Alpinfox

Yeah, those were the ones I wanted too, but I couldn't find them on sale anywhere. The Burton "Trampons", which are exactly the same as the Stubai pons, can be found on Ebay for ~$30, so I bought em. Thread

So here is the story as I imagine it: Setting: A beautiful spring day at condor buttress. A light breeze carries the scent of lupine and wild onion up to the two intrepid MountainEars as they scramble their way up the bold new alpine testpiece "Condorphamine Addiction". We join the story at the top of pitch two. MountainEarOne: "Damn its hot up here!" MountainEarTwo: "Yeah, it's hot" MountainEarOne: "I think I'll take my boxer shorts off" MountainEarTwo: "Yeah, that's a good idea" MountainEarOne performs the dramatic, and non-UIAGM-approved, removal-of-skivies-while-wearing-climbing-harness trick. Houdini would be very impressed. MountainEarTwo: "Damn those things are stinky!" MountainEarOne: "Um, yeah" MountainEarTwo: "And they are pretty worn out too" MountainEarOne: "Yeah. I think I'll just leave them here" And here they are: Please remember to pack out your trash.

What? Huh? Snugtop is an ice climber now? Sniff... Sniff.... Is that French cheese I smell?

Nice shots JT, Thanks for sharing!

Nepal Extremes are INSULATED and weigh >4lbs. They are designed/intended for winter mountaineering and technical ice climbing. Olympus is a LOOOOOOOONG hike on a flat trail with a little snow slog at the end done in spring/summer. Nuf said. Edit: BTW, I apologize for the "snipeyness" of my "common sense" comment.

I would wager that Liberty Ridge does indeed have a higher rate of accidents per ascent than any other route in the cascades except maybe obscure routes that only a few people have done like the Eve Dearborne Mem. Route. In addition to the reasons mentioned previously, I believe the reasons for this are: The "rock" on Liberty Ridge is shit... big plates of basalt and gobs of loosely congealed pumice. So rockfall is more common on LR. The rock on NF Shuksan is actually pretty good (green schist right Dru?). Also, I'd say the length of the route (5000') and continual exposure on LR means if anyone slips, or a moderate rockfall or avalanche occurs anywhere on the route, chances are it's gonna be bad news. It's inclusion in the "50 crowded climbs" means you get folks from Florida on the route, and gumbies = accidents, whereas most people have never heard of Shuksan. I'd be interested in seeing those statistics as well. Is Mike Gauthier lurking?

Thanks for that post Don! I might have to check those DMM screws out. Only $40 at Mtn Tools <--- Click I find the little handle dealie on BD screws pretty useless while PLACING the screw, especially at the beginning, but it sure speeds up the REMOVAL of the screw. I am pretty much a newbie/gumby ice climber, so am I missing something? I placed one of those Grivel 360 screws once and you can get a nice grip on the head of it and the big handle was actually effective while PLACING the screw. I agree they are funky to rack/carry though. RE: N.Face of Shuksan - Unless you climb in pretty late in the season, you probably won't see a lot of ice. I've only climbed it once (mid-may) and there wasn't anywhere to place a screw. We took a few pickets and they would have worked for pro if we had placed any.

OUCH! So they don't teach common sense at Conservative State U?

OK. Mailbox it is. You haven't gotten me a job yet!

hmmm... AlpineDave and I speculated that LW and co. probably approached the route from that backside and did the route top-down. If it's a "nightmare" I guess they didn't do it that way. Sure was a lot of hardware to haul up that route. All the more reason to leave the 4th class sections unbolted.

DOOD! are you ignoring me or sumfin? Hello? ***You are ignoring this guidebook offer***

You can borrow my "Rock Climbing Washington" book if you want. I'm leaving for Leavenworth in a couple of hours, but I can leave it in the mailbox or with my housies or something if you want it. Lemme know.

Sure! I'll show up at your work and do a strip-o-gram for your boss and tell him that it's from you. That outta work, eh? p.s. Note the lack of an "e" anywhere in my name...

Weird. I remember going right up a sandy slab (a bit scary) to the top as well. Definitely not 5.10 though; more like 5.8. Guess I'm nutzy too.

DUDE! You can come over and borrow my Rock CLimbing Washington book if'n you wanna.

MattP said: 4. The descent off the back is probably not a good option, despite apparent rappel anchors that would indicate a possible route that way. The last time somebody went down there, they described it as an absolute nightmare. It is much safer to retreat way you came. ______________ Matt, could you please elaborate on the above? That descent down to the Taylor River road looks pretty easy (albeit currently snowy). Looks like one single-rope rappel and then a ~two mile walk down the road back to the car versus the mind-numbingly dull and potentially rockfall riddled 3.5+hrs of rappeling. To the person who asked about approach shoes: I think wearing comfy rock shoes and not having to change back and forth is the way to go. Ken Ford wore approach shoes for a good portion of the climb when he did it, but I tried it and didn't feel very confident in my footing, so I kept my rock shoes on. Maybe I'm just a wuss. To the Awagen guy: Dude! The unbolted stuff is 4th class! Grow some testes and quitcher whinin! I would say that there are parts of it that are definately overbolted. I suppose I'm in the minority there, but there ARE places where you could easily Z-clip if you weren't paying attention. Furthermore, I skipped many bolts and backcleaned several; more evidence that it's overbolted in spots. I felt that in some spots the bolts were more useful for route-finding than for protection. It's a fun route and I commend the FAs on their hard work and financial contribution. The Alpinfox has spoken.

I also have the Gust and I like it. A lot of the newer GoLite packs have a lot more "features" but are also getting up over the 2lb mark. I like the lighter weight packs. I've used the gust for everything from a two week-long PCT trip to two/three day mountaineering/alpine trips. I think it's a damn fine pack and I bought it from Jim at PMS. It's not as comfortable as the Dana Designs Astralplane I had before, but it is about 1/5th the weight! So I don't mind. The stock foam "framesheet" is a piece of flimsy crap and is best replaced with a piece of thicker foam cut from a ridgerest or similar pad. Weight Function Comfort Durability

Hey, please share your pics! My REAL belay chick (not the one in the photo) is pretty hot.

I've seen cracks around the base of crater rock right on the standard route. That was pretty late season though... Global warming anyone?

:beating-dead-horse-picture: Neigh!

Hmmm... I'm not having the problem described above, so it can't be purely a server issue. I had this problem several months ago (several other people had the problem at the same time) and I believe it had something to do with the cookies? To one of you people having the "no icons" problem: Try dumping all of your cookies and see if that fixes it. To dump cookies: In MS Internet Explorer, click Tools, Internet Options, Delete Cookies.

Hooray! Thanks Jon! I just used the new feature and it worked perfectly! I agree with Kinky that it would be nice to be able to edit photo comments.

Another everest hottie: I have the last four posts on cc.com! Are you people CLIMBING or something!!?!?!?

It is my understanding that the original ski-to-sea DID start at the summit of Baker and WAS changed due to a crevasse fall or something...

Oh really!? Hmm... I thought they were one in the same. OK. Duely noted.