranoia, just good sense. the climb can't go away, and you can always come back... as for the actual movement and kinesthetics, the two disciplines are very close. you need to husband your strength in both. you need to get as much weight as possible onto your feet in both, sometimes/often thru uses of imaginative body positions. it's absolutely key that you get your body centre-of-mass under your leading ice tool, just as you MUST pivot your c/o/m under the biggest handhold on an overhanging sport route, and keep it close to the crag. appropriate shifts of body weight before, during, and after movement are the marks of mastery in both. [btw, i'm not strong enuf to be a good sport-climber, but i do fine on 5+/6- ice, just cuz of spending 30 years learning and applying the above skills...] if you really want to learn to ice climb, find people who are ice climbers, and go do it with them. Borrow gear, even boots and crampons (it IS expensive)! steal every piece of technique you can from those better than you - just IMITATE them, and see how it works/feels! ask questions - NEVER make assumptions. get your mentor to critique EVERYTHING about your climbing, especially the quality and "convenience" of your screw placement and MOST especially what your body positioning is/was like. LISTEN, and try again. read books before you go, and try just a thing or two new every time you go out. make a pest of yourself, and keep doing it till you're getting happy placing screws, and eventually leading. [by FAR the hardest part of ice climbing is getting gear on lead!] now, i'm not saying ANY of this will work for you - maybe you're not a very good sport-climber (and/or just too inexperienced) and you don't have much skill to transfer, or maybe you don't have the kinesthetic sense required to minimize power output on steep ground, or maybe your head-space isn't the type to stay controlled in complicated, potentially dangerous situations, but you won't know till you try. if it doesn't work for you, blow it off and move on. if it does, welcome - you're gonna have some ASTONISHING days mixed into the interminable waits for conditions to come in! [not to mention all that beer!!!] someone suggested heading to the seracs on the coleman glacier on baker - that's a favorite "training ground", almost a "sport" in its own right. i get down there a few weekends every autumn; PM me and join in... cheers,

adrian, oops, my bad. i missed the part about descending south in the TR, saw the "reversed N to S traverse" bit in one of your replies, had a brain-fart, and "knew" that you could ONLY traverse S-N if you climbed the S peak. tks to dru, now everyone knows the easiest way down... cheers,