genepires

anyone have a descent idea what conditions are normally like in ouray ice park in the first week of march? thanks gene

never a truer statement than above made on cc.com

if mixed and ice is your game, then both Gadd and Isaac both have how to guides that have winter specific training ideas. maybe use these in the fall to get ready for winter. horst has the better rock specific training book. It is mainly a rock gym book. mtneer books "expert series" has a training book that is mainly a indoor gym and cardio training that is very good. has different training for different sport and time of year. I forget the title. rock warrior way complements these books well as it deals with mental (fear) aspects of climbing. probably the best training we could work on.

we drove through there saturday morning and somebody had locked the gate on the darrington side of the construction area with a bike lock. Hhmmm. lots of hunters who didn't want drivers to disturb the deer? didn't want to walk off road? the gate is not there anymore.

with freedom of the hills in hand, we were off to pawtuckaway state park in new hampshire. With our new rope, TR setups and one pair of rock shoes for the both of us, we managed to find a good little climb in 2 hours, set up a TR in under 3 hours, climb it twice in another 3 hours and then break it all down in another hour. On the way out, my buddy fell off during a short down climb, crashed into me and we both went tumbling down a wooded hillside. We had a big day and thought we got alot done. gumby! On the way out, a local hardguy was telling us how to climb a overhanging corner we were looking at, spewing all this lingo. Something about layback, stem, undercling, blah, blah and more blah. We were impressed but thought he was insane. I was hooked.

was it closer to source lake or actually on the tooth?

So I am looking at this karhu meta ski and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with these. I must admit that I am a non-skier so the more high performance skis won't work for me. I am interested in mainly approaching ice climbs and a little x country with the misses and kids. These skis have a built in binding much like the split boards. So my question is: how is it good at following in skier tracks uphill? (is the binding to wide to easily follow in narrow ski tracks) how is it going downhill if you were a decent skier? thanks in advance gene

anybody have experience with the dartwin? Might be a reasonable alternative/replacement to the sarken? Is the lack of antibot on the front piece that bad?

sweet day in darrington slabbage! running up silent running to finish with the kone. Leaves are turning color up there.

nothing harder than 5.4. (just kidding) might be a little soft mainly due to the less sustained nature. The photo of the zebra corner looks steep and burly in the photo but that is an illusion. Our 3rd pitch was unsure if we were on route or not. Not as obvious as the other pitches. (clean wise) It is rather impressive though on the clean nature of the rock and cracks. would have expected lots of gardening. Did seem to get a tad bit dirtier the higher you go. good route and good find blake. I wonder if mazama locals hit this area up but have kept it silent.

you know WAY too much about synthetic bags.

I used my garmont towers on n ridge of baker last year in late july and those boots worked out great on the ice and everything else. Even with the recalled sarkens. how did I survive the weekend?

Baker and rainier? are you asking about non glaciated?

I always like the compost toilet above tree line on the south side of baker, with the glacier 20 feet to the left, camp is off to the right and the twin sisters is sorta straight ahead. Doesn't the cascade pass TH toilet look at j-burg? hard to beat any toilet in the bugs though. gene

the CO put out by the vehicles used for recreation is trivial compared to the amount used by our nation during the daily commute. So we should all stay at home, except when we climb.

2 tools would be needed when the slope is steep enough for piolet traction or for the daggering techniques. that angle is relative but most would start daggering at 35 degree slope angle. daggering on 20 degrees slopes is just awkward. ice that is too hard for daggering can be climbed with piolet anchor (one tool) technique. Traction (standard steep ice technique) works well at >60 degrees. a full description of these different techniques can be found in freedom of hills or most other ice climbing instructional books.

any peak can be done in a day when you use a heli to get in.

It would be a good idea to give yourself more room than a team of three or more would have. You would need this extra room to allow more time to hold the fall. You would have to assume that you won't get the arrest perfect and get dragged for a while till you can get it together. With that 45 feet would seem like a good minimum. If I were to go on rainier as a team of two, with uncertain self arrest skills, 55 feet would not seem unreasonable but my look unusually long. there is a length that is too long though due to rope stretch and rope slack. typical rope spacing for a two man should allow enough rope in carried coils to allow a rappel to your partner. This means that the climbers should be at 1/3 of the rope lengths intervals. But since you are on the dc, chances are you do not need to do a self rescue and can rely on other party's to help. unless you are on everest.

during day - warm when sunny, not warm when cloudy at night (alaskan night) - cold sorry but I couldn't help myself. I hope someone who knows can answer as I am curious myself.

thanks again y'all. see there is useful stuff on this site! it seemed like that approach could be used to base out of for a good long weekend. hint hint.

So nelson's guide shows a approach for early winter spire via eldo pk e ridge and deans spire. His SW buttress dorado needle approach shows coming over by the triad and traversing under eldo pk. Why not get to dorado needle via deans spire area? Is there something horrible about getting down near deans spire? Anyone here been on sw buttress of dorado needle? I met one guy who was on it and said it was ok but looking for another opinion. Always a little wary of the vol 2 routes. thanks again, gene

thanks y'all. will have to wait till next year. Those july photos look real sweet.

how much would 50m of tech cord cost? isn't it around $1.25/ft? Over $200? I would figure you would need enough extra to cover 3% stretch. so an extra 5 feet sounds good. Maybe the mountain gods will release colin long enough to answer the question personally.

So nelson's guidebook has suggested seasons as up to september. Has anyone actually been on this route that late and what is it like? plus, any overall opinions on the quality of said route. One more question- is the road repaired to get to that trailhead? thanks in advance gene pires

was wondering if intuition liners (or garmont thermo liners) would make better ice climbing boots out of my plastics. I have always used leathers for ice climbing because they kept my heal locked in better than plastics. No matter how tight I lace them, plastics just don't work for me. I suspect that I have low foot volume which makes it hard for plastics to mold down far enough onto the foot. Anyone have positive or negative experience with these intuition liners for ice climbing instead of just mountaineering or BC skiing? any other ideas? thanks in advance for reasonable responces. gene