Alpinfox

Yeah, you can buy a bunch a' busted shit on Ebay! Maybe you could find some broken faberge eggs or some other expensive shizzle. "Um, yeah... so my faberge egg collection is, like, totally smashed dude. That's $45,000 you owe me. 3 year climbing road trip here I come!!! ... Oh, did I say that last part out loud?" Insurance fraud

I think the incident you are refering to happened on Mt. Hood. CBS news story

Holy Shit!

ChucK. Yes, NE slab = NF. NE slab is a more accurate description actually... Maybe I'll change that.

Climb: The Tooth aka Das Toof aka Der Toofen-Northeast Slab Date of Climb: 3/2/2004 Trip Report: Being a climbing bum does not provide benefits such as dental coverage, so I decided that yesterday I should get some sharp implements and scrape some crud off of the northeast slab of The Tooth. This idea sprang upon me so suddenly, that I had no time to rustle up a partner and I liked the idea of doing a moderate winter alpine route solo anyway, so I headed up. It was a beautiful day in the Alpental Valley. The northeast slab route (sometimes called the "north face" route) is shown in the photo above. The route starts in the lower right of the corner (left facing corner with rock on right side) and then proceeds up and slightly left towards/through/past the trees and continues up the north ridge to the left (not visible) to the summit. The slope is actually a little steeper and longer than it appears in this photo (some camera tilt and maybe some perspective issues?) maxing out at about 70 degrees. The base of the route had the best ice. It was wonderful, alpine ice that allowed the whole pick to penetrate on the first swing. I was pretty excited at this point and was really looking forward to the climb. This picture was taken in that sweet stuff: Unfortunately, that sweet stuff soon turned to a thin coating of sugary crap covering about a quarter inch of verglas on top of rock. This stuff wouldn't hold any weight and I began to get a little concerned. I wasn't sure if I could make it the next little group of trees (a potential spot to bail) and my crampons & tools were slipping a bit. I was somewhat comforted by the knowledge that my friend AlpineDave had been through here a couple of days before and had summited ( his TR here) , but maybe things had changed since then? I traversed left a bit and tried to go up again. No dice. I downclimbed a bit and traversed left some more, and eventually reached some steep snow flutings that held body weight. I climbed up through the flutings, past some more thin "ice" and finally reached a little patch of yellow water ice and was able to get a sinker "thank god" stick in something I was pretty confident would hold a fall. (note: for those of you thinking of leading this route, I doubt you could get a great screw in here, maybe a stubby). A bit more rotten "ice" separated me from a tree just below the north ridge and safety. Some delicate climbing got me to the tree and then I excavated a buried heather bush and sort of snow/heather climbed up the remaining 70-degree slope to the ridge. There are no pictures through this section because I was a little busy . Once on the north ridge, a small rock step (about 15ft high) blocked my passage to the coveted summit of Der Toof. I even managed to get a nice hand jam in there, which I apparently thought was photo worthy at the time: After the rock step, I was quickly on the summit and soaking in the views and the sunshine. Stuart was lookin' pretty bad ass! While dining on a Subway Veggie Delite and some water, I started thinking about how to get down the south face. I brought a 50m rope and hoped that would work. 5 (SHORT!) rappels later I was at the base of the south face and hiked around the pineapple, past the big cornice in the photo below, and into the basin below Das Toofer. I hung out in the trees at the little pass looking over the west side of Denny Mountain and chatted breifly with some ski patrollers that came by and then started heading down. In the basin below Ein TOOOOOfen, I saw this cool snow drift on a rock and climbed it. It was like a piece of playground equipment; stairs on one side and a little slide on the other: Well, to all of you poor suckers stuck in your cubicles on the last nice day of weather we are going to have for a while, all I can say is: Gear Notes: Trusty old X-15s, crampons, 8.5mmX50m rope (a 60m would have been nicer for raps), ski poles for approach, no snowshoes, no partner (might bring one next time) Approach Notes: The Alpental backcountry return ski trail was wicked icy. I took a nice digger on it at one point and bent my wookie.

Yup! I found a good deal on the stubai ultralights, but the Camp's were my first choice.

