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There was an enormous rattler pit just off the trail you took through the burn before the new bridge was put in, and there was a big ground hornets' nest too! Bring your hexes.

My! How classy and speculative!

If there's one thing I don't want to think about while climbing, or one thing I try to escape by climbing, it's politics

I believe b-rock meant over 40,000 people were present. You should stop disgracing Tom Stoppard by spamming this site with his photos. "It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting." -- Tom Stoppard I wonder who Tom would vote for?

nothing brings a RobBob reply faster than the beef industry

Arc'teryx from scot'teryx? You can't pass up that deal'teryx!

I even found SPINACH in my salad bowl! Oh the humanity.

Going up the Coe Icefall will be more like a climb with some significant route-finding, so if you like to figure out those kinds of puzzles, the Coe will provide this. The Eliot is more just a bunch of cragging without the serious feeling of being deep in the Coe Icefall trying to find your way out as stuff is crashing and creaking around you. However, on the Eliot you will have more time actually climbing steep ice pitches, and you can air it out a bit doing laps on toprope with bombproof anchors. Personally I find it a little boring compared to actually climbing through something like the Coe, but it will give you more concentrated ice climbing. Edit: just realized you are from Hood River and may already know all this and just want a conditions report My guess is the Coe is still doable, but the upper crevasses might be a long rap in and climb out the other side now. I bet it could be a lot of fun, but complex terrain.

Great photos. Those ones of the person standing on top of Fury and the tent on top are great! Seems like a lot of people spend the night up there. I also noticed a bivy spot someone constructed on the n. buttress at the first snow arete. Strange, seems pretty far down. Great photo of Challenger too. Must have been interesting crossing from there and getting on the buttress of Fury.

Rock climbing ratings do not change because of the footwear you are using.

Here's a slightly higher resolution image of the face, with the routes overlaid as best as I can see. That first bad belay is where the routes begin to branch off.

Thanks for bringing your information into this discussion, Scott. I have the above photos and others at much higher resolution, and some photos from when I climbed the west face a few years ago. When I climbed it, we went up to that first belay (from which most of those routes branch off), but backed down to the ground because we did not feel good using it for a belay-worthy anchor. With a little mental rallying, we set off again, but belayed from the base and simply used the upper belay as a piece of pro. We did one long pitch to the stacked piton belay up on the white corner. The bad rock does indeed go away, and the upper pitch (in the white corner, along with a 5.9 variation) is a delight. The first pitch does have some x-factor to it though, as you are well aware. Thanks again for your input. I would imagine it was probably hard for you to read about such a tragedy in the same location. Your survival story was compelling.

sounds like an expensive pop can alcohol stove

ha I leave a black jacket with "FBI" across the back hanging at home which totally fools those suckers. They're like, "Man, we've been spying on ourselves!" and I'm all like "HAHA stick that up your Ashcroft!"

The best part of that discussion was this line: "Summer is getting old and tired. The light is turning amber in the evening and occasionally I can feel a cool breath of fall. I'm ready. You?"

back in high school someone rented "Ghost" and I threw it out the window.

OMG I can't believe how many people are reading this right now

and the nalgene bottle in the shape of jessica simpson?

and what about drysuits?

I think drysuits would be more appropriate einstein.

They come to hang out on a water-based planet yet they apparently are allergic to water? WTF???

Those aliens in Signs were clearly the short bus aliens rejected by the alien society and sent to earth. They couldn't even open a door!