genepires

bellingham. damn I love me some bellingham. you can find careers there. Educational clubs courses? they have a bellingham mountaiineers club. for solid internet remote location crew, there are lots of them in mazama. damn fine place that mazama. What about requirement for winter skiing/boarding? that could make the choice easier.

you are right about individual risk but the chance of Someone getting the chop does go up would be interesting to see registration number for amount of people climbing lib ridge. I thought that the amount of people was essentially the same for the last 30 years considering it is a 50 classic.

The point Bob is making is to spend less time in the hazardous area. Spend 10 minutes or 8 hours under crumbling mud pile or under hanging icefall? All about minimizing risk, not eliminate risk.

I had heard of some big ice fall activity on the Buttes. ice fall crossing over the uptrack. Your last photo looks like ice fall that stayed near the cliff itself. Did you see any other big icefall?

Tvash and partner had a rock fall into their tent at that camp spot too but they were climbing it kinda late in season.

as I remember there are some running creeks nearby. How nearby depends on time of year and where you camp but still reasonable. I would purify it by some means. tablets purification fine if you don't want to haul up extra fuel or filter. plenty of people walking around the basin and someone must have pooped under a rock or two or 2000. I don't think they can keep day use out of the hut. Most people don't want to hike down and back up from applebee so it is not really a problem that must have been addressed. don't know about charging but I doubt anyone can stop you from using a unused charger outlet. the trail will be improved from your last time in there. I think the hut has some renovation since your last time also. A big avi smacked it around some time in the 90's.

hey Alpine dads, anyone interested in a one day craggin trip somewhere between and including exit whatever up to squish or l'worth? or alpine rock up at the wa pass? looking to keep it below the 5.10's whatever day is fine this memorial day weekend

you will not want the overboots. that is a specific condition item, like butt ass cold and requires crampons. I doubt that you will be or want to be in crampons for the whole day. I doubt your guide will allow you to use them. I had super gaiters and snow will sneak in around the rubber rand and you r boots will get wet anyways. I have guided in cascades for 8 years and very familiar with slogging up volcanoes around here. You will be glad to bring double plastic boots over leather. Leather boots are fine mid july and on. You can get by with leather boots (history has shown that old timers climbed plenty of bad ass shit with loafers) but you will be much happier with something that you can remove the liner and dry out daily.

I wonder how many people have been down to moraine lake? cool looking trip.

my bet is something on Mt Baring is the next to go. or something on the black buttes/colfax/Lincoln area.

is UW rock still standing or did it get crushed for the new highway?

cray cray https://globalnews.ca/video/5273224/landslide-at-joffre-peak-no-injuries-or-fatalities-reported/?fbclid=IwAR0jQ9WmgT0ht1tY2kdxhDy72ALeZ-wSjOvnMDyG83ei1eknmZkLg_l16dM

don't know if you did it already but maybe try turns all year site. I am assuming it fell off a skiers pack.

yes about the icicle. just looking for a mid way place between indoors and granite. I always felt the exits as a outside gym place. Much like face climbing at the feathers. we should get out this year.

thanks Rad! hopefully we can graduate to more pleasant granite routes.

I got Kurt's book. Was thinking about sun vista and headlight among others but just curious about the walk to the top. I think my boy likes to climb without a lot of crowds around. Yes the exits are not the place for solitude.

I looked at gritscone and I don't think it is very kid friendly. Hell, it doesn't look adult friendly either. thanks though.

Time for my young prodigy to graduate from indoor rock gym to real rock. Looking at the guidebook for exit 38 shows lots of routes that would be a good transition from indoor gym to outdoor gym-like environs. Would like to start on 5.6's and work upwards for him. Found lots of places on the north side of exit 38. Chances are that it would be just him and me so obviously I need to walk around to setup a TR. He is only 80 some odd pounds and I don't want to poison his life with a "dropped his dad and killed him situation". any good easy crags with easy walk around for TR setups? Hopefully the holds are not too exit 38 wierd like at we did it rock. thanks folks!

the few times I used leather climbing boots for splitboarding, I got pretty annoying pain on the calf muscle. the highbakcs are higher that the boot and would dig in on heal side turns. Did you find a really low highback (a lowback?) to not have this problem? I didn't know that they could be found that low. I shoved a small patch of foam from a ground pad back there but did not really that great.

why bring anything at all? most times you can just do them by walking in. the two routes listed has a standard bootpack going in to lake which is a pain to ski anyway, often in in late winter. I have seen alot of people packing skiis up to the lake. so for colchuck and dragontail, you would have 30 minutes of useful snow slide time before getting on route. The reality is that the snow is so deep that you need floatation, you really need to reconsider the route choice due to avi concerns. chair and baker often have bootpacks approaches also. Being able to walk on the approach without flotation is a good sign that the actual climbing route is in good condition. Things usually get more difficult the higher you go. If you are wallowing down low, expect more wallowing up high. steep wallowing is a good way to die.

put me on the that list.

that is funny cause I thought I was the last person to use leashes. you must have saw my one attempt at it. I did try to climb a pretty steep line on TR and leash less. Pumped out, fell with rope stretch and left those things still implanted in the ice. Fun for training on a woody but for the real deal, I use the crutches of leashes. I am with you on the functionality of extended rappels. I just felt that it is another tool that gets used when needed and not when not needed. for example, I would not extend a rappel for a lightweight someone who had long flowing hair. For a pre rig rappel, makes total sense.

to be honest, it has been a while since I was a AMGA trained guide so my observation is a decade old and could have changed since. But if you really have fears that your rappel setup could mechanically fail mid rappel, then by all means attach your backup to a full strength belay loop. The weakest links in the rappel linkages is the anchor, rope and the brake hand. Looking at all the rappel accidents, never has the rappel biner or device broke. Anchors fail, ropes get cut or control of brake is lost. Having taken a rock to the chest mid rappel and almost passing out, my main concern is to prevent the loss of the brake strand. The leg loop is perfectly acceptable for accomplishing this task. And since I rarely extend my rappel device, there is no way to use the autoblock on the belay loop.. but whatever, if you feel there is only one way to perform a task, then flame on.

but the bigger issue than brake backups is TIE KNOTS IN END OF ROPES! (speaking from personal experience) That is what kills people.

pros and cons to everything right? pro for having friction hitch above device: having the friction hitch above "may help" (or may not) if you rap off the ends of the rope. having the friction hitch below will not help with rap off end of rope con for friction hitch above: seems like always fighting the hitch when it grabs while descending. cavers seem to use the friction device above more often and use those peztl mech grabbers often to be able to release when it grabs. but they like to carry extra gear. But going by the standard guides method of descending. Girth hitch sling to harness (either belay loop or waist/leg loop) with knot and belay device like Dan above mentions. Small prussik loop girth attached to leg loop and then friction hitch of some kind to brake strands. The benefit of going to leg loop is that the hitch is far away from device. if the device hits the hitch, then it will not work. so it all depends on how long your prussik loop is. if it is real short, then you can go to belay loop I find it interesting that people think the leg loop is not strong enough for the job of being a brake backup. lets do a test. which can hold more weight; a leg loop or a firemans backup? (serve same purpose)