You got it. I'll leave it to CBS to give you the official density measurements and such... "...compact snow weighing between 0.6 and 0.8g/cubic centimeter is considered 'neve' whereas .... blah blah blah".

WC Zeros Size Color Expansion (mm / inch) Weight (gm / oz.) Strength (kN) Cam Stop Strength (kN) Z1** Purple 5.5 - 7.8 / .22 - .31 23 / .81 3 3 Z2** Green 7.0 - 9.8 / .28 - 39 29 / 1.02 4 4 Z3 Silver 8.5 - 12.2 / .33 - .48 43 / 1.51 6 6 Z4 Gold 10.3 - 16.0 / .41 - .63 50 / 1.94 6 6 Z5 Blue 13.0 - 19.0 / .51 - .75 57 / 2.01 9 9 Z6 Red 17.0 - 24.0 / .67 - .94 61 / 2.15 9 9 Aliens 3/8 = 9.9 - 17.0mm / 9.3kN / 71g / blue 1/2 = 12.7 - 17.0mm / 11.6kN / 74g / green 3/4 = 15.5 - 27.1mm / 12.9kN / 83g / yellow 1 = 19.0 - 33.7mm / 12.9kN / 88g / red 1-1/2 = 26.1 - 41.4mm / 15.6kN / 110g / orange 2 = 30.5 - 49.5mm / 15.6kN / 122g / violet 2-1/2 = 35.5 - 59.7mm / 15.6kN / 139g / white

can be nice too

Well I never see you at Stoner Gardens anymore, I guess your home gym is working out for you? Perhaps I could return your book at a pub club or sumfin?

"Pardon me, but is that a severed head in your lap?"

18++ or 19- ? reductio ad absurdum

Hey BP, Are you going to the Mars Bar tonight? Ken?

"Oh good, I see you all got the memo about the dress code..."

"So I figure this camalot hanging from my nuts will make a great anchor if I get out of control on these rollerblades..." "Yeah? If I get out of control, I'm just gonna put this jiffy pop under my ass and slide on it. Then I'll have popcorn!"

If you're sure you ain't gonna fall, an 8mm would be OK, but in that case you don't need a rope at all, eh? An 8mm would be fine for bringing up your second and rapping, but I wouldn't want to lead near my difficulty limit on an 8mm. I think it would sap some of my confidence... For a "one-rope-to-bind-them-all" solution, I'd consider a 9.5mm (or therabouts) dry rope. It would be rated for single falls and wouldn't be dramatically heavier for the glacier bidnez. If the weather sucked here in May (likely) and you wanted to go cragging at Leavenworth/Index/wherever and try some harder routes, you'd probably feel better with a single rope.

yeah man, but its three grams... THREE GRAMS!!!! I mean, with my light-and-fast=safety, hairball, alpine style, that could be the difference between life and death! p.s. Don't I have a book of yours?

Anybody know where i can get a pair of these for cheap? Camp XLC 490 Aluminum Pons

Neat, the Trango "Superfly" Lightweight biner is also the "lightest full-size biner in the world". Weight: 30g Major Axis: 24 kN Minor Axis: 7 kN Gate Open: 9 kN

wtf? Gawd that dude is scary. And a damn good playwright. Quote "Muffy vs. keyboard"

Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) is produced by liver cells and converts alcohol to acetylaldehyde (toxic) which is converted to acetic acid (vinegar) by acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, etc, etc... Interestingly, there is a mushroom that produces an inhibitor of ADH, so if you eat that mushroom (Alcohol inky) and drink a beer, you will get very hammered. http://chemcases.com/alcohol/alc-06.htm

I don't think we have bombed any Japanese, Germans, or Italians since 1952.

Sport climbing: Doesn't really matter, ATC or GriGri Multipitch climbing: Munter, Reverso, or B52 (haven't used the latter) Aid climbing: GriGri! (freakin two-hour belays!) For multipitch climbing, I really like the ability to belay two followers simultaneously. I also really like the autoblock feature so I can attach it directly to the anchor and if my follower falls, they don't jerk me around. The reverso does get sharp edges pretty quickly, which is a concern. When my reverso wears out, I will definately look into the B52 and any other device that allows dual belay and autoblocks. Reverso also doesn't handle two thick ropes very well. I wonder if the B52 is better in this regard?