Layback

The Chinese are up to it again. The country that brought you the first falsified ascent of Everest and the aluminum ladder at the Second Step has closed the North Side of Everest and Cho Oyu to climbing parties this spring season. All this so that the Olympic Torch Relay can make it's way to the summit without the reported threat of a "Free Tibet" sign in the background. Two stories follow: http://www.mounteverest.net/news.php?id=17097 http://www.mounteverest.net/news.php?id=17091

If you don't have insurance currently it would be wise to not offer information that the injury occurred before you bought insurance. The insurance company will call it a pre-existing condition and will not pay for it. Be careful, because falsifying this info is insurance fraud.

Unfortunately there's no frothing at the mouth smiley or I'd use it. Amazing photos!

Thanks - I found the Alpine Peaks Book. I appreciate it.

Does anyone know of a good guidebook for the Matterhorn in Switzerland? I am striking out. Everything at Amazon seems to be related to hiking and trekking.

Sweet! Just grabbed me 4 of them!

Talk to Seth Hobby, a Bellingham local, who now has a guide service in Norway: http://www.northernalpine.com/. He got his start guiding for them and I think he may have interned.

I want to moonwalk the entire trail up Mt. Si. To get ready I am going to breakdance in my garage and hike Mt. Si once a week. By the time the snow melts I'll be badder than Michael Jackson in a white suit.

If you ordered these tools and need a hammer, they can be found on BD's website: http://www.bdel.com/php/cart.php?add=BD4120910000ALL1&refer=/gear/spare_parts_rock.php

The new owners are really cool. I am kind of surprised to hear this. While the situation sounds like it stinks on your end, I'd really like to hear their side of the story. What else is missing here? Why did you buy a binding that didn't fit your current boot? Common sense would dictated bringing the boot down to match boot to binding or explaining to them the type of boot you have. Just my 2 cents. Hope this turns out well for you.

Awesome!!!! Thanks for posting!

Every time I go home my friends laugh at my time estimates and always plan a couple of extra hours for the drive. Last year I told my buddies that we should go to the Daks from CT instead of North Conway, NH because the Daks would just be 3 hours as opposed to 5.5 to North Conway. Man did I hear it when we arrived at the TH at 11:00 AM instead of the targeted 8:00 AM start. I think Crackers is probably right.

Ditto that. Ken's Crack freezes once in a blue moon. The Daks (2 hrs north) is where it's at and NEIce.com as the previous poster suggested in the best resource.

Sweet! Thanks for the TR and for turning me on to this place!

Is 99 to Lillooet open year-round?

That would be the place. My Ford Escape (small SUV) was bottoming out. A jacked-up Jeep (or equivalent) could probably still make it. Probably not a smart idea to try it without another vehicle there to pull you out though.

We were there yesterday. Unless you have a vehicle with about 18" of clearance or more, you'd better bring your snowmobile.

Trip: Everest Base Camp Trek (11/4/07 - 11/24/07) Trip Report: After two weeks of processing photos and editing our website, Susie and I have completed our trip report. Sorry for the delay, there was a lot of things to sort through. There is just too much info to put into one page on this site. Please visit the full trip report at our website, found here. The Sherpa people are the most amazing people. Living off of only about $1,000/year they are among the hardest workers I have ever met. Always happy, they were a joy to spend 3 weeks with. I look forward to the day that I can go back again.

Alan and Alice must be so proud: But seriously, kick ass job Drew!

John - It's okay b/c I didn't wear gators too (or shoes for that matter). That makes all right.

Fancy seeing you here Drew! Thanks for the kind words. I sent you a long overdue email...

Trip: The Tooth - SW Face (5.6 PG) - Date: 9/26/2007 Trip Report: TR on my Website Steve, Greg, Dale and I met at the Snow Lake TH parking lot at 7:00 am. After going over some last minute details, we headed up the trail at 7:30. We quickly worked our way up through the trees, admiring the trail work as we went. Once we popped out of the trees, we were treated to some pretty views of the as the fog in the valley was slowly burning off. Shortly thereafter, we left the Snow Lake trail and continued on towards Source Lake. We paused briefly to take in the views yet again before working our way up the gulley that leads to the basin just below The Tooth. About half way up the gulley, we encountered a hidden Yellow Jacket's nest. The others had managed to make just enough noise and commotion to sufficiently piss off the Yellow Jackets in time for me to pass over the nest. What followed looked like a scene from "Black Sheep" as I flailed my arms and sprinted towards them yelling, "Bees!!!!" It is incredibly ironic that on Monday I picked up a couple of Epi-Pens for an upcoming trip to Nepal. (A few years ago, while riding my bike on the Burke-Gilman Trail, I was stung by a Yellow Jacket in the temple and had a mild itchy reaction throughout my entire body). In any case, this was the first trip that I had ever carried the pen. Greg, who is an ER Doc, was carrying some Zyrtec, which is an antihystamine stronger than Claratin, but not as strong as Benedryl so it won't give you the sleepies. I took some of the Zyrtec preemptively and we waited for about 30 minutes to see if I'd have a reaction requiring the use of the Epi-Pen (necessitating us to head back down). 30 minutes came and went and no reaction so we carried on. To get to the SW Face, you ascend through Pineapple Pass just as you would for the incredibly popular S Face Route. After reaching the top of Pineapple Pass, you head down and right, passing the S Face route as you go. Beckey describes the start to the SW Face as a series of three open books. Beware, there is a sucker quasi-open book. DO NOT count this as one of the three. We chose the northern-most open book, the base of which is pictured below (P1 Photos). P1: Climb up the ramp working right into a chimney (not visible from below) or onto the face continuing up towards the tree with rap slings. (5.5 PG) P2: Start up (staying left at first )and then traverse across the face towards a vertical crack in the face (good pro in the crack) and then continue traversing right towards the large crack along the right side of the face. Continue up the crack and build a hanging belay after it ends where ever you can find a good series of cracks worthy of a belay station. (5.6 PG) P3: From the hanging belay move up staying right. Your target is a small evergreen on a ;edge to the right, where you will meet the standard S Face Route and continue up from there. (5.4 G). At the top, we soaked in the views and took some pics before rappelling and retreating all the way to the cars. Gear Notes: Moderate-sized rack of cams, nuts and tri-cams. Small to mid sized Aliens and a a #3 or a #3.5 Camalot particularly helpful. Approach Notes: Beckey calls it a 5.5. The Mountaineers call it a 5.7. I think it's more like a hard-to-protect and exposed (at times) 5.6.

Great climb. Gotta love the NE. It's were I started before I fell in love with the Cascades. Have you ever been to Ragged Mountain in Connecticut? At one point it was home of the hardest climb in the US. Vector (5.8), was put up by Fritz Weissner, who was nearly the first person to summit K2 before his sherpa thwarted his plans to climb through the night, and also the father of the Gunks. It's not alpine, but it hosts some major kick ass trad with stiff (aka true grades) that some westies might have trouble with.

I think the distance in terms of surface feet is in the 1,800 ft area. When we climbed it back in August I know we did at least 8 pitches with a 200 ft rope. Vertically, it's probably half of that as it was a pretty consistant ~40-45 degree slope to the top. Maybe that's what you meant. Nice job and great pics!

Cool beans man. Next time I'll get 'em up. Thanks for the help. Thanks for the kind words Pazzo. Might just end up being the climb of the year for me. Had a blast!