sayjay

hey y'all! thanks for all the beta. we had a *great* trip!

Erik's right, approach is not bad, just long and the walk to the mine is the hardest part simply because it goes onandonandon and doesn't even really go up much until the end when it really goes up. But there's a bathtub at the mine that you can fill with a spring-fed hose and light a fire under. Tons of great climbing to do there... Or it least it LOOKED that way. My hubba and I were in there in late August 2 yrs ago and simply got snowed on Consider hiking out via Rampart Lake (I think that's the name...) rather than just going back out via the mine. Great scenery-- HAVE FUN!

hey! is that CHALK on erik's butt?!??! dude, that's *cheating*!

then you'll have to make it up to me soon by going climbing with me...

ballard ale house! ballard ale house! ballard ale house!

ha! three! nice to have the power to change the world a little bit...

NOW YOU'RE TALKING, CAVEY!

yeah, didn't think you would, that was my point i think dru's got it closest... really it's some combination of only somewhat objectively-defined combination of factors that have to do with the conditions you'll have to deal with when on the climb... but i agree, i wouldn't put desert spires in this category-

so if alpine climbing has to be at high altitude, where does that leave climbs like those in patagonia? sure wouldn't call them crags!...

i've been to j-tree twice: went in october and got snowed on and went in april and woke up with ice in my water bottle... i'm sure if i were to go there in december i'd end up in a blizzard!

i'm also havin' the problem of having the posts running further off the right side of my screen than i can scroll over to... any easy way to fix this? (btw, i use Netscape) thanks-

yah, i work with uli and he's a running machine. we went on a field experiment together and he just basically ran and ate all day! he'd go for like a 10 mile run, then come back to the apartment and have a bit to eat, then we'd go out for like a 4-6 mile run together, then he'd rest for a little while and head out running again this man lives to run... last year he won the seattle, vancouver AND portland marathons... and in the middle of all this he's getting his PhD... talk about having something to chestbeat about!

more of a social weekend than anything so no rights to chestbeating here... but did do a really nice hike up Dickerman on Saturday with an ex-climbing-partner, now-mom-of-2. views were summit is at ~5200' and the snow was only ankle-deep in most places then walked into the big4 ice caves. great waterfalls coming down the mountain, but man where's the frickin ice!?!?! fun part was that i swear it was well into the lower 60's on the lower part of dickerman --- i would've been happy to have on shorts and a t-shirt and sat in the sun --- but it was below freezing in the valley. amazing inversion! hope everyone had a good one!

Hey, thanks everyone! (except Winter ....) This is really helpful. Went out and bought a couple of books yesterday and am now trying to sort out how long to stay 'n all that. Sounds like just an incredible place-

Believe it or not (I can't!) I just found out that my job is sending me to Punta Arena for a week-long meeting, Jan 20-25, with flexibility to travel and play in the area on the front or back end I'm thinking I'll stick around en extra week or so. I know there's probably 5 kajillion things to do in the area, including climbing all kinds of stuff in Patagonia that i've been dreaming about climbing but am not yet good enough to do, especially partnerless! So what I'm looking for is advice on hikes, whatever, to do. Can I reasonably hike into some of the climbing areas in Torres del Paines even just to scout them out? Anyone done specific hikes that they'd recommend? This has all happened so fast I haven't had time to do any research so any info would be great... (no one out there is actually going to be down there at this time, are they???)

why the ? this is a beautiful climb from the burgundy col side. a bit tricky finding the trail up from the road (you drop down from the road to a creek, cross the creek and then it takes a wee bit 'o searching to find the trail on the other side, but it t'aint bad!) then the hike up to the col is *steep* but, hey, you get up fast that way. it's not THAT bad! i did this trip with a friend a couple of years ago, late summer, and loved it. really beautiful, and you get to check out the wine spires on the way in. scramble to the summit is fun, and the views back into the N Cascades are stunning. go for it! (especially if you've never been to washington pass for cripes sake )

for lilloet weather: http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/scripts/citygen.pl?client=ECCDN_e&city=WKF&Unit=I

quote: Originally posted by forrest_m: ok, maybe I’m just making this up, but I seem to remember reading once that “sandbagging” comes from the 18th & 19th century tradition of press-ganging, where ships in need of crew would basically run through towns kidnapping people who would then wake up on board, headed for india or somewhere. this practice was legal in england for 200 years! the favorite weapon of these folks was a sock or bag filled with sand because it didn’t do permanent damage and it didn’t *look* like a weapon. the press gangers would mingle with other sailors, get them drunk, and then *wham*, welcome to the navy. I think the term sandbagging comes from the apparently innocuous appearance of the weapon… this probably won’t convince anyone, but I wanted you to all know what a book-loving nerd I am. ah-HA! that would explain the other verb form of the word "sandbag" in my lil dictionary: "to hit with a sandbag"

Okay, so my little Webster's New World Dictoinary of the *American* (as my Canadian officemate liked to point out...) Language has, under the verb form of sandbag: "[Colloq.] to force into doing something" So I guess you get forced into doing a climb when someone tells you "hey it's easy, no problem, you can totally do it", cause then you'd feel like a total looser if you didn't

i've never heard the term "sandbag" used outside of climbing, so i always assumed that it's stemmed from the experience of getting on a climb and having it be so much harder than you were told that you feel like you're climbing with a big ole bag'o'sand tied to ya...

quote: Anyone else recall what they felt and or any changes in their perception of ice climbing after their first stiff lead?first stiff lead *was* my first WI ice climb. something like WI4 -- definitely near-vertical. fell placing a screw and whipped 30+ft. and almost decked. bent the screw i fell on a good 50degrees when the surface ice plated off...thank god it held cause any real medical help was a long way off. probly one of the dummest things i've ever done, but i was 3+ months into 4+ months of 24-hr-a-day darkness in antarctica and needed some excitement. and the ice was the wall of the most astonishing cravasse i've ever seen. we'd lined the bottom of the cravasse with coleman lanterns and it was just all lit up 'n' shiny and gorgeous, begging to be climbed. just couldn't resist... anyhow, my change in perception was: get in some damn time in WI2+,3,3+...before hitting the vertical! DOH!

i'm a big fan of double ropes -- climbed on them almost exclusively for years -- and have always used an ATC. works great! if using double ropes i'd vote for doing 2 separate meunter hitches on separate 'biners so you can let out/take up slack separately on them, as they are supposed to be used. with twins, though, yeah, 2 meunters on one 'biner seems cool...

...or the pig 'n' whistle, near corner of greenwood and 85th? nice-but-not-yuppie place, good food, plenty of room, pool tables.

quote: Originally posted by shredmaximus: Seriously though...what do people think of rapping vs lowering off a questionable anchor? It seems to me rapping would be the way to go but what do I know??? well, if an anchor is shakey in a way that jostling the pieces around could make them come out, then the process of switching from being on belay to being on rappell could make your anchor pull. i'd stick with lowering: the less time you spend farting around on a weak anchor the better... also, if you *had to* have a bad anchor because you are in a spot that doesn't take gear well but there's a spot below you that does take gear well, you could be lowered to that point, set a few good pieces, and clip the rope there. so if your upper anchor blows you'll fall on the lower anchor. all pretty desperate stuff, tho, that i'd rather avoid having to think about in the first place...

i don't even wanna ask how you monitor the temperature... [WHOA! HEY! MY FIRST PAGE TOP ] [ 11-01-2002, 09:34 AM: Message edited by: sayjay ]