genepires

BOOO! Not ready for summer/fall to be over. (sorry about raining on this forums good news)

If you are looking to climb cascades in spring and winter, you should take a avi course and learn to backcountry ski. Maybe a better use of your $2000 is to buy good ski setup and a couple ski lessons at a local hill if you are not a good skier. While I can't speak for all guiding outfits, but I think that a course for avi control is going to be superior to a avi section in a winter mtneering course. If you are looking for summer climbing skills in a winter time training session, I do not think you will find it. They are completely different situation and might as well be in different continents. The crossover is minimal and not a efficient use of your money. Now if you got lots of extra cash floating around........... Are your rock climbing skills good enough? Maybe a couple days rock climbing with a guide would do you more good. Same with ice climbing. Based on your goals, basic competency with rock and ice is so much more important than winter climbing skills.

It depends on where your skills are now and what your goals are. A denali prep course is a prep for denali. The skills you learn on a denali prep course may not be functional for your cascade goals. your money may be better spent on a solid summer mountaineering skill course if that is lacking for you.

I have a pear biner to use as the "belay loop".

BD alpine bod?

I am gonna round up a bunch of raging assholes and be at your place at 4:30am.

You are right that any leader who condones or supports violence should not be allowed to represent workers. I like how people think that union leaders rake in the big bucks. I can't speak for other unions, but our leaders (of our local 191) make a whopping 10% more than the working journeyman. I can understand Bronco's dislike for unions but I just don't get the typical anti-union sentimentality. What did we do to so many people?

No union leader is going to condone that violent behavior because it does not support their goals. Once again, there are bad apples in every bunch but that doesn't mean we should throw out the whole bushel. You bring up an interesting question. What would happen if there were no more unions? I believe that most people seem to think that things would go along same as ever or get better. Unions are on the way out but look at how our work force has changed. People regularly work more than 40 hours and not spending time with their family. Wages are stagnant or dropping when compared to actual purchase power. Pensions are gone. Medical is becoming too expensive even if you got it. From what I see, the things that unions fought hard for are being taken back. Without unions around, your 40 hour workweek and overtime pay and everything else that we call workers rights may disappear. The only organization that lobbies for workers rights (union and non union workers) is the unions, especially state workers unions. Without unions, who will lobby for us? How long till all workers rights are taken away? Anyone who seriously thinks we don't need unions (and their occasional stupidity) needs to seriously think about where we would be without because you may get what you wish for, good or bad.

pm

that is very messed up and no one should be subject to that. every population has some bad apples and that is about as bad as it gets. That attitude does no one any good. One of the goals of our union is to organize all electricians and beating up "scabs" does not help us in that regard. Our union has had some dirt that you describe in the past but with current competition, our less understanding elements are forced to play fair in that hope to organize the entire workforce. Organize all workers means more work for all of us. The best thing that union guys can do is to be a good example that union is a good thing for society. I firmly believe that union work is good for USA and "the rising tide lifts all boats". I am always very nice to iron workers. They are a rough crowd but mostly good men. (at least the one I have interacted with) Would hate to be on their shit list though. Oh yeah....you're a corporate shill.

nice job Chris!

OK, I take back calling everyone pansies. Just wanted to grab attention.

my internet skills are what they are. I make no excuses about that. No reason to cry about it. the video is very good though. worth the 7 minute investment. There is a 30sec commercial you gotta wait through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Cj6ho1-G6tw&vq=medium I know something like this was posted before but this video is just too cool. Climbing may be rad but this guy makes what we do look lame. sorry I could not embed it easily for you but my internet skills are weak. enjoy gene

I am a union electrician and have never seen the sense of entitlement, irrational and irresponsible behavior that you described. Fact is we compete with non union and cannot have these attitudes you speak of. This goes for all the construction trades. So please offer some situations you have witnessed these attitudes. As for inflated labor rates, you get what you pay for. While I have not worked non union, I have talked to the state electrical inspectors and they are always pleased with our work.

full on value! We did the approach, decent thing too. Hike up from hairpin, hike out blue lake trail. I thought it would be a stellar idea to stash a bike at the blue lake trailhead for the ride back to the hairpin. We walked for awhile till someone gave us a ride.

placing the picket while in self arrest skill is a skill needed for teams of 2. assuming a middle person fell in, the 2 people on either side of the victim hold the weight while the remaining end person self belays his/her way to the nearest person. The person standing builds an anchor right below the person holding the weight and continues with the rest of the recon, assist and/or rescue. for steeper ground, this may need to be changed to fit the situation but the basics is the same. But the need to build an anchor and hold the weight is not needed unless 3 of the team members fall in. (this assumes that all members of the team have at least basic skills) I would rather pound in a picket into super strong snow than try to build a t slot. It is really hard to hold the weight with feet only (the holding is the easy part) and use the axe to carve out a t slot deep enough to really hold. try it sometime. If the bridges are weak enough to fall in, the snow is weak enough that vertical placements are questionable. Digging a t slot deep enough with one hand is very hard to do. So the concept of placing a picket one handed while holding the axe is questionable.

a couple pulleys per team is fine. a couple pickets per team is fine too. If the person in the hole has a picket, you can bury a axe to replace. I would suggest those runners be double length to allow enough space between anchors for strength. good job with the preparation by learning the right skills.

one gets what they paid for. $90 might be in your price range if you think about owning it for 10 years vs a piece of crap that needs to be replaced after a couple years. I am not dissing the costco jacket but I do not own one. I think Dane spoke well about it though.

costco has softshell jackets for fairly cheap. relatively. something like $50 or so.

you can increase the friction of any belay device by using more carabiners between the rope and your belay device. I have never heard of dynamic cordelette. The common stuff of the spool is static. If weight is the issue, then maybe it is wiser to evaluate the length of your rope needs instead of diameter so much. For typical mountain travel, a 60m is pretty long and unneeded. 40 to 50m maybe a better choice.

rap wall? (the mixed climbing area)

Why would you not stay in the habit of tossing the skinny and rapping on both so the "right end" will always be clipped. Just a theory to answer your question. The skinny ropes are more susceptable to being cut over edges. It seems like every rap involves the rope laying over some kind of edge. With time, the probability is high that your skinny rope will cut taking you down. If you are lucky, the rope knot will jam and you can single rope rappel down but without a means to retrieve the rope. PLus then there is the unequal rates of flow of rope through the rappel device which causes the ends to not be even and the possibility of burning the rappel anchor webbing if there is no metal rings.

I have used some screws that look just like those almost 20 years ago. They were complete crap and worthless in waterice. It cost only $10 each but they were worth that for alpine ice were they went in by hand if it was warm. Assuming that these are the same, then they are a complete waste of money. They also dull very quick.

I agree but with slight modification. If a picket can be placed vertically by hand, I don't trust it. If it takes many whacks with a hammer or top of the axe, I trust it.