Buckaroo

Um, no, not even close to an accurate representation of the man, and a laughable comparison between these two non-equals. TR entered politics when he was 23. Aside from a few years ranching and soldiering, he was a nationally known politician his entire adult life. By the time he was offered the VP slot, he was a national hero. TR was also a highly cultured and educated intellectual. Raised in a prominent Manhattan family, there was nothing podunk about him. He excelled at Harvard, was fluent in several languages including latin and ancient Greek, authored over 30 books, including a national best selling series on the winning of the West, loved literature and poetry, in addition to being a gifted athlete and naturalist. As for his hunting; he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn because of his poor eyesight. Most of all, he was deeply embued with a social consience; he was the first president to reign in the unchecked power of big busines, and the first to side with a union during a strike. He also firmly believed in helping the poor. Sarah Palin is none of these things. Come on, the GOP always picks the stupid ones, the controlling corps know they make better puppets. Bill Clinton, Rhodes scholar (didn't graduate but only 35 Americans receive this scholorship annually). Obama magna-cum-laude doctorate. First black president of Harvard law revue. McCain. Graduated 6th from the bottom in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy Palin. 6 colleges in 5 years just to earn a 4 year Journalism degree. Maybe she had to college shop to find someone willing to pass an F student. Or she ran through the football team and wanted new meat. As new mayor of Wasilla 6,000 pop at the time, was proud to announce she took a pay cut. Didn't mention she hired a manager to do the mayor job and the total wage was more than the original. In other words she couldn't even handle mayor of podunk. Obama was dead on about the pig lipstick comment, but Palin isn't the pig. She's the lipstick and McCain and the repug party is the pig. Empty fake gloss to pretty up a stinking rotten corpse of a party.

Then again, at some point you have to ask yourself "is any of this really worth saving". I think a lot of people will be asking this question about the US if enough Americans and the electoral college fall for this two-bit junk show. for the third time even. Proof this country has been DUMBED DOWN!

""Poorole - looks like you are--once again--a victim of that DNC"" the list is false, Palins desire to censor the library is not. She asked the head librarian if she would be agreeable to removing/banning books. When the librarian refused she had her terminated. A local uproar ensued and the librarian was reinstated.

LOT'S of good posts, even an experienced climber can still learn new stuff. Agree on the water bottle, the 7-11 juice/water bottles are WAY lighter than the REI standard nalgene/lexan bottles. 1.5oz compared to 7oz. Always have a knife, at least a small one, what do you use to cut bail runner/cord? What if your rope gets stuck behind a flake? Hypothermia comes on quick. It can happen at a winter belay, your gripped and waiting on a slow lead. Sometimes all the insulation you have won't keep you warm depending on chill factor. You have to move around, run in place. It happened once to me in the Pacific with a wet suit that didn't fit. It happens before you know it, your muscles and brain function slow down and it takes longer than you think to recover. You may have to depend on others to recover. The point is to avoid it in the first place. Cell phones are nice, you can call for weather and avalanche, to extend your return time in case of unexpected but safe delay, or for rescue. But keep them turned off until needed if the reception is spotty. They suck the battery when searching for reception. On a big climb with complicated descent, know the descent for sure. Even if you have to do the descent first. This really helps if the commitment level is high. When the descent is the same as the ascent always look back as your going up. This may apply on all routes were a back-off is possible. It looks a lot different going the other way. Think about taking rain/wind gear top and bottoms on any climb 2 days or more. Urethane lined is not that heavy, you can include this and still stay under the weights suggested earlier in this thread. Can you always trust the forecast? If going on the volcanoes or anywhere high up with snow. Know how to dig a snow cave and be ready to do it. A snow pit doesn't cut it. You can dig with a snow shoe or cook pot etc. Several deaths and frostbite amputations could have been walked away from with this one skill. There's two kinds of loose rock in the alpine. One kind you bang/kick on to see if it's loose, the other kind you don't even breath on. Look before you touch. GU and it's equivalent other brands are the new miracle fuel. If you want an extra edge don't even eat any solid food on climbing days until you stop at dinner. It was designed for triathletes and that's the way they use it. I've also found you don't have to eat as much to recover after a hard effort when it is used. Hydration is more important than food, especially on quick altitude gain. Strip down to avoid sweating. Have a layer system that's easy/quick to change if you sweat a lot. Take a hat on and off, push up sleeves, zipper neck etc. As mentioned earlier, leave the car cold, you will warm up and sweat if you don't. When it's windy or the route goes around corners and you can't communicate between leader/follower use the rope tug system. 5 or so long hard tugs means only one thing. The leader is off belay and has the follower on belay. Walkie-talkies work better and save time when you anticipate many 60m pitches with communication difficulty. On big multipitch an autolock belay device is nice for the leader. It gives more time to rest, stack the rope, and organize. The best way ever to learn placing trad gear is to aid climb an A1 pitch. You can safely solo with a clove hitch and back up knots if you can't find someone to belay. This concentrates on gear placement without the distraction of climbing. Lots of placements in a short period of time means better quicker learning. On a full pitch you will place 20 plus pieces of gear compared to about 10 when free climbing. You can take your time and look closly at the placement without having to worry about hanging on. Plus you get to see what happens to stuff when it's weighted. You may have all the gear to make a climb safe but don't go up with a partner unless you know they have adequate gear also. If you are truly stuck in a life and death situation like a snow cave and you are depending on stove/fuel to melt snow for water. Don't heat the water. Only melt to room temp. You get a lot more water this way from a given amount of fuel and hydration is more important/beneficial than energy gained from a heated drink or hot water bottle when sleeping. On a really-really life/death situation you can drink your pee, but only one time. Agree with others about route research in many cases but only differ on one point. You can also try to do stuff with minimum beta on less threatening easy climbs. This is good to hone route-finding skills. It's call beta-min climbing. There's tons of good books out there, read first so when you come across something unexpected at least you have some clue what to do. Read CascadeClimbers.com.

