PaulB

Check out Rocky Mountain Books.

For anyone heading to the Bugs there is a report on MCR that there was a major debris slide at the B-S col yesterday.

GREAT trip! For those not familiar with this area, some years at this time you'd be entering the hut through the upper door 'cause the lower one would be buried. Even in a normal winter you typically have to go down several feet to get in the lower door.

I've gone in along the creek twice when there was relatively little snow and, as Dru says, it's not that bad. You're in the trees most of the time and the boulders were easy to navigate. Even the guy we escorted out in the dark with a dislocated shoulder was able to do it!

Agreed... just one or two lessons (private or group) with a good instructor will reveal plenty of areas for improvement. The instructor will give you some specific and relatively simple drills that you can do on your own for the rest of the season to help improve. Beyond that, as others have said, riding the lifts and getting in as much vertical as possible on groomers and off piste terrain is what will make you a better backcountry skier.

All signs point to the groomers or very, very conservative terrain right now. There have been two deaths due to slides in closed and/or out of bounds areas at W-B this week.

Alpine Trekkers seem like a good idea but in reality they are a PITA. There's a reason they're always for sale on gear swaps. People buy them, try them a few times and realize they should have just got some AT bindings. They also break easily as the pivot does not handle lateral forces very well. The 404s you have are better than Trekkers. Buy a cheap pair of alpine ski boots and use them with your 404s. It won't be the greatest touring setup, but it'll be better than futzing around with Trekkers. Better yet, spend the money on some nice AT boots this season, and upgrade your bindings next year. 404s aren't state of the art, but they'll get the job done.

The old blue shaft Chouinard tools had a composite shaft of Aluminum, wrapped in fiberglass, and bonded with epoxy. These tools held up remarkably well. Black Prophets had a similar construction.

Your troubles are more likely a function of the boots rather than the location of the binding. When I wear my leather mountaineering boots with my 404s, I can't do much more than make snowplow turns, but I'm not a great alpine skier. Check out this thread from a couple months ago about skiing in plastic mountaineering boots. You can probably find a copy of the mounting template for 404s if you do some digging on wildsnow.com. If nothing turns up, PM me and I think I have a paper copy around that I could scan for you.

I've been touring on old World Pistes with 3-Pin HW CRBs for the last couple of seasons. No issues, they tour and ski fine. I also have a set of the regular HW CRB plates (without pins) that I've used once inbounds with no issues. Voile bindings are good value. This year I've upgraded to Switchbacks on Rapid Transits. Pretty easy. Voile provides good instructions and a template. That being said, I let a shop take care of it, especially with new skis. I'd rather have the option of them replacing my skis if they screw up than just being mad at myself if I pooch it. Having everything mounted on a riser and the improved plate design makes it much easier to get back in than the old system did. R8s are Rottefella bindings, but they are very similar to Hardwires.

I tele on a pair of the original Havocs (i.e foam core) and love 'em.

The detail in the couloirs isn't great, but here's how they looked on September 14 (click to enlarge)

Impressive.... I (and I'm guessing many others) sure couldn't pull it off. Out of curiosity, were there dedicated AT boots in the 80s or was it a choice between regular downhill ski boots and mountaineering boots?

Maybe, in soft snow on a gentle slope, but most of the time snowplow turns will be as good as it gets. Mountaineering boots + AT bindings are really just an alternative to snowshoes that let you travel downhill slightly faster. AT boots climb better than mountaineering boots ski.

You'd want to find out whether they are "open" repeaters or if you need an access code to use them. Just because you're transmitting on a repeater's frequency (even if it is within range) doesn't mean that anyone can hear you. Federal agencies may be reluctant to share their codes. In a life or limb situation, the sure bet for getting help is a PLB. A one time cost and no fees, but they're an all or nothing call for help. No "I'm OK, just running late" messages like with SPOT or a satphone.

The Morse code angle is a bit unusual. With the handheld VHF/UHF radios that most people would carry in the backcountry, you'd just talk instead of using code as the devices are designed for FM voice communications. The hiker must have had a radio capable of operating in continuous wave (CW) mode, which would explain the long distant contact to Bozeman. A CW transmission can travel much further than a FM voice transmission. Proficiency in Morse hasn't been a requirement for a basic amateur radio license in the US for almost 20 years. I'd say that the injured hiker was likely an experienced amateur radio operator who was very lucky to make contact with someone equally experienced who could help him. On the other hand, there are hundreds of old timer ham operators who spend hours every day monitoring various frequency bands and transmission modes just waiting for something like this to happen.

Climbed the east ridge of Tricouni today. The road & trail are pretty much as I described above. 4WD/AWD with moderate clearance will get you to the end of the road. With only 2WD it would be tough to get past 1000m. The trail is even more obvious now than it was three years ago...easy to find and easy to follow.

It's been three years since I was up there, but at the time you could drive (with 4wd-hc) to almost 1400m. From the end of the road there was an obvious trail (bordered with stones for 20 feet or so) heading into the trees. There was some flagging, but it's not really needed. 15 minutes of hiking brings you to a meadow and from there it's casual hiking to the lake below the south ridge. No more than 45 minutes from the end of the road to the lake. There were massive cross ditches near the end of the road which would be impassable without high clearance, but it would only add 10 minutes of walking. With only 2wd, you might not be able to cross the creek at 1040m, which would add 2km of hiking.

The Chance Creek FSR provides good access to the alpine on the east side of Tricouni. Personally, I think it's better access than via High Falls creek.

Therein lies the crux. Unless you pre-arrange regular contact, there is no guarantee that you will contact anyone. Whether using amateur or commercial frequencies, you are dependent on someone hearing you and being willing/able to call the RCMP to initiate SAR. Radios aren't a sure bet for getting help, but they do increase the odds if you've done your homework. Sat phone is a step up, but PLB is the only guaranteed way to get attention when you absolutely need it.

Even with an amateur license (which is not very hard to get) and a radio which operates on the amateur frequencies, you may not find it as useful as you had hoped. Out of the box, amateur radios are not capable of transmitting on commercial VHF or UHF frequencies such as those that CMH, BC Parks or the ACC would be using in the Bugaboos. As it is difficult to buy a commerical VHF radio unless you have the appropriate frequency license, many people purchase an amateur radio and have it modified (which usually involves removing a resistor or jumper from the circuit board) so that it can transmit on non-amateur frequencies. While this is legal (as far as I know), using the radio to transmit on non-amateur frequencies is not. However, the chances of getting busted are pretty small unless you're constantly tying up someone's frequency and they go through the effort of trying to track you down. In emergencies where there is "grave danger to life or limb" it is generally accepted that licensing concerns are trumped by helping whoever is in distress. Having a radio isn't much good unless you know what frequency to use, so it's worth doing a bit of research for the area you are visiting. You'll want to find out if there are any amateur or commercial repeaters nearby and what their frequencies are. Even then, as Lee says, if the repeaters are configured with an access code (rare in the backcountry, I think), you won't be able to use them unless the owner gives you the code. I have a modified Yaesu FT-60R which I take along on most trips where I know I'll be out of cell phone range and have access to at least one repeater. Check out the March 2008 article here for lots more info.

You can always pay $2.99/min for some hot one-on-one weather talk. J, you should undercut them at $1.99.

Perhaps, but we do have people dying in Afghanistan, arguably in support of the US stake there. I was in the WEM last week, its fleet has been decommissioned.

As a side effect, US access to the ISS may be at risk after 2011: Russian Invasion of Georgia Imperils U.S. Access to Space Station.

I drove down the Parkway yesterday. The NF of Athabasca looks good: Skyladder, not so much: