Norman_Clyde

Fairweather pointed out in the plane crash thread that your description of route doesn't add up. The first glacier you cross after Glacier Vista is the Nisqually. Next most parties ascend Wilson Gully to the west and follow Wapowety Cleaver to the Turtle. On this route you don't reach the Kautz till after high camp at 11K. The terminus of the Kautz is way to the west, usually reached via Comet Falls/Van Trump Glaciers. Not trying to be an annoying nit-picker. Just trying to figure out which route you took.

Good Work. So, was it boring and mundane, as predicted?

I remember reading about a small plane that landed on the summit icecap then couldn't take off again. It was presumed to be in the steam caves somewhere, but given that the Kautz originates on the summit more or less, maybe the plane has made its way downhill inside the glacier. I think the details are in Molenaar's book. I'm at work (otherwise I'd be too embarrassed to post on a Saturday afternoon) so I can't look it up right now.

Note that a photo on their home page shows protesters rallying to raise the minimum wage.

I've climbed it twice in semi-stiff mountaineering boots. They might feel clumsy in one or two places, but mostly you won't notice, especially if you're accustomed to alpine rock climbing. Medium beefiness boots like Vasque Sundowners would probably be ideal. When I climbed it in 2001, a pair of guys smoked past us on the ridge, obviously on a one day jaunt, wearing flimsy looking smooth soled hikers-- probably fine for approach and rock but certainly scary in the couloir, like Chuck said.

I agree that it's possible. Fast and light exposes a party to more risk all around. But the risk of HAPE/HACE are likely to be considerably less than the other objective hazards a party encounters on Rainier. Think of the rescue statistics over the past several years: can you recall the most recent death attributed purely to altitude illness? I can't but I think it's been a while. I recognize that acute mountain sickness is a common contributor to reduced physical and mental functioning at altitude, thereby contributing to various multifactorial rescue situationsbut IMO this supports my argument that altitude illness is not especially prominent on the list of Rainier's dangers. Six hours at Muir, instead of two, is not likely to make the situation better.

I agree that Alberto seems like a nice guy, less prone to inflammatory rhetoric than Ashcroft. That pesky torture issue is a little hard to get over, though. My best guess for Bush's perfect supreme court nominee, based on the record of his previous appointments,and considering both qualifications and previous achievements, is... Lynndie England.

SEF is familiar with this route. If you approach Chair from the South, it's relatively nontechnical. I haven't done the "enchainment" so I can't comment on the difficulty if you try to stay on the ridge top the whole way, but on the west side you can side-hill on talus to the obvious ascent gully.

While acute mountain sickness is a distinct possibility, I think it's unlikely that HAPE or HACE would develop during the relatively few hours your party would be above 9000 feet (probably not more than 9 or 10 hours). HAFE however, is a near certainty (High Altitude Flatulent Expulsion).

Gary to politeness and respect for strangers -- I'm sure one or two such postings won't morph this site into minnesotaclimbing.com. We can rely on the stalwart efforts of many pillars of the cc.com community to keep us off that slippery slope.

[quoteI think you are forgetting someone in this equation. How about Gramma's wishes? Do you think Gramma's wishes figure much in the decision? I can tell you they don't. Very few people wish they lived in a nursing home. It's a place of last resort.

So you can suckle on the federal teat, but when the bill comes do you shouldn't have to pay? That's an outrage. At the risk of thread drift: Medicaid is supposed to be a safety net to ensure health care for the poor. People don't qualify for Medicaid unless they can prove that they are essentially destitute. The biggest Medicaid expense is nursing home care for the elderly. In order to keep their greedy mitts on their parents' money, many families shift parental assets to themselves, to make an elderly parent suddenly destitute and therefore Medicaid eligible. This is known as cheating the government. If the government finds that the appearance of poverty was faked, it will go after the remaining estate to recoup its costs.

This may be a stretch for some members of this board, but that's not being pussywhipped. It's being a good citizen. Showing a combination of social awareness and compassion does not equate with weakness. Flame away, boys.

