Fromage

Ryan, having worked in outdoor retail and product design for 6 years I have learned a thing or two about fabrics. Something you might not know about Gore fabrics in general, and Paclite in particular, is that it uses urethane to protect the PTFE laminate from oils and dirt. The tradeoff here is that breathability is compromised. By contrast, eVent does not use urethane in its laminate formulation, so breathability is a bit better. That being said, there are limits to how well ANY laminate/coating will breathe, so if you find that your jacket is retaining moisture on the inside the problem is not the jacket, it's the wearer using the wrong tool for the job. In my experience, Paclite is not even breathable enough for standing around and conducting light activities in camp. The weight of the face fabric does not appreciably affect the breathability of the membrane, at least not in the weight range that most manufacturers are using on their garments. If you laminate Gore Tex to 12oz/yd cotton canvas that will affect breathability, but when you are comparing 1.3oz/yd ripstop nylon with 1.6oz/yd nylon, the differences will be imperceptible. Which is why I find your statement about proprietary laminates puzzling. Most "proprietary" laminates are just licensed rebranding of other products. Do you really think REI designed and manufactures its own laminate? Of course not, they just license it from another company. I have visited the Gore factory and seen their testing facilities. Face fabric weight is not a consideration in their certification process. Overall performance is how they evaluate garments. You are spot on with your observations about the weight/durability tradeoff and the importance of keeping your garments clean and properly treated to ensure that they perform as intended. If the face fabric is soaked, your body's water vapor is not going to move through that barrier.

Y'all should listen to Max. Dude knows what he's talking about.

Gore Paclite is advertised as being extremely breathable. I had one and couldn't understand the claim. It was the most useless jacket I've ever owned in terms of breathability. It was light, however. If you want something that is light and actually breathes, you should check out a shell made with event fabric. Like this one in the Yard Sale, which, despite what the thread says, is still available.

That's either a joke or you don't know what you're talking about. Hard to catch subtle humor on the interwebs.

Beyond Clothing in Seattle will tailor a pair of softshell pants to your measurements. I ordered a jacket from them a few years back, the fit was superb and the price reasonable. https://secure.beyondclothing.com/customize/mens-roughrider-pant-d/

This crampon looks sweet. It appears to have all the advantages of the M10 and Dart with lighter weight and universal boot compatibility. All of these features are attractive. But I don't know if it's a game changer. I see new gear like this and think "Wow, that's neat," but then I remember pictures of Barry Blanchard, Jeff Lowe, Conrad Anker and Alex Lowe from the early nineties climbing M8-WI5 routes in full Gore-Tex suits and plastic boots, using Footfangs and straight-shafted tools. That gear seems obsolete today, but climbers were still getting up challenging routes with it. New products like the Lynx are certainly an improvement over what came before, but they are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. In ten years I'm going to be that guy at Marble Canyon who everyone looks at and whispers to their partner "Hey, check that dude out, he's rocking the museum gear. Are those M10s and Quarks? Those were sweet back in the day."

I don't follow your logic here. Methinks if you are going to carry a piece of gear it should NOT be junk in case you need to use it. If you know you aren't going to use it, you shouldn't even bring it. This is why I leave my vintage tuba collection at home when I go climbing. On the other hand, if you buy a bunch of $12 POS titanium ice screws you'll be able to afford a decent life insurance policy with all the money you save.

If you are planning on climbing Cho Oyu and don't know anything about down jackets you are in for an interesting trip. To increase your chances of returning alive, you should call the folks at Feathered Friends who know a thing or two about down gear and expedition outfitting. (206) 292-2210.

These screws are irresistible for those climbers who suffer from CHOP: Cheapskate Objectivity Paralysis. I had some of these titanium screws many years ago and they were so inferior to everything else on the market. I finally donated them to a gear museum because I was worried I might actually make the bad decision of relying on one. I placed them but never found out if they really worked. O Former Soviet Bloc Titanium Ice Screws, how do you suck? Let me count the ways: 1. short tube length 2. small number of teeth (3) which easily bend and don't cut in water ice worth a damn 3. terrifyingly skinny thread profile 4. requiring much energy to place, when it's possible 5. smaller tube diameter You need to bail. This is a time when you need to have reliable gear. If you want to trust your life to a $12 piece of crap that is your decision to make, but before you make that choice it's good to ask if it's worth it. Buy one for $12. Compare it to any BD, Grivel, Petzl, Simond, or other reputable steel crew on the market. You'll gain a newfound appreciation for those $40 screws. It's a cheap lesson.

