fern

you don't have to fold up the back end if you put everything in bags and tie the bags together to the traces.

yeah I never got around to putting in the building plans. You can use grommets or rivets to engineer a front end and the necessary lash points. You need to cut a couple of notches out of the plastic sheet then start doing some origami. ____ __________________ | o \ / X X X X X X | \/ o | @ top view | | @ | /\ * |_*_/ \_____X_X_X_X_X_X__ ^ | fold here and rivet * to * and o to o thus: | folded and overlapped on sides V ______________________________ \ *\ X X X X X X \@ / side view \/__________________________ the X along the sides are fittings to run lash straps to hold the load together. The @ are reinforced holes through which the traces run. I put the load into sled bags and connect the bags to the traces directly so that the sled itself is not load bearing. this is a nice sled for Coast Mountain touring, but not a good choice for Denali. It's good for loads up to about 60lbs.

my favourite part of the Japanese dude's story is the sidebar about the British FA where the guy got a kneebar hopelessly jammed in an offwidth and had to sharpen up a knifeblade and hack away at his flesh until the blood lubricated his escape. FUN!

we'll look for the trip report on Monday! Be sure to spell check and proof-read for clarity!

... I bet I have been trolled

duh! this is a good thread. The clues are all there, can you put them together?

Murchison Falls . I guess it is obvious that to minimize driving and maximize climbing on a short trip you need to go to a section that has good routes close together? In that respect Canmore itself is not always the best center. Gravity is high there. The Ghost is far, the Kananaskis is far, etc. Lake Louise is good for being closer to all the Parkway climbs (Bow Falls, Mt. Wilson, Polar Circus), as well as Field (the Beer routes) Also nearby is Johnston Canyon if you want to monkey about with an audience. The higher elevation stuff on the Parkway is fairly dependable even if a Chinook comes in. I spent 3 days there on a November trip while it was raining in Banff

thanks for organizing Jon. It was nice to meet some of you

I am way meaner in real life. Y'all are getting the kid gloves here.

Board or Bottle?

Forrest suppose you change your example to one where you are out for a ski tour and forgot your avalanche beacon rather than your jacket, but it hasn't snowed in a while and temperatures are cool and the snowpack is settling well so you go anyways. Do you need to change your risk assessment then? An argument some people make is that whether or not you carry an avalanche beacon should have no effect on your decisions, because it is not a magic charm that wards off danger and your priorities should be on avoidance rather than rescue. Does this train of thought work for your example...i.e. that the fact you forgot your jacket shouldn't matter to the risk you are assuming because your travel choices should be independent of the equipment you carry?

have you climbed a route that at the time you thought was awful and swore never to recommend or repeat, and yet with the distance of time you find your memory has mellowed and you consider repeating the adventure?

I wonder if trying to get out on the basis of a speech impediment might backfire in that they wouldn't want to appear as discriminatory. To take a more blatant example I doubt they could get away with rejecting a person in a wheelchair for jury duty because they failed to make the courtroom accessible. I think catbirdseat might have a point about the scientist thing though. Play up your education, play down your mastery and facility with English and spice it with a little bigotry.

you need to specify WHICH area

David the simplest solution to that problem is to alternate between skinning forward and backward. Then the same hand is always uphill

thanks trask, I've been working out

did you get my cams too? ... I hope somebody did I saw a guy on campus with some RPs hanging off his backpack 'biner. I guess the A2 crack linking Psych101 and English120 is pretty gnar!

"Who needs a goat when Beck is giving away free Nalgenes. Piss off, get your own!"

punny!

are you talking a fabric 'buttbag' type or a solid one made out of wood?

"Hey you! Seventeenth from the front! Your ice axe has to be in your UPHILL hand!"

these chimneys are in the boulders below Carnival Crack in the Icicle Canyon. There is another fun gimme chimney in some random boulder up valley of Bridge Creek. Some of the most fun chimney bouldering I have ever done. Also I will add North North Arete on the Chief to my list of quality chimney involved climbing.

I have had the problem of the graemlins not loading and other image loading related problems on my Unix machine, running Solaris. And I can't look at the photo gallery on it either because my "browser is not enabled" ... so it's not some poisonous gallery conspiracy virus for me like Billygoat suggested. I'm not complaining though, everything is peachy

various posts from rockclimbing.com:

educational, thanks