ivan

my version of this i heard was "i'm not feeling like twight today"...this after driving 5 hours. the objective: forbidden. the promised consulation prize: "let's just go climb at broughton instead"

the upstairs room is a must....the back-alley smoking ambience of the horse-brass was pretty mellow though...alas, my rasti-bivy kit is no more drinking on thursday???? GOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! 1-nil

we don't let mr. dark out during the day....but, oh, the sweet nights.... good thing i'm nowhere near seniors fukin false teeth

if i lost all my weed in a storm i'd be pissed too... ...oh, yeah, i guess those were people though...

bonatti fucking rox! his book, as mentioned, isn't written in the best style, but then he is friggin italian...i forget the name of the climb, but it's one he did shortly after k2...solo, in winter, a north facing tower so hard no one had ever succesfully completed it...took him more than a week...most depressing part of the climb: he goes to open part of his meager rations, a can of beer...he has to use his ice axe to bust into the top of the can, causing it to erupt and spills half the beer...he reportedly felt very dejected afterwards ...

why so anti-cooper spur? jes-us y maria! clearly not a difficult climb, but a sweet view of the elliot most of the way up, steeper than the southside, and there' s an elegant simplicity to following a single feature all the way to an alpine summit... perhaps you were once anally-raped by a priest at tie-in rock? that's why i can't go back to baskin-robins....oh, vanilla-pistachio, how i hate you!

gonna be just a party of 2 on denali...with all the monster crevasses, we want to have a good distance of rope between us (at least 20 meters), plus enough rope kiwi coiled on us to rap down from an anchor to help each other if necessary. one solution is having a long-ass rope (like 70 meters). another is using a double rope set up. the double rope idea is attractive because we want o climb the wb direct, which opens up the possiblity of doing some ice-climbing, where 2 ropes is nice. i've heard that some folks use doube ropes on glaciers, however, i wonder about the difficulties in using a double rope for crevasse rescue...anyone practiced that before? seems like it might eat into the lip worse, or be more confusing as far as rigging pulleys, etc. anybody have any thoughts on this?

anyone out there who's climbed one of the direct west buttress routes (thunder ridge, upper peters basin, wb direct, upper kahiltna)? determined to do one of these here next month and was interested in hearing experiences anybody might have had such as # of days to do the face, locations of camps, single vs. double carries, etc. my main interest is doing some enjoyable, exposed climbing prior to reaching 16 and shaking the crowds for a few days... if you've just climbed the standard route, did you notice anybody on any of the wb direct routes?

i saw something like that once! i was totally astonished and stared in rapt fascination for at least 10 minutes while listening to jimi hendrix...then i remembered i'd just eaten a lot of

nervous? fuck...more like totally bored w/ school and ready to get the hell out of here.

si, senor, that was i and my wily, crafty companion from cali-fornia....first time i'd lugged one of them big bastards up a hill before, not exactly an alpine-style feeling, but damn did i eat good for 2 days! was difficult to fight the suicidal urge y-day to just ride the damn sled down the palmer, especially over those huge ramps beside the ski slope. so what happened to the folks going up luetholds? the snow conditions on saturday seemed excellent...i was pissed we didn't get up to i-rock earlier on saturday (got soaked at smith rocks and slept in) b/c it seemed a perfect opportunity to climb that cool point...looks like a melt-water icesmear is forming up in the center of that big cliff on illumination...was completly plastered y-day so didn't give it a thought

just got back from hood monday afternoon...lotz a new snow up there. spent two days at illumination saddle doing denali training type stuff. the snow and conditions were excellent saturday, but i'd give it a few days to calm down now...the new snow was very dry and a fierce wind has blown it all over. as it partly cleared y-day could see several avalanches had already come down luetholds and up on crater rock....on a side note, the illumination saddle is a sweet place to camp. the wind was fucking roaring at the actual gap, but just a few feet away we were snug behind our snow wall...drifting over the ridge was a big problem though...after two days our 4 foot high wall was level to the slope, and we had to dig the entire thing out 4 times.

the time to leave is growing very close indeed...any a you chalkies got anything else to add?

dude, just watch "cliffhanger" that could be you!

yeah, enjoying my sumptous lunch fare of tunafish strait out da foil pack, looking at those guys climbing face in down that big open, steep slope, i felt far more in touch w/ the voice of me mama...actually, having never ascended the crater rim w/ a knowledgable person, i may have descended something different. basically we started at the cathedral ridge end of the summit ridge and went strait down, sticking underneath the big, feathered bulges where possible...a good bit of traversing....ended up not too far from the 'schrund....the portion towards castle crags looked much steeper and stupidier (a word?)

saturday or sunday? there was a group that came up just behind us on luet's saturday that had plans to do sandy on sunday, after camping at i-rock...they traversed almost all the way over to castle crags before downclimbing

being alone in the big hills... bullshit snow after endless rain spent crouching in bullshit employment

all the cool people climbed in the north cascades this weekend....the even cooler people remembered the true meaning of sunday's holiday...kudos to all

what'dya climb at smithy, pete? from the vantage of the summit, bend looked like it was pretty warm... ya, sisters folks, what happened to your adventure. while smoking down on the hogsback i couldn't help but feel content that my day was done whilst your's was only halfway there...

tried this one at night a few months ago w/ pete but ended up climbing the reid hw in the dark instead...this time went up w/ a newbie who didn't feel like trying the sandy. deep soft shitty fucking snow the whole way above the lift, luckily drafted in a party of 4's tracks up to i-rock. hopped ahead of said group from there and we lead the whole route. same crappy snow. no slots on the reid. evidence of recent slides down luetholds. sketchy slab feeling underfoot up the whole coulior. irritating trying to find anything not soft on the way up. looking back from the top of the ridge, a continous knee deep trench, no footsteps apparent, the whole fucking way. escewed the summit with its hordes and descended part of the crater wall. 'schrund is out for its spring feeding now. victory joint on the hogsback. fumeroles seemed way more active than usual. ran down the whole south side smiling my private wasted little smile at all the folks sweating it up the palmer in the soup. 10 hour drug hazed roundtrip nooncapped w/ some climbing at a very soggy french's dome. recommend top of dome for sun-drenched nap w/ pristine view of the sandy hw and yoakoms, just don't roll off in your sleep.

glad to see someone else noticed this...when i saw that this morning i just assumed my hangover was worse than i originally feared and just kept moving on now i wanna hear the computerized voice on the radio repeat that forecast (the hot chick voice, mind ye)

certainly not this one...could probably out drink half the patrons in the bar....think i'll just give him some and let him stare at the freshly painted walls of me new home

i got a 5 year old boy on loan for the weekend too, anybody have any stupid people tricks worthy of dragging him along for or should i emulate the aged more rapidly by leaving the woman at home w/ the kids in favor of getting drunk w/ the crew?

i would indeed be loath to miss so admirable a cross-section of drunken goat-fuckers making merry at the wicked world but what should i bring?