Gary_Yngve

There's a classic quote from the Beckey excerpt of Tim Egan's The Good Rain. "As teenagers they (the Beckey bros) joined the Mountaineers, a formal climbing group whose members are given to long and somber discussions about their long and somber mass expeditions to the high points of the Cascades." This quote came true to me when I was sitting in a talk there from some folks who climbed some peak in Tibet. There was a couple hundred feet of alpine ice face to the top, and the audience was insistent in finding out exactly how many pitches and what angle it was. I found the repeated questioning of that minutia nauseating. So what questions should Layton be prepared to answer? Here are some possibilities, and I encourage more to be submitted: How many pitches did you climb? How long was your rope? Isn't it dangerous climbing as a party of two? We always climb as a party of 8 to 12. How many rappel rings did you need on the descent? Do you use belay gloves? How did you take those pictures and still belay?

ABC Huevos are cheaper than BDs and pretty much equivalent. How often do you want to climb? How hard do you expect to be climbing this season? That will also dictate how much / how pricy of a rack to get.

This thread is a riot! Keep up the good work! My opinion on rack stuff: Don't buy until you have a chance to try. Ask around with the folks who took the crag course last year. There's always someone who was super-psyched to be climbing, bought an aid rack's worth of gear, and then remembered that their ass was too fat. I'm sure they'd happily trade shiny Camalots for donuts.

I got hooked up with a copy two days ago, though I've been too busy to have time to look at it yet.

The other day, my dad was cleaning out his backpack and found a four-inch stainless-steel decking nail. He thought hard and remembered over a year ago when he picked it up off the ground so no one would step on it or ride over it. Then he remembered how he had taken that same backpack carry-on through several airports, including overseas.

Nice job and sweet photos!

Anyone have a copy of Dallas Kloke's self-published book on winter dayclimbs from Seattle (or have Dallas's contact info)? I'm sure there's other gems out there... (Is he the same Dallas of the Mt. Erie guidebook? I thought I had an email from him somewhere, but I can't find it.)

Yeah, I feel lucky that I have my Avy Level 2 Fieldtrip tomorrow. We'll certainly see some interesting stuff!

Climb: Mt. Kent-North Face Date of Climb: 2/19/2006 Trip Report: After working all day Saturday, I decided that I either needed to get in some people time that evening or go to the mountains on Sunday. I made some calls, and Ralph was looking for a partner to check out the north face of the obscure Mt. Kent. We found only one TR on the NF of Kent online, a trip by Dave and Phil that took a bushier line than ours. Beckey dedicated one sentence to Kent; Krawarik had two. Saturday morning Ralph picked me up at 5 AM, and we drove to exit 42. Our USGS map indicated that the McClellan's Butte trail would put us to the right of Alice Creek when we intersected the Iron Horse trail. So we turned left and marched. Past Rock Creek. Past Harris Creek. Darn well near Carter Creek before we realized that surely we went too far. We looked back and saw McClellan's Butte get some morning light. So much for our early start, and good thing it was a cold day. (photo by Ralph) We turned around and hiked back, wondering if we'd ever find the Alice Creek or wondering if it was really another name for Rock Creek. We didn't see any signs of other roads. We eventually returned to the initial intersection and decided, why not, to wander the other way for a bit. Worst case we'd slog up the north gully on McClellan's Butte. Less than a quarter mile away, we stumbled across Alice Creek and a road branching down from it toward the creek. Elated, we followed the road down, only to have it dead-end. So we started shwacking up the creek toward Kent. Eventually we hit a road, but before then, navigating through clear-cutted timber with minimal snow cover was annoying. Only later did we really find out what was going on with the trail and the roads: Eventually our nice road curved the other way out of the valley, so we went off-trail climbers-right of the creek. The snow had a firm crust on it, and we made good time to the basin below the north face. We aimed for the central gully, which in the above picture, started at the point about 1/3 from the left and top. On the slog up to the base, a crust about an inch thick would fracture and dinnerplate, tumbling down and revealing sugar beneath. The cold temperatures have been having their effect. (photo by Ralph, color-corrected by Gary) Ralph got the first pitch, and he promised he wouldn't pull a NFChair and finish the first pitch on the summit. The pitch was great ice for half a rope, and it protected well with 13cm screws. The slope lessened to some nice neve, and at the end of the rope, Ralph set an anchor off a small tree and a pin. The second pitch took me up another step of ice and then some snow until I stretched the rope to dig out a solid tree anchor. (photo by Ralph, color-corrected by Gary) Ralph followed the pitch in style. The snow was pretty variable in quality. Sometimes solid neve/snice. Sometimes sugar. Sometimes crust over sugar. In general it was great for climbing (though you might have to alternate between plunging and dagger frequently or have each hand doing a different style), though the protection was hit-or-miss. But we did enjoy solid belays. Ralph's next pitch was a long simul pitch of gentler neve. We were getting high on the mountain, which means closer to the top, but the top still seemed far away. We were on a large north face. (photo by Ralph, color-corrected by Gary) My next pitch featured some more nice neve and ice steps. Ralph then led up some gentler slopes in another simuling stretch. We saw a steep headwall to our right that looked really fun though hard, and we were worried about time. So Ralph headed left, first through snow, and then some sweet low-angle ice. But that headwall and blue ice sure looked like fun! It just looked harder above, with possibly a little mixed action. My next pitch took me up a steep ice step that was unprotectable due to poor ice quality. I screwed in two stubbies with screamers at the base, each of which had about a third air. Higher up, the ice had aerated, and often I had to swing several times in an area to find something that would grab. Keeping most of my weight on my feet was key. (photo by Ralph, color-corrected by Gary) The ice gave way to neve, and as the rope went taut, I reached a huge tree. Ralph's next pitch took him behind a rock buttress where he found water ice and frozen moss that allowed passage. He weaved his way up a ropelength through snow to another tree belay. I followed, in snow that was becoming increasingly sugary. (photo by Ralph, color-corrected by Gary) My last pitch was started off with a groveling heel hook around a tree I had just slung to pass some sugar that I couldn't seem to get on top of. Then about twenty feet of ice and frozen moss amidst some bushes and trees. Finally more steep deep sugar, fluted and interspersed with cliff bands. I traversed below a band and exited onto easier terrain a little below the summit. We scrambled the rest of the way and arrived on the summit with clouds above, but visible were Rainier and a strong red hue to the west. We quickly cramponed down steep slopes to the east and sidehilled for what seemed like forever to return to the other side of the mountain. Having figured out all the routefinding puzzles on the way in, we made it out much faster. All in all, we were amazed by the quality of the route, especially given the trouble we had in finding it, and the dearth of record of folks climbing it. We enjoyed nearly 1500 vertical feet of snow and ice, which bomber tree belays along the way. It was a perfect difficulty -- not a walk in the park, nor holy shit, if I fall we both die. The route was aesthetic, and I think we found it in nearly perfect conditions. To cap off a great trip, I then invited Ralph over to enjoy the crockpot that I had cook overnight. A big roast of beef, with red potatoes, carrots, green beans, celery and onions. We stuffed ourselves until we burst, and then I pulled out the cheesecake.

