genepires

You are selling the pack short by only using Colin's name in reference. Should have thrown in Steve House and Bubba Blanchard! Seems like everything big I ever did climbing had that same pack on my back. Great pack and sad to see serratus get shutdown.

nice!

taking kids alpine climbing reminds of the father and son fatality on late season colchuck glacier years ago.

or the tent used while having the most fun with your girlfriend inside.

truth there! very cool photos. But Alex, Lisa would be a much more pleasant climbing partner than me! maybe I should have sunbathed in my undies?

Above ideas are good. If you go to eldorado, make sure they have solid self belay and arrest skills. The ridge is exposed and solid snow climb skills are needed. While Vesper standard route has no glacier, it is a scenic lake side camp. I saw a outward bound or a NOLS trip base camp out from that lake for lots of scrambling. You may be able to get two summits from a trip there Assuming you go midweek, a trip to Boston basin would be stellar. Camp in the basin (BTW, there is a box toilet there, maybe something to think about), then then up shale via Quine sabe glacier. There is a short 4th class scramble at the top though. Maybe 20 fett of fourth class but solid granite scramble. Go mid season to avoid cornice and snow on the scramble bit. That would involve a short rap though. If weather is iffy on the west side, make a trip to wash pass. You could hike up and over burgundy col to camp on the silver star glacier. Summit silver star. Very scenic. Think about making it a summit on day two and then hike out on day three instead of the summit and death march on day three. Do you want them to be finished beat and exhausted or energized and desiring more?

south arete of SE winter, yes. Use knots on the end except for the one rap with lots of snaggy trees in the way. I would say this is the first of three raps that lead to the ground. Also this tree anchor is not easy to find. it is not used on the way up. But if you are at the top of the third pitch, on a easy ledge, if you were to look climbers right, you will see a scrubby tree. below this tree and to the climbers left is a good tree with slings. it is easy to get to but it is exposed, so a simple belay is good to get to do for this. If you use the small scruffy tree at the top of pitch three along the route, I am not sure your 50m rope will reach the next anchor. for sw of the bell route, there is one bolted anchor that reaches the ground if you use a pair of 60 m ropes. There is a good solid tree part way down but I think that it is still greater than 25 m from this tree to the ground. not really sure about this though. The rappel line goes from the bolts, past a tree, down a small gulley/corner and then trends skiers right to the saddle between lib bell and concord. At this trend right portion, there was a small solid tree that I used to split up the rappels to minimize the chance of getting rope stuck when pulling. It had rings on it but I am not sure of the health of the tree now. It has been a while since I did that route but I seem to remember that the tree was not doing well last time. Use knots on the ends of your rope for sure. best option is to wait for someone else to setup their rope and go down on theirs.

the good father. noah hawley

as usual, beautiful photos!

if we get more stuck cams in that pitch, it won't a gatekeeper anymore!

thanks for the TR. that looks wonderful!

R U calling me old? I thought it was really good over ten years ago. Now the anchors throw down your rope too?

sounds like a offwidth bypass variation is desired! that would be a good project.

though it feels like "crag" sometimes, it is still alpine. I would not go up there with a single rope, only doubles. Mostly based with the situation of a stuck rope on rappel, which has happened to me there. If one get stuck, I want that other line to deal with the situation, either climb up or abandon and go down. and my perfect rope choice would be 50m doubles, but those are hard to find without cutting.

willing to bet that our country had plenty of problems back then that they might not have called themselves "great". If anything, we are prolly as great now as we were back then, if not more great, depending on the metric. How do we define "great"? Judging by the photo, I would say the ability to work together towards a common goal but if that means having tens of thousands of soldiers dieing, I am ok with not being great.

which road are you taking to get to banff? depending on your way to banff, you may be able to get in a route on Mt Gimli. awesome and prolly one of my favorite alpine rock climbs ever. but that would require coming up through idaho. theoretically, one could do a day trip in buagboos if the objective was right above applebee dome area. when climbing rock in banff, stay on quartzite (sentinel and castle mtn) and granite if possible. but you prolly know that already.

is it a tent or a beach ball? maybe a human hamster globe

looking back at my own personal "Accidents in Gene's north america Mountaineering", over half of times when someone in my group has been injured, it has been coming down talus slopes. Two of them was the descent down from the rambles. Luckily none of them involved a head injury but that was due to dumb luck. wearing a helmet on descents would be a pretty good idea. But then I would be confused with the Mountaineers groups, right? Maybe they are on to something or maybe I am just getting old.

+1 to what DPS says one way to think about is that there is no rescue if both climbers are in the hole. Done a lot of practice with self rescue and I can tell you that even when people know it is coming, many people fail at the self arrest when significant forces are pulling. Especially when people are tieing in close together (like 25 ft) there is very little room for getting into a good stance on the ground and hold the weight. now bring in reality which is that the bridges will most likely fail in the afternoon and therefore the climbers are prolly tired and not very well focused. then your chances of getting it right are even less. For a team of two, you really need all the tricks (like the butterfly knots) to keep you both above grade level.

Is this from a patagonia catalog? new line of expensive leather smocks?

even if you could rent a harness (guide services do but usually for their guests), a alpine bod harness from black diamond is pretty cheap. $35. you would probably spend more on rental fees for a 3 days trip than buying one new. If you ask around enough, someone could probably give you their old retired half rope and then cut it down (getting rid of any bad spots)to the size you want. Now the size of your glacier rope is another discussion altogether.

same thing happened to a woman on aasgard pass. maybe 10 years ago? I think I know the exact spot where both would have died. right in the fall line (of course) and could happen to most people if unlucky enough to be out of control. or in control for that matter.

I used to have a flash pack but am not fond of the mesh shoulder straps. maybe they are different now.

Fred B documentary teaser http://unofficialnetworks.com/2016/05/new-documentary-teaser-about-the-original-dirtbag-climber-dirtbag-the-legend-of-fred-beckey

sounds like it was either on the last pitch of R&D or on Bob wall.