genepires

be a part of the solution. write your own guidebook. write a good guidebook. be an example instead of a complainer.

The idea of jokes is hard for you to understand. I thought the little happy face would show that. Lighten up a bit.

sorry about the loss. Can't imagine what it must be like for a dad to lose a son. for some reason, the name David Trippett sounds familiar. We have a small circle and I think I ran into him once or twice.

You might need a "work" tent and a "personal play" tent. work tent may need to withstand rain for days. Personal play tent does not as most people just go home. Guided trips don't have that option. It doesn't have to be expensive or heavy either to be a good work tent. I used a light MEC 3 season double wall tent for many years. There are even more options for LW 3 season tents now just make sure it has several guye points (>6). prodeal or even used. this tent will get UV damage and trashed so why bring a pricey single wall style tent? No single wall tent is "good" in a rain shower. I have a older generation of the LS evo nepal top called the nepal extreme. Can't say if they are the same but prolly close. I wouldn't want to walk a long way in them on trails. They are still clunky. I used the old scarpa freney (blue ones) a long time and they worked much better. I think they are lower cut. If you want a summer work boot, I think there are better options out there. More towards walking and less towards vertical ice performance. Too early for me to come up with examples now. garmont towers and the new freneys amongst others. cheap looking gear might earn sympathy from clients and yield better tips.

melt with stove and purify with chemical treatments like aquamira worked for me for decades. Filters are not required and just too plain heavy for the job needed. Maybe if I was in a foreign and filthy place (varcas valley on aconchossua comes to mind) then a filter would be worth the weight. I used a plastic bag to store snow near the stove for melting. The sun would warm up the snow to a slurpy mess, getting us halfway to water.

if you will be doing weeklong courses with the chance of precip, the leathers will be a poor choice. if you get some leather boots THAT FIT, keep the plastics for those foul weather trips. The plastics will be useful for acon-choss-ua too. Don't be that guy who goes to acon with leather boots. Put everything in your favor when choosing gear. Pick reliable and durable and warm. your acon-choss-ua tent should be absolute bomber. horrible winds are the norm. I would rather haul a ve25 and know that my shelter will withstand what the mountain will dish out. (maybe) Even with the rock walls and great anchoring, the tents take a beating. You will spend lot of money going down there and have your summit taken away due to LW gear failure will suck. Plus the guy points on the firstlight are too low on the body. back to guiding on shasta, can you describe the kind of work you will be doing?

twas good. but getting old means that day climbs becomes all I get for the weekend. tired!

nice work. we were two of the six on OS you saw (on the ground as you came by) and watched your work. was wondering if that was champagne and now I know.

isn't this true of every climber?

he rode train from everett to l'worth. no bike storage on train so he used friends bike. I assume he used bus for seattle to everett.

do tell how the memorial buttress shenanegans went.

"fatter"? my fast ass dude. great blog! who wudda thunk that a PE guy can write so well. must be that college edumacation.

do what you like and to hell with what others think. climbing is a game which you get to make your own rules. live it that way. I tape often. canucks make fun of me. I don't care what others think. I like tape mitts.

the future tyson memorial route. (in 40 years or so)

seems that x-fit would be good for alpine training that is mainly endurance based. If one didn't have mountains in their backyard, seems like x-fit would be the second best thing for alpine training as long as you don't get hurt.

I had my son do ski lessons this year with good success while I snowboarded around. he wants to snowboard but I told him that he needed to be 7 before he gets SB lessons. Stevens age policy. skiing is intuitively easier than SB so I think it is a good step progression if he/she wants to SB eventually. The bigger question is if the child is able to utilize lessons and learn anything. I don't think my boy would have done very good when he was three. But every kid is different so maybe yours will be fine. Mine had some lessons with 3.5 yo's in the class. Gear is easy and cheap. get the shortest ones you can find. Call the ski school for rec's on sizing. Keep an eye out on cragslist and you can find some for $50. Boots don't need the fit as you do as a adult. Just not too big. (like 3 sizes too big) Just go to sports replay in november and find some boots then. I would suggest you enroll your kid in a ski school with unlimited lessons. the first 8 or so will involve not skiing. But after 15 or so, they can really make amazing progress. it will be expensive but is def worth it.

finally something worth reading on cc.com. well the 12 year old sending 5.14 and the whole grain thing is good too. from the guy who used to "be mean to dogs" thanks Dan.

I used to spend much more time out there. With the given snow fall this winter and lack of sun in the spring, I give it a 90% chance that there will be 3 to 4 miles of road walking and possibly sharing the road with sledheads. The permited time to use the meadows for them must end soon for the season but I can't remember the exact date.

I seem to roll my ankles most on high top boots, the same one that would seem to prevent rolling ankles. go figure. I think a low profile shoe may be more stable and less rolling prone. Think jeep high center vs sport car. My boots are rather thick in the sole which may be the reason for this strange situation. Never roll ankle when barefoot.

gene = smartass? maybe, but only to folks I like. Haven't been on that road in over 5 years. I need to correct that silliness. A road can be dirty and wet under 4 feet of snow.

dirty and wet with a few potholes. going for another lookout this weekend?

Looks like Gene is looking for a new friend (Keenwesh) for naked dancing and shit. I think you are projecting your desires and I like warm fingers anyway.

saw somewhere a long time ago that a ropeman like device was used in the first loop (of a drop c like in your link) dropped down to victim instead of a pulley.

hey locals, any idea when the tick population returns to a normal level? I was thinking that may was a "normal" tick time period. was thinking of heading out there next weekend for a fam camping/chill climbing weekend. If memory serves right, it seems like the farther you get away from the road, the ticks get worse. True?

you need new friends that have naked dancing party with tons of crazy shite. You are still young and will be doing the reserved chill parties for way too long starting in a decade or so.