willstrickland

Hook me up yo, I already got Smoky in my sig image see...

quote: Originally posted by Dru: And still made by slave labour, oops, prisoners. Hey, you rather have them sitting on their sore cornholed ass watching cable, or making you some cheap biners? Gives them something to do besides stabbing each other (in more ways than one). Now if they get the other half of the prison population to grow their own food, and maybe tend some farm animals, we'd have a reasonable cost associated with incarceration. Of course, if they released all the non-violent drug offenders, we'd have about half the cost burden we see now (no I'm not saying 50% of inmates are non-violent DOs)

quote: Originally posted by verticalturtle: Omega 4.0 Wire gate mucho roomminimal pesos Got these on my draws, agree with VT. I'm partial to OP gear, good designs and economical prices.

quote: Originally posted by wdietsch: willstrickland was bitchin about the Omega JC one day ice climbing, same kind of issues Yeah, gloved hand manipulation being the gripe. The rope-edge radius is actually really large, and these things are featherlight and run $4.79 for blems. They are awesome for rock routes, but too small and gate opening too small for ice. gearexpress has the blems, I've got around 15 of them on my rack.

quote: Originally posted by Dru: Routes I want to do, supposed to be real good.Crimson ChrysalisGinger CracksWild TurkeysResolution arete (goes at 5.10 with one short aid section)Epinephrine. Dru hits it pretty much on the head. Personally, I wouldn't recommend Black Orpheus to anyone, I thought it was two pitches of fun and eight pitches of shit with a pain in the ass approach/ descent (though they're not very long by RR stds) "Wild Turkeys" full name is "Dream of Wild Turkeys" out at Black Velvet, and you can do Prince of Darkness in the same area - 6 pitch sport with pitches of .10a, .10b, and .10c with the other 3 going at .9 I think. Read my TR if you want a little beta on Resolution, rad climb, but you gotta move fast (or follow with a big pack with bivy gear), and if you do it .10 A0 take some extra #3 TCU through #2 Camalot. The aid is only on pitch 7, where you climb a 6ft roof via thin hands/fingers at 11+, on aid straightforward A1 camming. Also, take 2 #4s or at least a 3.5 and 4, you'll want them. Epinephrine goes pretty fast for the length, and it's right there at Black velvet too. This is a climb with alot of chimney pitches down low and one of the few routes with lots of chimney that you might actually enjoy.

http://www.northernmountain.com

Anyone interested? The area I have in mind is currently showing temps of 22 deg at 5am. The approach is short, it's close to PDX, and will likely be maybe a few cragging pitches. These lines form from seeps, rather than a creek, so ice could be thin, non existent, and will likely have a quite a bit of snow cover. PM today before 3pm if interested. I'm thinking either day on the weekend.

quote: Originally posted by rayborbon: I think I will go out and chop your next sport project for fun. LMFAO! Classic Ray, classic!.

quote: Originally posted by allison: How about a little wit? Ok, I'll bite. Who is this Art guy, where is he having all these frenzied orgies, and just exactly what is he capable of? Your quote leaves off the end of the saying right when it's avbout to explain his "capabilities"

quote: Originally posted by Jason Martin: The summer 2001 Mountain Bulletin published by the American Mountain Guides Association has a very interesting and somewhat disturbing article about water knots and cyclic loading. Generally speaking they attempted to load and unload the knots a hundred times. With a one inch tail they were seldom able to make the hundred count. It pulled through. So what does this mean? To me, it means they need to re-evaluate their testing protocol. A 1" tail? How realistic is that? If any of you guys only put a 1 inch tail in any kind of knot you trust your life to, remind me to never tie in with you. I bet you repeat that test with 3" tails and the results are vastly different. And, as for me, I tend to evaluate a rap anchor, look at how it's rigged, inspect both the webbing itself and the knot. In my eyes, the water knot is much cleaner, and easier to inspect.

Don't worry, I'm not talking about some CC.com stuff. Here's the deal: When I go on long trips, I always meet lots of people who bestow unsolicited kindness. Whether that's loaning me an extra #5 for that burly offwidth to giving me a ride to town, it helps reaffirm that people are basically good. It's nice to have some kind of stash of gifts to hook people up with. I had a stash of those mini keychain style biners one time and would give those to people as a little "thank you" thing. I'm tossing around the idea of making up some t-shirts this time. Something along the lines of a "dirtbag climber trash" theme. So far I've only come up with these ideas: 1. A malt-liqour logo appropriation thing where the label on the can reads something about dirtbags 2. A scanned photo of some dude passed out in the dirt by his tent, surrounded by a rope and tons of empty cans and/or 40s of OE and either a caption under the photo or a large type on the back "Dirtbag Climber Trash, CE certified" Anybody got other ideas and/or mad graphic design skills? There's obviously a free shirt in it for you if I use your stuff.

Approach is around the back of Timber Lake, a rather queer traverse, but apparently attracts lots of pre-pubescents.

quote: Originally posted by W: Still, I think it might be a good idea to wear a helmet. As this is rumoured to be a "first ascent", one would assume a helmet is not necessary as long as you clean your pin in time...However, how do we know some guy wasn't up there back in '99 and left no trace? I recommend a hat at minimum, preferable by the JimmyHat company...a subsidiary of SplitHer gear.

That link is ripped off of Liquidgeneration.com, which loads really fast and has pretty cool stuff to boot

You are correct sir, the climber is Godefroy Perroux. Found this on the Simond page,pretty decent picture gallery over there Gallery

Is that $20 Canadian? What's that about $0.47 US? Got all the unis I need, they actually make good alpine pins and a passable head paster with those pointy tips.

