fern

what difference does it make if the XX and XY courses are the same gradient and length if the men and women aren't competing against each other? should they do away with the 'men's' and 'women's' qualifiers altogether and throw everyone in the same race for the same medals? ... yeah! cut the whole Olympics in half in one go, then we can get back to the good TV (:

be careful using a gri-gri for soloing on less than vertical rock. I took a stupid ground-fall from about 25' up because #1) I am dumb, #2) when I fell I was skidding down with the gri-gri between me and the rock, so there was no room for the cam to swing out and lock up. The gri-gri slid down to the back-up knot which put enough rope into the system for me to kiss the ground. #3) I am dumb.

you can see whether or not it's in from Hwy 12 and from the Texas Ck Road. When it is in it's pretty good value, although there's nothing there harder than WI3ish.

fresh snow fresh tracks

is this ebonics or something?... where'd I put my jive dictionary...

I think part of the problem is that the 'pleather' patch on the underside of the tongue gets cracks in it, so it's hard to seal it down. Try gooping a bunch of vaseline (or sunscreen/butter/whatever's handy) in there and then cinch the laces down tight. When my Scarpas were newer I once skied 5km across Garibaldi Lake under 6inches of water with dry feet before the tongues started leaking. But now they're a little worn and they get damp faster. Supergaiters work too, but they're a little sweaty for PNW type conditions.

quote: Originally posted by Ibex: I recently went from dual points (on BD switchblades) to trident points. They are basically a mono, but with 2 short, closely spaced stabilizer points on either side. The idea is that you get the penetration, etc of mono's but also the lateral stability of duals. Note, this is the same end result as the BD Mako. Some folks are prejudice against them, and there certainly are a lot of die-hard Grivel fans out there, but I would have to recommend the Mako/trident point setup. It feels very precise and sensitive, but at the same time very stable. <snip> I have tridents on Switchblades, I hate them, I am going to sell them. The tridents are an improvement on the standard Switchblade points, but overall the crampons bug.

This is really sad. Brent was the instructor on my first avalanche course, which was one of my first experiences in any sort of backcountry adventuring. I couldn't ski worth shit but he still let me take the course and was incredibly patient even though I could barely keep up.

quote: Originally posted by Dru: made every attempt to ... minimize the hazard to themselves. hindsight=20/20, I-wasn't-there-how-could-I-possibly-know, speak-ill-of-the-dead, etc etc etc, but I find it very hard to reconcile this statement with the fact that 3 people were caught by the same skier triggered slide. I feel the same way about the 3 park wardens caught a couple of weeks ago. One of the most basic tenets is to minimize the number of people exposed, and if >50% of your party is caught how can you claim to have done that?

quote: Originally posted by Dru: Yes Laurin the German ice god sent No Deductable he says that's probably the hardest pitch he's ever lead ... I told him it's only M2 and he's just weak

quote: Originally posted by hakioawa: There seems to be a new breed this year at the resorts. They spend the extra $$ and use AT gear and ski groomed blue runs. Most of them have the new Diamir II bindings and wear scarpa Lazers and the closest thing to the back country they get is the upper parking lot at Alpental. I've seen them at Cypress Bowl, skinning up the greens. Must be training for Denali or sumthin' quote: Ask them and they will tell you that is cool beacuse its light (i.e. breakable and unstable at speed) and you can do either a tele or a parallel turn. ha ... nonsense. You can sorta parallel on tele-gear, but you can't tele on AT gear, and why would you bother anyways?

there aren't any other nearby fixed-wing aircraft besides Andy and the Helio-Courier for flying into the Logan area. There are plenty of helicopter pilots however. Doug Maconen is a great pilot (and character) flying a Jet Ranger out of Haines Junction for Trans North Helicopters. Depending on how much gear+food+people you need to ferry, the costs could be similar.

I have 2 favourite stupid rope tricks. One is the Texas figure eight, you hold the end of the rope in one hand like a dart, the other hand holds farther along the rope so there is a largish bight hanging between. Give the bight a twist so it spins around twice and toss the end through the hole, voila, a figure-8 to tie in. The other trick is the one handed bowline on a coil. Another rappel trick I have heard: suppose you reach the rope end (double rope rappel) a few meters shy of a safe touchdown. Spin yourself around a whole bunch of time so the two strands twist around each other, lock off one strand and let the other slip through your device. You'll start unwinding and the friction of the ropes together will (hopefully) slowly let you down.

