fern

here's the coordinates for the parking lot so you can find your car again once you are done. Good to know in case you are on Diedre for so long that senility starts to take hold.

cool. How much more time do you think it would have taken to continue over all the main summits and down the Crossover descent? Looks looooong to me. That couloir between 2187 and 3rd might still be fitted out with piton+sling raps from when Dru and I came down it a couple summers ago. The top most and bottom most would be on skier's left, the rest are on skiers right. They might have fallen out though ...

ya so funny hahahahah ... I am literally rolling on the floor that someone from out of town would be a little unfamiliar with the location of routes in squamish where the north walls face east and the south gully faces north and the western dihedrals are at the south end of the cliff ... hehehe ... stop me before I pee my pants ....

Rock on, Koyansqatsi, etc. are in the south gully. North gully is stuff like Zodiac Wall, Yukon Gold etc. Rarely climbed and filthy. Nevertheless trundling on Saturday is poor form. Maybe it's the same heroes who were trundling in the western dihedrals on the weekends last summer. when I was climbing Angels Crest the weekend before there were gaper tourists on the Zodiac summit chucking rocks down into the gully. Even our scrubbing hero might not be safe in there on the weekends. Winter is a better time to prep routes on the Chief.

if you got sick before chances are you will get sick again. But if you didn't get sick before, you may get sick next time. Do you feel gross on airplanes the same way you do at 'altitude' while climbing? Planes are pressurized to about 8000' equivalent and you attain that rapidly with no exertion.

my ill-informed opinion is that it is blood sugar related coupled with the scrunching of your body that comes with wearing a harness and climbing less than vertical rock. these are things that make me feel barfy. Especially in combination. I have only ever barfed under exertion when it involved movements that scrunch me - like rowing or situps - on an empty stomach. Same with climbing, if I eat nothing and have to hang at belays I get crippling stomach cramps. Now I often fill my pockets with plain raw almonds so I have a non-messy source of slow release calories.

yes, Traveller Buttress, one of the 50 classics.

no Scenic Cruise this time ... unless you count a beer run to Hotchkiss with Leonard Coyne? ... tales probably best left to the campfire ...

