catbirdseat

wha'd he do? dish! It sounds more like a request than a statement of fact.

Thermarest Guide Lite 3/4. Lightest one made at the time I bought it and its still too heavy, but most times, I take it anyway.

Mountaineer Annual Climbing Notes, December 15, 1952 by Fred Beckey Castle Rock, Tumwater Canyon Few accessible rock faces can compare with the excellent granite of the sheer south face of Castle Rock, in Tumwater Canyon near Leavenworth. Ideal for spring conditioning climbs, this face has numerous routes. Usually the sport begins from "logger's ledge" about 250 feet above the road. The many climbs of a buttress here (Jello Tower) led to the eventual completion of the "Midway" route (see 1948 Mountaineer) and later the 55-foot white overhang, class six, proved to be the key to the "Devil's Delight" route followed to the summit by Fred Beckey, Pete Schoening and Wes Grande. Around the corner on the east face Schoening and Dick Widrig worked out the fifth class "Saber" route, and in 1951 Schoening and Jim Henry established the "Angel" route beginning fifty feet west of Jello Tower. Two days and a considerable number of pitons were consumed in the ascent, which included fourth, fifth and sixth class climbng. The ascent consisted first of a 50-foot traverse to the left, a vertical 30-foot pitch, a climbing traverse to the right, another vertical pitch of 40 feet and then a precipitous climbing traverse to the right to a point 80 feet above the top of Jello Tower, ending the severities. Of interest also is a new route in the river face of Tumwater Tower made by Pete Schoning and Tom Miller (class five).

That is so totally suck!

"Poach" trails mean to drive a motor cycle on a foot path?

Climbergirl33 was seen online checking this out.

Bit...ing... my...tongue...

You are probably right. I have now idea how likely the skating scenario really is. Pickets are better where that is likely.

Lummox avatar?

For the answer to the answer to your question, I direct you to Pope, Dwayner, JKassidy - Doh! they've all been banned.

I'd have to do some experimenting to see what actually worked, but I would put a "drogue" disk on a cord to limit how far the fluke plunged, and to provide a way of recovering the fluke. The danger of this concept is that if the fluke is moving and can't go any further down, it might just prefer to pull out. Another thing one might do is improve the directional stability of the fluke by putting a longitudinal fin on it. There are tales of how they can hit ice layers and "skate" in different directions. A small spike on the tip would prevent this. There has been quite a bit of information published on ice screw testing, but not much on snow pro testing. That's not to say it hasn't been done. There's probably a whole load of proprietary snow pro data out there in the files of SMC, Yates, etc.

We once put the "student body" on a fluke, ten people, and couldn't put it out. That's about 1000 lbs peak force. I think there is a great deal of misunderstanding about flukes. I also think there is a lot of room for improvement in designs.

Substitute the word "Snowboard" for Harley. That is how I first heard that joke. Big Lou told it. How do you hide your rent money from your snowboarder roomies? Answer: under the bar of soap.

Just when it was becoming chic to be Canadian, along comes Conan O'Brien to ruffle the feathers of the Quebecois.

TIGHTER!!!!

Bob, you hit the nail on the head.

Did the ice form naturally, or did a pipe break somewhere? Do ice screw bite into stucco?

Arrrggghhh, a sailor ye be. I'm sure ye be a mighty fine one too.

I place three flukes on in one running belay of the exit chute of Gib Ledges. They were the only type of snow pro that might have held a fall and even then only one of them seemed really bomber to me. Still, I was glad to have them along.

You talkin' about that Russian gaper? He's so weak. He's probably had a coronary by now from that red meat diet of his.

If you climb in the morning, your fingers WILL get numb. If it isn't cloudy and if you wait until noon on a south facing wall, you will be quite comfortable.

A common complaint against flukes is related to the relatively stiff wire used on them. The wire makes the fluke harder to stow and eventually breakage of strands leads to the dreaded "meat hook" syndrome. The reason wire is used in the first place is its small diameter allows it to cut through snow so that the fluke will bite. Rather than wire, would 5.5 mm spectra cord be thin enough to work as a replacement? It's plenty strong enough. You might have to provide some sort of cover for abrasion resistance where the cord goes through the metal blade, such as the cover off of a piece of 7 mm cord, etc. A knot would serve both to hold the cover in place and to hold the bridle at the correct angle of attack. The SMC TAnchor is a fluke-like tent anchor that uses perlon. This is sort of what I'm talking about.

Does anyone ever bring fluke on climbs like that, or are they every bit as much of a joke as pickets under those conditions? I already know Iain's opinion of flukes.

Well sir, our beautiful weather window is just now slamming shut. A very few took advantage of it. I would have but for a bad cold. I now will wait for the next high pressure system, which I would expect might build in a little over a week. The next window will likely be smaller than this last one, but it it doesn't snow too much this week, it wouldn't need to be.

I concur, but I've begun to notice seasonal patterns, for example, early May often has really nice climbing weather, whereas mid to late May usually sucks. March almost always is too windy. April often has at least one good weather window, etc.