If you really must know, I was at a bar a few days ago with some late-20s ladies who climb, and they were really enjoying the legs and asses of the male skaters as well as the occasional frontal shot with the bulge. I bet all you homophobic Brazilian volleyball posters would have been nauseated and sickened by the sight of an althetic guy in full lycra. Speaking of which, I bet there are plenty of women here who are sick and tired of seeing scantily clad women objectified on most any random thread. I'd encourage them to return the favor and post pictures of guys, but I figure they're too mature to stoop as low as you.

Not true if I'm understanding what you're saying. If you think that a knot, harness and body will recieve the same amount of force regardless of where you fall from, you're incorrect. The rope stretch acts in the same way on that end as it does on the individual pieces. The further you fall with the less rope out, the higher the impact forces will be on every single point and the shorter that duration will be. If you take a short 5 meter factor two fall, you'll receive high forces on the belay, belay device, rope, knot, harness and body, but it'll be a sharp quick fall. If you have 30m of rope out and then take the same 5 meter fall, you'll receive a long soft fall and both the piece that you fell on the, rope, the knot, the harness and the body, will all receive low impact forces but for a longer duration.

I'm sure the ladies here have enjoyed the skintight outfits of the male speed skaters. If I could have found a picture in the past few minutes, I would have posted it.

Yes, if you want to minimize fall factor, you'd theoretically have a Xeno's paradox going right down to the belay. But the theory fails because there are all sorts of things that absorb a constant amount of energy that is significant when compared to the total energy in a short fall, but insignificant in a long fall. Such absorbers would include the body, the harness, and the tie-in knot.

Oh, come on, Selkirk. I was being totally tongue-and-cheek. You guys are taking this playful banter way too seriously.

Snugtop, that image is wrong. I fully expect to get tenure before 40.

I don't get it, Kurt. I have nothing against you. I do understand why you were giving me a lot of shit two months ago -- that time period really sucked for me and made me act like an asshole -- but I don't understand why you're still giving me shit. I think I've been well-behaved lately. And I don't understand why you're giving shit to the guy whose name you edited out of your post.

Sheesh Kurt, I failed to mention that Snugtop and Eric were there just from an innocent slip of the mind. No, I didn't talk to them, but they were on the opposite end of the table and left early. I'm sure we at least steaksauced at each other. You, however, seem spiteful toward at least three specific people who were present. What gives?

Humorous retort: Because she shaves? Mean retort that I don't really mean but is just too tempting: I'm sure there are plenty of other guys whom I could ask to find out the answer. But seriously: You can look at someone's eyebrows and roots to figure out their natural color, and I've seen her with lighter colored hair.

You mean math addicts?

And her age too.

Physics really doesn't help. Yes, you can calculate the fall factor (which by the way is the distance fallen (12) over the total rope out (which goes beyond the last piece, so should be 25+6=31). That's the worst-case scenario, and your piece should be plenty strong enough. But the belay's dynamic, the there's friction through the biners, and your partner likely weighs less than what the standard tests use (75 kg, I think). So the forces are much less. The bigger issues would be rock quality and angle of pull.

Personally, I think she looks better with her hair her natural color rather than dyed black.

I don't think I've complained about my advisor at all to anyone in the past two months. Things are going pretty well.

Sorry, when I got there I wanted to converse with folks who actually climbed something over the weekend.

Dave Schuldt, Maria, and Alison left before you showed up.