I don't get it ... cause isn't a square knot the same as a reef knot?

two things to avoid: 1) all you can eat buffet at Circus-Circus2) chimney on the 3rd pitch of Jubilant Song

quote: Originally posted by willstrickland: Fern's Nipple, a little bump on the aquarius plateau in south-central UT. heh, a little bump in UT... you kids with your fancy slang.

I have an XL synthetic parka for sale. North Face Arctic Patrol, yellow and black. e-mail if you want more info. fwebb at geop.ubc.ca

cone with h=2r , but really it was a joke to point out that digging out a deep burial means moving a lot of snow, maybe more than you can hope to move within the narrow time interval that separates a live rescue from a body recovery. If you want to follow my stoopid math you will find that a burial 3m deep requires moving almost twice as much snow as a hole 2.4m deep ... but whatever, it was a dumb joke. As Beck points out ... find buddy with your beacon and start digging the damn hole. IMO a probe isn't an absolute requirement. for those looking for product review:I have a G3 probe which hasn't had problems yet. However, the writing wears off which makes me think that paying extra for centimeter graduations isn't worth it. And I have been told that the section ends crack after awhile, especially if you assemble it using the chuck-and-pull method rather than assembling it piece by piece.

just as a guideline, the hole you dig to get to a buried person will be about as wide in diameter at the surface as it is deep. Imagine how many meters^3 of compact avy debris you can move in 20minutes, multiply by 12, divide by pi, take a cube root and you'll get the length of probe that might be of actual use to you in an emergency.

the complexity-of-technology argument kinda falls apart when you can buy a GPS for half the price of the cheapest beacon. I figure the two most important pieces of safety equipment for backcountry winter travel are a brain (make sure you practise with it first), and a shovel. I hear back in the pre-beacon days sometimes they'd tie plastic bleach bottles onto the end of 50' of bright coloured cord and drag it behind while skiing.

I wasn't at NorthGRIP myself ... but I hear they had their own sweet troubles with the drill and got it stuck frozen in not far above the bottom ... had to pack the hole with diesel and come back the following season. The only ice drilling I have done is with a high-pressure hot water drill ... very Express!

I want new skis, wanna help me afford them? For Sale: TNF Arctic Patrol Parka, XL, yellow and black $150 - big, warm, synthetic parka. 'compresses' to about the size of a basketball. Used for one season of ice-core drilling at North-GRIP, Greenland (genuine arctic cred!), plus a couple extra weeks of field work. very good condition, no holes or busted zippers. TNF Cerro Torre insulated pants, L (maybe XL?), black $80-full side zips, synthetic insulated pants. compresses to about the size of a football. no holes or busted zips. Keep your warm Rainey Superloop telemark bindings $80- new style plates with riveted toe-bar, old style cable guides and shims. Skied maybe 10 days on the cables, 5 days on the toeplates (never broke the old plates, just upgraded them as a preventative measure). Nordica TR-9 alpine touring boots, size 26.5 (about woman's 8) $150 - a few years old and ugly euro colors, but good shape Plus if anyone can give me advice about the logistics of "buyer-gets-gear, I-gets-money", I'd be thankful. This is my first try at selling stuff online.

fix your heels, fix your problems

quote: Originally posted by lambone: Alpine Trekkers = Bullshit no kidding, talk about prone to breakage. you'd be better spending those Alpine Trekker $$$ on snowshoes and carrying the alpine skis on your back in my opinion.

www.digikey.com is one source of electronic components. White LEDs are pricey ~$3 US each. Pretty flexible in terms of voltage supply though. The circuit needs to be running at 20mA or thereabouts, so you just line up all your LEDs on your power supply and chuck in a resistor that ends up giving you the right current. I was thinking of a similar lighting arrangement for my truck, solar-charged 12V battery bank running a few LEDs ... much lower fire-hazard than running incandescent or halogens. (: