genepires

Maybe I am wierd but I have found that for me, a sock without a liner works better than with a liner. I have felt that the modern socks like smartwool and thorlo were soft enough on the inside to not need a liner sock. The liner sock idea came about when everyone had on wool socks which was practically a steel wool shaped thing. Newer socks also wick moisture so well that a poly blend liner sock is not needed to keep the skin dry. My cheap liner socks just sag down and bunch up causing blisters. just my 2 cents. maybe I am lucky with tough feet.

tromp around snoq pass area. Up to source lake or common wealth basin. You could basically get a hiking guidebook and find a trail with a lake to go to and camp. Chances are for snoq pass area, those trails will be packed out for most of the winter. Usual reservations- Learn to evaluate avalanche conditions. Listen to professional avi advice (NWAC) and believe it. People have died on the trail to source lake and almost everywhere else that seems "safe".

where do you live? (for nearby reccomendations) you will need a stove board of some kind so the stove doesn't melt down into the snow. Are you looking for easy winter peaks to get up as well as camping?

gonna be dark n COLD. enjoy!

best of luck to ya Mikey! We should all fly to SLC to climb with ya. try canyoneering in zion. you may like the change once in a while.

take a avi course but also head out for some smaller objectives (with other people) and get experience. Knowledge is very good but knowledge that is put to use over time is called wisdom. the little voice in the head (from wisdom)is much more valuable than a course alone. Winter on rainier is not a place to develop skills. Go solo st helens or baker first. A added plus, soloing these is legal vs on rainier.

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.