petsfed

I've been a pretty vocal critic of Dean Potter the publicity hound, but the thing was, I felt like he only made bad calls (that is to say, calls that affected us, the climbing community) his livelihood depended on being in front of cameras. My honest impression of him as a climber and as a person was that he was looking for something, peace, excellence, happiness, and the process of self-promotion complicated and corrupted that. His writing could border on the highfalutin, but I think it came from a place of honesty. When I think of all the things he did, all the things he said, above all else, I believe he was honest, and without pretense. I know of no higher praise for a climber. We shall not see his like again.

I've got nothing better to do the weekend of Valentines Day, so I think I'll see how the snow near Ketchum feels under my skis. I am looking for a low-difficulty overnight/2-night skitour. I'm also looking for a partner for such a trip. I am a mediocre-to-lousy downhill skier, but I can skin the flats with gusto. I've got some winter camping experience, but wouldn't describe myself as current. I'm out of practice and looking to shake the rust off on something more interesting than the local ski-hill, but not so committing that I'll end up dead. What I do have is some familiarity with continental snow-pack, but only insofar as what I experienced in SE Wyoming and northern Colorado. I'd really like to learn how Idaho's transition snowpack behaves, and a day touring, digging pits, and playing snow-scientist with somebody who knows the patterns would be super useful. Any would-be partners or mentors? Any advice other than the super-taco/mountainproject/rockclimbing.com adage "yer gunna die!"? This is cross-posted at MountainProject, so you can tie the user-names together, if you like.

Thanks! We were thinking Leutholds looked good, but I've heard rumbles that it can be dependent on the preceding winter's weather. Needless to say, considering how dry e.g. Mt. Bachelor has been to this point, it was a valid concern.

Getting into the training part of the year, and I'm looking to tag the summit of Hood for my first volcano this June. The question I have is this: what routes offer fairly low difficulty, but fewer crowds, and would (probably) be in shape in the first week or so of June? Other than reading trip reports, what kinds of weather clues should I be looking for before I decide between climbing the thing and drinking beer at a hipster bar in Portland? My partner and I have done some couloir climbing at similar altitude to Hood, but in Colorado, so they're much smaller undertakings. Obviously, we're getting out and practicing, spending a lot of time the stairmaster, etc. I'm also gonna be brushing up my skills in the Sawtooths throughout May, and he'll do the same in Colorado, so we should be in good shape, but the scale of the climb is a bit outside of our experience.

That was a poorly written article. So, who's pathfinder was it? The suspects'? The victims'? Is the implication here that the suspects took the address from the registration? Or information present in the victims' wallets and phones? Scary stuff, to be sure, just a really poorly written article.

PM Sent on screws and ropeman.

Sold pending funds.

SOLD

I ski a fair bit with a guy who's been rocking them for a while now. He loves them for rolling terrain, but he has the good sense to leave the skins on once he puts them on. They definitely slow you down on the downhill, but if you're doing short laps or on rolling terrain, you more than make up for it by not having to slap your skins on, or rip them off. Kirk's a better skier than me, but he could easily get 3 short runs in in the time it took me to slap the skins on, skin up, and rip them again.

Climbed near Salt Creek Falls above Oakridge today. We're already past prime for what's in, might even fall over tomorrow if it stays above freezing tonight.

Scarpa rebranded the T3s as the T4s, but yes, there's still a market for them. http://www.scarpa.com/t4 Essentially a touring boot with a removable liner for multi-day, mellow ski tours. Also, for ultra-light maniacs who don't need a stiff boot to kill it. I would not pay $150 for a T3, even if it was new (or in my size). I tend to trust gear trade's prices, so check this out: http://www.geartrade.com/item/355995/scarpa-t3-tele-boots-mondo-25 Finally, I have a couple F1s for training purposes. They suck to do searches *with*, but if you need a couple of beacons to stash and search *for*, you can't go wrong. I got mine for $15 a piece a few years ago.

Most classes do focus on the book stuff because the rest is learning your area. The only real way to learn this stuff is to get out on a lot of different days following a lot of different weather, and see what it looks like in the field. Learning the stability tests is easy, learning what they mean *for your area* is hard, and extra hard to teach. Central and southern Cascade snowpack is all maritime snowpack, so unless you're in, or immediately following, a storm, your tool-set and knowledge base isn't going to be that informative since it refers to continental (or Rocky Mountain) snowpack. That was a pretty tough lesson for me: the things I thought I knew like the back of my hand were simply wrong out here.

The original Aztars were designed to be a transition water-ice/alpine tool, so they're quite a bit heavier than the Aztarex, although they still suffer in conditions where you have to chop a bit to get purchase. They have a very shallow curve to them, so they don't do well in steep or chandaliered ice, but I've led WI3 with them fairly confidently. Honestly, the hard part for me was transitioning back to a leashed tool after climbing so much with my Vipers. The picks are very hard to find, since Petzl doesn't make them anymore (although you can still find Pulsar picks fairly easily), and the Aztar never had great sales to begin with. I like them a lot for low angle ice, couloirs, and otherwise situations where the weight of your pack, rather than the technical difficulties, will determine whether or not you summit. The Aztarex was the Aztar on a serious diet, so they were really bad for climbing actual ice, but worked great for steep snow.

Moss made a lot of tents. Which one are you looking for?

Round trip or point-to-point? I think a North-South traverse of the range would be pretty sweet. The north side of the winds is pretty empty, especially compared to around the Cirque, so you could have the lakes to yourself. The traverse I've been dreaming about (minus the fishing) is to start on the Glacier trail, near Dubois, hike down to Gannet Peak, tag it, go over Dinwoody Pass, cross again at Washakie pass, then tag the Cirque of the Towers and exit at Big Sandy.