russki82

I'm reading all this stuff...so many mountains, so much to climb...shit, i could spend all my life in Washington State and not climb 5% of what there is to climb. I'm so jealous of all of you Northwesterners... well, New England ain't so bad either i guess, we got our rock in summer and ice in winter, but its just all so small - once you've been around some, it's basically all the same stuff over and over again. Same mountains, same drive every weekend, same trails... you people are really lucky - i've been to the cascades a number of times and they are totally boundless...

we lost an ATC belay device with biner, and another biner on the Kautz route of Rainier - so look around! If anyone finds them, happy early birthday or merry early Christmas or whatever...id rather have them go to someone's use than just stay there on the mountain. They should be somewhere on the second steep ice face. Good luck!

hey, has anyone been in the central part of the AK range, between the Parks Highway and the Richardson Highway? Looks like there's a whole bunch of spectacular mountains there in the 12-13 foot range, with Hayes being the highest at 13,800 or something like that. It seems to be the highest continuous range in Alaska - whereas Denali has just a few big mountains (Denali, Foraker, Hunter), this is a 40 mile stretch of high peaks with almost no dips below 10,000 feet - kind of like the High Sierra except its in Alaska... anyways I would appreciate any more specific info on mountains in that area - routes, approaches, etc. Thanks in advance.

kind of wondering, by the north face of Shuksan do you mean the ENTIRE face with the Nooksak glacier and everything, from the valley bottom, or just the north wall of the summit pyramid?

what route are you interested in? we were on the Kautz last week (summit attempt Fri, came down Sat.) I believe since then it's gotten considerably warmer. Other than on the ice chute itself it's not that icy and you don't really need a running belay except for maybe a few sections (we put in a few pickets coming down), i'd be more concerned with the big BERGSCHRUND at 13,850 feet - the bridge over that may have gotten really weak with the recent warm weather. Have fun and good luck!

there's another way to do all this, we tried it recently on the Kautz route of Rainier...you dig a hole about the size of your toilet back home, then take a large trash bag and put it inside the hole, pinning to the snow with tent stakes or whatever. Now you got yourself a portable shitter...very convenient. Afterwards, just wrap it up in several more bags and you're good to go...