haireball

I found the next-to-largest sized useful on the E. ridge of S. Early Winter Spire last July... It would fit into a hole that a camming unitwas not compact enough for. I like the ballnut in all of its sizes, although I'm far more addicted to the little ones. I like carrying singles of the two largest sizes, and multiples of the three smallest.

I fit my old footfangs on my kids' alpine ski boots..., and I have an ancient pair of SMC crampons that are too small for any of my kids - might work for you if you want 'em.

I suspect nobody mentioned the south side because you asked about Cooper Spur. I've done the south side route (and several of the other routes already mentioned) in the winter, and all are great in appropriate conditions. One nice thing about the south side is you can ride the lift about halfway to Crater Rock. It's a great ski-descent from the summit, too.

for what it's worth, I'm 6'0 and use a 60cm axe as my all-round snow/ice workhorse. it dangles from my wrist walking on flats, and the spike contacts the ground at about the angle I begin to feel like I might want a third point of contact. I'd look for the most durable thing you can find. Mine's a Forrest, but he's long gone... I've broken both BD and Interalp/Camp axes - the heads of both tools, not the shafts... but I've kept the Forrest for twenty+ years!

it'd be a hard decision between: my first-generation Chouinard alpine hammer - filed to only three teeth now (originally 5) still my favortite 3rd tool - received as a birthday present in 1972 or 60-cm Forrest verglas ice-axe, vintage 1980, absolutely indestructible, and reasonably functional up to about WI4. or the $5 baseball pants I bought at a Tacoma goodwill back in 1985 - heavy knit knicker length, double knee, stretch, synthetic (so don't absorb water) - they look silly as hell, but they've outperformed everything else I've come near (have yet to try Schoeller). wish I knew what the fabric was, and who made 'em!

at the angles you're describing, I typically carry a 60cm ice axe and a hammer with an alpine pick. The alpine hammer works fine as my second tool if the surface gets firm enough (or my partner is unstable enough) that I want one. I rack lightly - often one screw and a picket per climber - just enough to anchor a belay at both ends of the rope - and if the surface is soft, I most often just belay off the axe hammered in as a picket, or t-slotted. Whether to rope up or not depends on the team. If one partner is significantly stronger on poons & tools, try "short-roping" with the strong climber in the lead. This technique allows you to move almost quickly as you could solo, while still remaining anchored to the surface (snow, ice, or rock). Your question specified snow/ice, so I'm not addressing the possibility of needing additional rock hardware...

after his fa of the Messner Couloir on Denali, Reinhold descended aforementioned couloir on Alaska's ubiquitous red plastic sled!!! I've seen the slides (photo-projection- type that is), taken by a NPS climbing ranger hanging out at the 14K basin, who thought for sure that he'd be packin' Reini's carcass out! What a howl!!!

right! and just for the record, I did not (nor will I ever) suggest good mornings. that move scares the brown out of me - best left to folks who are well beyond taking suggestions from the likes of me... I like the dead-lift because it has a huge safety margin: I get to start with the weight on the ground, and when I start the pull, if my hips rise faster than my shoulders, I can safely let go of the bar before I hurt myself! (can you say "wimp"?, or at least "chicken"? I kinda like the current configuration of my vertebrae...)

Lucky, you da man! What say, guys, let's help him out, huh? maybe an April version of the "fall rope-up" would be in order (you listenin', Beck?). If I show up, will you teach me to weld?

so Courtenay, what's your take on the "super-slow" school? personally, I suspect there's some value in varying the tempo of a move from time to time, just as there's value in changing the move itself. I think there's particular value to "super-slow" (5 seconds for contraction phase, 10 seconds for the negative, a total of 15 seconds for each rep) for climbers, because we often find ourselves having to hold a partial contraction for a period of time (like, long enough to place a stopper). so, every once in a while I'll throw in a set of super-slow pullups just for giggles & grins.

WOW! finger extensor work! maybe all this hanging around on this site will prove to be worthwhile after all! Thanks (and please, folks, this is not meant tongue-in-cheek! I really had overlooked this concept...)

gymnasts take it hands down - John Gill, Alan Watts, Lynn Hill - all formally trained gymnasts and there are more dancers (particularly those trained in ballet) come in a close second and for those of us who may never make the one-arm pullup grade, I give you Judy, who spent a summer back in '83 helping out with the Leavenworth Alpine Guides just after Katie took over from Jim. Judy was British, a solid 5.11 leader even prior to the availability of Friends, and was known throughout Britain as "the no-pullup-lady" because she'd never (so she claimed) been able to perform even a single standard pullup! What was it that old guy kept telling the Karate Kid?...

many strength coaches recommend the dead-lift as a great move for building grip, and after using it a few years, I'd have to concur. on a standard dead-lift, I pull nearly twice my bodyweight. this would be like doing hangboard workouts with a 150lb pack (I weigh 180), but the deadlift has the added advantage of training your back and legs as well - and I prefer to bag as many birds as possible with each stone I cast... or try doing bench step-ups in sets of 20-30 with a 50lb dumbell in each hand (start with lighter weights if you have to, and work up - increasing the weight when you can complete a set of 30 repetitions) - this will not only develop a killer grip for you, but killer lungs as well...

