catbirdseat

Not guns. Fire Bien sur que oui.

You can use an arm rappel if you like or go hand over hand. You can tie the rope off single strand to a tree with a bowline and send your more timid scramblers down on it and have the last guy retrieve it. You can double it around a tree if it is long enough and pull it from below, but it might get sap on the rope or damage the tree. Better yet, bring a leaver sling for the purpose. If you have one locking biner (and a sling), you can belay someone down (or up) using a Munter Hitch. Beal makes an 8 mm x 30 m rope that would be ideal for the purpose. Klenke had one that we used for a 15 m rappel once. We happened to have harnesses, but you can also do a dulfersitz or an arm rappel, though both are hard on your fine apparel.

Went for it Friday Showered on the Temple trail Though the rest was fine.

Nice trip report, Gowans. C'est tres bon!

I am such a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, that after two glasses and a sandwich, I was out like a light in the car 5 minutes after we hit the road. Good thing I wasn't driving. Woke up at Stevens Pass feeling rested and refreshed.

Guns?

All I can say is that I didn't get sick drinking the Cinder Cone Red.

The Mountaineers have a Youth Activities group for teens 14 years old and up. They climb, scramble, hike, snowshoe, whitewater raft or whatever they want to do as a group. Colin Haley was involved for a couple years with his brother Booth.

When you have to lug your rack 10 miles and 5,000 ft to do a climb, I've come to appreciate how light nuts and tricams are compared to cams, especially big Camalots.

Show up at Exit 38 Trestle Parking Lot at 5 pm with rock shoes and a harness on Thursdays (directions: www.northbendrock.com). There is a regular bunch that hangs out after work (including the new King of Spray, JGowans). You can climb with us and ask all sorts of questions. You can also go to Pub Club on Tuesdays and meet lots of climbers and ask them all sorts of questions.

The correct spelling is BIGHT, "The middle or slack part of an extended rope".

Dave, you ought to make it look like shit, so no one will want to steal it. Can't leave a shiny new bike like that anywhere, even with a cable on it. Enjoy and take care.

I think it means "good" more or less. I think it is from an obscure Oregon climbers dialect, spoken primarily by gapertimmy and a few others.

I always save the beer for after the climb.

One way you can get giardia on a climbing trip is the following. Climbing partner is a carrier. Partner doesn't wash hands after defacating. You offer some gorp to partner. Partner reaches unwashed hands into gorp bag, contaminating said gorp. You eat gorp. You get giardia and blame it on the water.

You are probably a carrier. Don't poop near water, if you please.

Ron, Pete, Jim and I hiked in to the Enchantments from the Snow Creek trailhead on Friday morning. There were two short showers on the way. Camped on snow near Temple Lake. Saturday morning put on crampons and hiked up to Prusik Balanced Rock and climbed the West Ridge. This was Jim's first alpine rock climb. He did great. He and I recovered what was left of someone's stuck rope, a red 8 mm, and hauled it off the mountain. Watch out for a loose block near the end of the traverse. Someone should trundle it and get it over with but we were concerned someone might be on the South Face, so didn't. Did two double rope rappels and one single rope rappel to get onto the snow. We had carried boots over the top, but not axes, or crampons so we roped up, because the snow was still very hard and the slope steep. After collecting our gear we traversed the north slopes until we were under the north face of High Priest and did the 5.5 three pitch route. We carried our packs because we wanted to go down the other side to camp. On the second pitch I climbed an enticing chimney that led to a dead end and had to rappel back down. Found the route to the left and finished the climb. There is a lot of black lichen on the rock that makes some of the moves unpleasant, especially on the first pitch. Rapped the east face w/ single rope to saddle and took the west trending gully down the south side of the ridge. Where it takes a bend to the left, we exited it by scrambling right up and over a rib into another gully that led to easy snow and right to our camp in time for supper. We were pleased to not have to retrace our steps over Prusik Pass. Slept in on Sunday morning and packed up after the sun rose and hiked out in time for beer and lunch at Duckboys in Leavenworth.

Dru, where is "tights"? Oh, Dru WEARS tights. Gotcha.

Coolest TR? Wrlwind, you let US be the judge. Having said that, cool.

The dude is just pushing the vileness envelope again.

are you sure he's been away? Let me rephrase that. WE haven't missed much while he was away.

Sorry Coopah, but unless you have a "becket" to tie it to, it's probably actually a sheet bend you are referring to. Here you go, CBS, Admittedly, it doesn't adress 6mm+8.5mm. You will note there were three instances in which they tested an 11 mm dynamic rope tied to an 8 mm static rope. In no instance was the failure load less than 950 lbs. So in theory you could use it with the two smaller diameter ropes, but you can't always predict what might happen as you change the scale. Failure load almost certainly would be lower than with the larger diameter ropes. If you do not like the the double fisherman's knot use a EDK backed up with a DFK. If the DFK never get's loaded, it should be easy to untie.

Mike, you haven't missed much while you were away.

Anyone ever climb the Beckey/Schoening route on Boxtop? How about the South Face of High Priest?

The good old double fisherman's works always, no matter whether the diameters are different. I wouldn't trust the EDK for ropes of different diameters unless I had a specific knowledge of testing which showed it to be safe. Beyond that, I wouldn't use 6 mm to rappel on. It is plenty strong, but it is very susceptible to being cut. I wouldn't go lower than 7 mm. I'm sure others would disagree.