sill

http://www.compagniedumontblanc.fr/pages/excursion_schedules.html

nice dude.

"The Avalanche Handbook" is a very good resource. It's a lot more technical than some of the other books out there, but it is quite comprehensive. Some well respected university snow science and engineering programs use it as one of their text books.

I thought that was Tackle when I looked at the first couple of pictres, pretty funny. Nice stache.

I havn't had that happen before, but if if I'm plunging with them, then I don't have the thing clipped to the spike. Also, I added a bunch of tape to the biner to make it a bit wider, so it isn't possible for it to flip. But in any event, the Nano biners seem to have worked better than anything else out there for me, for a full strength biner.

The tiny Camp biners seem to work pretty well, I can't remember what they are called. I replaced the stock biners on the grivel tethers with the camp and they are a lot easier to use with gloves on. They are small enough where they don't flip in front of the pomel on the new BD tools and are still full strengh biners. The bd proto seems quite promising, I've liked it more than the grivel, for what its worth, but the majority of the time I don't use tethers at all.

Absolutely Not

Yeah, a real biner attached to your harness, just like an ice clipper is pretty reliable. Probably not as user friendly, but you're most likely not going to break it.

Vegas. Pretty reliable weather through December, it can be a bit chilly, but not bad. Many of the good crags are south facing. The only bummer is the concentration camp style BLM campsite.

Recently, companies have been rather quick to yank pro deals from vendors, guide services, university outdoor programs, and even avalanche centers. I don't really have a problem with people trying to circumvent high retail prices, but I would recommend being as discreet as possible about it.

To echo what other people have said. A very good attitude and a strong mountaineering background will put you well ahead of other folks who are trying to get on as ski patrollers. There is a lot of grunt work and shitty people(customers) you have to deal with. Being able to suffer though and evening shift in the rain with people bitching at you is a tuff skill, if you can make it through that and still smile then you've got it made.

I'd recommend taking your hiking shoes up the route with you, you could walk down in your rock shoes, but it would kinda suck. We didn't take a pack and just clipped our shit to our harnesses. Only on the last pitch does anything hanging on your harness get in the way. At that point I just hung my shoes/water/helmet from my belay loop on a sling.

I'll tango with you hot stuff

I totally agree with what Marcus and others have had to say on this. Going to the classes can be very benificial, especially if you are new to a lot of the olympic lifts, but for the self motivated, in a few months you can aquire most of the equipment that you would need. This being said, you can do a large amount of CF type workouts without lifting a single weight or using any equipment other than a hangboard/pull-up bar.

Using a single toothed device as your only attachment point to the rope is considered to be a bad idea by many, though you don't hear too many horror stories. You see a lot of folks doing it, (i've used the mini traxion set up a fair bit myself) but you can severely damage the rope with a suprisingly low amount of force. I like the ushba basic. It slides up the rope smoothly and has no teeth. I was kind of snail-eyed the first couple of times I used it, but it works.