genepires

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?

I was belaying a fellow who fell onto his umbilical and it held. Without that, he would have cratered. food for thought. maybe umbilicals should come equipted with screamers.

why didn't you trundle or burn them?

How do you find such cool things?

took longer to read the comments than watch the video. That way one can scroll through the video real quick. So whats the point of this comment? Absolutely nothing, like the video, like climbing in general.

never heard of a "3 or 4 wheel" cam. Maybe the next big thang from the major cam players.

didn't they go to stolby 4 years ago? Maybe more. I remember reading this in some climbing magazine. yes.....F$#@ing crazy.

good for her. but I am still scared of her.

keep your eye open for any road cut that is on a rarely traveled road. (like a logging road for example) Find a super strong tree for a TR anchor and have the belayer anchored and away from base of the climb in case rock comes peeling off. It doesn't have to be pretty to be mixed climbable. In fact, the uglier the rock, the better it is.

beautiful artwork. Trundling to pyrotechnics. whats next?

sounds reasonable. check out indoor climbing gyms in FL. You might get lucky and learn some basic rock skills which will go a long way in mtneering sport. summer quarter? Maybe hit the road, live outta the car and live large in good country. good luck and stay safe,

So what are your plans when you graduate from HS? Or are you already? If so and you are really commited to climbing, pick a place to live near the mtns you enjoy. Pick the flavor of climbing you enjoy and move to where it is conducive. You can read books but that will only go so far. You need to do it often to get it ingrained. And the information may not make sense without real life experiences to give it meaning. Plus there are things to learn that books can not do, only experience will. you can't lose with places like washington, california, utah and colorado. as well as many other western US states. what is keeping you in FL?

the modern warrior uses leashes. I was right all along!

voters want services without the taxation that is required to pay for it.

interesting that they quote that they spend $1200 per climber for the mtneering program. It seems to be a high number given the total number of climbers there. Isn't there something like 5000 climbers per season which equates to a cost of 6 million dollars per climbing season of 3 months. Would be real interesting to see a breakdown of their numbers. (I could be way off on the climbers per season) Just checked the NPS website: I guess there were about 1300 climbers in 2008 so assuming that the numbers are fairly constant, that comes to $1.5 million for 3 months or $500,000 per month.

very cool. thanks.

if driving from seattle, the i90 to sandpoint in idaho, then north to the border is the faster option. i don't have a map out but it is fairly obvious if you have one. plus as mentioned earlier, then you got gibralter wall on the way and bring chains and a reliable vehicle. Flying in to calgary won't save you much of anything and will cost a bundle to rent a car. The rampart hostel is getting to be a hotel with all the improvements. My favorite hostel for sure.