ivan

nice, pitts - you should still look into the tauntaun thang!

More repetitious than a tree full of woodpeckers. dumber than a bag of hammers

"it's raining harder than a horse pissing on a flat rock" "sweating like a fat kid in a candy store" "sweating like a whore in church"

whoa! bill, i thought you didn't go in for such tomfoolery!?! was it a devil that pushed you off the Path of the Prudent?

wallawalla ken aka 112 on da board here not really trying to knock the 2 guys who've gotten so much attention lately - i imagine they weren't real familiar w/ the upper mtn and having no altimeter or gps you're pretty much totally fucked on descent in a whiteout so they did the most logical thing and went down - for ken and i, the ice in the hourglass was probably much harder then than now and a scarey thing to down-climb for a newb, and i figured it would be easiest and most strait-forward to top out and return to camp from there - i'm happy to be on the good side of the comparision, as it's damned rare

you can expect wind-blasted ridge-walking on the last few hundred feet to the summit no matter how deep the snow is down on the elliot - i wouldn't be suprised if it's very deep down there - be safe w/ the avi - there's a lot of slope w/ a lot of snow on it there - a truly beautiful place to be this time of year though - enjoy!

funny, that's exactly where ken and i were, and the same type of weather we encountered, on our trip back in november - having experience on the route and an altimeter (no map or gps - i had a compass and a bearing back to camp but never used it) was sufficient to top out and get back down w/o incident i pretty sure ken would have killed me if we had ended up in a snow cave that night

on pasiano pinnacle, right in front of burgundy (kinda hard to distinguish from that higher summit actually)

dude, the blue route looks siiick!

i think maybe the first actually, but it's an old saw 'rouuuund here for sure - i figured i'd give it another stroke

i'm a definite maybe

if the survial of my hobby is predicated on the mental stablity of my wife when plans get wierd, i am hopelessly fawked

no, you just surgically implant a zipper in it's belly back in the comfort of your warm garage - that way yer ready when the shit hits the fan.

b/c beacon's the best place to climb in oregon.

the most memorable for me was probably the pressure chamber pitch on the snow creek wall, and i didn't even lead that one! the pitch before was the nastiest squeeze chimney i'd ever led, leaving me exhausted, and as my partner completed the last bit of the pitch above in the fading light, i realized i'd have to do that tight-ass chamber in a jacket, w/ headlamp/helmet and pack on. utterly frustrated by an inability to move my head or body while frantically straining to stay put, i slid off into the void, the slender rope ripping over a rock edge as i went careening out in the inky blackness...wow! and then to discover my prusiks wouldn't really work on so thin a rope, even better! i really did enjoy the hell out of that climb though.

naw, a baby tauntaun would be far more considerate

yippee

i wish...

At least, unlike the taun-taun incident of fame, clear weather appears to be setting in soon. A no-shit-statement for sure, but the west side of Hood is a dangerious place when avi conditions are high.

that was a busy weekend i recall...

little wing to right gull - the cracks were wetter than grandma on double-coupons day - funky how conditions can totally change the way you envision and then have to do a climb - the top outs on the many tiers along the way were the hardest, sopping wet moss n' no gear n' nothing but loose blocks to wallow onto the ledges with we dug it

great day for january at beacon - was envious of the party-scene doing the corner as it allowed free climbing in the sun - ken and i choose the path of the penitent and mucked about a great deal in dankish aid-land - man, if only we could keep doing this shit all winter!

peeeerfect! the Scene sets in 'round 9 2morrow - jimmyO,ken, mike, et al - come all ye faithful...

a hell of a batting average, even in t-ball!

word - it's hard to get more scenic then that 'roouuuund here