catbirdseat

I would assume that panic attacks come amidst large groups of strangers. If the crowd was mostly friends and acquaintences, does it have the same effect on you?

That's hilarious.

Most of the time, I don't. There are advantages to shallow placements. You can better examine the quality of the placement for one thing. Occasionally you'll have a flare in which you can find the best placement deep inside, or possibly the cam just walks too far in. In horizontals, sometimes you feel better about the placement if the cable isn't over the edge. Thus, you seat it deeply. Large cams clean easily. It's the small ones that can be difficult.

Quick, call the Wahmbulance.

There are a few cam designs, such as the DMM, where it is claimed that it can be difficult to clean the cam from deep placements. I'd heard that some people add a small loop of light cord to the trigger bar to facilitate retrieval. I could see pluses and minuses about this. You'd want to be careful not to make this cord too long, as it could get snagged in a fall and cause the cam to pull out or break the wires. Some smaller u-stemmed cams like TCUs can be hard to clean if placed too deeply. Have you ever added trigger extensions or retrieval cords to any of your cams? How was it done? Did it help or just get in the way?

Hugh Banner died on Monday at a hospital where he'd been fighting an illness. I cannot find much more information than that.

Light Rail going to the airport was a STUPID idea. People don't COMMUTE to the airport. There already was excellent bus, taxi and limousine service to the airport. On the other end, they are stopping at the University District where there is no parking and no large bus terminal. Again Stupid. The line should have been built in three phases. First from Downtown to Northgate, where there is a HUGE park and ride. Then from Downtown to Southgate. Finally from Northgate to Lynnwood. The line as built will definitely make it quick and easy for politicians to fly in and out of SeaTac so they can visit downtown Seattle. It goes to show that things get done for political reasons, not because they make sense.

I ran into a group of Vancouverites at Vantage once. This group was visiting for the first time. They thought it was fun. They'd been rained out of Squamish several weekends in a row and thought it was pretty cool that there was a place they could climb in the sun in shorts and tee shirts.

There doesn't seem to be an underlying chordal structure or any theme that I can recognize. The music isn't going anywhere. There is no phrasing, no dynamics.

At least some of the Three O'Clock Rock climbs will be dry enough. By "Green Mountain" you weren't actually thinking of Green Giant Buttress, were you?

How would any nut ever work in a flared crack? You still need some constriction. Aha, I'm glad you asked. Cracks are three-dimensional creatures. You can have constriction in the x-axis and flare in the y-axis.

Wow!

Do the math. Volume is proportional to mass. And V= 4/3pi®^3

I think people complain about the descent because they consider SCW as a crag climb rather than an alpine rock climb. No one complains of the descent off Exfoliation Dome which takes three times longer, just because no one mistakes it for a crag climb.

I stand corrected. Indeed, snowshoes might be needed for Stuart.

No. Snowshoes are definitely not needed. I don't think that the new snow affects this either because it has likely melted or hardend below the lake. Snow level on Friday morning was circa 3,000 ft, but as Bill says was above 4,000 ft on Sunday.

Holy crap, those had to be scary noises! Bill, of course we'd be interested in some pictures. Thanks for chiming in. What a difference a day makes!

Speaking of which, Tvash and I ran into Brian M. and his partner Matt on the road as we were hiking out. They had huge packs on and said they were heading in to do Ice Cliff on Saturday and the Stuart Glacier Couloir on Sunday, an ambitious plan. They were to be joined by Pochi and another climber for the latter. I wonder how they fared. Weather in the Icicle was drizzly on Saturday, but pretty good on Sunday. We could only assume the huge packs were part of training for their upcoming Alaska trip. Okay Brian, let us see a TR, successful or not.

That stream crossing sure looked chilly. Brrrrr.

I'll bet you are right. I know two people who have gotten speeding tickets on Icicle Canyon road.

Roan Wall? Never heard of it. Is it in Rattle and Slime?

It appears that the summit block has somewhat less snow than it did when we climbed the route last year. Same postholing in the couloir though.

How dreadful. When the cat heard it it started yowling in a most pitiable manner. The parrot started squawking.

Some of the new stopper designs such as those by DMM and Metolius seem to work better than the traditional designs offered by Black Diamond, or Wild Country. For example, the Metolius nuts work way better in flared cracks.

The crocs would get indigestion.