Bug

Denali in the last two weeks of May is consistently clearer but colder. I had two solid weeks of clear weather in 2001. I am hoping to get back up there in 2005.

Count me in. I am also looking for a party to do Gib Ledges this winter. There are a couple accident reports over the last few years about inexperienced people on Gib Ledges. I will try to find them for you. I personally would not be roped to anybody for most of the Gib Ledges portion. There was another accident on the chute portion where the entire roped party was yanked by one newbie and slid 600 feet. I think there was only one broken bone but a lot of soiled gortex.

Kelty Cloud is very light. Beats most packs by POUNDS.

It has to be dry shit doesn't it? Isn't it the rat shit dust that people inhale? So the virus could have been around here for a long time but just never got airborne until this very dry summer we had. But what do I know? I'm a dung beetle.

To oversimplify in general, only experience will help avoid anchor failure. The most dangerous time in any climbers carreer is when that climber is starting to lead trad. I always recommend doing a few pitches of clean aid climbing with the rack you will use to lead with plus a few extras to suplement. Do it on toprope if you want to really be safe. The act of weighting a piece while you can watch it will teach you a lot. Wether or not to use "SLCD's" is a silly question to me. I would pick whichever one fit the crack best regardless.

I like to take long day trips just for the shear pleasure of seeing all that terrain. And chest beat or not, I like to read about other people's trips. Most TR's that sound like chest beaters are just not expert writers. It is difficult to write about a difficult trip that includes a serious accomplishment without sounding like a total thumper. Trip on dude. Tell us how it went. Just don't tell us it took less than four hours.

That dog rules. Post another pic. Conditions looked pretty different from the last time I was up there. Right on dudes!

OOPS. I have a Drew too. He's grounded. Sound like yours?

I have a chainsaw, pick and shovel. How manyy cc.comers does it take to fix a road?

No. They charge full price and my girls will climb one or two climbs and be done. Not enough bang for the buck and they don't get into much. When the weather is good, we go to Marymoor and swing around a bit. THat is about all the artificial climbing they really want in a year at this point. They get into climbing real rock a lot more. But even then, it takes a bit of peer pressure. We'll have to get them out next summer. I might have some skiis for your daughter. I have been meaning to dig them up but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Buy gear.

Good beer. Good slides. Picked up Colin's Cobras. Thanks to all!

I taught my girls myself too. It really does depend on your relationship and the mood. Everything else DP said is right on. I wanted my girls to get good instruction. I am not the best instructor in the world but I have been trained on how to instruct. Too many ski hills put their least experienced instructors with the kids. When Drew was 8, I took him out and had him doing good carved parallel turns. Then we put him in the Alpental ski school. At the end of the year, I went out and followed them. Drew and the other slower kids got no attention and he was skiing worse than when he started at the beginning of the year. Not all kids' instructors are bad. But if you have the skills and patience and a pocket full of chocolate, it will probably work out better if you teach them yourself.

Just so you get your perspective straight. At that age, it is about hot chocolate. There will be some skiing but the overall event has to have a solid basis in spoilage. Keeps em coming back. About the third time my youngest went skiing (at age 3) she took off and has never slowed down. But it was touch and go for the second time out. Hand warmers, reeses minatures and hot chocolate were what she remembered about that day. Anyway, the offer still stands. We will have to get em all out together so there is some kid sized incentive. As far as hills go, Stevens has a magic carpet but it is a little too low angle. Their bunny hills are OK. Snoqualmie has lots of beginner and intermediate terraine but there a lot of wild kids. Meredith has been knocked over three or four times. Gee, I wonder why they never hit me? I am going to start extracting a price for hitting my daughter. Like walk down or at least crawl away in fear.

I'm in Redmond. How old are your kids? Mine are 5 and 7 and just starting to hit intermediate slopes. But if we got them all together on the first day, yours would probably pick it up fast. The biggest problem for the real littleones is getting on and off the lift. Also, I still have a pair of kid's size 11 alpine ski boots to give away.

Dang. I missed it. Who's selling tapes.

Take your paper up to Alaska and see what they say. I only know what a Eskimo told me. But he didn't go to college.

I always take all my clothes off to dig a snow cave. The first few minutes must be hard to watch.

I got the afternoon off and sent Mcclellans butte. Ice in the shade is starting to form.

Just as you are approaching the crux, from above. " pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppphhhh uh uh hack HACK HACK HACK COUGH COUGH COUGH HACK HACK.

There are over 300 words for "snow" in eskimo.

My car was broken into at the Mcclellan butte TH too. Nothing taken.

amen. good snow = easy igloo, bad snow = impossible igloo and frustrating coldness despite his amazing survival skills, nanook starved to death two years after that movie was made. website the arctic plays for high stakes. on a totally unrelated topic this is my 500th post . i guess i can no longer consider myself an "occasional user" (jon, you'll be hearing from me via paypal...) If you are implying that Nanook would have troubles similar to yours you missed the point. Practice will help you to build a better igloo. Or to build something else if conditions warrant. Nanook actually disappeared and was never found according to the records I read. But regardless, that was in an environment without MSR or REI. Starving to death was common amoung those people. There just isn't much food in the arctic. Ask any polar bear why he is willing to stalk you for weeks. There was a ship that wrecked up there somewhere. Someone will know what I am talking about. There were about 50 men who ended up starving to death. In their journals was an account of a chance meeting with a couple of eskimos. They tried to get the eskimos to help them but the eskimos "refused". The tale told through the generations of eskimos was of a chance meeting of a bunch of white skinned men travelling in too large of a group During a time of Annuk's anger. They tried to convince the white skinned men to split up so they would have a chance of finding enough food but the white men "refused". There is not enough food available in the artic in the winter to support a group of 50 men. Eskimo families were rarely more than three or four. There was a great polar bear hunter who became too old to hunt. This wa in the thirties when they had really started settling down in the villages the government provided. He told all his stories to his sons and their sons and then became quiet for many weeks. Finally one morning, his wife woke up to find him walking out the door to go hunting. They said their normal passing things and he went on his way. After two days he had not returned and his wife became worried. She asked her sons to go out and look for him. They set out that morning, the morning of the third day and followed his tracks for four more days. After getting far out onto the ice, the tracks met a set of polar bear tracks head on. Both sets ended right there where they met.

Use a snow saw and a rigid shovel. Not one of those folding jobies. The army surplus shovels actually did fine but no one has reproduced the rigidity in aluminum. You guys sleep in your cold air sinks all you want. Nanook can build an igloo for four in fifteen minutes witha walrus jaw. There is a black & white from 1912. Truely amazing footage. We are all posers.

A cave will keep you warm and dry and noise free. The extra vent holes are for the drying period. Water will pool if you do not have a sloping floor and/or drainage ditches. After a snow cave has been use for a night or two and refroze, it's insulating abilities are ice-like. When a snow cave is fresh, there is a lot of air in the snow in the walls and ceiling which provides insulation.