Gary_Yngve

The Trango one is 9oz, according to their website. Camp has a harness that weighs in at 245g that looks more like a traditional harness. The one we're talking about weighs 95g -- that's less than 4oz!

I dunno if the harness is designed to take a carabiner through the two tie-in points. It certainly seems like bad loading to me. But for me it fits well, that is the two tie-in points can become pretty much on top of each other. I'd certainly feel comfortable rapping off a biner clipped through both in that configuration. But for belaying, I'd probably belay through the loop of rope. I'm mainly thinking of the harness being used on glacier slogs and stuff w/ a little rock, like Olympus and Challenger. Perhaps you could belay off of a second biner that's clipped just through one tie-in point? But I dunno how it was designed. The instructions are very unclear regarding its usage.

I'd love to join yall, but I need to grade tonight. That's what I get for playing in the mountains for the past five weekends while still trying to do research and grade 30 hws and projects each week.

I don't think I'd wear it on a nontrivial rock route. The Camp XLH doesn't have much in terms of gear loops. Just two thin straps that fit no more than two neutrinos each. And not the quickest access either. That, and there's no powerpoint for belaying. Clipping through both tie-in points would tri-load the carabiner. I suppose you could clip the carabiner to the loop of rope. Though a fig-8 really isn't designed for that sort of loading.

I bought one of these and tried it out on Baker (Easton) two weekends ago. Worked great for me. I like the compact volume as much as the lightness.

mosquito repellent info: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/128/11/931

Sssshhh, that's secret!

Yeah, steer clear of the creeps from Gamma Eta Beta.

Climb: Baker-Easton Date of Climb: 7/16/2006 Trip Report: I climbed the Easton Glacier this past weekend with a bunch of cool folks. Having been on four routes on Baker: C-D, NR, CH, and EG, I have to say that the EG and the NR are best of those for views (time the NR so the sun rises as you are on it). We hiked up the RR Grade in surprisingly cloudy weather, given the predicted forecast. Requisite sensitive-guy shot. But the skies cleared up toward twilight, giving nice views to the east and west. We got up early in the morning and reached the crater right at sunrise. As we headed up the Roman Wall, light filtered past the Buttes to the Twin Sisters and San Juans. The shadow of Baker slowly shrank as we climbed up the Roman Wall. Tom, the Basic student, has mastered the art of posing. Darren's pose wasn't as exciting. It's amazing how flat the top of Baker is. The crater looks pretty cool. Some nice views on the way down: And some cool-looking seracs: Gear Notes: We had perfect cramponing conditions. Some beginners had difficulty with aluminum pons. Not sure how they would have fared with steel.

No offense, but you're completely wrong here. http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/dli/white-paper/dli.html http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/

ING-vee

Sorry, not familiar with Gimp. But Photoshop doesn't call it Gamma either. In Photoshop, go under Levels and slide the mid-gray around. You'll see a number that started at 1.0 get bigger (brighter) or smaller (darker). This is Gamma.

Why'd this thread get sent to Spray? It's been the most on-topic thread we've had in a long time!

No, it's very likely that every nurse, at some point in their career, will accidently prick themselves with a needle. Yes, there are protocols for handling sharps, but if you're only 99.99% foolproof, that might not be good enough.

if it's random, then time of day or night doesn't matter. he said random, not uniformly random

I think all nurses should yell, "Fuck, I hate giving injections! I could get HIV from you and DIE!" prior to giving patients injections.

Often we say "See you soon" when I rap with my partners. If it's with a special partner, then there may be a quick kiss.

I'm not going hiking unless I have my own private army secure a half-mile radius around me at all times. Only then will I feel safe enough. Crap, I forgot about the unmanned aerial drones. They're gonna get me!!! AHHHH!!!

That would be useless against a skilled sniper. What are you going to pack now???

Way to send! Nice!

for what?

I remember doing mostly single rope raps and downclimbing on the route itself, which was pretty fast. We were a team of four, with Steve Firebaugh directing our efforts into an efficient 6.5-hour car-to-car push.

The choice on how many pickets to make was: "I own two pickets. How many pickets do you own? One. Guess we'll have three pickets." I'd consider buying and carrying more pickets if they weren't such a pain to rack. I've tried all options (over the shoulder, on the harness, center-clipped, end-clipped, etc.), and in every situation, they'll find some way to stab you or get in your way.

