Alpinfox

Q: How do you know when you are talking to a mountain guide. A: Don't worry, he will tell you.

[sarcasm]yes, it's ok for a huge group to overrun all the best easy climbs at a crag and make things unpleasant/impossible for everyone else not in their club, because there are other, shittier, climbs elsewhere in the area [/sarcasm]

Olga Korbut

This one goes out to you special guy! [video:youtube]

I'm a few weeks late

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TODAY TO ACHIEVE YOUR DREAM?

I have not found switching belay devices to be any faster than briefly tieing off the second-soon-to-be-leader and moving the belay device from anchor to harness. Try it both ways and see which you prefer.

Gotta take the autoblock off the anchor and put it on your harness to belay a leader. Either have your partner clip into the anchor or tie them off with a clove while you do the changeover.

This is the root of damn near all of the problems as far as I can tell. I don't mind working around one group of four bumblies (say, one instructor, one assistant instructor, and two newbs), but 12, 16, 24, etc is ridiculous. The mounties/mazamas/BoAlps all need to reduce their group size and 83% off all problems will go away. p.s. If I found an anchor rig left out overnight by any of those groups, it would be in my gear pile now.

Sell all your gear. It's over.

To post a trip report: Go HERE Scroll down to trip reports Select the region where your trip took place. For example, if you climbed Mt. Baker, you would put your trip report in the North Cascades section which is HERE At the top left of the screen you will see a link that says "New Trip Report". Click on that. Perhaps a Mod could add this to the FAQ? Edit: I see you figured it out. Funny that I used Mt. Baker as the example.

The bolt in question is pretty close to the lip of the roof, so I think it would be accessible on rappel. There seems to be a mixture of 1/2" and 3/8" bolts on that route. Unusual. There was also a loose nut on one of the bolts at the anchor before that roof pitch. I finger tightened it, but some loctite/silicon tape/rubber washer and a wrench would be ideal. Thanks to Sol for ropegunning me up the route on Wednesday! It's fun to climb above your ability level every once in a while. I think I may have even uncaged my soul a little bit - it's pretty sore now.

I seriously doubt you are "acclimatized to 14k", but it sounds like you are in good aerobic shape. Be aware that traveling from far away and trying to squeeze a big climbing trip into a narrow time window might make you more prone to ignore avy conditions/weather/etc and say "aw fuckit, let's go for it" when the prudent climber would probably bail. It's a potentially dangerous situation and has lead to some deaths in the cascades in recent years.

Wonderful news!

No sunscreen is going to be as good as sunblock for long-term use in an intensely reflective environment like a glacier in summer. Sunblocks contain metal, usually zinc or titanium oxide, that physically block the sun's rays and do not break down in the process the way sunscreens do. You may look like a dork with a big white zinc-oxide covered nose, but it works.

I'm no metalurgist, but I bet falcon eggs are tasty.

Are you and Joseph advocating tying into your (let's say three) pieces of gear with the rope or are you advocating equalizing the three pieces with a sling/cordelette, clipping a biner to that, and then cloving your rope to the biner? I know there are methods for equalizing multiple gear placements using the rope (dog-eared bowline), but I find them futzy and prefer the latter scenario described above.

[channeling catbirdseat] PV=nRT indeed! However, hiking to a lower elevation would not result in an expansion>explosion of sealed bag contents if that is what you are alluding to. It results in the opposite. Take home question: What will have a bigger effect on the volume of the sealed bluebag: A delta of +25degC or a delta of +330mmHg? [/channeling catbirdseat]

I'm pretty shocked that A) Aliens are in the news again for quality control issues (they haven't learned their lesson?!?!!?), and 2) some representative of a gear store is sticking his neck out in this thread making dumb statements and supporting CCH and attempting to just brush aside this recent testing? That is some poor business sense you got there dude. If I were you I'd be on the phone to CCH getting pissed off, taking my aliens off the shelf, and maybe consulting a lawyer. I figured my pre-recall aliens were safe to use, but I'm taking them off my rack now. I'm sure I've at least weighted them all at some point, but now I'm not confident they won't blow at 4kN or something. Not worth the risk. In my opinion, CCH should offer to pay for shipping for all aliens (to and from) and do pull testing to 50% rating. That is the appropriate response. I also think they should also offer full money back for all aliens returned to them if people don't want to use them anymore (pull tested or not). Fuck 'em. I'm done. Master Cams and C3s are as good/better anyway and that 3-Sigma testing of BDs is looking pretty comforting compared to the monkey operation that the CCH stoner crew is putting out. Thanks to RuMR for the post.

Did they unravel the mystery of the "Y" symbol?

That saddle strap would be a great place to add your MLU holster.

IrishGuy broke the tauntaun sleeping bag story first , followed by Nonanon

I wonder what Kerouac would think of this. Hozomeen, Hozomeen, most beautiful mountain I ever seen ... but what a horror when I first saw that void the first night of my staying on Desolation Peak waking up from deep fogs of 20 hours to a starlit night suddenly loomed by Hozomeen with his two sharp points, right in my window black... Over 70 days I had to stare at it. -JK LINK