Fromage

'Tis true that the Epsilon is not stretchy. It's not very warm. It's only moderately wind resistant and doesn't repel water as well as other soft shells. That being said, it costs way less than most others, and of the 6 soft shell jackets I own it is the one I wear the most. If you don't want to be the Imelda Marcos of soft shells, there are many options that do it all well. The best soft shell jacket I ever owned was made by Beyond Fleece. This is like the Feathered Friends of soft shells. Their factory is in Seattle and they make custom tailored clothing to your measurements. For a measly $184 I bought a Schoeller WB-400 jacket with watertight zipper from these guys. The fit was superb, the water resistance good, the breathability good, warmth was fine for fall/winter/spring. It was pretty damn tough. Not many manufacturers are using WB-400, which is a bit puzzling, because it is a great fabric. Check out Beyond Fleece, although it can be tempting to start adding options. All the pockets, extra zips, and nifty features sound cool but you don't need them and they add to the cost/complexity/weight/price quickly. Party on, Garth.

I use the inflatable/closed cell foam combo as well (Prolite 3) and have never had cause to regret it. The only change I made was to replace my Ridge Rest with a Yellow Hard Man Pad because the RR would catch snow in its bumpy topography, which would then melt and I'd have to flip my pad over or sleep on top of several small puddles. Flipping the pad over only works once every few hours. With the smooth surface of the YHMP it's easy to brush the snow off. In terms of warmth, just about any foam pad on top of just about any inflatable pad will be fine. If you only want to deal with one pad Therm-a-Rest makes a combo pad that is an inflatable with a layer of closed cell foam on one side. It accomplishes the same thing and you don't have to deal with one pad shifting around on the other. I think it's pretty spendy (and heavy), though, so if you already have an inflatable you'd be better off organizing your system around that. The main risk with using only an inflatable is that without a repair kit you will suffer. You'll need to take one regardless, but at least you can make it through one night on a slowly deflating pad if you have a foamie on top of it. And whatever you do, try to avoid travel with your inflatable pad on the outside of your pack wrapped around your wands, barbed pickets, hiking poles, and ice axe.

When it comes to offering a worthless opinion you don't need to ask me twice. Summertime in the North Cascades I typically wear my base layer long underwear in my Vireo, maybe a softshell jacket if it's a little cooler. In winter trips I didn't expect to get the kind of warmth out of the bag that I did. I spent a few nights at the base of the east ridge on Eldorado (about 7,000'+) in winter and with my Volant jacket on I was plenty toasty. Once FF came out with the Hooded Helios Jacket I picked one of those up and use that mostly for 3-season alpine climbing since it's a bit lighter than the Volant. I guided a few early season trips on Rainier with the Vireo/Hooded Helios combo and it worked just fine sleeping at 11,000 feet. Temps were below freezing and I was on top of a yellow foam pad plus the lightest Thermarest. Often what happens is I push the bag down to my waist because the jacket alone is toasty enough. That winter trip on Eldo was not one of those times, though. Hope that helps.

Nano has been great in the rain for me. On a 6-day North Cascades trip where it rained every single day my Vireo stayed totally dry, even when I crawled into my tent dripping. The folks at FF can explain the technical details of the fabric to you. My understanding is that the surface of the fabric is textured like a jagged mountain range on the microscopic level. That way there is hardly any surface area for water to adhere to, and moisture just beads up and rolls off. Whatever kind of witchcraft they use, it has worked for me. No fabric is going to hold up to sharp limestone, so if you'll be sleeping in the open you might want to bring a ground sheet of some kind. Better to shred a $20 piece of fabric than a $250 sleeping bag.

I second what MaxTrax says. I have a Feathered Friends Vireo that's even lighter than his (mine has the Schoeller NanoSphere fabric instead of the heavier eVent). I love it. It has been warm enough for me to sleep comfortably at 11,000 feet on Rainier in May (along with my FF hooded Helios jacket). I thought the no zipper design would be a drag but I don't really miss having it. I also have a 20-degree, 2-pound down bag but I rarely use that any more because my Vireo is versatile enough to do well on most of the trips I take. I'd recommend going with either the Schoeller NanoSphere fabric or the Epic shell on the Vireo. My experience with the Nano has been positive, its water resistance is just as good as the Epic and it's lighter & cheaper than eVent. Plus FF stocks them in Nano so you don't have to wait a month for a custom order.

