genepires

I remember reading somewhere about strengthening the ankle region which may be of help for you. It was"writing" the alphabet with your toes by moving the foot at the ankles. This moves the ankle through every possible angle. This mobility may decrease the swelling too.

Alex is talking about crypt orchid, in case anyone is interested.

There is a type of ski that is very short (you would mount it with alpine touring bindings) that might fit your needs very well. Maybe called snow blades and are about as long as a snowshoe. PM Tvash (tvashtarkatena) as he has a pair and uses them in the mountains often. He is also a very good skier so I do not know the skill required to use them in the variable mountain conditions. I tried them but flailed miserably in nasty snow conditions. Whatever you choose to use may require some time in a ski area to learn the skill, wether you like it or not. The mountains is a lousy place to learn how to ski.

get the skis and snowboard out. It is the season for riding on chair lifts. (contrary to what we have seen so far)

This is a moonstone goretex jacket, size large. It has 2 inside pockets, 4 outside pockets, hood that can cinch down around a helmet, long side zips, and very durable fabric. Thick durable zippers and all have two sliders per zipper. Front zipper has two so you can unzip from bottom up for peeing or belaying. Waist and bottom cinches to keep the snow put. It is large enough to layer heavily underneath so it would not be good for a medium sized person expecting to layer and fill it up. Two of the front flap Velcro patches (used to cover the front zipper) fell off but they don’t do much anyway. I have to many jackets and am just clearing out some stuff. The jacket is about 8 years old with about 120 days of use. Still going strong and still using till it sells. Pm me. I live in monroe

Outdoor Research standard goretex bivy sack (green) $50 This is a OR standard bivy sack. The newer models are called Aurora bivy sacks (http://www.outdoorresearch.com/site/aurora_bivy.html) This has goretex fabric throughout. Bug netting and top zips shut if you want. I usually zipped it part way. No mold as it was dried thoroughly each time and stored in a large stuff sack instead of the tiny pack stuff sack. I used it for about 10 nights and bought it 7 years ago. Selling this because I just don’t get out for overnighters now that I got a kid. PM me and i live in monroe.

you know what they look like. You know you need them. these are in very good shape (used a couple of days) and actually they are my mom and dads. They gave them to me since they don't use them anymore. (they are too old for that kind of thing) to small for my monster calves. $30 each (retail is $65) PM me if interested.

[img:left]http://cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/505/thumbs/ce.11dc93f83904a7232e6aeb895203dfbe.DSCN1837,oJPG.jpg[/img] [img:left]http://cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/505/thumbs/ce.c66c54dfc5f65d2d101cc276c4dfd5ea.DSCN1838,oJPG.jpg[/img] With no prompting, my boy was enjoying the pleasure of swinging around, hangin from a pair of daisies. Do you see now that leash climbing is the natural way to go and you all leashless climbers are all wrong? Happy holidays people! Glad mom didn't see that.

very nice. a stellar season for hyalite. Lots of WA traffic there.

sweet! Hottie ice rope gun.

cody...must be the best ice climbing in lower 48, easy.

Even if the temp are comparable between minnesota and denali, you will feel colder on denali due to the lower oxygen levels. Not enough oxygen to support a regular metabolism. Plus you can't plan gear on usual conditions but you gotta plan on the worst mutha fu$%ing conditions possible. And on denali high camp, that might be minus 50 with wind chill at altitude. For the sake of you, your family and your friends, get the best jacket, sleeping bag, boots, tent and everything else possible. Your gear is really such a cheap investment when you think about what they do for you. One way to justify a $500 pair of boots is the question, are your toes worth $50 each? Same logic applies to jackets and other gear good luck and hope you have mellow and easy conditions

what boots are you using?

interesting. Wonder why they didn't do an equal amount of tests for the 2 sizes of screws. (reboring) Looks like they did 6 long rebore and did 49 short screw rebore. Would be interesting to know if the rebore for longer screw bit into new ice or was in the same size hole. Obviously the short rebore was short screw into long screw hole. Lesson? Put long screws into existing holes. Also with the curve of the rebore long screw, looks like it is stronger than a v or a thread. That is unexpected. (though it would take more samples to see the real spread of data)

if you are getting to the point where age is making you creaky, then the rest of us are doomed. Lets blame it on the lame ski technique and live in ignorance.

soloing wi5 and summit mushrooms is very bad ass!

Hey Mike, there has to be a good story behind this. How about sharing the event with us homies back in the PNW?

I believe the rap route was a series of anchors that is not on the boving route itself. like a down escalator. but you are right.....

Hey Mikey, I saw the load limiter a couple weeks ago (along with a leashless tool from eclimb). I was very compact and reloadable. I tried pulling on the load limiter but couldn't get the force to make it slide out. (good I suppose) Kong had something like that too and been making it for a long time.

looks nice. Is this the place near leavenworth? Please do tell...... looks reasonably close to a road.

oh yeah, how many base jumpers do you think are there worldwide? roughly of course

Thanks Gabe for your post. I was not meaning to condemn the sport of base jumping. I was reacting to the original post which sounded like he wasn't understanding the risks honestly. I was hoping to give this person a little reality check before engaging in a risky situation for the same reason you say that the sport has exploded in popularity. It seems that people have a poor sense of risk analysis (nothing new with our culture) and sweet videos of wingsuit flying don't help. Maybe all risky adventure sport participants needs a warning label (like on a box of cigarettes) somewhere on our skin. You are completely right about not understanding the risks until you understand the activity. I ice climb and think it is safe which means I am delusional. My brief experience with paragliding showed me where my limits with risk were. I could not handle the true commitment that paragliding and (even more so) base jumping requires. The run off a cliff with no choice of backing off if something starts to go wrong was too much for me to handle. You have to commit and have faith in the gear. My problem is that I lack that total faith in gear. (especially fabric) I need the ability to retreat wether it is a lower off of bolts, pro, bush or v thread. Maybe if I had put the time into sky diving.......... It also didn't help that in those formative years, two great climbers died base jumping. Jean Marc Bovin and Xavier Bongard.

http://www.splatula.com/bfl/ 15 deaths in 2010 alone.(worldwide) Considering the population of the base jumping community (I don't know but it can't be that large), 15 is a staggering number. One was on baring this summer. There is no possibility that base jumping can be "almost as safe as climbing" unless you are a real unsafe climber doing incredibly stupid things. This opinion is for cliff jumping. Jumping off a bridge is probably almost as safe as climbing. Yes this is pure speculation from a non base jumper. Would be interesting to get someone who really knows something about this.

Not a base jumper by any means but it would seem that a solid base of skydiving seems like a good idea. Then they start into "easy" base jumps like bridges (B) and then move to towers (S for skyscraper) and aerials (A). Then on to escarpments (E) or commonly know as cliffs. BASE jumping is not an alternative to rapping. It is an activity onto itself. There are maybe a couple cliffs to base jump on in washington and not that many in oregon. One really needs to look into their soul before embarking on anything as stupid as base jumping. There is nothing as dangerous as base jumping. (maybe skiing of a cliff as a start to base jumping) Experience gains you a little bit of safety while climbing but experience means nothing on the base jumpers. MAybe experience makes you even more likely to die as they start doing even crazier shite. There is a site somewhere of a journal of all base deaths in the last 10 years. sobbering shite.

whoa dude, where is the love? Don't you weight 20 more pounds than me? Besides, I am over 40 years old. I am allowed a gut much bigger than I got now. OK, lets everyone jump on the leash guy. Maybe you all should start a "Gene the loser leash guy-hate thread" in spray?