From the e-Medicine Journal Volume 3 No 2: Vitamin E is a fat-soluble vitamin that acts as an antioxidant and free radical scavenger in lipophilic environments and is consumed by approximately 20% of the US population. It requires bile for absorption, and 25% of the vitamin is absorbed orally. Storage of the vitamin occurs in adipose tissue, liver, and muscle. The US recommended dietary allowance is 30 mg/d. The oral median lethal dose found in several species is 2 g/kg, and adverse effects usually are observed at doses greater than 1 g/kg, which is equivalent to 200-500 mg/kg in humans. However, vitamin E has been shown to have few adverse effects, even at high dosages (up to 3200 mg/d). Most deleterious effects have been observed in small studies and in case reports. And from Intelihealth:The recommended daily allowance (RDA) of Vitamin E is 10 to 15 IU daily. Doses in excess of 300 Units daily for prolonged periods in rare cases can cause diarrhea, cramps, headache, blurred vision, rash, and kidney and muscle damage. IUs measure drug activity, rather than weight, so we can have a meaningful measure across drug forms (i.e. vit E can be extracted in various salt forms as well as sythesized and each form acts a little differently, hence the need for IU as oposed to mg or ug) So we can essentiallyassume that if you ate 20 packs a days for a week, you'd probably not be happy. But, taking the conservative scenario, and equating 10IU to 30mg, and using the 500mg/kg lethal dose, a 70kg climber (about 154lb) you would have to eat over 1100 packs in a day to kill themself. Adverse effects could be expected with a reasonable level of confidence around the 450th pack. Realistically, the caffeine in the stuff might hit a lethal dose before the Vit E, or even the sheer amount of sugar might shut down your pancreas and put you in insulin shock or a diabetic style coma. I'm (obviously) no doctor, but you're not going to OD on Vit E by eating GU...hell if you can stomach 50 in a day,the climbing itself will probably feel like the easy part.

So Dru, since you're alpine climbing all the time, I guess you won't be needing those heavy LAs right? Wanna make some of your loot back? The "memorial" route name is an excellent idea IMO.

I've just gotta wonder how many of you cats on the grivel wagon (hey I use rambo cramps, so no brand prejudice here) have A/B 'ed the Raven and Air Tech. I have and would take the Raven everytime. The Raven works much better in ice because it actually has some swing weight, more concentrated in the head, and the head is probably the most ergonomic and comfortable axe head to hold in cane or low and high dagger that I've seen. Keep in mind that alpine ice is hard and a little more weight in the head will give you better sticks. For the original poster: go somewhere that has both and examine them side by side. If you other guys haven't seen a Raven itself but are assuming it's just another version of BD's old Alpamayo, take a look and hold one, you'll be impressed I think.

Chalk this up as one man's opinion: I tried this little trick once. I had the tibloc on a bomber nut with a 24" sling. I will never do this again unless I'm climbing something close to vertical and in that case the resulting fall will likely be clean (although long) so why bother?. My experience was that the tibloc and rope can become twisted in the sling when you're not climbing straight up from the tibloc causing a real pain in the ass from rope drag. In retrospect, unless the 2nd can keep virtually all the slack out of the system, you're setting up for a fall onto the sharp teeth in the tibloc. While I wouldn't worry about it cutting the rope and sending you to the deck, I would be concerned with the damage it did to the rope and finishing hard pitches on that rope. In my eyes, if you're simulclimbing you must not fall PERIOD. If the second can't regularly free solo the grade I don't even consider the simul. The second climber should be the better climber in this scenario for obvious reasons...carrying the pack, worse result if 2nd pitches as opposed to leader, etc. To me it's one of those "good in theory, but shitty in practice" deals.

I think the deal with Simond is they just don't have any kind of real US distribution to speak of. I believe Terminal Gravity is a Simond fan, he could probably answer re:quality, If I recall properly, the he uses a Simond as a 3rd tool.

Best thing I've seen going is the BD Raven. It's light, not as light as the grivel, but lighter than most. The head is very nicely shaped for plunging and carrying in piolet canne. The spike is a much better design than the Grivel. They're cheap too, blems can be had for about $60. The only thing the Grivel has going over the BD is weight. My 2nd choice is the Grivel Air-tech. If I were to pick up another std axe it'll be one of these two.

They should be avaiable through the FOIA process (thats Freedom of Information Act). Let me relate this though, as a public sector employee currently in county govt, formerly in fed govt: If someone in the system does not want you to see the docs, there are a lot of devious ways to keep them from you. The most common is cost and time, I've witnessed a lawyer trying to get documents who was sent from building to building, made to wait for long periods of time to meet with someone who inevitably sent them to scheulde a meeting with someone else...all on purpose as a way to try to force them to "give up" out of frustration. Then the guy was told that the docs he sought were archived and there's a $25 fee to locate and pull the archived file and that since he wasn't allowed in the archive areas, he would have to have the info he requested copied by one of our secretaries at $.10 per page, plus her time in copying and records searches at $20/hr. Since the guy didn't have a particular document he wanted but something along the lines of "anything related to property parcel xyz123" he had no idea what cost he would incur. Obviously the secretary was in no hurry to accomodate him and by way of default copied everything in sight. His bill, to get one relevant document that he actually used in a land use appeal, amounted to a couple grand in the end and he still lost the appeal. The bureacratic "levels" system allows for an endless amount of jerking around.

Sounds like one of you sincere, smart, studly, sensitive, soul-searchering types needs to show up and bat your eyes at Allison so as to pique her interest and get her "enthused enough about it to drive to I-Quah" I'm enthused enough about it that I'll make an appearance some week soon, preferably after a weekend at Index with one/some of youse. Got those sick days to burn up before I quit ya know...