I have been using the Vireo for about 5 years. Best bag I have ever owned. From my fleet of many bags this is the one I use about 70% of the time. Coldest I've used it was in the upper 20s in winter in the North Cascades (with a hooded Volant), have also been comfortable on several Rainier climbs (even in May). You can rent a Vireo from FF and if you like it they will apply the cost of the rental towards your purchase. The store used to have a deal where if you bought the Vireo and a jacket together you'd get a 15% package discount. Buy this bag. The long one. Pair it with a Hooded Helios for summer & shoulder season trips. You will wish you had discovered this combo years ago. I have a Cilo 45l that has worked for 2-day trips, but it is a squeeze. And that is with my Vireo, a tarp tent, rack, rope, and compact stove/pot. A 30 might be stretching it. I think FF also has one of these you can borrow for free to try out.

Have you ever climbed at 3,000m in Europe in any season? More to the point, have you ever worn such gear? Here's a fun challenge for you: go into any gear store that has an expedition down suit in stock (this is the hard part, there aren't many), you know, the kind of suit that climbers wear on summit day on Everest. Zip it up, put on the hood, close all the velcro, cinch down all the cords. Then stand there for five minutes doing nothing. Then do jumping jacks for five minutes. Then do sit-ups for five minutes. The answer to your question will become immediately apparent.

I have both the Rab Momentum (like the Latok Alpine but 11ish ounces) and the Alpha LT. I traded up from the Latok Alpine to the Momentum for the weight savings. Both jackets have been great and have never missed the pit zips. I don't need both jackets so if you're interested in either one I would consider selling one. Both are in great shape, just picked up the Momentum recently and have been storing the Alpha LT in the closet. Send a PM if you want to come check them out (assuming that you're in the Quah and not FL).

BD is about 16 years behind the curve on this one. Anyone remember the Stubai Genius? I discovered this when I lived in France. It is an auto-locking rope-end biner for draws. Simple concept, simple mechanics, elegant engineering. The biner only locked itself under a load greater than 200 pounds or so, the beauty being that you could open the gate under body weight but when loaded in a fall it would lock itself. Once again BD is killing flies with a satellite guided bomb. Someone will buy it. Anyone want to offer a guess for how long until this is recalled?

Yes. They work great until they don't. Down mat needs to be inflated with a clever pump that is part of the stuff sack: breathing into it is problematic as it introduces moisture into the down. Back in ye goode olde guiding daze one of my fellow guides loved his down mat and raved about it. Then on day 1 of a 6-day glacier course the pad deflated and he couldn't find the leak. He was bummed. Pros: light, compact, warm Cons: a complex design

18oz for what? Mont Bell website lists fill weight at 6.7oz, total weight at 25.2oz. That's a big difference between the fill weight and total weight. The FF Volant, by comparison, weighs 26oz (with hood) and has 10oz of down in it. Plus the fabrics FF uses are way more water resistant.

That video also featured many excellent examples of what not to do while ice climbing. Such as: - using your ice tool as a belay anchor. - stacking screws, not only useless but time and energy intensive. - confusing belay commands, "Okay, Bird, we're safe." - using Snargs "the dreaded pound-in" (Jeff, was that a euphemism?) It had some memorable narration: "Drink deep of the heady wines of climbing in the canyon" or something like that.

You can use mine. I have a pair of Koflach Verticals, both with lightly used stock liners and Intuition liners (molded to my feet, which are probably different from your dad's). My feet are size 15. I have climbed Baker several times, and after the first trip I gave up on taking my plastics. For every subsequent trip I used the Scarpa Triolets, which, while a bit snug in size 48, were much lighter and plenty warm for the conditions. At 65 your dad might appreciate the warmth of a plastic, but damn they are lousy on the dirt portion of the approach. Located in Seattle. Send PM if you have questions. I have crampons, too. Feathered Friends also rents those, and I could loan my extend-o-spreader bars to make them fit my boots.