From this morning's PI. Details are unclear from the story, but it definitely mentions ice climbing. Both folks involved worked at Crystal. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/394393_avalanche01.html

I did a complete ascent of this route a few years back. Your photos show the route looking pretty thin compared with my memories. Very fun climb, meandering up through that rocky gully. Nice job.

Have a look at the Scarpa Triolet (beefier version) or Charmoz (lighter version). Both of those will climb rock well (I have had good experience with my Triolets) and accept hybrid or full strap crampons. The fit of these boots accommodates higher volume feet than the La Sportiva Trango S. There are a great many choices of boots in this category, so start trying them on and sooner or later you'll find a good fit. I got my Triolets at Feathered Friends, they had a pretty good size selection. Charmoz Triolet

Lots of thanks to the Cascade Land Conservancy for the persistent work going into making this happen. article on passage of Wild Sky

I use a Feathered Friends Vireo for my summer trips. This bag has kept me warm in the North Cascades in early April, and is comfy on Rainier in the summer. Plus it is light (one pound), packs down to the size of a Nalgene, and comes in groovy water resistant fabrics. Oh yeah, and it's pretty reasonably priced at $230ish. The trick is that you often need to sleep wearing your insulated jacket, but this creates greater efficiency since you are probably bringing this piece of gear anyway. I used to have a Western Mountaineering bag, but I wasn't psyched on the way the hood fit, and their fabrics in their ultralight bags feel kind of flimsy. Of all the bags I have, I probably use the Vireo for about 80% of the trips I take in the Cascades. link to Feathered Friends Vireo

Get a Cilo pack, and get it from Feathered Friends. You can try one out there before putting your money down. Plus they can bend the stay for you.

I saw a picture of the Westcomb insulated Event jacket when I was at FF yesterday. They said they might get it as soon as spring, but will definitely have it by fall. There were no specs on the weight, but it is seam taped, laminated insulation, and will cost $440. Not cheap, but less than a Fission SV. It's still a little more than I would consider spending on a synthetic jacket, but if this is exactly what you are looking for, it might be the ticket. I have seen enough of Westcomb's products to know how well they make their stuff, and quality comes at a premium.

I spent three days swinging the new BD Cobras up in Lillooet over MLK weekend, and here are my observations on how they work. It's only fair to start with the background that I didn't like the original Cobras and that I am a diehard Charlet fan, having owned the succession of Pulsars, Quasars, Quarks, and Quark Ergos. My gripes with the original Cobras (used 6-7 days) were 1. grip was too big (and I can palm a basketball) 2. tool balance was too topheavy 3. swing speed was kind of slow and the tool felt clunky (see previous) 4. the tool shattered ice like a Russian nuclear icebreaker. I don't think it was just my technique, because I don't have this problem with my Charlet tools. The new Cobras have considerable improvements over the originals. The grip is very comfortable, both for my giant hams and my partner's petite paws. The swing is completely different, it feels more natural and is easier to control. The way the tool rotates feels better balanced, and the swings were snappier and quicker. On steep terrain, the added clearance was great. I was able to hook and swing around features in a way that is comparable to my Quarks. Placements felt secure, and I was getting solid sticks on the first swing much more frequently than I did with the old Cobras. The threaded leash insert was a refined touch. Attaching the Androids to the shaft was a 30-second process with an allen wrench, and anchoring them to the shaft is much more elegant than the old hoseclamp solution of the first gen Cobras. Even when climbing leashed, the Strike attachment was a useful thing to have to get a little more mileage out of my placements. Even though the picks are the same as on the earlier version of the tool, I found that I wasn't shattering the ice as much. Granted, I was climbing soft, sticky, Lillo plastic and not Canmore Steel, but the amount of ice I displaced was still fairly low. I was still knocking down more ice than I do with my Quarks, but not much more. The only thing about the new Cobras that I wasn't totally jazzed about was the placement feedback. My placements felt kind of "dead," as in I didn't get a good sense from the tool about how solidly it was placed. By contrast, when I get a solid stick with my Quarks, I feel a certain pitch of vibration through the tool that tells me "this placement is great, you don't need to swing again." I can tell a lot about the quality of my placements by the way the tool vibrates, and I like that. I guess that is really a matter of personal preference. Some people like the damp feel of the carbon, some people like the lively feel of aluminum. Neither is superior, they just give you a different connection to the ice. Overall, I had a lot of fun climbing on the new Cobras, and I now have a warm place in my heart for that tool. I was frustrated with the old ones, and the new ones have a totally different personality. If you measure how good a tool is by how secure it feels, how confident you feel using them, and how much fun you have using them, then these rank pretty high. I think that if I owned a pair I would want to climb on them a lot, but they still can't take the top spot away from my Quarks. I think the new Cobras are the most expensive tools on the market. $600 gets you a pair without leashes. They are great tools, and the amount of work that has gone into the redesign is impressive, but someone would need to have a very good reason to pony up that kind of money for these, like replacing a very old pair of tools.

