fleblebleb

Yeah, that was exactly the spot Ray! I lead up to it with Tim simulclimbing a ropelength below me, and the only pieces I had were a stopper 30' below the step, a completely worthless picket I had put in further down mostly to see how it felt, and a bush down by Tim. If the "ice" had fallen off the step when I pulled on the tools I would have ridden 60' to the stopper, and I had been unable to determine whether it was sitting between two solid rocks or a solid rock and a loose block. If it had blown I would have gone for a 300' ride onto a waist-high bush, probably pulling it and Tim along with me and ending up in Chair basin. Not my game. So I downclimbed back to the stopper, equalized it with another stopper and put a screamer on the result, but still couldn't shake the concern with the block. I had tried putting a pin close to there which was kind of interesting - placed it halfway, whacked it once and it disappeared into the crack up to the eye as the crack widened. Then I went sideways to the right and put in a three piece anchor (two stoppers and a cam) and brought Tim up and he gave me a belay. I debated whether to try going straight up the slurpee on the step or go to the far left and bash snow and verglas directly below the trees. There was absolutely no option 10' left though, not that I could see. I climbed over to the left but before starting the steep section Tim pulled me back and we decided to go down. All in all it was a fun time though, interesting lesson in when not to climb snow and ice

Matt is effortlessly cool. Spray is fun in spray. Spray is a nuisance in route reports and ruins a route reports thread once it starts accumulating. Nobody (except Matt) should take this personally at all, it's just no fun to read through a route reports thread and suddenly run into a long string of name-calling posts with zero content. One or two posts is OK but what's with everybody always having to have the last word? An additional concern is that it is so much more difficult to search through threads from previous years when threads can't live for more than a few pages before going bad. If somebody searches for Chair next year then they'll find a bunch of threads from this year where one would probably be nicer.

Blagh yech yugh. Mashed potatos and slurpee anyone? TimL and I tried Chair NE Butt today but backed off at the step about 3/4 up. There was no ice to swing at or put screws in anywhere on the entire climb. An Abalakov in what we have up there now, when pigs fly. But at the rate the step was melting out today it doesn't surprise me that it was good to rap from last Friday. Snow pro in the crap is a joke, not very funny though. There is a big boot track up the entire middle snow slope, not what I was hoping to be climbing really. The couloir at the bottom was a lot of fun though, up to the lowest trees. If you want to go for it you probably can, the step we retreated from could have been climbed either by going straight up over the bulge (super carefully - don't blame me if it all falls off with you on it) and it could also be bypassed on the left on a steep ramp of snow and verglas (same warning). No pro within 30-40 feet of either though, unless you try digging for it and get lucky.

LOL - fucking classic. Stop trying to kill the spray crackhead. Can't believe Dwayner went all nice all of a sudden. What's the world coming to?

Plastics and VB socks in the lower 48? A good sturdy leather boot with a half shank will be nicely waterproof if you apply some wax. Add a pair of wool-blend socks and aluminum crampons and you're set to go.

Fridays are also great for stumbling around in circles in the dark. In fact any day that begins with an alpine start following a bout of insomnia and coughing fits is great for stumbling around in circles in the dark. Woo-hoo!

Hah! Two stars for you

Dwayner, say something! DWAYNER! D W A Y N E R !!!!! Where is the @#$% chap when he's needed?

Hahaha Ade, just when we think we're being funnier than shit the Brits pop up again with even funnier shit they're taking for real. Classic.

No dammit, that's not the measure at all because people only bother to rate you if your rating is inaccurate (anything other than 2 stars )

The precip started Saturday night and the measurement reports for the Snoqualmie ski area were that 10" had come down by Sunday afternoon. I was there and had guessed it was 12-15". I could easily believe there were more than 20" by Monday night. Whatever, doesn't really matter. There is fresh snow, it is consolidating.

What Erik said. Plus, whatever info you get today may be crap tomorrow. Last Saturday the Alpental area was all crust, ice and styrofoam and awesome for climbing, with minimal or non-existent avy hazard. Then last Sunday it went to 10" of fresh fluffness, was awesome to ski, but I think the backcountry access from the ski area was closed due to the chance of the new snow sliding on top of the crust etc.

Alrighty people, that's it, I'm breaking into the cc.com servers, fucking with the database to mix this thread with the wine thread from the other day, turning the result over to the men in the white gowns, and we'll finally have it on paper that you are all certifiably insane

You're forbidden to do anything other than work and sleep Gary so stop spraying and get back to it. Incidentally, does your advisor let you eat?

The chair thread is dead. Long live the chair thread!

I don't know about that, seems to me like he had one opinion on how his trip went and another on how the thread read - refreshing when compared to the folks who sometimes seem to apply the same opinion to everything. I like the spray, in spray...

Triumph is very cool but you'd need to be quite the alpine ninja to pull it off in a day. I failed to do it in a day plus an evening, because we got lost on the approach in the dark (wrong side of @#$% lake). It's quite reasonable in two days but lots of folks take three. If you have two or three days to do a single climb in that area I would also consider the South Pickets. I haven't climbed there myself but I've heard so much raving about Inspiration that it is starting to make my ears hurt by now.

Don't be so hurt, it's just tough on people to not make fun of you. Bear with me.

My sweet what? Maybe you can sign up for keeping track of the conditions around that belay check route? Are the trails up Pilchuck and Mt. Si in these days?

Eldorado and Forbidden are very accessible and have great routes. Given your constraints I'd look at Shuksan and Stuart before Buckner, Logan, Goode or the Pickets.

Can you recognize when people are laughing with you, and when they're laughing at you?

Well duh, of course I couldn't wait for the photos Dave I'm gnashing my teeth over waiting and not climbing it before the high pressure system dissipated, flu or not. Now I have to wait until who knows how many feet of fresh snow get settled. to you

The photos are all there (sweet!) but the image tag played a trick on you.

Did you two toprope a parking lot together?

Pope, there were ~15-20' of ~70 degree water ice close to the bottom of the gully. The rest was crusty snow, but what a nice, firm crust! Klenke, actually, there were tracks all over the place when we got up there. Nobody had bothered to tag the north summit though. For awhile on the descent down to the Guye-Snoq saddle I successfully deluded myself into thinking that the extremely faint footprints I was following were my own tracks from about a month ago, but that might have been overly optimistic, heh.