Linky no worky. Warning: as a recovering statistician and social science researcher, I have seen a survey or two in my time and take them more seriously than most. Since the survey isn't opening for me, I can offer this: If you want meaningful results from your survey, your sample needs to be truly random. For exploring such a specific research question (as I can infer from the other posters' replies), this is rather challenging to achieve. If you post a request to take your survey here, or on other climbing discussion boards, you do not get a random sample. You get a self-selecting sample of people who read internet discussion boards. This is not a statistically valid sample and by extension any conclusions you draw from it will be meaningless. Granted, this is a class project that is on sociology- not a doctoral thesis- and the guidelines for research methodology are probably pretty relaxed. Even so, be cautious in how you present your findings.

I'm sure that will solve all the quality control issues. That's like having Yugo buy out GM...

That's good advice. You probably got no response about adding guy points on the walls because it is a bad idea. The (formerly) Malibu Epic 1.6 oz fabric that BD used on that tent and its replacement is not strong enough to handle the stresses that a mid-panel anchor point would create. That is why the only guy line attachments on the BD tents are at the seams, and close to the ground to boot. Take a look at the Bibler tents and you'll see that the mid-panel anchor points are reinforced. Trying to turn an ultralight BD tent into a 4-season Denali tent is like trying to drive a sports car across the Sahara Desert. In both cases you'll end up with a lot more holes in it than when you started.

Orion, you might need to cast your net a little wider. I estimate your chances of contacting the parties responsible for removing your gear via cc.com are fairly slim. Whoever did it would have to a) be aware that this forum existed, b) actually read this thread, c) have the desire to respond to your post. Even assuming (a) and (b) were true, there is a big leap to ©. Don't rule out the 99.9% of the population that doesn't read cc.com. This thread brings back some memories of a similar conversation that happened in the days before you joined. Someone was hiking up to Der Toof and spotted the fixed gear left on a route at the Rap Wall. The poo-flinging that ensued was epic. Do a little historical research on that thread and you may be enlightened. Heck, you may even get some leads on who took your gear. Good luck recovering the aluminum and nylon.

Yeah, the PI has a brief item on it. It identifies the location of the accident as the Edmonds Glacier, probably referring to the Emmons. Now that I read it again, I see a number of mistakes. Seattle man killed in Mt. Rainier fall By CHRIS GRYGIEL SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF A 52-year-old Seattle man was killed after falling into large crevasse during a descent from the summit of Mount Rainier. Lee F. Adams was part of a four-men crew descending the mountain on Edmonds Glacier Tuesday when the final person on the rope tripped and fell, said Mount Rainier National Park spokeswoman Lee Taylor. Taylor died on impact after tumbling into the crevassse. A second climber was injured; the two others were not harmed. The three surviving climbers made their way out of the crevasse and were able to reach Camp Sherman at 9,000 feet. Park rangers will inspect the scene of the accident Wednesday and determine when to retrieve Adams' body.

Having been up that route a number of occasions I'm surprised how many people chose to push for the summit after last week's snowfall. That slide sounds huge. I have turned around clients below there before, much to their disappointment and my relief, because I was concerned about snow stability. Hope everyone makes it out okay.

I have a Latok Alpine. I think it's a great value. It's very simple, which I like, and it feels like a sensible balance between being light and being tough. I got mine at Feathered Friends before they started selling the heavier version. For $300 it is not quite the impeccable tailored fit of Arc'teryx jackets, but costing 60% of the price of an Alpha LT I feel it is more than 80% as good. At first I thought I would miss having pit zips, but over time I have found the jacket does fine without them. The Event fabric has kept me dry with no complaints. The chest pockets are huge and having a zippered interior pocket has come in useful. All in all a clean, simple, jacket with no bling that does the job I want it to. If you want a jacket made from Event with a fit (and price) closer to Arc'teryx, the Westcomb stuff felt pretty nice.

Neither. Quarks are better than both those tools put together. The main thing I didn't like about climbing on the Vipers was that the shaft flexes when weighted. This is because the long axis of the shaft's cross section is oriented perpendicular to the swinging plane of the tool (instead of parallel to it, like on every other tool in existence). This makes it less rigid, and it was more than a little worrisome to have my tool flexing and shifting on placements when climbing. Plus the weight distribution feels excessively top-heavy and the tool felt more like a clunky medieval weapon than a precision instrument. The new Cobra doesn't have any of these performance characteristics, and while it is the best ice climbing tool from BD I have ever used, it still lacks some of the refinement and efficiencies of the Quark. If these are your only choices, the better of the two is the Cobra, but do yourself a favor and broaden your mind to include other tools. Unless you have a pro deal with BD or some other motivation.