genepires

A bit off topic but isn't dragonscar on the side of the face facing asguard pass? (like near dragonfly route) The boving route in question is just right of serpentine? I personally would like the rappel bolts and a few pro bolts mainly because I am not a world class hardman and need every advantage possible. I like good belays and am spoiled by sweet squamish setups. I doubt that the addition of a few bolts would cause much difference on the mountain. It would take a tram going into the lake to make traffic increase to a annoying level.

11.3% impossible to tell this far in advance. impossible to tell even 1 week in advance. Historically speaking there is no pattern of good weeks in a given month, especially in the spring. A butterfly flaps its wings china and our weather sucks for a week due to that. best to be prepared for severe suffering, deep snow, cold, wind, tears and possibly blood.

live versions of "team america....fuck ya!"? Maybe I should start a site called "team tehran and koran" oops, here comes dept of homeland security.

Baker is a great first mountain especially if the glacier travel is what attracts you to climbing. Percentage-wise, baker is more heavily glaciated than any other mountain in washington. The area is much more conducive to learning skills. The camping is sweet and there are unique toilets. The size of the mountain and approach is reasonable. You can't go wrong there. Have you thought about taking a 6 day course instead of a 3 day? The price might not be that different. I seem to remember it being $900 for a 6 day. There are a couple outfits that work there, like american alpine definately, alpine ascents used to (and may still) and possibly mountain madness. I can answer questions related to both the AAI but not madness or other companies. feel free to PM me. mid july to mid august is best. as for the best place to learn, what are your future goals?

try these routines. I do one of these2 times a week for prehab. http://www.dieselcrew.com/how-to-shoulder-rehab

CJB...you are just feeding the fire by saying anything. let it die. the wolves will find someone else soon enough. case in point. Prolly before your time but Nolse was the butt of lots of jokes and comments. he realized the game, shut up, climbed stronger and now he is a local hardman in training. When he talks, it is good advice learned from actual hard climbing and training. Just some fellow climber advice....... take or leave.

absolutely beautiful. can you make e to the (pi*i) power = -1 into a climbing related equation?

talk - action =0 is algebraically the same as talk = action. (saw that somewhere on the net) a better way is talk < action

mr mike layton = one classy dude

BTW, nice photos.

posting photos of yourself in order to prove something about yourself is bad form. (unless you are poking fun at yourself) Best to let the logic of conversation do the talking.

I guess it is 7 hours for spokane to pincher creek. damn!

you can take out another student loan to buy the "waterfall ice, climbs in the canadian rockies" by Joe Josephson. (also goes by Jo Jo) It has a chapter on waterton park. I went there once a long time ago so my estimate on time to get there may be inaccurate. Hopefully someone who is more familar will chime in. But we were wankers and got up stuff so I am sure you can find stuff there to do. It has a shorter season than banff but it is also 100 times longer than ours. looking through my copy has 6 wi2 and about 10 wi3 there. And low snowpack so low worries of the white death. We stayed in a free enclosed picnic shelter with a wood stove and free wood. The rangers were super friendly and surprised that people come to their park. Never met a nicer bunch of rangers anywhere. directions from the book: from spokane take hwy 95 to cranbook and get on 93/95 go south to hwy 3 then south on hwy6 to waterton. might be a faster way by staying in the states then go north in montana. Maybe not an easy weekend trip but a possible weekend trip. Definately a winter break trip.

Justin, thanks but I think a little vomit came up. why torture us with that image? Why do you hate me?

you go to extremes to poop in a crevasse.

the one thing going to picket placement is that the forces onto it are less than that while rock climbing. It is assumed that the falling snow climber is trying his/her hardest to self arrest in addition to the friction during sliding. Hopefully the climber is wearing wool. Plus any bouncing onto rocks removes forces. (good for pro but not your body) the rock climber has less of these frictions to minimize the forces onto pro. Spring (second to winter) is a real tough time for deadman.

two words....winter break. use your winter break and go up there. Amazing what 3 or 4 days ice climbing will do for mtn skill set. Waterton park is just across the border from glacier park. Literally an extension of glacier park north. that can't be more than 3 hours from spokane. Well within a weekend jaunt. there should be some local ice but I am not an expert by any means on washington ice. especially far east side. I am under the idea that there is no ice south of the border that is worth while or reliable in strength or even existence on my approaches. I usually strike out and find crap. but I always strike gold north of the border. even in normal snow years, whatever that means, most things are unclimbable to unexperienced climbers. Winter is the real deal in many regards. The avi potential alone is a major concern most of the winter. Difficulty getting to wherever. (short of tatoosh and snoq pass) Snow over 4th or 5th class ground is difficult. the key is to wait for that extended spell of good weather. Seems like we need a week to make things settle down enough to make travel reasonable. High elevation rain with clear nights after is a gift from the gods. Even better is 2 weeks because you will have a bootpack going in from the first good weekend crowds. If and when these things happen, chair NE buttress is a good reliable line. (more so than the n face) Colchuck n buttress coulior is a good spring route, especially when the road melts out far enough to make the approach reasonable. Winter climbing is much about withstanding the suffering. Maybe you could wallow around snow local to spokane to gain some valuable winter knowledge. there is much to learn from just being out in winter, wether steep or not. If you can't climb due to conditions, try to snowshoe for 6 miles and feel the burn.

