genepires

While there are anticompetitive elements in vendor agreements, it seems like there is nothing anti-competive about refusing Walmart to sell their brand. There is nothing about grabbing market share with this. Am I missing something?

Must give praise for both the climbing and also the effort put into the TR. I am amazed that you could remember so much after such a long day. seems like it would become a big blur. great job!

a pleasant mix of capitalism and lawful society.

can I trade some cat fuzz for just 3 drops of lube and have it shipped it to my house?

I may suggest that the reason that the place is not covered in moss and dirt is cause it sheds a layer once in a while. that and the annual snow shedding.

Time of day matters. A hour of sunlight can make all the difference in bridge strength. if anyone has any confidence in ski unroped on a glacier, watch the first episode first season of “the horn” https://www.netflix.com/title/80233842 in the episode, real life rescue of skier who falls in a crevasse in alps. Really fucked up.

I remember looking at that before that big rock scar. I bet very few people contemplate it after that scar appeared. Massive.

even without the orange turd in office, I think our economy was due for a recession a while ago. It is not a matter of when but how bad it will be. it will be interesting to see if the recession is bred from a bursting bubble (stock pricing being the only obvious one to me) or just a slow decline. seems like the corporate tax cuts have given the stock market (and also the economy) a short financial shot of life to keep it going. Historically it seems that it only lasts so long though.

it is federal land and given that our state is a legal weed state, my guess is that they are looking for weed paraphernalia. Whether or not they would prosecute if they found anything is an interesting question to answer.

maybe a little wife illness history is on order before offering some recommendations? of course we are all adults and capable of making decisions but for some illness, maybe being a days hike from road is a problem? How about some possible usual day trips that could be done to gauge abilities first? Maybe something like Mt Pugh or Mt dickerman? (never been on pugh but based on what I heard about it) Dickerman would give a good feel for hiking strength with pretty good amounts of vertical hiking and not too crowded IF you start hiking before 8am. Same for Pilchuck.

great photos!

yeah, if you had to go to rainier and want good conditions all around, july is the best. your biggest tent disaster is prolly coming back down and the stakes melted out and tent flew away. it happens.....alot. many collapse the tent (just remove poles but leave it all staked) before leaving in the dark. seems silly till you see a tent roll into a crevase. take your wallet and keys with you on summit day.

expert opinion? you better go ask a professional guide service. just nice (and some mean) monkeys here. my opinion (for what it is worth) is the backpacking tent may be fine. I used a 3 person tent in the volcanoes for quite a while but they had guy line attachments half way up the tent body. If your tent does not have high guye line attachments, it will have a hard time staying up in wind which is almost guaranteed. you basically want a fly that comes down really low to ground (to avoid wind getting underneath) and plenty of guy lines up high, the more better. Mine had 8 total, one each corner, one on each long side and 2 for the vestibule all mid way up body. it could take a beating well. it must have had 8 low attachments for the fly. when I had thing strung out, it was like a spider web and I was in the cacoon.

north face maude. don't listen to G-spot.

isn't that everyone? you have never seen me snowboard. there is no rushing and def no adrenaline. I think I lost that gland 10 years ago.

oh to add, while time is precious for many, they do like to help and sometimes got lots of extra junk laying around. If gear is a problem, make a list of things you need and I bet that you could have plenty of used gear given to you. We are a friendly lot and don't bite unless you make really snarky comments online. just be cool.

so many options out there. how about getting a start with something like outward bound or NOLS? they could have a pure backpacking programs that you could get your foot into the guiding experiences. meanwhile work on the technical climbing skills. (fellow guides would most likely go climbing during off days) I started guiding on the path described by your conversation with the guide service but some other guides came in from NOLS and OB. As far as building rock skills, get a rock gym membership, get out on weekends with others and maybe join the mountaineers for their budget freindly climbing course. will meet fellow newbie climbers as well. It is really about finding partners, making mistakes but surviving them, learning in the field, reading from others and getting after it. I don't mean to be a downer but I think the request for mentors is a bit of a put off. Most people have very busy lives and can't really afford to be able to invest that amount of time. But most people have time to take someone out for a day rock climbing if the other has the ability to belay. At least for me Mentorship implies a pretty long time commitment but I come from a apprenticeship background so maybe our concepts of mentorship are different. I must say that I really enjoyed my time as a guide. I have plenty of coworkers who moved on to a really successful career at it also.

you are right in that there are always lessons to be learned from bad situations. I just sensed to beginning of a blame game about to happen. without the full facts of what happened and what led them to their choices. Monday morning quarterbacks are usually quick to blame and slow to listen. Probably the best to learn from is the ANAM journal.

not sure if it is ever valuable to question (in hindsight) the choices of individual or groups in mountains. the only safe choice is stay home. We make choices and sometimes they are bad. I will say that I have been on top of baker in a cloud cap a couple times where I was completely turned around. Had to pull out a compass to find the way back to the roman wall as the steps were completely gone after a couple minutes of blowing snow. Kinda funny but one of those times luck saved me. I was holding my axe and compass in the same hand and the metal axe was giving me a false compass bearing. (very rookie move) Luckily the clouds parted just long enough me to realize I was bearing down on the coleman headwall. Without a compass or experience on several routes on that mountain, hunkering down on the summit in a cloud cap is a good idea.

not to dismiss the efforts of the rescue personnel. Seemed like a nice flat landing and walk over to the victims. but i read later that they had big clouds and wind. sounds like it was a tough flight in there.

http://komonews.com/news/local/2-boy-scouts-2-adult-trooper-leaders-missing-on-mount-baker

i think it is india. you can see a little Ballywood going on in there.

i see you have no bites on this. I don't own one but I have some thoughts. if it is not warm enough, wear clothes in sleeping bag. I usually use way inadequate rated sleeping gear and make up for it with wearing clothes while sleeping. Patagonia has a very strong return program. I doubt that it is not durable and if there is an issue, I suspect that it is easy to have them repair or replace. I doubt any sleeping bag is non breathable. if you have plenty of money, maybe you need a regular sleeping bag for camp and a half bag/down jacket for unplanned bivy. I have a really oldish down sleeping bag liner (I thinkit is rated 40F) that use pretty much all summer. super light and compact. I bet there are similar products out there as well. good luck

maybe with some pre planning, you could find another pair of people going for the north ridge that you could make a team of 4 for the approach, then split into two teams of two for the climb and descent. I have been on that part of the glacier (approach to n ridge) in different seasons and I can say that you will be walking over Monster crevasses. That place is so broken up under the winter snow pack. the crevasse patterns sometimes don't make sense either. definately a place to be prepared. The last time I was on it, we did a different than usual tactic. instead of stumbling around on a crevassed glacier in the dark, we approached the ridge in the afternoon, being able to work the way through the maze in daylight. Yes the snow bridges are weaker in the afternoon, but being able to see where we were going was a bigger benefit. (I got a pretty good crack radar) We climbed up the ridge to about a couple rope lengths below the ice cliff where there are several dirt campsites and bivied there. good long restful sleep and climb the cliff at sunrise while the groups are just approaching the ridge itself. not so bad if you can keep your bivy kit light, like light sleeping bag, pad and small stove. the ambience and experience itself is worth the extra weight. ditch the skiis and bivy on the ridge instead.