Alpinfox

Is the site down or have I been banninated?

Saturday: Said goodbye to Ken. Sunday: Football.

As some of you may know, Ken4ord will be leaving tomorrow morning for Ruwanda. On Saturday night lots of folks gathered on Capitol Hill for one last chance to drink and make merry with Ken before his departure. Ken, you've been a great climbing partner and a great friend and you'll be missed. I hope I will be able to meet up with you in Africa or Europe sometime soon. Keep in touch!

Not sure what you're trying to express on that one. Running that through the Glasgowkiss translat-o-matic reveals:

What a country!

We checked out JLTR on Sunday and did a lot of scrambling up snow-covered talus and bashing through devil's club and alder. We got all the way into the back of the gully and then it started raining, but we never found any ice worth breaking out the rope for.

Yes, I'm pretty sure we climbed the blue line. In other news, I heard recently that "Jah Loveth the Leftists" recieved another ascent on Saturday (the day after we climbed it). Apparently the climbers were headed to "Jah Loveth the Righteous" but followed our tracks to the obvious ice.

Mitchner books fit the bill perfectly. I read "Alaska" while tent-bound in Alaska this past summer. When I was halfway through it's 1000 page girth, I tore it in half and gave the front half to my poor partner who had only brought a measley 200 page tome. Hands?

Coleman two-burner Lots of candy (mike&ikes are good!, hard candies) Weed Liquor music crazy creek chair me! waterproof duffle or a tarp for covering all your schtuff outside the tent sense of humor handiwipes books (novels and activity books like crosswords) camera with lots of film/digi memory/batteries powdered miso soup from trader joes portable music with little external speakers (sound sux, but ) laptop with cellular/satellite internet for remote spraying satellite phone lots of maps ("what's that peak way over there?")

GW: "If you wanna be my new surgeon general, you gotta check out this turkey bite I got last thanksgivin'." Last Thanksgiving:

Behold:

When you mail back those business reply envelopes, write "please remove my name + address from your mailing list" next to your name on the inside portion. I believe they are legally required to comply. I've thought of making a sticker that says just that. If you haven't signed up for the "Do Not Call" list yet, you should do so. The number of telephone solicitors calling my house went from a couple/day to zero. Charities and political organizations can still call.

But in a 21 minute speech, he managed to squeeze in 25 "Freedoms" and 17 "Liberties"! Thanks John Stewart.

Sweet!

HERE!

Is this Beal Joker a single rope? (edit: Yup, it's a single). If so, that is the thinnest, lightest single I've heard of, the previous winner being the Mammut Evolution 9.2mm. I like single lines for rock climbing and twin or half ropes for ice (though I haven't done much ice). A lot of people (the Euros) like half ropes for rock.

Sobo, Thanks for the explanation. While I'm familiar with the concept, I just wasn't familiar with the term "focused". Kevin, My interpretation of the information presented is that the rope was not attached to the anchor, so I wouldn't say she "had everything setup correctly". I can't imagine how one could have a sling on the anchor and a locked biner on the rope but NOT through the anchored sling, but that is apparently what happened. Maybe when/if the climber recovers, she will remember something about the anchor setup. A good pre-rappel ritual that may have prevented this accident is to weight the rappel rope while your daisy (or whatver you use to connect yourself to the anchor) is still attached. When ice climbing, bulky clothing and snow can obscure your view of anchors/rope systems, so be extra careful.

I just came across this photo at rock climbing dot com. link to photo: "My Friend Lummox finishing on Crest Jewel on the Second Ascent of Crest Jewel Direct. See more Yosemite Panoramas Here The beautiful clouds also made the ascent more exciting. Fortunately, it never did rain. Happy New Year RC.com!" Photographer was "karlbaba".

I'm happy to report that GregW and the rest of the "No Pay, No Climb" team are making dramatic progress towards our goal. No sherpas have been hired, and no oxygen has been procured! In fact, things have been going so well that we have not even heard from our esteemed leader, Mr. W, in months! The one setback has been our failure to recruit Annabelle Bond to the team. We still hope that she may change her mind and join us at the last minute, but we are now recruiting substitute hotties. Please send climbing resume and several glossy 8X10s (include swimsuit shot please) to: No Pay, No Climb Expedition 2005 6053 30th Avenue NE Seattle, WA 98115.

