iain

oh, I don't think that would be a good idea.

hah, yes. I'll have you know, DFA that not only have I been climbing the most sporto of routes at smith recently, I have even been receiving iBeta from the legendary hex-humping texplorer at times.

It'll be back

if you are talking about the ramp that cuts up the cliffs, yes it is fun, and longer than you think. you still have to finish via the chimney on wy'east. It can be soloed, the crux was getting on to the ramp through some featured rime. Then again, anything can be soloed.

it must be fun running a search op when the search area is "somewhere on rainier"

if we're talking alder, there should be a minimum cutoff of at least 5 minutes of being suspended in air by the alder. I'd much rather deal with devil's club than a quality alder grove.

I'm so glad I don't run a climbing gym in portland

a great weekend of skiing! can you believe it?

I'm a vegetarian who eats fish/seafood. call me whatever you want, I don't care

for what it's worth, "Ellen" is routinely on in the health club where I go run sometimes. It makes me ill.

I think you should send Fiduciary Agent Pedro McGavin's email address to Senator Gbenga Ogunniya

Just an update if anyone was concerned, wheetabix is still available in the states, thank goodness.

The Paradise visitor's center was my next guess too.

I bet that harness is the direct result of walking through the Dihedrals area at Smith.

I thought "freezing nucleus" was more appropriate with something immersed within a body of water, rather than the rime ice example, where an object provides a catalyst for the process of supercooled water vapor condensing and subsequently freezing on an object. Oh well, it wasn't a good analogy I gave anyway. I guess riming structures would be a "deposition nucleus" or something like that.

Without a condensation nucleus, water can remain liquid well below 0°C How on earth do you think people would climb Mt. Hood w/o the rime ice?

this opens up a lot of terrain

Yes it's bad, but I don't dwell on it anymore. I've put the skiing on hold and am getting other things done I normally set aside for the season. When the snow comes again (and it will), I will welcome it, but I'm having a lot of fun this winter w/o skiing at all costs. I hope everyone else is making the most of this unusual weather as well.

Yes I fear REI will corner the market on all static-coffee-mug-test-strength carabiners, including those shaped like hearts. And dogbones.

You should replace your dual-freq beacon. The requirements to make that beacon operate on both 2.2 and 457 make it a poor performer on both. The 457kHz standard was imposed in the US in 1996, making your beacon almost 10 years old at best. It should be replaced or serviced for that reason alone. Ortovox is notorious for troubles with customer service, though I'm sure some have had good luck with a beacon refurbish. They do provide the above service, however. It will cost you a good portion of a new beacon to pay for it. I recommend the BCA Tracker beacon, for what that's worth. I'm sure the other digital beacons are as good if used enough. I prefer to wait on "new" beacon designs such as the Pieps model to see what issues arise during the first season or two. They're also fricken expensive, even on "deal".

yeah I don't get it. there's at least two snowballs worth of snow over by the snowcats. why don't they just push that around and stuff. maybe they are worried about running over the new saguaro forest growing underneath the lift towers.

the power was out at my work the other day. I had to take a leak by the light of a cell phone. Let me know if you guys want more details.

The colored nalgene bottle index was getting a touch low in the Bend area. It's good to see they are proactively attacking this issue.

Mt Hood Meadows thermometer dropped below freezing today. Let the epic sickness commence