catbirdseat

Excerpts from "A Night of Serious Drinking". ...and then he poouuured a glass of bourrrbon. He tossssed it d-down. Then it was my tur turn...hick...

Indeed, what was I thinking?

I've done the route before. We plan to carry over in two days, instead of decending the NE Ridge. I was just afraid of the "3rd Class mud" potential.

Already have done NR of Baker in one day. I thought Shuksan was a winter ice climb.

Tough enough getting Olympus alone in a day, let alone Rainier. I'll bet Dan - could do it.

Many of the usual easy alpine ice climbs are out of condition this year. Observation rock is a bowling alley I am told. Access to Maude is cut off. Buckner is usually done in three days by average parties. Any suggestions?

Anyone do the Upper Pride Ice route this year? Anyone do the scramble route and get a good look down the north side?

Bill, what would you have done had they worked?

The fellow dropped by my house and I gave him is Alien back.

Indeed He is.

JayB has some really good photos of Wilmans in the gallery. Here's an angle he didn't already get. West Face from Notch Most of the climbing route is around the corner to the left.

They were all pretty good, I thought.

I agree that Bryson can be hilarious, but not all of his books are quite as good as a Walk in the Woods. Another good one by Bryson is Made In America. Try this one, it will make you howl with laughter. Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod by Gary Paulsen Amazon

Speak for yourself.

Okay now, how about a picture of the Caveman himself?

I would be interested to see the cam spring force diagram for various cams. That is, how much outward force the cam lobes exert on the walls of the placement versus % cam lobe retraction. It might go a long way towards explaining why some cams walk and others don't.

Correction: Booty. Arrrrrrgh, matey, I love booty.

I have to agree with Sphinx. The lobes are designed so that the "camming angle" is the same thoughout their range (what is it? 13.5 degrees). Thus the force exerted by the lobes is the same. To the extent that the springs obey Hooke's law, the force prior to a fall is greater the more the lobes are retracted. I have noticed that the majority of fixed cams I have seen are Metolius. Whether this is because more people use them or they walk more is up for debate. If popularity was any measure, you would expect to see lots of Camalots as fixed pieces.

So what is it about Chimney Rock that brings on so many accidents? Just chance?

Albacorrrrrrrr?

That was certainly very interesting. I mean, the climbing. Congratulations.

Did this trip two years ago with a late start. Didn't get back to car until 1 a.m. that time. Vowed to do better this time. Three of us car camped at Barlow Pass Friday night. Car came in at midnight. Another party of three to do, you guessed it, Wilmans Spire. Left on mountain bikes at 6:15 am. Locked bikes at the rack at the FS Monte Cristo Car campground. Hiked to Glacier Basin. Found the approach gully was mostly free of ice so left the unneeded crampons and ice screws under boulder at entrance. Brought ice axes and actually used them. Gully is loose and nasty, stay close together. At notch, rather than using the big boulder for a belay, we climbed up ten feet and built a belay anchor to reduce rope drag on traverse. I led first pitch. Protected downclimb for second using a red tricam, point down, in a small pocket before downclimb, then small cam at ledge with long runner. Climbed around corner until rope drag was too much and belayed from a horn. (Note: downclimb appears daunting at first, but has bomber hands). Moved belay by scrambing further left to corner of route where there was a fixed pin and cracks to back it up. From here second pitch is more or less a straight line, free of rope drag. Spotted second party emerging from gully. Then a third party (WTF?)! Partner, Bill, clipped the old fixed stopper and the new fixed quadcam just above it. The offwidth above took a #4 Clog cam (~#4 Friend). He went all of the way to the top, rather than stopping at the alcove. Rapped off summit and Jim had a slip and tweaked his shoulder. Chatted with the two seconds who were belaying cc.comer sverdina who was out of sight. (I'll meet you one of these days, dude.) BTW, noticed that it would be possible to climb the rap route from the ledge just above and to the left the rap slings. Anyone ever try it? Double 60 m rapped into gully from tree anchor, then single rope rap from ice bollard, then one more single from a sling threaded in the last of the ice got us down the "waterfall" chockstone. We might have downclimbed everything but the last except for Jim's bum shoulder. Met couple on hike back who had done Monte Cristo and a fellow who had soloed Columbia. Man, it is great to have the bikes for the trip out! Zoom, zoom, zoom. Back to cars by 6 pm (7 hours earlier than previous trip) and dinner at Mountain View restaurant.

What is the pirate's favorite public radio station?

Dwayner can be annoying at times, but occasionally he comes up with a gem of a post that makes up for all that. Long live Dwayner.

I'm wearing all black today at work. I don't generally like country music, but I liked Johnny's music. He trancended his genre because he knew how people felt. He knew pain and he knew loss. RIP, Johnny.