Kelly, Thanks to you (or whomever) for removing the tat from Triumph. I hauled down a handful or so a couple of summers ago, but there was still an obscene amount up there. The worst I've seen anywhere. Klenke, nice pictures and way to "conquer" the mountain. What kind of stove did you have? How did you manage to break a tent pole? Is Ruby one of the 100 highest or most prominent or whatever?

No, someone told us about the silver chalice, but we weren't sure where it was, so we went to the first bar we came across which ended up being in a hotel on the main drag. I don't know the name, but it was a mecca for KENO and pulltabs. Poor suckers. The bartendress was quite a cutie, which I think keeps the local guys coming back

A small change has been made to one of the photos above. Thanks Klenke!

That boulder was blown apart!

Climb: Hope Ice-Jah Loveth the Leftists Date of Climb: 1/14/2005 Trip Report: Fern, SpecialED, and I met in Hope on Friday morning and went looking for some ice to climb. Since we were getting a late start due to some route finding errors made by the Americans on the team, we wanted something pretty close. "Jah Loveth the Righteous", sounded like just the ticket, so off we went. We parked on the south side of Hwy1 next to a paintball place and hiked for about 15-20 minutes up a mountian biking trail (complete with rails and jumps and all that stuff) to the base of a gully which forked left and right. Having left the guidebook in the car, we couldn't remember which way we were supposed to go, but there was obviously ice in the left hand fork, so we went that way. Fern led the first pitch which consisted of about 35m of WI3. A bit of hiking and scrambling through talus and punching through the ice into the creek in a couple of spots led us to a fairly short WI3 step with funky "artichoke ice" below a large chockstone. I think it was between the 2nd and 3rd ice steps that we detoured out of the gully proper up into the forest on the climber's left side to bypass some large rocks. The 3rd ice step was a thin smear in an awkward rocky corner that SpecialEd led after clipping a stubby screw that was only halfway sunken into the glorified verglass covering the rock. edit: (the "Missing Pitch") After surmounting this obstacle we climbed through a short but steep and delicate ice curtain in a narrow constriction of the gully. 25m, WI3+. Nice lead Fern! The fifth and final pitch we climbed was a steep ice slab with a 4-5m column at the top making for a fairly sustained 45-50m pitch. SpecialEd led this and rated it WI4. There was another 20-25m of ice above, but due to the lateness of the day, we decided to head down. After getting back to the car and consulting the guidebook, we saw that "Jah Loveth the Righteous" ascends the gully on the right , so we did a route that wasn't in the guidebook. If its a new route, we'll call it "Jah Loveth the Leftists". That night we stayed at the Swiss Chalet which sucked due to tepid shower and feeble heat in the room. For the same price, a few other Seattlite cc.comers got a room with blazing hot showers and fireplace, so we hung out in their room a bit. The next night we stayed at the "Town Hotel" (or something) across the street from the Swiss Chalet and it was much better (Jacuzzi, Pool, Kitchenette! ). On Saturday Fern and I climbed some four pitch thing to the right of Bridal Falls while SpecialEd went off on a soloing adventure. I led the first two pitches (WI2+/3ish and Fern led the last two WI3/3+). On Sunday we went back to try to climb "Jah Loveth the Righteous", but there was very little ice in the gully, so we did a lot more talus hiking than climbing and never did break out the ropes. It then started raining, so we went to a "beer parlour" (Canadian for "pub") and watched football. It sure was nice to get some ice climbing in without having to drive all the way to Lillooet - I wish that stuff formed up more often. Thanks SpecialEd and Fern for a great weekend! Gear Notes: According to SpecialEd, my straight-shafted X15s are "scary". Need new tools. On the other hand, my new CM Grade 8 monopoint crampons and La Sportiva Nepal Extreme boots rocked! Thanks North Face sale!