Climb: Squamish Apron-Unfinished Symphony Date of Climb: 7/2/2006 Trip Report: During last summer's bikram weather Unfinished Symphony got added to the list but never ticked off. At 85F and humid short and shady was more appealing. But on a sunny yet cool holiday weekend at the end of 3 months of travelling and climbing, J and I decided it was time to step up. The guide describes various options to avoid this pitch and escape that pitch, I got annoyed and chucked it across the breakfast table. The route follows the LINE, the stunning long open book up the middle of the apron. What the guidebook DOESN'T describe is what gear to bring (as usual). So we racked up way too many little cams and mini nuts, and chose double ropes in case the heat and sun scared us off the top pitch. J dragged the rope up the shared starting pitch to belay in a tree and I followed slowly, trying not to get sweaty and getting used to the slabs again. The next pitch started right in with the laybacking off pin scars. The rock was quite filthy, but mostly dry and with the enormous collection of small widgets I was carrying I saw no reason not to sew the thing up. After a brief delay at the next belay, another party caught up to us while J lead up a short pitch to another tree, much easier than rated in the guidebook. This put us at the base of the main corner. I was a little intimidated, probably more by reputation than what I saw, but the corner gently arched right before breaking straight through shallow overlaps up so most of the pitch was a mystery. Up I went, slotting fingers in a pinscar, walking the feet a little higher, wiggle a nut or cam into the scar my fingers had just vacated. I guess I was expecting it to be more of a straight in crack, but it was definitely laybacking - complete with the awkward neck-craning to look in the corner for holds and pro. A few meters off the belay the crack broke up and flared into a rounded flake that curved up out of sight. I reasoned that there had to be a stance or rest somewhere up there even if I couldn't see it yet, so I launched up the section running it out not that far really, but far enough to let out a squeak of relief when I came to a solid finger lock and a square cut ledge big enough for both feet. I breathed my usual mantra "god I hope that was the crux" and looked onward. Still couldn't see the anchor, but the line headed left over an overlap and LO! a bolt. "Probably just above that bolt" I said to myself and started up the balancy slabby moves changing corners. Back in the main corner - no station, but a surprisingly long line of shiny bolts. No-one told me it was bolted - I could have carried 1/3 the gear I had! The bolts are healthily spaced, and each one beside a locker scar from the fixed-pin it replaced. Initially I stitched it up with a nut or something between the bolts, but then my feet started getting tired and I was ready to be done with the repetitive climbing. The anchor station was in sight above, so I dispensed with intermediate gear and climbed quickly bolt to bolt. Soon, the final protection bolt of the pitch was almost near enough to clip, with my right fingers in a good lock I reached up with my left to slot it in the scar I knew must be there ... nope ... must be a little higher ... inched my feet up a bit, felt around ... nope ... "Well, this is precarious!" I thought as I looked down between my legs to the last bolt suddenly uncomfortably far below me, and the next bolt just above my right shoulder and certainly clippable with my right hand - if it was free. I determined two truths: 1) I really wanted to clip the bolt, 2) I really didn't want to pull my right hand from the finger lock I was rather firmly wrenching on. I would clip it with my left hand! My feet inched up higher almost level with my hand and I twisted and crossed my left hand and pushed the 'biner gate against the hanger then reached down again and pulled the drag heavy rope over my feet and up past my shoulder and over my head and ... another squeak of relief. I scanned the corner and the slab above and saw the solution to the puzzle - a rusty 1/4" stub smashed flat on the slab; The crack pinched to a seam here, and had never accepted pitons - thus no handy finger lock. I switched to slab-mode and padded up the last 6' to the anchor. J followed, swapped the gear and headed up the next pitch which was more of the same, but a little shorter. The leader from the party behind had started up pretty much on her heels, and I wasn't quite sure what his hurry was, given we might end up sharing an uncomfortable hanging slab belay. Both leaders climbed smoothly so just as J was nearing her anchor, Friend was approaching the cruxy last bolt below me - and looking a little shaky. Wanting to be helpful, I suggested he try clipping from the same pinscar I had used since there weren't any better ones higher. "I don't think I can!" he quivered, and jerked a few steps higher, madly fingering the shallow seam in the corner. With a little gasp he grabbed the bolt just before peeling. "Oh well, I cheated", he sounded a little disappointed, and straightened up to start looking for a quickdraw. "Yeah it just keeps coming right to the end on that pitch" I chattered as both his feet popped, his hands scrabbled at the bolt, he said a naughty word and went skidding 40 feet down the slab. Oh dear. I am sorry if you fell off because I distracted you by talking then Friend. He dangled at the end of his rope rubbing his sore toes and looking totally dejected, like he might cry. J had finished so I climbed away, and he was free of an audience. At the belay J was stoked at her onsight, since she's never liked or felt solid on slab climbing. It was a good pitch with quite a few tricky section interspersed with good rests and put us in an alcove at the top of the main corner system. One more pitch of slab up an old bolt ladder and we would be at Broadway. The sun hadn't really come fully around to baking yet, and there was a little cooling breeze, so I decided to give it a try. Leaning out and looking around from the belay it seemed there were bolts heading out all kinds of ways and it wasn't clear what was the best way to start. But I knew I had to exit the alcove basically leftward on to a slab and from there go straight up through the friction crux. So I made a few moves up the alcove and clipped the nearest bolt with one of my ropes and started looking around for likely holds. Back and forth, back and forth, hard to make a decision. Directly left of the belay the height of the sidewall of the alcove was shortest, but the move would involve a very highstep onto a smear with no real handholds simultaneously turning my body 90 degrees, looking at a pendulum onto the belay. Straight up past my bolt was steep and unlikely looking. Farther left was mossy. Ah, moss! Moss grows in dirt and dirt doesn't collect on just nothing! So I set to gardening, looking for a salvation foothold. And I found one, a perfect little bump the size of a nickel. So now I could probably at least get out of the corner maybe without falling - I had the path to the crux potential sorted out. I set myself up, warned J that I had no clue what I was doing, would probably fall off, and wouldn't be able to reverse what I was about to do, and stepped up onto the slab. The really blank slab. Where the bolts now looked really far apart. I crabbed a little leftward and clipped my other rope to a bolt that may have been off route. I looked at the slab between me and the next bolt above right and it looked back at me and clearly said "Failure". So I looked up the more direct path to the NEXT bolt above and launched. Crystals crunched under my toes as I pretended I was on good holds. The guidebook says this pitch is sustained padding and edging, "edging on WHAT?" I wondered. I clipped and passed my objective bolt and continued climbing straight up ... into a swath of moss well to the left of where I should have been. Over to the right I could see the 'edges', getting to them involved some very thoughtful downclimbing and traversing and by the time I was approaching the next bolt - the last one before the slab became more reasonable - I was so frazzled I overextended to clip the draw and knew there was no way I could pull slack and clip the rope without popping. So I grabbed the draw and hung to decompress. It would have been nice to onsight it, but even so I was proud of climbing through some of the most sustained and hard slab I have attempted. After a brief moment to regain my composure I climbed quickly up the last bit past the worst and uselessest bolts I have ever seen, wandered around some more moss and water streaks and found the belay. J followed and finished up to Broadway where we headed back down, pleased with ourselves for ticking a Squamish Apron classic in pretty good style. Overall I would say that this is a quality route, but the line is better than the climbing. There is something inherently lame about free-climbing on pin-scars. The last hard slab is out of character with the rest of the route, though in character with climbing on the Apron, it's possible with some long reaches to French-free through the hardest part. Gear Notes: 6-8 small to medium nuts, offsets especially 6-8 micro to finger sized cams (eg Aliens black to green type sizes) A few larger cams up to red or yellow camalot