Snazzy. Do they come with the ice tool?

Definitely be sure to call first. A lot of shops around Seattle won't rent ski gear until there is "enough" snow, where "enough" equals some quantity to be judged by the shop where customers won't ding up the skis.

Take wands and be prepared to spend the night on the snowfield if the weather deteriorates.

Grivel also makes their screws' threads like in figure A. Their reasoning is that by applying the load on the hypotenuse of the triangle the force is distributed over a greater surface area and thus reduces the chance of pulling out the screw. Grivel's screws are awesome. Irbis Titaniums (the Russian screws you mention) suck big time. Nothing personal, but compare the - # of teeth (Irbis = 3, everyone else = 4) - diameter of the screw (Irbis < everyone else) - thread relief, i.e. how much the threads stick out from the tube of the screw (Irbis < everyone else) - screw length (I think Irbis are <16cm) I used to have one of these Russian Death Screws and finally got rid of it before it got rid of me. Not only are they frustratingly difficult to place in hard water ice, they are jing of the first order. If I were you I would worry much more about the overall quality of this screw than the direction the thread bevel faces. Righty tighty, lefty loosey.

Shit, I knew Pete from my happy years teaching at NOLS. This is horrible. The fact that the trundled rock was dislodged by hikers above sucks too. The Winds are such an amazing place, it is a shame that the range claimed one of its greatest devotees.

I'm going sledding in Alaska this summer, and given the parameters of my trip I anticipate spending lots of time in the tent. My tentmate is probably going to bring a fiddle, and as entertaining as that sounds, I would like to have some music of my own choosing to drown out the howling winds. Rumors have swirled of ipods malfunctioning at high altitude, and then there is always the power source issue. I want to take a music player that stores at least 20 hours of songs and runs on widely available alkaline batteries and will work at 14k+. Any suggestions? If this question has already been covered before, please forgive my ignance/laziness and direct me to the archive. "So put your aaaaaaaaaaarrrms around me, your dinner lady arms..."

I have spent a 2-3 days climbing on a pre-production Petzl rope in the last couple months. It was a 9.? single, closer to 9.8 than 9.1. I liked it better than the Beal, Maxim, and Blue Water singles that I have owned, and it was more supple than my last Edelweiss Cabledevice. I can't say that this rope made me do backflips, I wouldn't call it the holy grail, but if you want a medium stiffness rope it would be worth checking out. Not the skinniest, not the lightest, not the anythingest, just a good all around cord. I don't think it had any uncommon features like a monofilament in the core or the like. In today's rope market there are so many good 9+mm ropes to choose from that it is hard to make something new that is truly distinctive. Ultimately for a lot of people it boils down to personal preference in how you like your rope to handle, and price for many folks as well. If these Petzl ropes are competitively priced then they will probably gain popularity. My Cousin doubles are soft and frayed easily, but I don't think that this is a fair comparison.

