terrible_ted

quote: Originally posted by mneagle: Don't forget to get your receipt stamped at the border to get your tax back. Hey meanbird: How does that work? My previous expenditures in Canada were of the 'non-declarable' sort... Is this a refund that you get via the Fed. inc. tax? -t

I was on the Sitkum route about three weeks ago. It's a walk-up. You'd need good visibility and death wish to find a crevasse big enough to fall in - but I never underestimate the blindness of strangers... -t

Hip boots or a swamp buggy would be helpful. Maybe a new cord to replace that manky handline on the rock band? I never got past the crap part of the route. Now I know better. -t

Not really, Bedal Creek is a bit of a thrash and I did my time last week on Bachelor Creek. W. Face goes 5.4 to 5.5. From Bedal Basin, push on up traversing until you get to the west face route (it's farther than you think...), usually indicated by the water running down the route line. Once at the base, just go up, ignoring the reams of tedious beta describing the climb. Seems to me it was about a half-dozen real pitches followed by a bunch of simul-climbable stuff. A nice but very full day. There are bivi trenches just below the route. Bedal Creek is even more fun to hike out from in the dark !

quote: Originally posted by Peter Puget: The American of course were pragmatists. Are you implying that the Americans rejected a dominant culture of impracticality? -t

West Face? (Fun!) Corkscrew? (Slog!) You should specify... and have fun. -t

So it looks like climbers will be the first to take advantage of hairy palms... All you sport climbers looking to move up a grade: get to work on it!

quote: Originally posted by David Parker: Why don't they figure out a way to let you know how much fuel has been consumed/left. Even if you had to buy a little gauge to test at home before you leave. Jim Nelson recommends a using a small scale ("diet scale") to weigh your cannisters. If you weigh them when you get them, and write the weight on the cannister, you can later reweigh the cannister and determine how much weight you've consumed. It's great to see this discussion, and I hope it goes on a bit more: I'm in the market to make the jump to butane. My Whisperlite is now officially the largest piece of leaver pro in my rack, although it's let me down in so many other ways I'm not sure I'd give it one more chance on a rapp... -t

Hi: Went up via Bachelor Creek via Downey Creek. Downey is great, Bachelor is a bit of work. Avalanche slope starting ~4700' (altimeter crapped out early that morning) is first traversed on the right (looking upslope) until a pair of wands indicate the end of the road. Then, pick the least painful way upslope, probably staying in the more open portions. Numerous small drainages on the lower left side of the slope. The trail can be picked up WAY to the left after picking up ~500'. A few more wands mark the re-entry to the upper trail. Itswoot Ridge camp is gorgeous! From camp, 5.5 hrs up, 2.5 hrs down. Glacier is a walk-up. We replaced the summit register, which dated from 1994. Some great entries in there - Larry Ingalls may win for most inspiring! ~36 miles RT. Next time I want Motrin as my corporate sponser. -t

quote: On a hot day, it sure can cut short those on-trail conversations with beautiful women.Yeah, that's a problem I run into a lot... I'd like to think my wife picked me for my ability to smile when completely full of shit...

quote: Originally posted by trask: I managed to swallow a bee once while yawning. How do you know? Were you trying? I call bullshit! -t

Hi: I think you're referring to Steve Firebaugh. The Mountaineer's position is that members adhere to 'leave no trace' backcountry ethics. This means that participants in training courses are taught the essentials of waste management (including the use of blue bags in sensitive areas), and are expected to follow those guidelines, regardless of how they end up in the backcountry. Obviously (that's why they call it "ethics"), you can only teach people the appropriate behavior - it's up to them to apply what they've been taught. I'm pretty sure that this is way all of the 'backcountry schools' (Alpine Ascents, NOLS, Mazamas, RMI, etc...) deal with the issue - it's the only policy that you can defend as an organization. On some of the snow field trips which involve large numbers of students in a relatively small area, there are occasions where a portable latrine (i.e. big garbage bag... ) is set up for the entire group. Some lucky soul is invited to haul it down (hopefully by sled...) at the end of the outing. Unfortunately, the really big garbage bags usually only come in black or silver. I always prefer the maxim 'go before you go.' The fewer blue bags I have to carry out, the better... Of course, there's been more than a few occasions where I've had a pretty grim look on my face on the last bit of a hike out... -t

Tim: Maybe it's time to rethink your e-mail address...

Oops, running behind here... Fay, Pleasant and Hessong last weekend (my wife's first 'scramble' summit - hopefully not the last...), Glacier Peak on Wednesday and Goode on Saturday. And on the seventh day... Barbeque!!