If my ultimate goal is to collect my pictures together into a digital slide show, what would be some good post-processing steps to take to ensure good quality? I have noticed that usually digitally projected shows lack sharpness and richness of colours. Also, this is slightly different topic - I have noticed using Windows Movie Maker that when my videos are rotated 90deg from landscape to portrait the aspect ratio changes ... and it makes me look fat ... anyone know how to fix this?

excellent! I think we left the day before you arrived. Such awesome cragging at the City. for anyone who wants free camping, drive out of the park towards Almo but turn right instead of left when you hit the main road. Cross 2 cattleguards and take an immediate right up a dirt road to BLM land. You can get water at the Visitor Center in Almo too.

A - Anchors: is it solid, is the rope properly connected? should it be backed up? B - Buckles: is your harness properly done up - often rappelling is the first time on a climb you will ever actually weight your harness. C - Carabiners: properly oriented and locked? D - Device: Belay device properly threaded and attached? Should you use a prusik back up or similar? E - Ends: Where are the ends of the rope? Are they even? Do they reach the next station or the ground? should you knot them? Should you carry them with you? I don't always do the same thing for every rappel. But I try to always follow the same checklist.

squamish 10b ... index 5.8 . Where's your roadtrip pictures and TR pinkboy?

yes first bolt ladder on SEWS large size with location notes are in my gallery

there is a posted camping exclusion for Blue Lake. 1/4 mile around or something. There is a sign at the parking lot.

I thought WTRB was 3p 10b 10c 11b, though the route I am thinking is right of Rock On but not as far right as Bad Pants and I don't remember the name... but your topo looks like Bad Pants Party, with the dike climbing and left traverse. BPP is distinguished by the fixed ropes still strung up.

I went on a roadtrip. Here are some (thump thump) pictures. Indian Creek: Black Canyon: Lover's Leap: City of Rocks: Washington Pass:

Boring. Flat. Where's the gnarly kewlwahrs?!?!?!

I have a Montbell down hugger (#3 I think) as my summer bag. I think it's awesome, warmer than I expected it to be - and a very nice price. The cut is very slim though, I am a small person, and definitely felt WAY more restricted than I do in my WM winter bag. I think if you were a bigger person, or were planning to wear/stuff extra clothing inside the bag to extend the range it wouldn't work so well because you would squish the insulation flat.

I've done the east ridge in summer. It is a fun long scramble. It's nowhere especially technical except for one mandatory rappel off the end of the gendarmed section. Through the gendarmes it gets steepish and more exposed, it'd probably be a good challenge in winter conditions and require more roped pitching than in summer. The gendarmes section ends abrubtly on a blunt flat snow ridge essentially at the top of the Anniversary Gl. from which you can branch off to a number of other options to get up the final 1000' summit section. Watch for crevasses here, as you are approaching parallel to them.

I'm good at beer drinking too ... bring it tubby ... soon I will pwn your whole rack

the double dutch bus is on the street movin' and a groovin' so just shuffle your feet chuckachuck get on the bus, pay your fare and tell the driver that you're goin' to a double dutch affair. ETD: April 5th ... you think that jerry can will hold enough gas to get us to Indian Ck?

and on the size continuum which connects big to small fingers one extreme limit must be no fingers ... which must be why Tommy Caldwell can free the great roof too ... heck probably made it 4th class jugs by climbing it with the finger he cut off.

yes it is available.