Trip: Leavenworth - Hubba Hubba Date: 1/24/2007 Trip Report: Drove over to L-town Wednesday morning with my fiancee for some midweek ice, figuring the only other people we would run into would be snowmobilers. Thirty seconds into the approach we came across a couple of poor fools in climbing clothing who had high-centered their shiny Jeep Cherokee by trying to drive through a snowbank that was acting as a pseudo-roadblock. This maneuver was puzzling, since they only would have reduced their approach hike by 100m as the road was gated at the bridge. I had my trusty old 4x4 in the parking lot and could have towed them out, but since they were in no danger themselves, were not creating a hazard, and I didn't want to waste valuable daylight on dragging a couple of morons out of the snow, I chose to let them learn from the experience. I chatted with a snowmobiler who observed that this was the third climber in a couple weeks who had tried to drive through the snow bank with the same results. In the intervening two days since I had last climbed Hubba2 on Sunday, much had changed. The approach path was obliterated by avy debris from three different slides. Two were small point releases, and one was a big pile of snow that had clearly poured over the main flow of the climb. This had probably happened on Tuesday when it was warm and sunny. There was also a glide crack creeping right to left across the curtain at the start of the main flow. We climbed the right side in one long and and one short pitch. The first pitch had good plastic ice that took 17cm screws in a few places. I chose to head up and left on the second pitch since the right side looked like a snow wallow in the gully. The ice was thin, hollow, detached, and sun baked in spots, but the climbing was not hard so I reached the tree without much problem. The upper part of the main flow looked thinner than it was a few days ago. Since we were at the anchor we rapped off to save a little time. We hiked out in the daylight, and upon returning to the parking lot we saw the silver Cherokee had been extracted and parked next to my car. As we changed into our jeans and the light began to fade, I noticed the dome light in the Jeep was dimly lit. Ouch. One dumb move begets another. Gear Notes: 17cm screws were fine, a 13 and a 10 would not be bad additions. No rock pro needed. Approach Notes: You may want to take an approach line that does not switchback up the avy path.

If you can climb 5.5 in mountain boots and hold onto enormous fixed lines, the Hornli Ridge is an accessible route and reasonable to climb as a private unguided party. Hence the crowds. If you have a higher level of skill and ambition and you are going to hire a guide, then it makes sense to attempt a less traveled and more challenging route like the Italian or Abruzzi Ridge. Don't just go for the Matterhorn. There is so much more to enjoy in the Alps than this one beehive. It's like people who fly to WA from all over to climb Rainier and don't even know about the N Cascades.

MGA, you sound like the ideal candidate for a guided Rainier climb. Going with a guided group gives you the opportunity to achieve a dream, learn some new skills, and whet your appetite for more climbing. If you are not experienced enough to go on a private trip then obviously going on a guided trip will increase your chances of summitting exponentially. As for the other factors that can prevent you from reaching the top (bad weather, poor acclimatization, injury in the party, slow team, etc.), those are all part of the enchilada and are impossible to predict. They are also part of the mountaineering experience, and many people find that they learn more and have a better time on trips where they don't summit. I encourage you to also check out Alpine Ascents International. They, along with IMG, are recent recipients of Rainier guiding concessions. They run small trips with a high guide/client ratio and take excellent care of their folks. Some friends of mine went with them last year on the Emmons and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. If you want a lower stress, less crowded, and more aesthetic experience, then taking a 4-day trip up the Emmons will be the way to go. If you have less time and don't mind climbing among more traffic, then the DC is an appropriate choice. Whichever you choose, try to book your trip for the second half of June or early July. Weather and conditions are usually quite good during this time period. Those trips also fill the earliest. If you have the money to spend and summitting Rainier is worth it to you, then you will get full value. The extra $400 or so it costs for a 4-day trip is definitely worth the extra time on the mountain and the slower pace can improve your chances of summitting. Good luck, and have fun. Link to Mount Rainier via Emmons with Alpine Ascents

I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.

Yeah, the folks across the way on the slopes looked to be having a good time of things, and I wished I had skis to get far up the valley fast. At least I had the small consolation of being the only group there.