good post only disagree about the knife

Thanks to you guys and Ivan's East route TR inspiration, I got up on J-berg on the 12-13th.Sept. It's not worthy of a separate TR because I only got half way up. Having a bad no-summit year. Couldn't even get the false summit like Ivan. Did Doug's direct and found someone's cairn on the ridge. Thought it was sort of a climb unto itself, comparable to the East route but shorter exposure and more direct. Did a couple of pitches up the East route before bivying down at 6,000' by the water at the top of the heather. I read another TR about black bears in the heather south of J-berg. On the approach didn't see hardly any berries so assumed the bears would be gone. But before crashing out I walked down a bit below the bivy to scope the slopes below. Sure enough, saw a black bear about 1,000' downslope. I watched it carefully for about 15 minutes and was relieved when it went further down. I guess being so concentrated on the bear further down wasn't watching nearby. Looked to the right, another black bear about 500' away, oh no. Then looked to the left about 200' down, a brown bear(hopefully black and not a griz), OH S*IT. After being bluff charged by a ma griz last year, sort of skairt of bears. Of course it was getting dark, the worst timing. Grabbed all my gear and headed up to the bivy ring at the C-J col. Spent the night trying to sleep in my boots. Probably being paranoid, didn't get much sleep. The next morning it was tough getting motivated. Getting older thinking either the altitude affects you more or you don't acclimatize as quickly. Forgot the Ginkgo this trip (natures Diamox). Plus no sleep. Finally got going about 9am. Made it about 1/2 way up the route before deciding to bail. Really thought it was mostly class 4, defined by if you come off you won't be able to catch yourself, and it's a death fall. There were also several short class 5 moves, and plenty of loose rock. Curious that Becky doesn't rate or grade it. The climb back out went better, going back over Doug's Direct felt stronger, maybe finally getting acclimatized, and made the car before dark. It's becoming apparent to me that as you get older in order to get things done, you have to give yourself more time and your ducks have to be more lined up. CJ couloir icecliff gets early morning sun, it was calving but small chunks. Looking down the NE side of Doug's Direct J-Berg from the cairn at the top of Doug's Direct Formidable and Spider from the C-J col. From the bivy in the AM East face from the approach East route up close SE side of Doug's Direct, goes up the far right side of the scree field, just to the right of the lowest point in the center where the black rock starts. Climber approaching Cache Col (on the way out) I wonder why they call it the Ptarmigan traverse? Rufuse collection on the return. Almost always find these escaped party ballons when spending anymore than 2 days in the back-country. The green is some kind of army surplus tarp/tent, very old.

Knots can be stress raisers. I don't know for sure but don't think dyneema will cut through nylon under normal loads. You could probably get away with this because of the safety margins of these runners but you would want to really pay attention to the average safety lifespan of synthetic products which is about 5 years. Because adding the stress raiser knot to age fatigue may come closer to breakage. an alternative is just to rack a few 10cm slings with one beaner, then just clip to the racking beaner on the cam when you need more length.

It's not a real TR without PICS.

