fern

stop using the steel wool. The alloys that your tools and crampons are made of are probably more inherently rust-resistant that the steel wool. All you are doing is rubbing little fibres of rust-prone steel into the roughnesses on your tools and then they stay there, get rusty, and encourage the rust to spread into the good metal you paid lots of money for. Just rinse your tools and crampons off with fresh water at the end of the day (especially if you have walked on salted roads or in snowplow piles with salt etc.) and put them somewhere warm to dry fairly quickly. Spritz them with WD40 or rub them with some oil if you are packing them for storage. Especially spritz into any screw or bolt threads, and the holes where the bails enter the frame (dissimilar metals + moisture = galvanic corrosion). Cooking oil or spray would work fine if you are a greeny but might go rancid.

deadlift heavy, squat heavy, overhead press heavy, drink milk, eat meat.

no farmed ice at whistler anymore. Cacademon rock below the grand wall is popular for drytool practice, even in the rain (overhang stays dry). Rumour is the "in-situ" top-rope is in place right now

BUT only those stations left of the big corner can be toproped on a single 60m rope. Deeping Wall to No Deductible are topropable on a single 70m with some (2-4m) anchor extension.

Lots of short road ice along the duffey lake road. Not sure how the warm spell has affected Fraser Canyon, but Sailor Bar is also an accessible easy line and was fat last week.

Sumallo headwall is nowhere near Whistler - i.e. make a new thread and don't confuse the tourons

I think Porter actually did win the pushup contest - or at least beat me. I might have won the beer drinking contest but I don't remember

I think anyone posting here is already too late to avoid joining the real cult of idiots following the Crossfit model of developing general fitness is doing great things for many people. And many people are doing great things in physical efforts and sports without ever having heard of Crossfit. There's lots of ways to get up off the couch. Urban based sport-specific training for high-end technical alpine climbing or remote mountain endurance efforts is an underdeveloped field (well the eastern europeans and russians probably have a better idea of it - and it probably has something to do with eating raw bacon). The cool thing about the internet is that guys like Rob Shaul and Brian MacKenzie and anybody else can research and tinker with training and share their results in real time. Gym Jones keep their cards close, Crossfit seems settled into its system with limited new advances. I don't think anyone has got it optimized yet.

What area of your fitness are you looking to improve Ken? Why are you toying with the idea of doing Crossfit? Everyone's got different goals. For integrating (competitive) biking with Crossfit - crossfitendurance.com For integrating climbing w/ mixed-modal "hybrid" Strength and Conditioning - Mountain Athlete (mtnathlete.com) For occasional climbing + Crossfit : Crossfit Sunnyvale http://www.crossfitsunnyvale.com/ Demos of most core functional exercises that are worth doing can be found on the crossfit site. If it's not there it's probably not worth spending a lot of time doing IMO. Both Gym Jones and Mountain Athlete have some funny-named exercises (eg Mr. Spectacular) that are essentially just complexes of simpler movements. "Mr. Spectacular" is a 2-hand KB Clean + stiff legged hand walkout to plank + pushup + stiff legged hand walk back. For learning good form, nothing beats having a coach with a good eye. This is the internet - video yourself and post to youtube or vimeo. I'll coach you. I'm even like all certified 'n' shit

It may be flagged but it is not a bushwhack in any nasty sense. It is actually a super pleasant sub-alpine ramble and easy to follow and figure out even without a map or anything. For climbing Tricouni by the standard south scrambly ridge (which I think is the one in Matt Gunn's book) you are on the "wrong" side of the lakes/basin/ridge, but there is a way up onto the ridge, just takes a bit of poking and scrambling. From Chance Creek ascending the east side/ridge is probably more straightforward and fun, then descending the S side, scope your descent and your route back over the S ridge from above. But like I say, it is actually pleasant and intuitive terrain, cruisy 4th class at most. One of my favourite 1-day local alpine trips.