lemmee guess - the Thimble?

in thirty years of training and climbing, I've known maybe a half-dozen mutants who could perform a one-arm pullup. every one of them, including Alex Lowe and Tom Hargis, admitted that they had had that ability prior to ever beginning formal training. (anecdotal evidence to support the claim that its a genetic thing) I asked Hargis once how many pullups he could do and he just laughed and said he didn't know - said he got bored before he got tired! My favorite Hargis story is one he told me about his days in the Marines... his sergeant got on his case about something and demanded ten pullups. Hargis, ever the smart-ass, replied "sure, sarge, which arm?" "Left arm, asshole!" So Hargis cranks ten one-arm pullups on his left arm. then the Sarge barks, "OK asshole, now right arm!!" and Hargis dutifully cranks off ten on the right arm. At that point, the Sarge gave up and dismissed him! the sports physiologists I've known tell me that the determiner for this move is the distance from the shoulder joint to the point of insertion of the lat tendon into the humerus. minor variations in this distance may account for leverage advantages which make one person far stronger than another, even though the stronger person may be less muscular. for the record, I can pop 19 pullups in a single set without resting, and can pull about half my body weight with one arm on an assisted pullup machine.

read the literature on avalanche survival. the statistical probability of your recovering someone alive from a burial deeper than two meters is virtually zero. the problem is that even though you may locate a deeply buried person, you can't dig fast enough to save them if they are deeper than about a meter. if you are truly concerned about your ability to save your partner, your choice of gear (probe-poles or dedicated probe; brand of transceiver, etc)is of far less import than the amount of time you are willing to spend practicing with it. professional ski-patrollers at areas with avalanche hazard ratings of class-A (like Stevens Pass, Alpine Meadows, Snowbird)practice pretty much daily with mock burials. unless you are committed to putting in the practice time, it won't matter which probe you're carrying...

actually, the answer to the original question is dirt simple and requires no underground assumption of enmity: if a guy is so busy doing new routes that he never gets time to repeat anybody elses routes, howinhell can he recommend anybody elses routes? I mean, in good conscience, he can only recommend routes he's actually done, right??

I absolve you from your sins in the name of the leader, and of the follower, and of the holy belayer. For your penance, write 1000 times "thou shalt not cut switchbacks". Take the list to your local copy shop and have it enlarged so that you have 1000 legible signs, then take the signs and distribute them to appropriate points along the Mt. Si trail. Then go your way and sin no more...

kevin's right. and if you seriously can't afford a new beacon, professional ski patrols and mountain rescue teams regularly retire beacons (or upgrade) and sell their old ones dirt cheap. check second bounce.

neither pope nor priest, I am father-confessor to many... and its sacrAmental, dimbulb, din't those nuns teach you nuthin?

While in most cases I applaud and practice the small-light-minimal-assistance expedition, I feel differently about Himalayan climbing. I have not climbed in the Himalaya, but have numerous close friends who regularly do. They return with stories of indigenous people who live on potatoes themselves, but import rice to serve to western climbers; of valleys deforested to provide cooking fires for western climbers too cheap/lazy to bring stove fuel for the approach marches, resulting in the natives having to burn dung for their own cooking fires because they have no modern stoves nor access to fuel for them...somehow, a few days wages seems small payment for the ecological debacle western alpinism has inflicted on the indigenous peoples of the Himalaya however - is unsupported climbing possible in the Himalaya? I doubt it. I used an airplane to ferry equipment to Denali and nearby peaks. I used gauchos (muleskinners) to ferry equipment to Aconcagua. While you oughtn't need climbing sherpas, you gotta get you and your gear & food from the airport to basecamp. Might as well pay up and enjoy the company... [ 12-03-2001: Message edited by: haireball ] [ 12-03-2001: Message edited by: haireball ]

a suggestion to those who replace these hangers: after torquing the nuts down, hammer any exposed bolt-threads to pulp, then bury the nuts in large blobs of expoxy. if the perp comes back for seconds, he/she will find the new hangers impossible to remove without destroying them. if he/she is collecting hangers for re-use, he/she will quickly give up. if he/she is "making a statement", he/she will be a whole lot easier to identify traveling with a crowbar than with a tiny wrench. 'luck, comrades...

listen to Fudgepacker, folks - 'cause in this case, (s)he's right! my brother-in-law was a medic in Vietnam, and he happily confirms the rumor I had once heard that what is now sold as "Super Glue" was originally developed by the military to be a rapid, stitchless wound closure.

forget the damn bag - just put the foot where the sun don't shine!

food is indeed good! being one of those cursed with a RAPID metabolism, I've learned to carry a gorp-bag and a pint water-bottle on my harness in place of a chalk-bag on long climbs. (I guess that dates me - I haven't graduated to one of those new-fangled hydration packs yet - though I did buy my mtn-bike-racer-wife one for her birthday this fall).