slothrop

Yeah, it was pretty good. He showed slides from K2, Trango Tower, and a trip to the Ak-su/Kara-su region (where Tommy Caldwell et al. got shot at a while later). The best part was the photos of a small-building-sized flake breaking off Trango Tower as Greg and partner sat at a belay a few hundred feet away. Always wear your helmet! Apparently, camels are more fearsome than even the notorious . At least :snaffle:s don't vomit on you while kicking your shins.

I asked about it at REI and all I got were blank stares and a suggestion that I might find it in the cycling department

Hit Index Monday with my buddy John, who left this morning for a job in Maryland .We climbed some fun cracks until the rain washed us away. I feel bad for John, all he's going to do for the next six months is gym climbing while I'll be in the alpine and on the real rock.

Anyone know of a place to get this stuff in Seattle? I have some stanky sandals and shoes that could use it.

Someone should sit in the bushes with a pair of ice tools and go wolverine-style on they asses.

yeah, V4 is damn hard. or maybe i just suck, too.

Part Deux of the Wrinkly Fat Rockin' Duo:

I'd go. Rather hit the UW rock than Marymoor, tho.

Ya can't do it from your hard drive. You have to put the image on a web server somewhere. Maybe if you give timmy some of your "peaches" he'll do it for you...

Yeah, that finger crack on the slab is tasty. I always wuss out at the end and smear in the corner on the left. Perfect fingerlocks getting slowly bigger as you go up... nice.

Whoa, is this "Coach" guy the same dude I've been calling Captain Aggro? He looks like he's about 40 and deep in midlife crisis, wears shades and has a sort of fledgling mullet. I saw him race a dude on a bike across the grass behind the UW rock once, grunting and screaming like a wounded wildebeest and running a lot like one, too. I like the fist-to-fingers crack the ends in a block on the south-facing middle wall. And the two-moves-to-a-dyno problem up the left side of the roof is fun, too. Maybe I'll get it someday.

My yellow Alien is the most expensive piece on my rack, and one I place most every pitch.

There are some 20-ft. high bolted routes left of the trestle at Exit 38 you could boulder on.

Yeah, good idea, DFA. ATL, I think DFA wants to be your ropegun.

If you really want to learn to climb, you have to do it often, which means you have to get the hell out of Atlanta. If you can't live within driving distance of mountaineering, you won't climb enough. Read Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills, Climbing Anchors, Knot and Ropes for Climbers, and lots of guidebooks and trip reports. Find a few more experienced people to climb with, and go do easy stuff first, and take time to practice skills along the way (like crevasse rescue, self-arrest, rappelling, anchors, rope management, etc.). I dunno, there's probably some stuff you can do out east to see if you really want to learn to climb. Like cragging, caving, winter hiking in the Appalachians... then come out to the mountains somewhere and find someone to climb with. I'm sure you could find a partner here if you announced your arrival and willingness to contribute gas money, beer and HC.

I hear there's bouldering in (yes, in) Rattlesnake Lake when they drain it in the wintertime.

Godzilla! It's practically .10a, and it has warranted a thread of Muir-on-Saturday-like proportions. After you do that, step a few feet to the left and do the first short pitch of Japanese Gardens, .10a with a section of fun hand jams.

I was on the NE ridge last week and we used two ropes, 30m and almost-30m, for raps down the route. It was a slow descent, but rap anchors are plentiful and easy to find. We didn't have any problems pulling rope, but it took our slow asses nearly 6 hours to descend. Going down to the SE shoulder sounds like a better way out. Have fun, Stebbi TR w/photos available here. [ 08-22-2002, 11:52 PM: Message edited by: slothrop ]

I've got a Canon PowerShot S300 that works pretty well. It has some features to control the exposure, and has a decent optical/digital zoom for its small size (just thicker than a pack of playing cards). It's so convenient, I hardly even think about carrying it, it just goes in the bag. My only beef is with the battery -- one long day and 50 photos in cool weather and it's done for. You can turn off the LCD and not use the flash to save power, but I still wish the battery life was better.

Dunno about Bertulis and Zantop, but the guy we met said he'd done the whole range, north and south. He had a wild-eyed look about him... Jon and I bivied Thursday night, climbed the NE ridge Friday, and got back to camp after dark. We took our time on the route, even though we simulclimbed the whole thing. We slept again Friday night and got back yesterday afternoon. Didn't see another person until we were coming down Saturday morning. Nice route and perfect weather! I hope the two guys we met who were on their way up to the same route didn't get rained on. They had been up on Johannesberg the previous weekend and did many pitches of off-route loose rock before beginning an epic descent.

After signing out at the ranger station in Marblemount, my partner and I were perusing the climbing register. Suddenly, the words "new route on the north face of Fury and a new route on the east face of Challenger" drifted over to us from a few feet away, where a mustachioed older fella was enduring the usual questions from a cute filly in the green shorts. My partner and I exchanged looks and stealthily ambled over next to the guy to eavesdrop. He had his taped-together Green Trails maps laid out, marked up with peak names and various arrows and lines. We chatted with him for a bit, and he mentioned that he had been the third to do the complete Pickets traverse, "back in the Sixties". Whoa. "So you're doing a new route on Challenger?" "Yeah, good rock." "Really? Cool." (Damn, we are so unworthy...) Mr. Hardman got his permit business taken care of, packed up that Secret Map, and was on his way, off to conquer the Pickets with his wife. "Hey, uh, what was that guy's name?" "Oh... Jim Yoder."

quote: Originally posted by Crackbolter: Does anyone own these boots? Does anyone have any feedback? I am considering these and they fit like a glove but they have no history and no one has given them a good or bad review yet. The whole "they fit like a glove" thing sounds like a good reason to get 'em.

quote: Originally posted by Dru: grande queue de cheval dans son cul... "large tail of horse in his bottom". ha.

He was probably pissed enough at having to jumar *all* the previous pitches. At 5.7! How boring.

where's the ballroom?