Thanks for the post, Jason. It's nice to get some clear insight (in something short of 4000 words -> Lambone! ) to a situation and to hear that it wasn't a complete 'sketchfest.' I suspect, however, that the accident rate for this year will prove to be indistinguishable from that of recent years. I think we just hear about incidents in a more timely fashion. -t

"Don't come up that way, it's too hard. But don't worry about that piece, it'll shake right out!" and it did...

quote: is someone who can stay calm under pressure and doesn't just bail when things get tough.Sounds great. What do you do, put all your partners through a 'test epic' first? I definitely agree with you vis-a-vis mishaps: if alpinism was predictable it wouldn't be fun. Sometimes experience keeps you from doing things that would be fun, but ass-bustingly difficult and risky. Where does that fit in? -t

I think Erik's point is one of the most important and deserves amplification... along with a spell-check.... quote: always having a pice between both climbers.This means that if you protect a move, then you almost always need to have a SECOND piece in BEFORE the follower gets to the move. That way, if your second peels off on the move (that worried you so much that you wanted to protect it), you'll have something that keeps you from being jerked from behind, falling past the 'tough' move, and on into the void. Or onto the gym floor. Whatever.... Of course, for all I know, Erik wanted you to have a 'pick' in between climbers, or a 'pie' or maybe even a 'pile'... The last is in case you're simulclimbing with a horse. -t

Hi Whiplash: We went ~100' down the gully on the south side of the notch, and then almost doubled back to the NE, heading up a wide gully. We belayed from just up out (2M) of the scramble gully. It sounds like you traversed farther around at this point than we did. I stretched out the 1st pitch almost a full 48M, ending up just after the cave/chimney problem. Real bitch getting through that with a pack. One more full pitch following the same line left us just short of the shoulder, which can be gained by moving up and to the left of the belay stance. The climbing was never that difficult - just chossy. Getting to the summit ridge from the 'staircase' is tough: the right way was relatively straightforward (although 5.2 is a serious sandbag, even by Fred's standards...) and the wrong way is a protection resistant 5.8 or greater... Our next to the last rapp was a double, which was almost overhanging and almost a full 45M, dropping us into the gully on the North side of Gunsight notch. Our final rapp was actually down in the gully, as it was getting near midnight and we had some less seasoned climbers. The weather was pretty miserable come Friday morning - sorry it didn't clear for you. I won't go up there again. Too much unavoidable rockfall to do that twice! -t

This is about as close as I could get to my beautiful mug...

Hi Kelly: Thanks for the post , it's nice to hear something that moves past pure conjecture every now and then... I notice, however, that you did manage to skip commenting on whether of not any of your folks have been bucking a few BB avy timbers on the side... To tell the truth, I really don't care if any maintenance is done on the trail. BB is a nicer climbing trail than most, and I spend enough time doing x-country routes that I just figure downed timber as part of the cost of doing business. As for NPS vs. FS: You're all pickle suits to me! -t

Hi all: For those interested (and you should really reconsider...) in Mixup Peak, I'll offer some encouragement. No one had signed the register since last year, but we added 6 names on Thursday night. We also paid for it with a 2:00am bivy at Cascade Pass (shhhh! don't tell...). The moat at Gunsight Notch is readily scrambled on the right hand side. The rock on the route sucks. If you don't have a helmet on by the time you get into the moat, it's because you're deaf, blind or have nothing in there to protect. The scramble up the 'gray staircase' is nice - it reminded me of a Mayan temple or Egyptian pyramid. PM me if you need anything more than that. -t

Hi Norman: Yeah, I was the sketchy looking white guy with a sunburn coming down in front. Thanks for letting us rapp past. Were you the one leading that pitch, or the one following (climbing in boots, I recall)? Like I mentioned above, the ranger climbed up to us at ~6700' to see our paperwork and it sounds like he continued on up to check you out as well. That's actually something I admire. Getting harrassed at the parking lot over my refusal to pay the trailhead tax is quite another thing.... I know there are some spots over on the Quien Sabe that are less visible from lower in the basin, but from where we were camped, you could look right down at them. Maybe MM brought his all-white glacier camo tent. Boy, it was just a beautiful day to be up! I wonder if some of that haze, however, was from the Chelan fire? I remember the smoke from the Stehekin fire last year was pretty obnoxious last September from the Boston/Sahale ridge. -t

Forbidden Peak. What a joy!

Hi TT: Excellent! That's just what I wanted to hear. I was planning to haul an extra line up with the hopes of being able to fix our way around the problem, and by the sounds of your response, it should prove "do-able." I'm sorry you guys had to bail. Out of curiosity, were you guys doing a one-day alpine attack, or did you camp in the basin? I'm curious because I couldn't tell how far down in the basin the snow extended (although it seemed to be all the way to the creek). It seems that permits for Pelton basin are awfully limited... -t