PaulB

Interesting.... my first set of tools were Pulsars, and they had a noticeable vibration as well.

Never did get down there last month, so trying again this weekend. Do you need a backcountry pass or permit of any sort when climbing at WA Pass?

It can be fun to reply to this with "shitty", 'cause it's not at all what they're expecting you to say.

The Garmin website has a useful comparison page.

Check out last summer's version of this thread.

I have a pair of Cumbres, but have only used them ice climbing, where I found them to be excellent. Haven't had a chance to try them out on rock or on mixed terrain. I can say that I find the asymmetrical last to feel a bit weird when walking on a flat road, at least compared to my Salomon SM9s.

You might want to read Mr Serl's rant on this topic.

Errant punctuation removed from URL: www.baitcar.com

From CBC News story. Last Updated Tue, 07 Jun 2005 17:35:58 EDT An avalanche on Canada's highest mountain killed a Calgary woman and left her climbing partner searching for help for a week. Jessie Aulik, 22, was climbing at about 2,900 metres when she was swept down the east ridge of Mount Logan in the Yukon on May 31. Aulik, who had set a record as youngest person to scale the peak when she was 17, was climbing with a 34-year-old man from Fairbanks, Alaska. He managed to escape the slide but didn't have a satellite phone to call rescue personnel, Yukon RCMP said on Tuesday. The climber tried to find help for a week before he was spotted waving for assistance by a TransNorth helicopter pilot who was flying in the area on Monday afternoon. "The second climber went to the assistance of the deceased, which took approximately a day," Cpl. Tickie Hayes said. "The surviving climber did not receive any injuries at all. He is still in the Haines Junction area, and is being assisted by local community personnel." Officials from Kluane National Park have since recovered Aulik's body and are investigating the incident. Mount Logan, which rises almost 6,000 metres, is notorious for its sudden snow squalls that blow in from the Pacific Ocean. There are about six groups now climbing Mount Logan, with about a month left in the climbing season. Just a few days before the May 31 avalanche, a powerful storm trapped three other climbers near the summit for three days. The men, who were all experienced climbers who had volunteered for years on a Vancouver-area search-and-rescue team, suffered from frostbite and hypothermia.

On a related note, here's how David Dodge, Canada's version of Alan Greenspan, sees things.

The plane crash was briefly referred to in the obit for Daryl Hatten in Alpinist 10. The implication was that he had some part in the adventures that ensued after the crash.

Please, fill us in on your mental state at this point:

Go variable and pay it off as fast as you can! You can lock it in at any time. Long term fixed rates are expensive insurance.

This assumes that you have the discipline to set aside the "extra" cash and actually invest it. Most people don't. When you're a tenant, you're renting space, when you're an owner, you're renting money to pay for your space. Conventional wisdom is that over the short term neither option has a real advantage. Traditionally, the benefits of ownership aren't realized until a large amount of equity has been built up in the property, and the value has appreciated enough that it could be sold for a profit (not sure how it works in the US, but in Canada, that profit is tax free if the property is your principle residence). These days, owning a home is more of a lifestlye choice (an emotional decison) than an investment vehicle (a fact based decision). Unless you live in a crazy market (e.g. Vancouver) where prices just keep going up and there is potential to profit quickly, there are lots of other ways to make returns on your money without the hassles of ownership. That being said, I just bought condo in January, and ownership feels good (once you get used to having an almost incomprehensible amount of debt).

I'd recommend skis for the glacier, and be up the pyramid gully as early as you can. As mentioned in the WA Pass thread, new snow last weekend + record heat this weekend = postholing wallow-fest.

Just about any tele boot will serve that purpose. If you don't want a big, stiff plastic boot, you might also consider the Scarpa T3 or T4, or Garmont Excursion.

Making my first trip to WA Pass this weekend. What are the options for camping in the area? When do restaurants in Mazama shut down at night?

Good grief... the arguments for/against can be extended to the extreme. e.g. How much energy does it take to make the hundreds (if not thousands) of kilometres of steel pipe and lay it in the ground? How do all the pipeline workers get to the job site? Probably not in hybrid Civics. CC power plants are very cool, and are a great choice when there is a good supply of cheap natural gas or coal that can be gasified. As long as the price of fuel is low and the price of electricity is high, things are good. Unfortunately, there are a lot of CC plants around the world that became uneconomical to operate when deregulation (now there's a whole other topic of debate!) caused electricity prices to drop at the same time as fuel costs increased. No technology is perfect in all situations, and it'll be a combination of those that we already have with ones that have not yet been invented that will let civilization move forward into the future.

I can't afford to buy a normal house (at least not in North Van) so it's unlikely that I'll pay the extra 25% to build a super-duper environmentally correct one. As with hybrid cars, the limitations of the current technology mean you'll never recover the money you spent to get a warm fuzzy for "going green". As Selkirk says, it'll be great when/if the alterntives are feasible, but in the meantime nuclear is a logical solution.

That's true for base load plants (nuclear, coal, oil, hydro), but there are lots of peak load plants (usually gas turbines) that might run for a few hours a day, might run 24 hours a day for a week, or might go unused for a month.

Just out of curiousity, how much coverage did Galloway ripping a strip off the Senate committee get down there? Quite entertaining on the CBC & BBC, but I can't imagine it got much airtime in the US.

You can download the Sonic Stage software from the Sony website. It sucks, but I think it's the only option for getting music onto a NetMD.

Having just ticked off the 7 Summits, it's only a matter of time before Annabelle steps up to the plate on this. She also has the advantage of the aforementioned silver spoon. Only 13 more to go!

If you haven't already, ask on Live The Vision's message board.

Last May (prior to the long weekend) we camped at a place just down the road from the waterslides (no idea what it was called). The weird thing was that they had all their facilities open (showers, washrooms, etc.) but there wasn't anyone around to collect any cash. Two nights free waterfront camping!