haireball

Climb the Mace - if nothing else, the wild step-across to the boulder-problem-summit is worth it! Then head further south if you can. Granite Mountain (Prescott), Mt. Lemon (Tucson, or, for a real adventure, Baboquivari - in the middle of BF-nowhere...

Dwayner, nope - Katie finally married Tim Birnham - the forest service firefighter she was going with about the time you're describing. My wife is (was?) Jeff Splittgerber's widow, Karen. Don't know if you knew Jeff, but we all guided for Jim, then for Katie after she took over LAG. Jeff had the first parapente distributorship and school in Washington, and was killed flying a prototype chute in 1988. I married Karen in the spring of'91. Katie had a leg crushed by rockfall in Colorado back in about '87 or so, and has been unable to climb since. She has however, defied the original prognosis, kept the leg, and walks unassisted. She and Tim are back in Washington as of last fall, living in Cashmere.

twenty years ago (yeah, '81) I climbed the Cassin Ridge with my "significant other" of three years. the following year she dumped me after finding one who had more $power (think Himalaya...) anyway, I was later briefly married to a Kiwi with a long string of "first female ascents" in NZ. I'm now very happily married (for over 10 years) to a woman who was one of Donini's Leavenworth Alpine Guides. We honeymooned in Red Rocks, and our three sons all climbed Orchard Rock before reaching their 4th birthdays. of course, the kind of woman I'm talking about here wouldn't be suckered by a flash of rack or a rope in the back window. My wife describes her high-school years as frustrating because she could never find a guy who could climb her standard - and that was before she bought her first pair of rock-shoes...good luck fellas...

BD hexcentrics offer the best bang for the buck - for over thirty years now. Try to find them without the wire slings - cord slings are infinitely preferable. In cracks smaller than one-inch, I have found stoppers more useful... None of the above posts has mentioned carabiners, and if you're gonna lead anything close to a 50-meter rope length, you'll need probably a couple of dozen. "D"s may be stronger, ovals are more versatile. I don't buy sewn quickdraws, - buying webbing by the role is more economical... but I have nothing against sewn draws, and use them when my partners prefer them. If you haven't got a mentor, one way to get used to the feel of good placements is to do some moderate crack climbs on aid. (carry a nut-tool!) Don't neglect cordelettes. Two 5-meter lengths of accessory cord will allow you to escape a loaded belay, pass knots (God forbid), rescue an incapacitated partner, construct complex anchors, haul, lower, prussik... good luck! Note: anything you can use for trad climbing can be used for sport climbing as well (draws, carabiners, belay devices) - the reverse does not always work...

Jedi, I've got a nine-year old topo of the NE Butt, from when I climbed it. Yeah, I flew in. Give me an address and I'll shoot you a photocopy. Sounds like you've got plenty of advice on approach. Have fun!

ScottP A mistake isn't stupid until you make it the second or third time -- which it sounds like you probably won't. My "learning experiences" have included a ring-bend on a swiss-seat untieing itself mid-rappel (1971); and my favorite - completing the crux 1-1/4" crack on Centerpiece (Mt. Lemon, Tucson, Az), & letting go with both hands to shake out before anchoring on the ledge (logged a forty-footer, had to do the 20' crux section a second time, and scared the brown out of my belayer - most embarrassing!(1978) That's two for free, fair trade for your post. Wanna hear more, it'll cost you beer. Keep climbing!

Donna, Don't succumb to attitude sickness... The flip side of the greed issue is that money talks. The more climbers, and the more money that depends on our sport, the more likely it is that the sport will, in some form, survive and continue. In 1985, the Peshastin Pinnacles were closed to climbing because the orchardists who owned them were advised by their insurors and legal counsel that they could not afford the liability of allowing climbers to use their rocks. Bitterman and Flick (those orchardists) had nothing against climbers...they had welcomed us for decades. And they graciously offered the Pinnacles to anyone who would buy them and assume that liablility. A few of us local hards took them seriously, and began a fund-raising effort that has grown into the operation you now know as the Access Fund. One of the guys who sat in Chrissie Gilbert's living room back in '85 when we got serious about saving the Pinnacles still sits on the board of the Access Fund today. Neither he nor I like crowds. We are fortunate to live where we can climb in the Icicle Canyon or the Pinnacles after work and on weekdays. There is plenty of rock around for those who want to walk to solitude. More critical, however than the numbers, I believe, is how those number behave. Do we pack out our shit (literally)? "blue-bags" are not just for Rainier. Are we civil to one another? Are we civil to gawkers? Just because I no longer own a functional bolt kit, shall I forbid bolting? I think it's here to stay, and our numbers will continue to grow with the general population. I had my kids climbing as soon as they could walk. I take their friends climbing when the other parents will permit it. Personally, I'd love to see climbing more of a mainstream activity. It doesn't have to be like the alps because we can look at the history of European climbing and choose not to repeatit. I look back on thirty-plus years of hard-core climbing and what it has meant to me, and I can't bring myself to say "Well, I got mine...sorry there's none for you". That friend of mine on the Access Fund Board?... also personally owns Rat Creek Boulder. He bought it to protect it for climbers, and when he hears of neighboring landowners hassling climbers using the boulder, he calls up the Chelan County Sheriff and complains about the neighbors bothering his "friends" using his private land. As Paul Harvey says "and now you know the OTHER side of the story". Be grateful for, and friendly to every climber you see...

I recently bought a pair of 5.10 "ElCap" from Climber's Choice International (Medford, OR - purchased through their website). This shoe retails for $130, but CCI was selling them for $54. I've only had them a few weeks, but 5.9 is no problem, and they are very comfortable walkers. I don't wear them for street shoes...they are for summer alpine routes on which my plastics or 7-lb leather behemoths would be overkill. At this price, I can afford to be wrong, but so far, I like em.