Buckaroo

I recommend taking less climbing gear and more food. We did it in 11 days and exited at Holden village. I was out of food on the whole last day, not fun. I think after about 5 or 7 days you start to eat more than normal. Also take something with a lot of fat in it, like olive oil or butter. We had this old timer on our trip and he had one pound of butter, we were all laughing at him at the start and mooching his butter at the end. Did it in august and never had to melt snow, as there was running water at all camps. The most dangerous part of the trip is the glacier crossings with the worst near the end on the chickamin glacier.

""This was, far and away, the most miserable part of the climb for me. Sitting at this belay for what seemed like hours (probably more like 30 or 40 minutes) caused me to lose feeling in my left toes and pretty much both of my hands. This sucked ass, needless to say."" ""It was here where I learned the true origin of the term "the screaming barfies" My hands hurt so @#(* bad that for about 5 minutes I was pretty damn sure I was going to puke. I have never experienced the barfies this bad and hope to never again."" You should be very careful and realize what was happening here. You were experiencing the onset of mild hypothermia. When the body becomes too cold it constricts blood flow to the extremities, to keep the core temperatures normal. Consequently the blood in the extremities becomes chilled and acidotic from lack of circulation . When you start moving again the chilled acidotic blood circulates to the core and causes nausea and, in severe hypothermia cases, heart attack. The nausea is the bodies way of saying "stop what your doing". Anytime you stop at a belay when it's very cold you should put on more layers and/or keep up some kind of movement. If your hands are cold flex the muscles or shake your hands and arms. Running in place works to keep the feet warm. Just shaking your legs in general keeps the body warm. That's what shivering is, muscle activity to maintain body warmth. Some kind of physical activity, don't just stand still. Belayed climbing in cold conditions is sort of tricky in that periods of intense warming activity are alternated by inactivity. You have to have a system to maintain warmth at belays. Mark Twight in his book "Extreme Alpinism" recommends wearing your shell jacket when climbing and putting on your pile jacket over the shell at belays. Not the conventional way these items are worn but a real time saver. You don't even want to know about severe hypothermia, it's very hard to treat in a remote situation, the only real treatment is avoidance.

JJ, the Eve Dearborn Mem. Route is on the NW face of North Peak, I believe it's just to the right of the gully your looking at in the Becky guide. I think the gully your looking at is the one that Eve and her partner fell in. I don't think it's been climbed. EDM is "in" less than drury. It requires COLD temps, like Arctic front, as all these gullies are garbage chutes, and can only be climbed if frozen. It's lower elevation too so that makes it even worse. I believe it was climbed last year, I heard Nelson was there but backed off because 2 teams got on it in front of him. Coincidentally I was just up there today hiking the approach, I think it needs to be snow covered otherwise it's vertical bushwhacking. I soloed the North face 2 summers ago and downclimbed it so I would know the descent for EDM, man there's some manky rap anchors. Nelson said it took most of a day just to get down the thing in winter. I would go with Nelson's date of Feb 88 on the first ascent as he was one of the ones that was on it. (Unless he made a mistake in his own book, which is possible.)

""michael_layton"" ""How are AVY conditions?"" considerable (click on Jasper National Park) http://www.avalanche.ca/weather/bulletins/index.html Polar Circus and Slipstream are notorious for being the worse avalanche terrain of all the ice climbs in the area. Maybe why they are also the most coveted?

Anyone who is serious about climbing Drury should check this web page. You can link to a remote weather station located in Tumwater canyon just across from Drury Falls, and get real time weather readings and a 10 day history of those readings. http://www.nwac.noaa.gov/mountain_data_sites__navigation.htm under the heading North Central Cascades click on Tumwater Canyon--Past You can see that on 2-25 and 2-26 it was cold enough to form, now all we need is about a week of these temps.... good luck.

Climbed Shasta on Sept 8th and 9th. Did the Hotlum -Wintun Ridge with the RH snow gully variation at the top. The "snow" was smooth alpine hard water ice. Sort of interesting with flexible leather boots, lightweight strap-on's and a Grivel "Mont Blanc" toy ice axe. I came back down on the rock. Nice long bouldery rock ridge this time of year. Hardly any scree or snow on the ridge. Quite a bit different from Rainier in that the area is quite a bit drier, vegetation, snow and size of glaciers. It was way easier altitude wise as I had been in Yosemite and high sierras so was aclimatized somewhat. Shasta City is at 4,000' so aclimatization is easier. Also the trailhead is at 7,000' so it's closer to the summit. Recommend the ridge this time of year, it was good for soloing in that no glacier crossing is required. Plenty of nice bivy spots from 9,500 to 12,000, including some tent spots. I looked at Hotlum-Bolum ridge but it had big shrunds and lots more mandatory ice slopes. It was pretty warm, never even used the ski gloves, and clear as a bell, excellent summit views.