1:0 mapping of crowds:no crowds . quality of single pitch exists in overlapping space. park 1km north on Loggers Lane to equalize approach time.

no anchors on top of the climb in question. Gear. You must have missed the memo. Hint: Quality, uncrowded climb of similar grade = Supernatural P1 ... oh yeah but you have to walk more than 5min to get there. Complaining about crowds doing ANYTHING* in the Bluffs is so silly. *acceptable complaints may or may not include: -not picking up poop after or controlling dogs -littering -stealing -other things that bug me...

student research project is over now - original request met with little feedback. Whether or not the FMCBC is representative of the "local climbing community" is up for debate. I did at one point gear up to solo the Prow, but shortly thereafter geared down again.

they don't give separate medals for running 100m backward, 100m sideways, 100m belly crawl etc. It's just first over the line by whatever human locomotion suits. Why are swimming contests atomized into so many different "strokes" when the final goal becomes repetitious.

ha ... didn't you teach Twight to shoot? Heavy bag vs Concealed Weapons Permit ... hmm ... . Would buy your bag but it is geographically inconvenient, good luck

thanks. Dave Werner was my judge for the thruster/pullups. He was nice enough to let a few missed chest-touches slide through

2001: I so suck could not hike 2008: 14/91

An exercise I highly recommend for anyone involved in climbing/mountaineering/skiing but ESPECIALLY for those new to the sports is to get the last 15 yrs of Accidents in North American Mountaineering from the library, sit down SOBER, and read them in ONE SITTING. The common and repeated mistakes, patterns, missed warning signs etc. will become very clear. The non-issue safety police crises that people agonize over on the interweb should similarly become clear by their non-prominence in reports of actual accident causes.

http://www.acctinc.ca/?articleID=33 Lomak alternative keyboard. http://www.footmouse.com/ hands free mouse/pointer : I played with this for a little while and it does work but it requires you to really balance on your butt.

instead of the DMM Belay Master which is super heavy, you can use any which biner you like and just wrap some tape around the rig. Not so much for multpitch, but for long hangdog belay sessions it does the job cheap easy.

Restless Native will probably still be seeping. Sisyphus will be drier.

does it hurt when you do pushups? pushups with feet elevated? handstand pushups? Dips? if the only thing that makes it hurt is benchpressing then like you say stop benchpressing. There's lots of other pressing movements that are more functional (though maybe not as helpful for developing your man-boobs). How often do you find yourself stuck on your back under a piano?

If the guide shack is open you can get topos from the new Burdo draft. Or maybe phone in advance and ask them to leave you a copy outside. Restless Native is the best route on Goat Wall that I have done, Sisyphus is pretty good too. I visited the Robinson Creek/Prospect Point crag a few weekends ago. It was still mostly pretty wet - seeping. It seemed like a better autumn crag than springtime. It's interesting rock and OK climbing though. Drive out past the Lost River cabins, past a FS trailhead. The crag itself has a large talus field extending almost to the road whic hyou might spot but keep driving and before you cross a bridge over Robinson Creek (it's labelled) there are some small pullouts on the left. Park, walk 1/4 mile back up the road (back toward Mazama). Theres a trail with a cairn.

I have a montbell bag and I think it is that model (#5). It is super, a fairly tight fit but I am chubby. I like the full length zip and I think some of the WM bags are only halfzip? MUCH warmer than I expected, packs to slightly larger than a nalgene. My MB doesn't have a draft collar or yoke around the shoulders, which for me is a negative, cause I don't like cinching the hood too tight but I need warm shoulders to sleep. I don't think it will survive frequent stuffing and unstuffing. I haven't been worried about snagging or tearing the fabric. I have a few different Montbell items now and I think the quality is great and they are good value. I think they are probably not the best choice as workhorse every-weekend pieces unless you are down with replacing them every few seasons.

I hope to see you this w/e Chucky I will keep an eye out for a fez.