To dig a decent t slot for a picket takes time and energy. And the usual method for making them (on steep snow) actually weakens the snow holding the picket. People usually make a small platform to stand on, and dig a slot above. But you have removed snow that holds the picket. plus the angle of the sling slot would have to be so far to give sufficient snow in front of the picket that the slot length would be 4 feet. (well below the stance) IMO for steep snow (stuff over 30 degrees), the only viable picket placement is vertical if the snow strength allows. T slots may look good and feel good to a pull test but can fail easily in a real life forces. It is rather hard to describe with words, but you have to look at the volume of snow in front of the picket to determine the strength. The volume of snow is the wedge of snow that is above the sling, in front of the picket and below the surface. Or you could use that time and energy to climb near edge of the snow coulior and place nuts, hexes and cams as you come across them. thereby getting multiple gear placements per rope length instead of one questionable picket per ropelength. Plus, snow sloughs tend to go down the middle of the gully. Climbing on the edges keep you out of those and maybe even safe from small avi's. Stuart glacier coulior is a classic example of a route where rock gear is a better option than pickets. It is granite which lends itself to rock gear. The snow isn't that steep. (I never felt the need for running pro there) and you need the rock gear for the several pitches of the west ridge. The team needs a couple for the small glacier crossing on the approach and descent but carrying 5 for the gully is extra unneeded weight. Besides, who wants to have so many pickets clanking all over the place? Don't get me wrong about pickets. They have there place as running pro. I have placed lots of them, some good and some bad. But if I had the choice, see above. what does "rock tends to funnel snow (see avalanche shoot) so those can be dangerous"? Are you talking about the tendenancy for gully to be a garbage shoot? How does that relate to the question of pro?

are the pictures from 2010, 1981 or 1977? the glacier seems too bare for this summer. I think I can speak for many people when I say that we thank you in advance for any work you do on dragontail. Much appreciated.

If you are living in Spokane, then you really need to be thinking about heading up to canada for some easy ice climbing practice rather than alpine climbing practice. If you get the ice climbing down, then the snow climbing will seem real easy. Banff is fairly close for you and waterton park is even closer. If you can find a reliable and competent partner, you will get a huge amount of learning in. If the weather progresses as the forcasts call for, there will not be much of a alpine season here due to being buried under heavy snowfall and high avi conditions. Not to mention the difficulty getting into most places. Sure, there may be a window or two, but for the most part it should be a great season to be inbounds. With that, go to banff or waterton as much as possible and get strong for the spring where the routes will come back into climbing shape. Just my opinion. oh yeah, whatever you do, learn about, watch out for, and be VERY afraid of avalanches. Got to be our #1 killer in the winter.

rock pro will usually be stronger than snow pro. For the time it takes to dig a trench for deadmaning a picket, you can usually find several spots for rock pro. The weight of 4 pickets is the same as a very reasonable sized rock rack. So for these reasons, it you know that rock is available (like ascending a snow filled gulley), I would rather carry a small rock rack than pickets.. But, if you are going up a snow face, then the rock gear would be dead weight. For steep semi consolidated snow, you may not need any pro. Your steps should be solid enough and the self belay reliable enough to climb safely. Pro-less climbing should not be done with a rope to other partners though as a fall from you would kill everyone. If you are roped up, then you either have a running belay or a regular belay. By semi consolidated snow, I assume that you mean that the top couple of inches of snow is soft. This makes vertical pickets weak and you need to bury the pickets deadman style. This takes time but you must do it if the terrain and your experience requires it. Place one picket per rope length. When your last person is taking out the picket, you are placing a new one. Repeat till you have none left in which case you are belaying your partner to you for the lead change over. There are lots of specifics to making a good deadman that you can read from the standard mountaineering books.

hip belaying with a tubular webbing harness at the smoke bluffs. (burgers and fries?) That is more shocking than the neckbeard. we are all dorks. (but some more than others)

dane doesn't look at freshies forum.

not sure about vertical as I don't own those but I bet it would be great for routes up hood. Anything works with toproping though. Most of the hard routes were put up a long time ago with inferior gear. Surprisingly, Dane hasn't chimed in as he is our resident ice gear guru.

It may seem strange at first but you will adjust and not notice it much. My fave tool setup a long time ago was a straight shaft grivel 55cm with a bent grip grivel 50cm. Thought I was so rad alpine like (Kitty Calhoun was swinging that way) but I was just dreaming. Did some good ice climbs and mountain ice routes with that setup though. I think your setup is a very good one, especially for something like n ridge baker. What routes were you thinking about using these tools for?