Pencil_Pusher

quote: If you've ever bivvied with your male partner and snuggled for warmth, didn't you find they were warmer than a female partner in the same situation?Hmmm, let me think . While this has been discussed as a contingency plan for extreme cold, my guess is not too many guys have experienced what you describe. Maybe that's the key to going light. Perhaps Twight would shed some light(!) on this subject Really though, it just depends on the individuals. Two people could roast together whereas some are cold-skinned... someone get Courtenay for this physiological advice.

I'm in the bike group. Biking saved my knees. No more Icy Hot nor Advil if I bike on a regular basis, mileage unknown. When they were hurting, using hiking sticks helped with an Ace knee brace. Bike, bike, bike.

I would think people in the medical profession's pay is directly related to their education and/or training.

[ 10-21-2002, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: Pencil Pusher ]

I heard the record for the Wonderland Trail is 28+ hours... for all you trail runners out there. Blight said something about doing the Olympus trip in 14+ hours. I think some dude named Yvon-or-something once said, "If you bring bivy gear, you will bivy." Zone out the pain and trash the records of the past.

DanO, I was thinking about the climber's weight as well. Wasn't Goran a big guy? I'm no engineer though so I have no clue what, if any, difference that has on impact force or whatever. What I would like to know, as perhaps others here would as well, is if and when there will be a memorial service for Goran? Erden or anyone else know?

Hey Lambone, is a cell phone included in the ten essentials?

It's times like these that make me feel good for leaving my beat-up, unwashed car at these trailheads. I too am a subscriber to the "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy. It'd be a real shame to get your butt kicked talking smack and confronting people who just stole from you. Instead, make a lot of noise and attract others attention if you happen upon them. If no one else is around, your best bet is to either be a really good witness or think you know what you're doing and approach the thieves... your choice. It'd probably be best to be a really good witness. Make mental notes to self and write it all down as soon as you can. File your report and hope for the best. The police response time is dependent on too many factors to briefly type up. Take a walk in their shoes and you'll see things in a different light, much further from typical stereotypes and alot you'll wish you hadn't seen. Notice they're not telling you how to do your job. State Patrol = Professional Taillight Chasers That's all they do. Stick with King County on this one.

Hey, the Japanese have had this for a while, now we get our turn! Samsung has this cell-phone with a digital camera built in that SprintPCS is now offering service for. Imagine all the possibilities.

We humans smart animals, we carry guns.

A day late and a dollar short, Performance Bike's sale ended on Saturday. Too bad, that was a good sale. I redeemed my trip east by finding my way through the campus and to Marymoor. Deja vu going through the campus, not too long ago I was evading the docker patrol and visiting all the buildings. Does Codato post here?

Tod, great trip report. Thanks for all the info. Don't worry about the permit or the folks that feel the need to remind you about such.

If you wanna go light, this is the place to go. Plus they sell Rock Empire cams for 30 bucks, nearly half the price of Camalots. Light ropes, glacier ropes, all sorts of stuff. And if sales increase exponentially as a result of this post, send me one of those Western Mountaineering light-ass sleeping bags for free.

I'm in the group that has a bunch of partially used cannisters. The Snow Peak doesn't mind when I use Primus so I use whatever is cheap. I like that lid technique described here. The pietzo igniter keeps on working. I think that hanging cartridge stove referenced on this thread was the same one these guys I met were using at 14k camp to cook, make water with, and warm up the tent (and evaporate off all that frost). They brought a regular white gas stove for higher up. I liked the idea of getting up in a relatively warm tent in the morning. They didn't speak of any asphyxia problems.

This season they moved the landing strip up the glacier about a half mile from the standard sometime in late June I think. We flew out on July 4th but two groups flew in that day as well. One was an RMI group and the other was a private group thinking (and looking like) they were going to visit Disneyland. Disneyland pulled out the digital cameras and clicked away while rummaging through the sled pile to find comfortable sleds to sit on. RMI group arrived and immediately started caching and setting up tents. Back to the point. The ground control dude left for good that day with us. Apparently the radio to call someone to fly in and pick you up is left in a little shack, perhaps like the radio in the Muir hut during the winter. As I recall too, there was one other guided group at 11,000 that was ascending and three or four private groups at the 14k camp (June 30th) that were still ascending. At some point, the rumor I heard was that the rangers pull the fixed lines on the headwall and perhaps Washburn's Thumb which was to occur in early July or so. Not sure there. When we left 14k on June 30th, some of the rangers were still there. Granted I was half-delirious and eating snow for water on the way down, but I thought the miles of flat land from Ski Hill to the landing strip were a crevasse-land-mine-hell. Nevertheless, check with RMI. The lead guide I think was named Dave or David. Maybe he could give you some route conditions for that late in the season. Oh yeah, the day before we flew out winds were reported at 149mph on the summit. Maybe you'll see some lanky dude with a beard, wearing tights and a Kelty Cloud pack with "Tejas" marked on it. Oh, and your exit. I heard if the planes can't land at the landing strip, it's unusual for the NPS to give them permission to land in the park. This means a slog out to some road. Flying out, it looked like any further southerly travel on the glacier would require a life vest or inner tube as pools were forming on the glacier. Heh, heh, I'm so glad it's you and not me. Definitely fly in with the air service that advertises two chicks and a bird, McKinley Air Service I think. Julie, the pilot, daringly came low through the fog layer and found a way for the other pilots to come pick us up. This was after three days at the landing strip when the weather wasn't supposed to clear for another week. A different air service flew overhead earlier that day and said conditions weren't good enough to land. Thanks to Julie and her efforts, the other services came in and 20 or so of us got out that day. I heard from another group I met in Anchorage on the way out that Julie did a similar stunt a few days later which is why his group got out. You see, when the bigger air services aren't flying us in or out, they're flying sightseeing tourists. Those flights sometimes take precedence over your poh-dunk ass sitting on the landing strip waiting for a ride out. And nothing sucks more than waiting after you've been pissing in a bottle for three weeks, melting snow for water and tasting that burnt taste, and eating all the food you didn't want to eat because all the good food is gone. Not to mention everything being wet because things don't dry as quickly down low.

