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gearbot

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Everything posted by gearbot

  1. gearbot

    Urban Climbing

    Some fresh training ideas for the winter season: Russian Climbing Link Crazy
  2. Re-posted from the Mountaineer's Message Board: "hi all. i am a friend of todd's and wanted to notify you of the details of the memorial. it will be held monday july 4th from 1 to 5pm. it will be at elliott bay brewery in west seattle, where todd worked. the address is 4720 california ave. i would greatly appreciate your passing the word along to anyone who would like to join us in remembering. thank you."
  3. A nice story: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/230336_climber28.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=0
  4. went up Sunday morning in the horizontal snow, turned around at 9500 ft., in some places there was 1-2 ft. of new snow on top of a hard crust.
  5. Beginner ice climbing, thinking of a trip to Lillooet at the end of Jan., looking for suggestions for easy, roadside climbs.
  6. I believe you can drop your shoes off at Vertical World in Seattle; John Ramuta picks them up on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Call to confirm this. I agree with Rumr, you basically get a new shoe, when John is done.
  7. Lots of great photos. Here are a few more, under the wire.
  8. Don't forget "The Mountain" (1956) with Spencer Tracy
  9. I see the benefits of keeping a climb in the same state of as the first ascension. Other parties wanting to push the cutting edge of climbing need to repeat climbs in the same way as the original ascension. But, the first climbing party does not own the climb. As time progresses, so does the state of the art of climbing; for example in the 70’s the best climbers in the world were focused on slab climbing, now slabs are not cutting edge. At some point climbing areas need to be made more available to the general climbing community which are not willing to take as many risks as the original ascensionists.
  10. As far as I am concerned, add as many bolts as you think necessary to make the climb safe. If the first person who climbs a route solos it, does that mean no bolts can ever be place on the route?
  11. When I was making wands last year, I saw those "pre-made" wands. And said "cool", until I picked them up. A pack of 20 must be 2 lb.
  12. Snowmobiles are like smokers in restaurants and bars , they completely annoy everyone around them except the other smokers.
  13. I saw Gov. Locke's rebuttal. In my option, he was great. When he spoke about his immigrant Chinese grandfather, I had to compare his grandfather to the thousands of immigrant Pakistanis currently fleeing this country because they are afraid they will be declared 'enemy combatant' and put in jail indefinitely without seeing a lawyer.
  14. Erden, What type of rope was it? I believe last week, you were going to look at the rope at the police office. Did I miss the post with the results? Thank you for all the information you have been posting.
  15. Fence Sitter, Check out the article “The Earth’s Changing Glaciers” in The American Alpine Journal, 2000. It should answer all your questions. Figure 5 shows the temperature in the Northern Hemisphere for the last 1000 years. There is definitely an abnormal spike since 1910. Cheers, Gearbot
  16. Hello Cascade Climbers, On Sunday morning, one of the “dams” on 503 between Cougar and the southern entrance of Mt. St. Helens broke taking out the road. In my untrained eye, the road will be closed for months. To get home to Seattle, we had to drive south to the Columbia River, then to Vancouver and up I-5. I do not know where you should get the climbing permits now, since you can not get to Mt. St. Helens from Cougar anymore. Call before going. Hope this help. G.B.
  17. Here is my story about the Mountaineers Basic Equivalency Test: I moved to Seattle last fall from Switzerland, excited about joining The Mountaineers, interested in taking classes and leading trips. I am an average climber with 15 years of rock climbing experience, with 3 seasons in the Alps, including summitting Mt. Blanc and the Matterhorn (by the normal routes). Nothing extreme, but competent in the mountains. I did not pass the basic equivalency test. Escaping the belay: I wrapped the rope around my leg. My instructor told me I should always wrap the rope around the foot, not the leg because that would “cut off circulation”. I informed him that I have done this several times without any ill effects. Navigation test: A complete failure. On this written test, it did not state where you started. I ask the instructor, who told me the wrong parking lot on the map. After he “corrected” my test, (i.e. compared the answers to the answer sheet that was given to him), he informed me that I had "major problems" with my navigation. After