Pencil_Pusher

Fuhrer Finger on the 14th. Great bivy sites at 9200. Some exposed crevasse issues, icy up towards top, then back to soft snow where Kautz connects. No problems with bergschrund at 13850 as detailed in prior trip report here. Kautz descent left things to be desired. Very icy at headwall. Wound up running belay to broad ledge above cliffs where we tied ropes together and lowered party off one at a time with last rapping off ice bollards. Running water at Camp Hazard with insanely fun glissades on the way down.

I don't remember even though I just saw it on the 23rd. I think the snow wasn't broken up on that finger but...foggy memory. Horseflies abound from parking lot to Cascade Pass to 6000. Running water was plentiful all the way up to the 7500ft camp (via Sahale Arm), on the approach to Buckner, and on the descent. Nice toilet too. Those little critters are smart, so bury your food well if you leave some behind. The N Face of Buckner was just a few picket placements, especially in the soft snow. The last 200ft was 1-2ft of soft snow over ice, so maybe in a couple of weeks you can justify the ice screws but we didn't need them. In fact, we read a trip report of one crew that went the whole way without a picket placement... I think they went on the 20th. One other thing, the snow may be melted out after ascending past the 6400ft mark on your return, somewhere around 6800ft I'd guess.

Liberty Bell two weekends ago, there's snow filling the approach gully. Made for a quick approach albeit hairy one for those without ice axes. Route free of snow. Tooth has snow on approach, making for similar conditions.

Got to push those pencils up yonder.

In gallons and dollars, sportsfans. How much do you think it would cost to drive there? Seattle to Anchorage is 2272 miles from the source I got. My sorry-butt can't afford the dinero for the plane ticket now, so I guess I'm driving. I've checked with some auto driveaway companies. The ferry is way too expensive, even without the car! Anyone know of any bulletin boards for sailing or driving folks (where I can hitch a ride in lieu of scrubbing the decks, etc)? Short of that, anyone want to split the gas with me? I'm leaving June 7, headed to Talkeetna from Seattle. Thanks, -David pencil_pusher@hotmail.com

MW Alpine Hero, I'll second whomever's vote for climbing up at the Liberty Bell group, up at Washington Pass off Highway 20. Short approach and scenic climbing. The drive from Seattle is long but very scenic. Or try the Tooth up near Snoqualmie Pass off Interstate 90. Same with getting the Selected Climbs in the Cascades books someone previously mentioned, lots of good ideas there.

Holy frijoles! You've got a 149mm fist?! Man, I hope I never get on your wrong side.

Well, I've held one and the thing is small. Go grab one and hold it next to a #4 Camalot. Besides, that data is exactly what WildCountry sent me, they said it was a formatting error their catalogue designers did not catch.

Kudos to Mountain Gear's latest catalog and the multitude of specs they've edited. Still Rockcentrics ranges in mm are incorrectly listed. Not even two #9's stacked together could fill the 149mm stated range for that piece.Here's the list I got from Wild Country in May of last year: #3 24-31mm#4 28-36mm#5 33-41mm#6 38-48mm#7 45-55mm#8 52-64mm#9 61-73mm

There are many lines up the Tooth, Ingalls Peak, and others. Get creative and pass slow groups up if it's a mob scene. Go your own line and be as accomodating to others as you expect them to be towards you.

Wanna have the hut to your team? Go up on a crappy weekend. Worked for me.

Too late to matter, but we were up there for the lovely weekend. Sunday was the best day for you skiers/boarders with the whole Muir snowfield having cherry powder conditions, five inches at the least to just over a foot for quite a ways. That allegedly 13" at Paradise is probably accurate. I was kinda hoping to see some posts of folks who summitted. We spent Fri night with two boarders at Muir, but saw no one Sat. Sun brought a hord of folks heading up for summit pushes. Looks like they had good weather Mon and Tues for it too.

Hey Mike, we're checking out your book for the Kautz later on. For now though, do regular folks do running belays through the Gibraltar Ledges on that route? The solo dude didn't make any mention of this... 'cause he was solo I guess. Anyone have any route specific info that Van Steen or Beckey don't point out in their books? This would be for a winter ascent.

What's the word on that? Is that usual? It was kinda weird, I thought.

JERRY SANCHEZ MIGHT BE ABLE TO TELL YOU MORE ABOUT INSURANCE COMPANIES AND THE CAPS LOCK KEY.

rperitore It's only illegal if you get caught. Survive and send some photos.

Hey all, here's what I found on my trip to CO: I drove through Boulder Canyon, Golden Gates Canyon and Clear Creek Canyon on December 27th. There wasn't squat in the way of ice there. Boulder Falls wasn't in and the only ice I did see was just west of Tunnel 3 on Highway 6. Thanks to whomever pointed out climbingboulder.com. Driving to the ski resort, I spotted killer falls on the south side of I-70 in Idaho Springs. Maybe 1 1/2 to 2 pitches and, I think some three flows. Then there's Silver Plume that I found out about through the website mentioned above. I saw climbers heading up it on my second day of skiing. It looks great and the website had conditions of 12/24 stating the same. There's also some ice just east of Silver Plume and also just south of the interstate, across from the Silver Plume flow. Snow was dumping down during the weekend although I don't think it was enough to feed anything in the canyons I drove through. The ice I spotted west of Tunnel 3 is only 20 feet high (Boulder Falls isn't much higher). Silver Plume is low-angled ice up to the falls area, climbingboulder rates it for beginning to intermediate. And, after the Coors factory tour, I stopped by the Colorado Mountain Club in Golden and they didn't know squat about current ice conditions or any way to find out such. They must've acquired a helluva lot of money lately as their building is looking pretty darned spiffy nowadays with new construction and spanky-clean floors. Observations of a looker.

So my wonderful goretex jacket and pants have been soaking up water for sometime now. They're three years old which doesn't sound old to me. Does that stuff in a spray can work?

Called the ranger station and they reported huge amounts of snow and, of course, did not recommend any attempts.Anyone been up there within the past week? Also, maybe this has been passed around as well, but the annual pass price for Mt Rainier is increasing to $30 as of January 1st.

So I'll be headed down there in a bit and was wondering if anyone had any info on some moderate, one-day outings there? Moderate to the normal man, not Jens or Loren moderate. I'm sure there's tons there. Perhaps you know of an area that offers different routes up water ice of varying degrees of difficulty? All I'm looking for is a day trip from Denver. Estes Park maybe? I dunno. E-mail pencil_pusher@hotmail.com if you don't want to leave a post. Thanks for any info.

I'm curious if anyone knows whether car access is restricted for the south ridge route, due to weather or seasonly closures. The weather forecast isn't looking too good either. Lemme know.Thanks. [ 12-04-2001: Message edited by: Pencil Pusher ]

Yeah, 11/3/01, Saturday, the weather was great. Spindrift skiing (does that qualify as freshies?) for a while, but a whole lot of icy crust skiing. bcollins did better than me, I took off the skis at Panorama as it was just too damn rocky. Great skiing beyond that, everyone was out in force that day.

I second that, put a VW down south for the masses.

Anyone been up there recently?

Another fan! Hey, what the heck is a big-lou? Some sort of discarded candybar? An acronym for something? What? What??????