Otto

You seem mighty strong to me. Keep it going, Jens!

I did Alley Oop Chimney in 1986 and made a note in my Carlstad & Brooks guidebook that I used one point of aid. I remeber it was way hard, and I was leading 5.9s back then. So, yes, I agree it is sandbagged!

Warning of large, loose blocks perched above Thin Fingers base area. While climbing Tatoosh (or "Free at Last" in Smoot, 1989) today, a large flake broke off and smashed into many smaller pieces. One of them is a block a foot and a half long by a foot wide and eight inches thick, perched on a bush. This block, about halfway up the second pitch, the "Dirty Dihedral" (Beckey, 1976), presents a severe danger of falling down at any time. Other, smaller, shards are perched above and below this point. There are also some very large new blocks on the first pitch belay ledge, with the big fir tree, which do not look like they present a danger of falling further. There was a party of four people top-roping Thin Fingers at the time of the rockfall, some sitting at the base. The rockfall came very close to them. Fortunately, none were hurt though one of their backpacks was destroyed. The primary purpose of this message is to warn people as quickly as possible of the dangerous situation at the base of this popular route. The secondary purpose is to inform anyone with the interest and skills to embark on the project of trundling these rocks to eliminate the dangerous situation. Feel free to PM me or email me for further information.

That's what I'm trying to prevent, that's why I've been asking for suggestions. So, this is your experience viewing my photos in particular, but not others (other TRs with photos)? If so, I will certainly choose less than 400 pixels vertical for my next test post. If you get that experience with all photos here, I'll just blow you off and say, "dial-up is Not Supported"! I am certainly thinking about bandwidth, that's why I'm trying to reduce the resolution without introducing pixellation - finding the ideal balance. Thanks for the notes!

Thanks for the feedback! I'll do some testing myself on future posts. On this one, the film and scanning were out of my control. I plan to get a digital camera soon, so the unknowns will be reduced. BTW, all those white flecks were on the prints. Chalk dust on the lens?!

IrfanView provides a "Save quality" slider labeled from "lowest" (0) to "best" (100). On another report, the Price Glacier one, I selected halfway, (50), and the results were noticeably pixellated. Too low. Now I'm finding I can get the desired filesize reduction by leaving compression alone at 100, and just make 'em a smaller viewing size (400 pixels vertical). If 140Kb isn't too big, and Gary_Y doesn't complain, I'm home free!

I can't climb 5.11 with a pack and a big rack, wish I could. If you do it as 5.9 A2, there are seven pitches requiring some aid.

Yes, I sure noticed the big new blowdown blocking the trail, and the nicely engineered step up onto it! Thanks!

Thanks. This is just the kind of informative feedback I've been looking for. I'll probably experiment with the DPI setting next. So far, I've just set a fixed height, in pixels, that looks close to what other folks are using in their posts. I'm hoping to avoid having to scroll sideways to see the full picture. And avoid pixellation, of course. The other specification is the filesize; the FAQ here says 35Kb max but people say that's wrong, disk space is cheap, make it around 100Kb.

Right on, brother! Take the long view, I like that. All we can do is make them aware of things, and let them choose for themselves.

My partner madcap came through with his trusty disposable camera, and got two 3"x5" prints. Scanned on a nice HP 5920 scanner. madcap on the Lithuanian Lip Otto on the eleventh pitch Working with my current test settings in IrfanView to reduce the screen size, and therefore the filesize. Original files averaged 600Kb, resulting files are 100Kb. Vertical size set to 400 pixels, keeping proportion. The Info screen in IrfanView shows blanks for DPI; not sure why. I'm sure I saw it at 200 DPI on other photos I've reduced in this manner, but I didn't scan those ones myself. As always until I get this process wired, I'm open to suggestions. Cheers.

Thanks for the TR on that other site! It's great to see reports from places people seldom go. Nice pictures of the alpine zone.

Way to go, Mark! It looks like you're having a good summer. Thanks for the environmental report - worms in balance with the trees.

I finally got up the last one of these last month, Price. Some literary-type person said, "Comparisons are odious". I say, to compare them, you would want to separate the rock climbs from the glacier climbs. In my opinion, it's Stuart for rock and Liberty Ridge for ice. And Liberty Crack for aid - another category!

Also, "this season" did not start just recently. It started back in February or so, indoors, then outdoors weather permitting. Yes, you have to work up to a season or you will waste a lot of good weather.

Congrats! You have the beginnings of a good TR here, why not post the photos? Thanks for the notes, and congrats again!

I seem to remember that, though I didn't have my 50' tape measure with me! Did it with Dave Schuldt last year. Anyway, I'm a long way from sending my son out on lead anywhere. He's completely non-committed to climbing! I guess the world of a teenager is so exciting and new that they don't need to seek out on-sight rock challenges for fun. I take him out so at least one in his gang will know what he's doing if they decide to blast up some rock some day.

As a parental unit of a freedom loving, independence minded teen scion, I'm always looking for ways to inspire the lad to come along on cragging trips. Nothing works every time. I've found that all I can do is just ask him, calmly, without too much enthusiasm, wouldn't be cool, and take what I get. This time it was a hearty "Yah". He will hereafter be known as angryman. So we bundled off in the car on Saturday night, with tjmcd, packed with candy bars and Gatorade, and camped at the Three O'Clock Rock trailhead. Thanks for bringing the tent, tj, it was cozy in the parking lot. Cold in the morning, I brought the wrong fuel bottle, cold breakfast, thanks for bringing the milk and cereal, tj! We warmed up with the hike to Big Tree 1, then it turned into a real hot day. Gatorade enticed angryman down after the crux third pitch; he did great on it. angryman on the second pitch traverse TJ on the third pitch TJ laybacking on the third pitch angryman rappeling in the treeshadow angryman with candybar and Otto Photo notes. Shot with a disposable camera, thanks TJ! Developed at CheesyMart with the $4 files-on-CD option. Resampled and resized in IrfanView 3.95 set to 400 pixels vertical, preserving proportion, JPEG "Save quality" set to 100, all other settings at default. Original filesize of shot 1 above was 242Kb, result is 147Kb as uploaded to Gallery. I am inviting comments on photo quality/size/conversion techniques.

Thanks for the nice photos! Is that one from Lover's Leap the one in the 50 Classics book? I'm at work, can't look up my photos. Beautiful chimney!

Thanks for the great photos, especially like the one of the chimney on the Beckey route. Been daydreaming of doing that for a long time; only having done Burgner-Stanley. Now I'm more stoked than ever!

Agreed, it's a cool route. However, there is some amount of climbing before the dihedral starts, about 40 or 50 meters, I think. I remember wandering about a bit looking for a good way up to the dihedral...

This is the saddest thing I've read in a while. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003105173_rock05m.html Did anyone know of him?

Just curious, what climbing area are you talking about?

Way to go, Jens! Didn't know I was training with an ice star those few times.

Refried Brains on Black Velvet Wall is a great crack climb to do when the rest are too crowded. Includes some delicate face stuff past bolts, this route has it (almost) all. Gin Ricky, near Lotta Balls, is a fine crack in a dihedral, one pitch, all trad.