Screw paying the $21.50 price at REI for the 1.5 pound can. Go on the web and get it for $13.95!! All I did was type Cytomax in the search box and a whole slew of companies came up with insane prices (versus rip-off REI). I forgot how much fun this office work really is.

[ 09-26-2002, 01:55 PM: Message edited by: Pencil Pusher ]

It's been a while, but their website looks great! A big change from the first time I checked it out. Wish I had the dinero...

Well we did the moat crossing high, rather awkward vertical moat exposure. We then traversed all the way to the left. The blue rap slings were at the left (south?) side of the summit ridge. Should we have gone up the knife ridge instead? So let me go back a bit. We went from Snow Dome to the #1 route in the Olympic Climbing Guide which brings you around to the backside of the five fingers. The snow ends at a crumbly rock ridge which we crossed then traversed to the right towards the notch below the summit peak. The notch brought us onto some steep snow where the boot track brought us to a high moat crossing. We followed what appeared to be a path along the left as described above. The crack we ascended beneath the rap slings were but a few moves of 5.4ish. Then up to the ridge and the traverse to the summit marker.

Well we did the moat crossing high, rather awkward vertical moat exposure. We then traversed all the way to the left. The blue rap slings were at the left (south?) side of the summit ridge. Should we have gone up the knife ridge instead? So let me go back a bit. We went from Snow Dome to the #1 route in the Olympic Climbing Guide which brings you around to the backside of the five fingers. The snow ends at a crumbly rock ridge which we crossed then traversed to the right towards the notch below the summit peak. The notch brought us onto some steep snow where the boot track brought us to a high moat crossing. We followed what appeared to be a path along the left as described above. The crack we ascended beneath the rap slings were but a few moves of 5.4ish. Then up to the ridge and the traverse to the summit marker.

Has anyone been up there recently to know how much things have opened/iced up? Thanks for any info.

Ditto the sentiments of Norman Clyde and sketchfest. They're both cool guys to hike and climb with. Now Sketchfest is being modest, he carried the rope the whole way up and wore boots for the whole trip. Clyde carried his boots and had a three liter camelback. My punk ass wore trail running shoes the whole trip and carried a one liter platypus. Of going light, my diaper harness was a spectra double with a neutrino biner and a locking biner to clip in with. We took the left side of snow dome going up and me wearing the insteps on trail shoes and the hard snow made for some desperate ordeals. Not to mention the aluminum ice axe. Extremely light but not able to pound a picket in. We all had Tikka headlamps. Cytomax is expensive (cheaper if you buy it from the muscleman/nutrition shops) but does wonders... it's a drink mix. It helped me recover quite a bit prior to our three hour shiver fest. Also, bring enough food (fuel) for the trip. I brought seven candy bars, three Gu's, two bagels, lemon drops, and a pound of potato salad plus I made sure to tank up prior to our departure. For pro on the choss pile, we brought two tri-cams and a stopper. No pro is necessary, you could just sling horns and flakes the whole way up. One thing that confused us was the route up was supposed to be class 3, yet 15 feet beneath the rap slings we could find no easier way than straight up that crack. Were we on track... was there an easier way? Oh yeah, none of us brought helmets, they weren't really needed. I tore out the two pages from the Olympic range climbing book for Olympus, this helped us out once we got on the glacier. For anyone else that does go and hasn't been there, we took the higher path from glacier meadows (there's a Y a little ways up from the meadows which didn't seem like meadows to me) and dropped down onto the glacier, per the instructions. What you want to aim for is the toe of the rock that is at the left side of snow dome, any further left and you'll be going up some icefall and crevasse hell. That's around 5600 feet and is a good visual reference as you descend onto the glacier. From there you can either scramble over rock on a rising rightward traverse (or on snow near rock) to the rock's highest point (it ends on a gentle snow shoulder). Go up about 200 meters and then begin a rising leftward traverse till you top out on snow dome. I'm writing this because we had no boot track to follow from the trail to snow dome and we took the left hand side of snow dome to ascend which really sucked at that time of year (with our wonderful four point crampons). If you stay on the standard track, insteps should suffice fine. Of the 14+hours roundtrip that Blight quoted, it took us 6.5 hours to get to Glacier Meadows with a couple of detours and a long stop at the ranger station. Coming back, it took a little over 4 hours to get to the car from the meadows. I bet a really fit person could hit the meadows in 5-5.25 hours and do the exit in 3-3.5 hours which leaves 5-6.5 hours for the round trip ascent from the meadows which is very feasible. That person (gals, feel free to show the boys a lesson or two) would have to be lean and mean and that's not me. Many thanks to Olivier and Mike for showing us this could be done in that 24 hour time frame. I really didn't know if I was going to make it until I got to mile marker 2.3. The views of the mountains that day were great, both in sunlight and moonlight.

Right on, Erik.

Zero enthusiasm as I type this, but the impossible was done yesterday. Mt Olympus, car to car in 23 hours, 43 minutes. Why? We're still asking ourselves that.

Yo, Swissman and Mr Bell, we're off to do the impossible. Redrum. Redrum.