we discovered that it was his mistake, the test quickly disappeared. One of the questions was “what do the brown areas on a USGS map indicate”. My answer was “rocks, dirt, no trees”; my “instructor” told me that was incorrect, “there also could be small trees or shrubs”. Crevasse Rescue: We were a team of three. I went first. I setup a Z line and started hauling the victim up. My “instructor” told me to stop, and said that my setup was not a “Z line” but a “C line” and called the chef instructor over to confirm this. When he arrived, he confirmed that the setup was in fact a “Z line”. Other memorable quotes from the “instructor” during this exercise: “One prusik knot could never hold the weight of a person” (I mentioned that it did just that an hour before when I prusiked up the rope), and “Just forget about trying to equalize snow anchors”. I understand that the “instructors” are volunteers and might not have a lot of teaching experience, but I was left with the feeling that my “instructors” were given instructions to fail as many people as possible, which seems evident by my incorrect response to “what do the brown areas on a USGS map indicate”. Do The Mountaineer want to fail people so they collect more $$$ by forcing them to take the full Basic Climbing Class? This is what my $35 got my (the price of the basic equivalency test), I feel cheated. G.B.(Not certified to follow a Mountaineer up The Tooth) [ 04-07-2002: Message edited by: gearbot ]
  18. [ 04-05-2002: Message edited by: gearbot ]
  19. Hello All, I finally got around to scanning the picture from last fall's climb on Mt. Stuart. Here a link to the view from the top of Stuart, looking north: (www.angelfire.com/trek/mera/Scan411.jpg) (sorry, it seems like the anglefire system does not let me link or include the picture, you have to cut and paste the link into your browser manually, sorry, is there are better way in include pictures?) Since I am a new to the Cascades, here is my "2 cent" read on the photo: on the right is Glacier Peak, on the left on is Mt. Baker, but what is the small snow covered peak in the center? Thinking about summer, G.B. [ 03-16-2002: Message edited by: gearbot ]
  20. Hello All, Thank you for your comments. My goal of the original post was to get information from other people who have tried the "Snow Lake Divide" Tour described on pages 74-76 in "Backcountry Skiing Snoqualmie Pass" by Martin Volken. From the replies, I believe “sverdina”, is the only one who has actually tried this tour, with the same results, “Shitty”. For those of you who do not have the book (and after this tour I can not recommend buying the book), I can describe the route: you ski up to Source Lake, then up to Snow Lake Divide, down to Snow Lake, from Snow Lake you ski back towards Alpental but on the back side of the ridge, in about 1 mile (you theoretically) go over a col. (Point 4,958) and then back down the front side of the ridge to Apental. The only problem is getting to the col., like “sverdine” said, the last 20-ft is steep. We might have made it if we took off the skies and boot kick up the slope, but this tour has a level of 1 to 2 (on a scale of 5). I would not expect on a low-level tour, taking off the ski and walking would be necessary. Have anyone else tried this route? Has anyone completed it (beside Mr. Volken)? Has anyone else tried other tours from this book? I am interested, if I should burn the book or give it a second chance, G.B.
  21. Just bring this post back to the topto see if there is any information out there. Thanks.
  22. Hello All, Yesterday I tried to ski a route fromMartin Volken's book "Backcountry Skiing Snoqualmie Pass" called Snow Lake Divide. I know I am not an excellent skier,but I could not get up the second pass (col at Point 4,958), it was too steep at the top. Having to back track the whole route yesterday night, has made me so pissed-off,I am about to ripe this tour out of the book. Has anyone else tried this tour?Impress / Comments Also the decent back to the Alpental Road did not look like much fun because it was in thick treescompared to skiing the nice open bowl above Source Lake. G.B.
  23. Everyone knows MSR is owed by REI, right?
  24. I was cross-country skiing on Sat. on some multi-use forest roads and was passed by many snowmobiles all day. The noise I could live with because you could hear them coming down the road and get out of the way. This was especially nice after the sun went down; we were a little late getting back to the cars. But the smell! In the valley sections where there was not much wind, you could smell the exhaust for a full 10 minutes after the machine had past. It was like putting your head in a bag of oil and gas and walking around.
  25. Why can’t they put a real engine in those snowmobiles? You hear them for 1 minute and smell them for the next 15 !
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