Fairweather and PP, I agree with you. This realization gives me new hope for the future of America. Perhaps the five justices, in their wisdom, are simply acting to unify our country, by making a ruling that liberals and conservatives will both love to hate. I'm curious to hear from both camps: do you, or any of your friends, support the court's decision? Every single person I've talked to so far has been disgusted. It will be interesting to see the liberals and conservatives engage in this argument: conservatives will see government as the enemy in land seizures for the sake of private development, while liberals will not blame government directly, rather they will see government as shill to the real evil-- big greedy corporations. Who's right? IMO, both are.

If any of you feel edified by reading the Grand Canyon stupid hiker stories, be sure to check out Death in Yellowstone.

This suggests that a fun ski descent of Little T continues to beckon. Pandora, were you up there to see for yourself?

I remember being on belay for my first official rappel on Outward Bound. (This doesn't count my improvised Dulfersitz off the swingset at age 8, after I saw the technique pictured in a Time-Life book.) I also remember feeling like the belay made the experience into a lowering exercise masquerading as a rappel. However, I can appreciate why OB instructors would want to belay a teenager who had never rappelled before, since the freak-out potential for newbies is significant, and the fireman's belay is IMO less reliable.

You don't absolutely have to cross a moat to reach the summit block. If I recall correctly, you can access the summit block directly from the east, just after crossing at the saddle, without getting back on snow and rounding the summit to the north. It's just that this ups the length and difficulty of the rock climb, maybe 350 vertical feet instead of 75, on a less than appealing chossy face. (Although I also doubt the presence of a 40 foot moat.) In September 2002 the moat was too wide to cross at its highest point, so we couldn't take what looked like the easiest rock route on the north side, but starting from lower down on the eastern shoulder remained straightforward: we simulclimbed and had to place only a couple of pieces. It will help if exposed, chossy, low 5th class alpine rock doesn't rattle you.

Do you think Grant Peak is still skiable from the summit, or are the steep parts getting overly icy?

What day is the event?

I got confused descending Fisher Chimneys even after ascending them earlier on the same day. On the ascent we neglected to notice a small wand marking the place to turn left toward Winnie's Slide, instead taking a fairly steep chimney (the left of two) to its top. When I looked back down the steeper chimney on descent, I thought to myself "There is no way we came up this thing"-- which was true, though the less steep chimney was not much better, basically 4th class without sustained exposure but lots of chances for mishap. We only figured out the easier way after the fact. I've got to get to the N face one of these days!

We had a good look down the eastern slopes on May 12, at which time crevasses were not much of a concern and ski conditions were very good. With all the precip I imagine that crevasses are even less of a concern now, with avi danger being an issue until there have been sufficient days of warmer, stable weather-- as has been said in other recent threads on this subject.

Very cool. When I went to solo up there, I brought pickets and a rope for self-belay on steep traverses just in case, not having seen the Terrible Traverse before, but remembering a fatality there back in the 90's. I ended up backing off due to dense fog, not far past the chute notch. I realize that there is a big range of comfort levels regarding steep snow, but what's your opinion re: need for pro?

[quote This comment... Reelected by voters like you. Is this a great country, or what? ...sounded a bit smug. Guess we're not friends anymore? If you can't be smug in Spray, where can you be smug? But actually, I'm the opposite of smug. I would say that Bush has shamed this entire nation, but it's no longer Bush that has done it, it's the majority that voted him back in. America has made an emphatic statement to the whole world that we are comfortable with a leader who invades a foreign nation on false pretenses and employs a team of lawyers to justify torture. I honestly did not believe that the average American would so casually accept these offenses. I find it much easier to understand your current viewpoint, because I believe you havelong been in favor of militaristic intervention, covert action, any means necessary, etc. I just never expected to wake up one day to find that your viewpoints have become the new American mainstream.

Our party went up Sherman on 5/12 via the Squak, just East of the Easton. Squak is a bit more direct and has fewer crevasses. We saw one party of two climbers head toward the summit from the Easton, then inexplicably turn around shortly after. Could be they ran into a maze of impassable crevasses at Coleman Saddle but this seems unlikely. From Sherman the upper C-D route was a smooth line with no obstacles at all on the Roman Wall, I mean East of the Roman Wall, I mean West of the Crater, I mean...