Toast

I can burn you a copy of Mind Bomb. The The just ain't the same without Johnny Marr, though.

Mormon girls are like Catholic girls but better

I was scoping out Eldorado on Tuesday. About 18" of new unconsolidated snow from 5000' up (prob fell last weekend.) I'd heard it was as much as three feet up high. Saw lots of evidence of spontaneous slides... prob more so now with the recent heatwave. From memory, Forbidden looked white tipped (but then I wasn't specifically scouting that out.) Go forth, climb and report back

Check out this article, Ultralight vs. Ultranormal. I've never done the traverse, but you don't need a super heavy duty full shank boot... It's a cross country alpine scramble. Going light would be advantageous. A great source of lightweight gear and wisdom can be found at Pro Mountain Sports

Sloan Creek Trail got a good mile of it washed away in a massive avalanche last spring. Old growth snapped like twigs, teetering logs, hidden holes to fall through, yellow jacket nests... That'll probably be your biggest challenge on that route. The river ford was just pretty simple last fall, but the river may have risen since then. All in all this was my favorite climb last year.

Try this

Anybody have current status? somebody had mentioned that the road is out for repair a few miles before the end of the road. If so, is it open to the Eldorado trailhead?

I predict Fleb and Carbird are gonna duke it out soon.

June Carter Cash just passed away this afternoon (sniff) Fer new stuff, I'll back the Allison Krauss and Gillian Welch suggestions. How 'bout Emmy Lou?

Chad, you Bad DFA you got worked Yep, that's Mike Watt in the old fIREHOSE days. He sure knows how to rip.

How 'bout these guys...

Is the road open all the way?

Mmmm hair pie

I've had a set of classics for three seasons now and am quite happy with them. I was envious of the ascents at first, but like Colin, I don't think I really need all that the ascents are cracked up to be. The classic crampon teeth have proved sufficient for me so far. The elevator thingies would be nice on occasion, but then if the snow is firm enough for that to matter, I would prob be walking anyways. Besides, they're kinda cumbersome to flicke the things down and they're a pain to walk in on slight declines with the things up. If you really really want this feature, you could shell out $20 for the BD or G3 heel lifter kits. Just my $0.02.

Numbnutz... I have a committee meeting tonight

Doh, I still need to get the first two... damn shopping diet.

WTF... where's the pix, Cavey?

Saturday: Sent my garden of weeds and fed the compost pile Sunday: Sent the Muir Hut... hooboy, need more of that

I went out to Royal Columns (Tieton) for the first time last week... awesome place. I found that I predominantly used hexes there. I also discovered the security of a well placed hand in crack AND that this roughly equates to a #1 Camalot. I started building a rack and leading last year. Currently my rack consists of a set of BD stoppers, #5-10 Metolius Curved Hexes, one each of 0.5 - 2.0 Camalots, a small WC Friend (booty!), and enough biners to rack this gear. I also carry six sewn spectra runners tripled in quickdraw fashion, another six knotted runners carried in similar fashion, two tied double runners for slinging anchors and a cordalette. When possible, I'll place passive pro. This is partially to get more practice, but I also feel more secure with passive pro (cuz my shizit's placed right ) The thing I'm battling now is getting good at knowing what to pull off my rack at first sight. I still fumble a bit with pulling one size too big/small sometimes, but I'm getting better. The other challenge I face is building solid belay anchor systems in a timely fashion. To address this, I'm going to try to get in as many moderate multi-pitch climbs as I can this summer. I figure that'll just come with time.

I'm nominatin' Tricky for the Pulitzer.

Fair enough, I just think the starting prices are near retail. As long as it's known up front she'll barter

You called...

C'mon, you can find most of that stuff NEW and on sale for about the same price...

That book's outdated. The Mounties would be better off reading tradgirl and so would you. C'mon Fleb, Sure tradgirl and rec.climbing have good info, but if you're starting from ground up, you need grounding in fundamentals. Freedom of the Hills does a pretty good job of that.