Climb: Mt. Baker-Coleman Headwall Date of Climb: 7/9/2006 Trip Report: Justin Evans and I decided we wanted something a little less burly than a 2-day Logan trip, so we settled on the Coleman Headwall, despite knowing that it would make Aaron jealous (Aaron and I bailed off the Headwall last year, and Justin and Aaron were chased off the North Ridge on July 4th by lightning). The views were gorgeous on the hike in, and we tried to scope out the route. After three hours from the trailhead, we passed by the Black Buttes camp, mobbed by at least thirty people. We marched half an hour further (not nearly as far as I thought we went) to a flat spot where we set up camp, ate dinner (fortified with some hot Thai peppers), and watched the snow turn golden. A huge system was to the north of us, as the forecast had predicted, and the temperatures were dropping. We boldly set the alarm for 3:45 AM and went to bed. At around 2:30 AM we were awakened by the first sounds of the conga line heading up the C-D. Around 3:30 the train was still continuing, and we decided to wake up. We geared up and buried our bivy gear so it wouldn't blow away. We opted for the high traverse (drop just below the base of the nose), which probably had a little more vert, but had minimal routefinding issues. I underestimated how much time it would take (I really should know better by now), and we were at the base of the route proper around 5:30 AM. The first portion was moderate-angled snow that was softer than we would have liked, but we kept going, expecting to find icier parts above. The sun had risen and was lighting up the surrounding valleys, but given the headwall's NW aspect, it would be a long time before it got sun. We then ran into an obstacle. Ahead and to the left, massive leaning seracs. To the right, a dirty-looking stairstep that was a mix of ice and neve and some crap, but afforded decent pro and good rests. I led up about a full ropelength of the stairsteps and continued up the gentler snowfield above, which was fluted with runnels scoured from previous rock/icefall. This part sucked for several reasons: 1) I had made a 90-degree turn just after the ice step and had some ropedrag. 2) I was kicking steps into what would have been nice neve had it frozen. 3) I was hungry and thirsty but wanted to speed through the objective hazards. 4) I was starting to get the urges to take a crap. We traversed up and left aways, traversed across a snowbridge (not visible on the route photo), and continued up a little more, where we saw a nice ramp to take us out of the hazard and onto the center of the headwall. I passed the lead to Justin, as I was mostly out of gear (placed 3/3 pickets and 5/8 screws), and he led the ramp (gained by crossing another snowbridge) to a snow arete. Here we refueled and rehydrated, not having eaten/drank anything in three hours. I decided I could keep the brownies baking until the summit, as it didn't look that far away (note the foreshortening visible between the two route shots), and we believed we were past the crux. Justin took over leading (breaking trail) from here on. First we had to cross the crevasse stretching across the face. We found a spot that looked like an easy 6-foot step, though the problem was it wasn't ice or even neve, it was soft snow. After much groveling, including a false start, Justin made it past the step. He belayed me up this portion, though it was much easier for me, as he had already dug out the placements. We then simuled quite a ways up more kick-step snow until we scooted to the right past the final crevasse. We thought we were home-free, and we were glad to be on the summit soon. Clouds were starting to come in, and our time spent on the lower face without food/water was catching up to us. We got quite a sting in the tail when we discovered that the face above the crevasse was hard ice, almost like the melt-freeze associated with water ice. This portion, though it took screws well, was tedious and tiring. Finally we passed near the rocks, where the ice had softened somewhat on the surface and gradually gave way to easier snow and a gentler slope. However we still were not on the top! Each time we (Justin, me, and my intestines) thought we were getting closer, the slope would just ease off a little more and still keep going up. Our pace slowed. The snow changed to ball-bearing ice crystals, and the clouds dropped closer and closer to us. WTF? The weather forecast was supposed to be much better than this! The system was supposed to be further to the north, and the real mess wasn't due until Monday. Finally we were on the summit. Visibility had gone down to about 200 feet, and Justin was freezing his ass off waiting for me because I was literally freezing my ass off. But boy did I feel better. We then got the hell off, as the visibility dropped even more, and it started to rain ice pellets. The descent was easy to find, thanks to all the traffic on the route. But we took our time going down, thanks to fatigue (we were too hurried by the storm to eat or drink anything on the summit) and crappy snow conditions (in some places slush over ice). When we got halfway down the hogsback, the storm eased up, and we downed some much-needed food and water. We made it back to camp pretty quickly after that and packed up, glad that we hadn't summited any later. We hiked out, chatting with a friendly Mountain Madness guide and his client, and bumping into a few dayhikers. But the Buttes camp was all but deserted, the weekend being over. The hike out went really fast, thanks to the cooler of beer waiting in the car. Thanks for the good trip, Justin! Gear Notes: had 3 pickets and 8 screws. 4 pickets and 6 screws would have been better given the not-well-frozen conditions

We saw some folks from a distance doing that on Baker. They didn't get hurt, but we didn't feel like waiting for them (they had to pack up camp which was a ways from where we were) to offer our friendly advice.