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When were you there? Wayne and I were there Saturday. That's a super cool climb but rather a lot of offwidth I thought

Yeah what is it with all the Mounties posting here lately, eh? They're just painfully obvious.

Thanks for the PMs, now I'm only looking for partners for the five weekends after this one - so, last week of August and all of September.

after translating from polish to english, bob, your post reads "I want to chestbeat and not get called on it" Alternative translation, "On average it takes dru 2000 yawnacious tries to get in one good post, please spare us all from the barrage."

Ya Wayne is right spray is where it's at. Penalty slack for the three of you, now get with the program. Not that W or Crazy Bob would care much about the slack I guess, dunno about T. Anyway. End spray. Timmy, I doubt anybody knows about that feature. I'd completely forgotten and I only *think* I have a vague recollection of the original discussion about this feature. I bet it hardly ever gets used. However, people do use another feature - articles that are considered interesting sometimes are assigned stars. The Walking the Fence post and the Jberg in winter post both got five stars, for example. It's easy enough to run a little cron job that queries for topics with four or five stars and adds them to another table of topics awaiting review, right? Or maybe you already have something like that?

I'm looking for partners for alpine rock routes, grade III-IV+, over the next six weekends. Send me a PM if interested/Stefan

Uh, I'm all for a snide little gremlin now and then, but wager this one is lost on (most of) us.

Man I wish I were going.

Summit, false summit, down. Eet eez Zeem-pull my frend.

If every route is listed at least twice in Bruce's book, why do we need two sets of guidebooks for the Exits?

I wanted a 30 m thin single rope, not a 30 m half rope. Anybody want to buy a 60 m 10.2 Mammut Supersafe and split it down the middle with me? Our doubled-up 60 m half rope was heavy, bulky and messy and we used the two strands as a single rope the whole way anyway. The 60 m half rope would be perfect with three people - two carry packs, third carries rope on approach, leader climbs without a pack and followers climb with packs. Bring the reverso! Edit - a doubled 50 m half rope would work nicely for the first pitch on the gendarme. I don't know about the second pitch, you'd better have the right pieces to build the anchor wherever you are when you run out of rope. I would not like to do it that way I think.

I really like my Andinista. The lid is quite nice - two *big* compartments, easy to rig as a fanny pack, and nice cut-out for the helmet. When the climbing starts I put it inside the pack, so no flopping around. But if you used it with the compression zippers closed then it is too large. There is an inside compartment for a foam pad but the one that comes with the pack is rather crappy. I threw that out and either roll a ridgerest inside the pack or put a folded 3/4 length thermarest where the foam pad was. If you put your water bladder in the pad compartment then the water stays warmer and the pack feels very comfortable against your back. I had to learn to appreciate the rigging on the outside of the pack, but it is perfect for crampons, tools and helmet. It's kind of neat to be able to take/put a tool from/in a holster without taking the pack off. Methinks it would be really cool if Jon & Timmy came up with a way to link all these gear posts to the (not very popular) gear review database...

I really like these BD Moonlights and have bought several as gifts. I like to borrow them back as backup lights for caving. I really liked my Moonlight headlamp until the wiring went faulty and it became a strobe light. I took it back to REI and the guy at customer service told me he sees those quite a lot, all with the same wiring-gone-faulty problem. So I bought a Tikka Plus with the refund $$. It seems very nice so far - one trip, ~ 3 hours of headlamping.

The Wild Things Andinista seems to work really well for the Cascades - big for those walk-ins, low profile for the climb. It's a one pack alternative to the big-ass load hauler extra summit pack. I use mine for day trips too, with both zippers closed.

I went yesterday with my new buddy Peter, upper N Ridge with the gendarme car-to-car from the Ingalls trailhead. Lots of bugs everywhere. We took a wrong trail fork in the basin and did a little bit of bush whacking, oops. Still made it to Goat Pass in ca. 4 hours, and melted snow there for awhile. There is no water or easily accessible snow on the route. The gully is snow-free, but getting into it is a bit nasty. Crampons and self-belay seemed a good idea. Sneakers were nice, but we had rock shoes for the gendarme. We passed all the other parties on the glacier or in the gully (thanks guys!), started climbing at 9 am and simuled to the gendarme in two pitches. Pack-hauling on the first pitch was a stupid idea, we carried on the second. Then we simuled the rest, with some long lazy breaks for gaping. The weather was awesome - it's rare to be in the mountains with no sense of urgency. We were on the summit between 3 and 4 pm, sat there for who knows how long, and at the car by 10 pm for a total of 20 hours. We avoided the snowfield at the top of the Cascadian by scrambling steep scree on the west side. Much trundling. A 30 m thin single rope would have been so much better than our doubled-up 60 m 9mm half rope. It was heavy, the strands got all twisted and tangled, there was twice as much rope management and we had to tie in to the middle. Yech. And no more Muenter for me, I'm bringing my reverso next time. Our rack was bigger than necessary too - six small stoppers, red tricam, two off-hands hexes, 10 cams (yellow/orange/red Metolius TCUs, #2-#4 DMM cams, #1/#4 Camalots), 6 long slings and 10 short slings, 20 biners and two lockers. If going again I think I'd take the red tricam, the two hexes, the TCUs, DMMs #2.5, 3, 4, 10 slings of each length and 16/2 biners. My knees almost buckled every time I racked that #4 Camalot. Maybe Peter would disagree, he led the off-width. We left Seattle without my sneakers, yay, extra driving. I'm still trying to figure out whether my stupidity has increased since that time when I forgot my skins, or merely stayed at the same level.

Bugs. Bugsbugsbugsbugs bugs. Yech. Don't go without a net. To get into the Cascadian you have a choice between steep, mushy snow and (very) loose scree with pieces of talus that like to fly.

The only good reason to climb the Cutthroat butt is to look at it from a distance later and think, hey, that mountain looks cool! It's mostly a 3rd class shrubbery yawn while you're on it and the descent sucks butt. In other words, climb it once

Real professional route setter Who is it, Fried Bakey? I don't really know anything about air pollution, other than I walk up and down Eastlake going to school so sometimes notice it... but there ought to be a good deal less air pollution when it's raining, right? And when it's raining is the only time when the UW rock, water tower, Marymoore park spire, etc., aren't that great...

Don't forget about the constant noise and dust filtering through. There will be so much on the holds, it'll make crappy sandstone feel like granite. Wow, you guys have managed to out-do yourself. This thread has to be the sorriest shitflinging negativity fest ever. Losers.

Definitely light, maybe they're the new version of the Spiders?

Boo-yah! This evening I'm finishing a long-standing project of mine, namely to congrat Wayne on finally climbing that thing Goes for you two as well! Congrats!

I have the La Sportiva Boulders and Exum Ridges and neither are all that great. There are new Kaylands at FF, look nice, check those out. I think universal bindings make crampon compatibility, uh, universal.

A base-jump gone bad is not dramatic? And I thought *I* was jaded.

Maybe you and trask can help each other find out?