A-5 bird beaks camhooks small tri-cams (first 4 sizes) micro cams HB brass offsets slider ball nuts assorted hooks and last but not least the new Metolius sliding buckle aiders "easy aiders" city park went from 21 placements to 18 just because the last step is always as short as possible and not constrained by a fixed step as with conventional aiders. And the best thing about them... no daisies!

quote: Originally posted by Climzalot: This past week we made it up , Beckey/Chouinard on South Howser Tower, I would be happy to provide info on these places if you are headed to any of them. cgentzel@aai.cc how was the weather in the bugs?, did you do south howser in one day or two?

quote: Originally posted by erik: i quit climbing. i have one more route to do, then i am out for good....... and what route would that be?? and why did you quit?

the first pitch(5.8) of "thin red line" on liberty bell. Run out/gear thin, hard route finding, one place with a definite 5.9 move. the "hollow flake" on the salathe of el cap. Was a good grade for it's time when chimney's were routinely climbed, but now try 50ft of runout with no gear in an off-width chimney. You can protect with a big bro but have you ever tried walking one? The only advice is to find something to practice on beforehand. Bet this single pitch has turned more people back than any other. yes maybe the last pitch of lovin arms, I wasn't sure which way it went, seemed like a line to the right was it but didn't lead to the anchors. godzilla is properly rated, anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't know cracks or has been climbing too much at the gimme "exit" crags [ 08-19-2002, 12:11 PM: Message edited by: Buckaroo ]

""If you were doing the full north ridge of stuart, which approach would you use? (stuart lake trail or Ingalls Lake trail) and Why?"" stuart lake trail for winter routes 'cuz the sherpa is the easiest descent in winter Ingalls for summer 'cuz sherpa is broken in summer ""We have the ability to leave a vehicle at Ingalls Lake trail head to decend via cascadian couloir and avoid a north side decent if approaching via stuart lake."" don't see much advantage to approaching from the north in summer, and since cascadian is the easiest descent why not approach from same direction? another way to descend would be the west ridge, if you could stand the exposure after getting off the north. You would avoid the big altitude losses and gains of the cascadian that way. "" You will not need an ice axe or crampons and can do the appoach to the No. Ridge in approach shoes."" agree totally ""BTW......looking at doing the upper No. ridge via Goat next weekend. Anyone been on the Stuart recently??? Is it possible to traverse it now without an ice axe or crampons while wearing appoach shoes??? I'd almost rather take 2 long ice screws and belay across than take an axe, boots, and crampons. "" the majority of snow/ice/glacier is on the approach. If your worried about it just find a stick and carve it to a sharp point, then you can just toss it when you get onto the rock. ""This is a one day trip from the Teanaway. Any suggestions?"" to achieve full flavor make it two days, do the complete ridge and bivy at the notch. But go ultra light with a half bag etc. the guide almighty combo rock shoe-approach shoe are perfect for this climb. Fit them as you would a hiker and stuff a piece of ensolite blue foam in the heel to tighten them up for the gendarme pitch.

did the complete ridge in mid july last year, at that time the bypass was passable with just a little wet rock. for the cascadian, go past the false summit. A ridge goes straight down (south) from the false summit, go just past it and then head down the major couloir that is the cascadian. You have to drop down just a bit to pass the false summit. There was a lot of soft snow in the top of the couloir in july last year. watch out for snaffle hounds at the bivies [ 08-16-2002, 11:51 PM: Message edited by: Buckaroo ]

quote: Originally posted by mattp: On Cavelle's E. Ridge, routefinding is no problem at all. Follow the ridge (really, it is just that simple). actually it's OK going up but if you descend the route it's not obvious as there are spur ridges on either side that can take you out onto steep faces. 3 people have died here also http://alpineclub-edm.org/accidents/accident.asp?id=622 ""The downclimb off the back includes some somwhat scary traverssing on a loose rockslope above the big void but it (the scary part) is short and I'm afraid you will not find very many Canadian Rockies peaks that don't have at least some of that kind of thing."" and one death on the descent http://alpineclub-edm.org/accidents/accident.asp?id=172