genepires

http://unofficialnetworks.com/snowboarding-heaven-earth-holden-village-125678/ good video of local area. who wudda thunk?

thanks y'all. the gear placements can be all near the ground as we would be working on making gear TR anchors. they have climbed before so the level of the rock could be 5.8 or so. they mainly need work on making TR's. (both bolted and gear) Just a day so squamish would be too far. they live in bellingham so index may work. Was hoping to show them places near their town to climb also. maybe use summit crags for setting up bolted TR and maybe a mock lead on the corner just left of the nose. use rock gear wall for gear anchors. Is there a better location than that? once again, ,thanks for the replies gene

been to the upper summit wall bunches. been to zig zag area. I am showing some friends how to set up a TR and do some leading practice. Is there a better area than the summit wall? would like to be able to walk to top for TR setup practice so that kinda puts zig zag wall out. would like some on the ground gear placement practice. is there a better place for these things? doesn't have to be tall, just a good learning environment. 5.9 and less routes preferred. thanks in advance gene

we were at the same campground the last two labor day weekends. And i ran into you at index a couple times. also a couple times in the icicle. It is easy to spot you cause you use your real photo. and sharpie your name on your haulbag pack. I use a strange cat so I understand the difficulty of spotting my name to a noncat face. I am all ninja n shite.

the fridge might be getting older but i saw you out in squish and in leavenworth this last weekend. Always restocking the fridge I see.

kids wearing crampons. that is some scary stuff. Some full grown adults are incapable of using them safely and/or responsibly. I assume that your kids are much better people.

a lot of our alpine routes will be covered in snow right now. The tooth south face (snoq pass) will be a good intro to alpine rock. It should be snow free before winter hits in but after november, it will be a wintery climb. snow climbs near bellingham generally means ski mountaineering or snowshoeing.

renton granite is a inside joke here so don't go looking for it. if you are not a solid trad climber, I would be hesitant to go alpine rock climbing for numerous reasons. Being in bellingham, you will get plenty of opportunities to go cragging at squamish and erie. (weather permitting) Go there, set up topropes and do laps on single pith climbs. erie if you have a foul forecast in squamish or if you have a short day available. Squamish for full day or weekend with a good weather forecast. choose squamish over erie. get real comfortable with rock climbing then hit up the alpine terrain.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10151926843682938&set=a.410480422937.209825.206971122937&type=1 real frosty after the last storm came through. could all melt off quick though.

bump. how could I need to bump free shite?

Found these rock shoes and could not find the owners. free if they fit you, sort of like cinderella. I want these to go to someone who will use them, not someone who will resell them. the velcro closure one is a size 7.5 and the lace up is 9.5 meet me at work on east marginal way during the day for a handoff.

ropes have different characteristics other than diameter. Elongation and impact forces will be more relevant to your question than diameter, assuming that your belay device is rated to work for a 8.5mm rope. Typically the smaller diameter ropes have more elongation and lower impact forces but that may not be 100% true. If your inferred question is wether your 8.5mm rope adequate for catching vertical leader falls, then answer would lay with evaluating all the points in the belay chain are adequate. -Is the belay device good for that size rope? friction goes down as size goes down. (insert snickering here) Rope size people! -Is the rope being used as designed? (is it a single rope or a double rope?) -Is the rope still in good enough condition to be used this way? If the answer is yes, then the rope is fine. There a shit ton of other questions about lead climbing but for your original question.

Of the 4 FA's I have done with Darin, I think this route may actually get a second ascent. It deserves fairly regular traffic and is actually more fun than the normal n face route. Oh the heresy!

somewhere below in the photos are girls in bikinis. really.

damn D, save me the trouble of going back in there for the hard manual labor. was planning on trudging up there this fall. Now I can just go in with light pack and send the radness. Any fools wanna hit the second (or third) ascent?

sweet!

it is also my humble opinion that a ice climbing boot will work much better than a ski mtneering boot for ice climbing, no matter what anyone says. Otherwise every ice climber would be wearing them, right?

look at Dane's blogs. he has reviews on ski mtneering boots and their ability to ice climb. There is a growing group of split boarders going hardboot. These boots are the same as the ski mtneering boots. dynafit TLT5 is a very popular ski mtneering boot and also works well with the splitboarders too. I have read that people have ice climbed well with them also. I assume that you are wishing to ice climb in washington. I love washington for the variety of climbing but ice climbing we ain't got it. If you are looking for advice, forget about buying skiis and use that money to get in your car and drive to banff for a week. You will get more easily accessible, reliable, and safe (as ice climbing can be) ice climbing in one week that in a entire season of slogging through deep snow to 30 foot smears that may fall down at any time. or buy a ticket to ouray and get 10 pitches in every day easy. If you want mileage on ice, you gotta travel to where the ice is.

another climber in monroe-via? are you talking about just summer cascade climbing? My spring/summer/fall glove kit (and mostly volcanoes) is real simple. A couple pair of liners, a windstopper glove and for when things get real crappy, a goretex mitten shell (no liner) over the WS gloves. Luckily the goretex hardly ever gets used. No one glove will fit all conditions, but this combo works for mostly everything not involving skiing. If there is alpine ice in the route, I throw in a pair of BD dry tool goves for those steep ice bits but switch to the previous setup for the rest of the mtn. sometimes you just gotta live with wet hands while drying the other ones in your clothes.

that talk is in his will gadd blog posting. in that discussion comes the solution with using the fixed anchor belay.

it is all just tools for the tool box. this fixed anchor idea may have it application in certain situations like a very steep or overhanging limestone sport climb that is very runout. I can see the argument that the belayer getting sucked into the anchor being a bad thing one that I admittedly do blindly. Having the fall factor 2 force transmitted directly to the anchor (if it is bomber) vs catching the fall normally with a fall factor 1.74 and risking losing the belay is the question that needs to be asked. Would take more research into what the tests showed, but he may have run the "belayer well below the anchor" option and it did not show enough improvement. If you do not like the single point to the belay device, you could connect the belay device to a equalized point. There was some author for a strange how to book (maybe called mountaineering techniques to get you higher or something) that was proposing a similar system. belayer tied to a single separate piece of pro and the climbing rope was run through a equalized anchor for the first piece. The idea was that the first piece takes the most force so it should be the most bomber. I think the video was proposing a munter instead of a atc so the brake position would be ideal for a fall onto the anchor. A ATC would be in a very bad brake position. It would be awkward to belay out and keep slack under control when belaying from the anchor. Maybe they found that the slack is the same though between the two options. (of anchor and off belay loop) Will Gadd does make several comments in his blog about anchoring the belayer for a upward force, separate from the anchor, when clipping the anchor with the climbing rope. If this Kirk Mauthner is as thorough and Gadd makes him sound like, (in addition to the canadian mtn guide assoc) I would bet that he has taken all the other options into account and still came up with this being a good option. (for certain situations) Also, if done safely, I bet one could belay off the anchor when the FF2 is a possibility and switch over to a standard belay when the FF is lower. not that I want you doing that to me, Mikey. good rainy day thoughts.

damn it, need to add another to the list.

damn it. another great one lost.

no appologies needed. I still have fond memories of my first alpine rock trip up to beckey route with my very good friend jeff. WHat a couple of clowns we were. I doubt that you brought more gear than us. at least no one was on route to witness our goober-ness, but a team on concord could hear the circus going. those early climbing career climbs are the best. everything is fresh and new. savor them.

most would ask to partake. especially if away from the road.