Bill_Simpkins

You know what? Even in Bellingham, the forcast said rain rain rain all this week. It's nice today, was nice yesterday. They show today on the forcast as nice and tommorrow as rain and the next day as rain. Its been like that all week, current day nice, rest of week rain. Conclusion: just go there, if its raining, go see a movie or get drunk.

If the Alpine weather looks unfavorable on the west side, we are going to go to Prussik Peak. If the Alpine weather on the east side is unfavorable, we are going cragging in Leavenworth. We are leaving on the 15th and staying until the 19th, depending on the weather.

You can use crampons with tennis shoes. Lowa makes good boots for narrow feet. Also Technica. I would look at their mountaineering boots and their waterproof hiking boots. What really sucks about some hiking boots is that the traction blows on the snow and you can't climb rock worth a damn in them. But if you are really selective, you can find one with quality traction and stiff enough edges to get around pretty good. Some of the hiking boots are just trimmed down version of another mountaineering boot. Also some tractions(even some vibrams) are too hard and slip on rock. I would look for tractions with smaller sized teeth and good edges all round, good uphill traction in front and good heel traction. Some hiking boots have crap tread but still look cool, so watch out. You may notice that with tennies or hikers that you have to put on thr crampons when a stiff mountaineer boot might handle the terrain without them. It has to get pretty icy before you need to put on crampons on a stiff mountaineering boot. In the class, she may have to put on her spikes before everyone else and wear them longer without stiff boots.

What? The place used to be a ski area. You just fall down the hill and land on the road. You can fall any direction. Is it even possible to get lost up there? Did they even TRY to retraice their steps a little or did they jsut get away from the trail a bit a called in a rescue. At least these HIKERS are ok.

I know its not as big, but I have a #6 tech friend I let people borrow from time to time. It would be tipped out on most of it, but I heard you can get a few placements in on that route. Just give me a same price peice of gear for collatoral. I would still bring an even larger piece or two with you like the ones mentioned above or a bigbro.

Nice TR. You may want to edit your dates.

Yes, that is Old Settler and Urq, I think taken from Highway 1 between Abbotsford and the Vedder River. I'm losing my mind! I will never doubt the Dru again.

oooooooookkkkkkkk, I give up. Couldn't convince you. A pitcher each, beer is cheap.

This is pretty funny. However, said peak is no more than 1600 m tall, Needle is about 2000 m tall. Even if the stretch of freeway between Abottsford and Chillawack was at sea level, you could see Needle. Next time I drive up on a clear day I'll take a picture, if I remember.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. I saw some falcons nesting on the cliff.

I like the Patagonia stuff and the Mountain Hardware stuff. They are having a sale on the MH stuff at Bellingham Footworks.

Same reason I don't shower.

Urguhart is too much north, wrong side of the river, not the direction I was looking. Look at the topos. There is a straight line of site to Needle Peak kind of through the Coqulhalla. Look at the topo, draw a line from Needle down through to Chillawack area, And look at the elevations of the peaks close to the line of sight. Nothing is in the way of seeing the top of Needle. The highest thing between Needle and the Valley is like 1700 or so meters. Needle is around 2000 meters. I still claim you can see the top of Needle from the freeway. Look at the BC map veiwer and do some trigonometry. Even if the 1700 meter peak was directly in front, you could still see the summit of Needle. It is small, you may have never noticed or thought anything of the little bump on the horizon, WAY in the distance in the hazy air.

Drove it last weekend!

HAHA! We will see about that!

I know Drew is the almighty master mountain and route databse on legs, But I know what I saw. If your not looking for it and don't look really hard, you won't see it. I bet Drew a pitcher of beer (hehe): That somewhere around Chillawack, on the freeway, you can see Needle Peak. In fact, I'm going to dig through my pictures at home. I may have a picture facing towords Chillawack Valley from the top of Needle. I'll check my Steinbok pictures as well.

Actually Drew, I think you could be wrong. It's very fient and the color could blend in with the sky. But the maps suggest differenetly, that you may be able to see Needle or Anderson Range peaks from the freeway between Chillowack and Hope. I've seen something. They are in direct line of sight from the freeway facing NE. click here

I edited my post. I looked at a map, if it was straight ahead from the freeway it would be NE. It's definatly not Viennese. I was just up by there last weekend. What I see from the freeway is up the Frasier Canyon Direct From Chillawack looking towrds Hope. It's small. It looks like a dome. I'm not on crack.

I swear to god Drew, that on a clear day you can see a granite dome to the north from the freeway. Like , way way way to the northeast. What is it? Needle?

I have a couple of old friends in Oregon that have worked for the Forest Service for over 25 years. They told me the worst thing that has happened was to cut back on the logging. They told me the fees supplied revenue to protect and plan forest harvesting better. Now the forest service doesn't have the money they used to have. That's why we have the parking fees, thats why we have less money to lobby against anti forest laws. That is what they told me, I'm not informed enough to form an opinion. We whine about parking fees, but we brought them on ourselves. One thing some of us forget, is that the logging companies want to be able to log 50,100,150 years from now. I don't think it is in their best interest to log everything away. However, people that want fast payoffs may have a different attitude and be more greedy about things. I don't know, just ranting.

That book totally blows, IMO. If you are a boulderer, it may be alright.

Actually, not on my footwear. The round ones get stuck when pulling them out. The sheath bunches up when putting them through or pulling them out. I re-laced all my shoes with flat laces last night and it was a total breeze.

It would drive me nuts to live in Chillawack. Having a view of Slesse, Candian Border Peak and the Cheam Range would make it hard to sit still. You can see one of the Domes of Anderson Group if you look really hard North. Seal Cove is a great place. I like the position of the climbs over the water.

Glad they made it too. You can easily get to trail territory from the summit in less than two hours via Lone Tree Pass. Even though there was snow, there are usually tracks.

It may be fortunate that the Squamish Select book is ruined. View this as good luck.