genepires

skyline would be good. pretty mellow and well traveled but that is something like a 3 hour trip if you go the usual route. if you have done the summer hiking routes up dickerman or pilchuck, those would be good 2 day trip too. Unfortunately, if you follow a ski tour guide, on some part of the tour you will be going on 30 degree slopes as that is the fun angle for skiing. that is also in the sweet zone for avi. I suppose good route finding would allow you to detour around those sections. Not evidence, but I feel like a snowshoe is more likely to trigger a slope than a skier. seems like more force applied to the slope. maybe I am wrong. get some real avi training. watch videos of people getting trapped in for some reality check. I have been involved in two small avi incidents. I have also lost two acquaintances to the white death. those have put the real fear of the angry snow-god in me. this is nothing to take casually.

or at least someone at NYT that knows climbing who started the whole media frenzy. even NPR had a phone interview with both of them.

could use any ski tour guide and just do those. a 2 day ski tour will take you 4 days, at least. also could use a regular hiking guide for a resource. get a list of the open fire lookouts and head up that via their hiking routes. Only did two but they were real nice. usual disclaimer: be very avi wary. on a long trip, you WILL be setting foot on a slope that is at that perfect angle for avalanche. learn about avi awareness.

can't Tommy just lead the rest and claim the first free ascent like Lynn Hill did for the nose? They could prolly come back later and send it again claiming the first team free ascent. Doubt that there are any people out for that same goal any time soon. but then I am no ethics master.

that is a man? I thought it was some deranged woman. now it makes sense and is OK with me. and the second video. I hope that is a mud ball and not a dog turd. not that it really matters to Alan.

UH?!?!?!?!

MEC in Vancouver made a r1 hoody knock off that is inexpensive and just as good as the original. At least they did years ago. That hoody is my favorite upper piece. worth checking out for the budget guy. I would just change your setup to 1 short sleeve synthetic top 1 long sleeve synthetic top a r1 hoody or mec knockoff vest is OK ( I don't usually wear one) windshirt 1 med or lightweight synthetic puffy jacket (spring and winter) lightweight hardshell. lightweight synthetic bottom (spring and winter) shoeller pant lightweight harshell pant (for those trips that hiking out in the rain is not an option). If you can't wear all the layers at one time, then you are bringing to much stuff.

I have gone up to banff in mid march and been ok. Not near Canmore but farther north on the ice fields parkway. Murchison is pretty cold all winter. Maybe it would be pleasant in late march. Think n facing and higher elevation and it could work out for you. But then two weeks could make all the difference between ice being fun and being in a heap on the ground.

Cool. I wasn't sure about letting that cat out of the bag. Seems like the best use of dry tool crags around here is to get some fitness for regular ice climbing on our once a year banff trips. Actual ice is not needed on the mixed lines but rather a shorter drive and approach. I would think that with this in mind, a good mixed climbing area would be on some scruffy road cut or quarry somewhat close to home. It is surprisingly hard to find such thing that is 30ft or so high without a huge amount of traffic underneath.

I think that dave is thinking about lady killer in golden which is about 8 hours from Bellingham. There are a couple of other climbs right off the hwy but road construction took away the roadside parking. (pretty nuts and water works) I think one could park on the other side of the bridge but would have to walk back across that bridge. Not sure if that is a good idea as I think there is no walkway on the bridge.

Send a pm to jason martin on this site. He may be able to help out and give you some beta for a lower elevation option.

what about the world famous torment forbidden traverse? that is pretty well documented online and in guidebooks what is the nooksack traverse? (ruth, icy and on towards shuksan?)

http://www.mountainproject.com/images/66/84/107426684_medium_0a23a6.jpg

approval ratings? no description on axes

PC is a bi partisan trait. you don't have be affiliated with a party to be respectful to others. not sure why you are so bent on broad brush strokes and generalizations that are not true. BTW, you have never met me yet you seem to have a rigorous idea of me. Maybe if you asked questions instead of proclamations, you may learn something.

I had no particular person in mind. It wasn't an attack on FW. I just find the anti PC thing very uncivilized and interesting. It is interesting that most people are PC when in face to face conversations yet in the Internet, all form of civility is stripped away. Especially considering we are all members of a fairly small community.

Absolutely. Political Correctness. Thanks American libs! I find anyone who is against PC to be either ignorant of the word or just an ass. PC=political ccorrectness=demonstrating progressive ideals, esp by avoiding vocabulary that is considered offensive, discriminatory, or judgmental, esp concerning race and gender avoiding saying things that are offensive to others is a bad thing? regarding the feelings of others is a weakness or un-American? if the answer is yes, then you are an ass. I guess I just might have hurt someone's feelings. oh well.

Monty Python is definitely favored by lefties. However, I will gladly fart in your general direction ;-) don't get it cause Monty's entire stick from the TV series is making fun against their government. Ministry of funny walks? Government bashing is a conservative issue and Monty did plenty of that. Maybe it is not that there are no funny conservative entertainers but rather conservatives don't have a sense of humor.

Jeff Foxworthy "you know you are a redneck when you ......." and all the rest of his touring crew like Larry the Cable guy they may only be funny to rednecks though.

Is that why you led with the gun related insults? Just a few seconds on gun control advocacy social media sites clearly demonstrates there is a vitriolic us vs. them mentality. Gun control is demonstrably about more than just controlling violence. do tell us what gun control is about. Being that gun control comes from voter mandate. (the feds are under the firm grip of NRA so there is no chance of gun control coming from big brother) what do the voters have as far as a grand scheme for gun control? Gun control advocacy media sites may not be a good resource for what the truth really is. One could call it a unbiased fact source. Any gun based vitriolic us vs them mentality is a story told by the people selling fear of "takin our guns away".

that is a real piece of art. In my mind, I can see some old blacksmith sweating away over a anvil, making those crampons.

it is this aggressive attitude about gun ownership that is the most disturbing and IMO the reason why the recent gun initiative passed. If gun owners came across as sensible and responsible individuals, non gun owners wouldn't give a crap about people owning guns. NRA says that people kill people not guns killing people. When we hear such aggression coming from gun owners,(even such a minor comment such as "eat it") it is not a big leap to think it would be good to get guns out of these peoples hands. There are many pro gun activists that say the craziest shit and it scares the bejessus out of the rest of the country. A few bad apples ruining it for the rest of the playground?

I thought there were written rules against posting eBay here. maybe even craigslist is off limits but they haven't made a filter for that.

that was not an example of good writing. I sure liked that tech tip section though, till they ran out of novel ideas than they resorted to stuff that was in every How To book.

Yup, yarn-spinning is a dying art and Pagel's skills are right up there with the best. while the majority of stuff in climbing magazine may not be a superb quality, I have been surprised by some really good writing, mostly in rock and ice. Seems like there is at least one good article in every issue. off the top of my head, a recent issue had a good article on a well known base jumper death (Sean Leary?) and Ueli Steck s face Annapurna controversy. I think that the ratio of good to mediocre articles is about the same since the 90's.