"But we could hear deep booms" playing alpine roulette wonder if it was a melted out cave underneath, on the verge of collapsing? reminds me of the approach to Woolly Shoulder on Mt Alberta, I'd gone through this one section of terminal moraine about 6 times counting the ups and downs and then a month later it turns out the "moraine" was really rock covered glacier and a huge cave had melted out underneath and collapsed. It was about 500' long, 100' wide in spots and 60' deep. congrats on the summit, now you know the descent for the NE buttress (hardman trifecta) whenever you're ready I was on Index N the other day, just a little bit of wetness will mess that one up, very slippery when wet.

Was the rock detour about 1/2 way up? How long where you under the hanging glacier and how high up were you before you felt safe? did it calve at all while you were in the area?

(1) 132 lbs. 5'5-1/2" (2) 60 seconds hang (BD Cobras) (3) 12 pullups this is supposed to be a rest day after a hard climb attempt on Index yesterday, so might do better with 24 hrs rest. (4) WI5 (solo years ago) lately roped Weeping Wall (right side, led all) Lake Louise Falls (led all) Murchison (right side) Drury (5)Ice climbing 15 years and one other stat you forgot (6) 50 years old the hardest part of ice climbing is placing screws so another relevant technique stat might be, how long does it take you to place a screw?

The "Big Ditch" is more accurate.

Isn't the rock really slippery when wet? I only have done the approach to NW Arete and remember the wet talus being really slippery, like no traction.

It's the longest approach and longest climb on Rainier. It can be miles longer depending on the snow level on the Mowich lake road. the crux is the 3,000' 45-50deg face that tops out at 12,500' on the ridge, in winter it's usually topped by a big wind slab you have to go around on steeper ground. It's also one of the only 2 safe solos, the other being Success cleaver. (no major crevasse crossings, winter only). If you solo it it's best to come down the same way. It's very condition dependent, you really need a melt freeze so the snow gets hard, otherwise it can be an impossible slog. Not sure if it's still true but it hasn't had a registered winter ascent, all other routes have. If it has it was the last route on Rainier to get a winter ascent. Rainier in winter by any route can be a whole nother ball game. You get caught by a storm, you can be stuck in a snow cave for days.

agree on the hardman trifecta, but not about Rainier, maybe just that it's in a different category, try the Sunset Ridge in winter, report back here when you've ticked it.

FFFFF you A-hole

Nice pic. I agree about the direct, both times on it, never saw any moss, a few small trees but pretty good climbing. The debris goes right down the upper wet streaks in your pic. Maybe since you're so far below the pocket glacier on the direct you'd have more warning/time to get out of the way if you heard it coming.

Huh? We came no where near the pocket glacier doing the original start. Yeah the north glacier does dump stuff but as I said you are in the firing line for a couple of minutes. How long were on the pocket glacier? When the pocket glacier goes the debris funnels down and goes right across the left side of the approach to the direct start. If you approach from the right you're under the north glacier. I've done the direct twice, the 2nd time the approach got bombed by the pocket glacier after we were 3 pitches up. Don't kid yourself, either approach is threatened.

have to agree, even Index is like that, there's quite a few climbs just as good as the popular ones, just a short ways off the beaten track.

that's not a Jim Nelson "school of going lite" spoon, try cascadehikers.com

well exit 38 is sort of nearby.

Anything with this short an approach (car & foot) with decent rock has most likely already been developed. This kind of rock, you could clean off 1/2 the cliff and there'd still be loose rock underneath. Plus there's the land issue, is this Alpental ski area land?

Still the lightest on the market for this type boot. Heel bail for aluminum cramps, any lighter of a boot doesn't work well with alum cramps. I've climbed 5.10 in these if it's an edging route, the rubber is hella sticky. while not for everyone I would do the N ridge of Stuart in these. I did the N ridge(w/gendarme) before in the ankle top 5.10 guides. You have to wear them at UW rock or cragging to get used to them, they climb really well. If you do take rock shoes these are pretty much light enough to carry in the pack. Anyone should be able to do the W ridge in these. If you did the N ridge you could just put the rock shoes on from the Gendarme to the top. Pretty popular and well stocked, you quite often see them on-sale Sportiva Trango S EVO

NOTE TO MEDIA learn to differentiate between HIKERS and CLIMBERS this mistake happens about 100 percent of the time.

I stand corrected. My map shows 45k (28 miles) to the border of the park so it probably is 50mi to the center. So what weather page do you use Dru? I can't find anything that gets as close location wise to the stuff in Canada I like to do like the Icefields parkway.