cracked

Sorry about your loss, Minx. Sucks.

Lift skiing is to backcountry like bouldering is to alpine. Oh, wait....

Feathered Friends, Marmot, and even REI have them on their display floors. Go buy one.

"the older ones took it in stride" "Hi Mom, yeah, we're having fun. No, just the usual, melting snow, cooking breakfast, getting hit by major avalanches. What? Oh, yeah, this cornice fell down and buried us. No big deal, search and rescue came by and woke us up to let us know what happened. Pretty cool, actually. I'll call again later. Bye!"

Nice! You almost make me want to get back into bolt-clipping shape! But the mountains are waiting....sorry.

You can say the same thing about alpine climbs, or ice climbs, or snow slogs, or.....

Wouldn't half a double fisherman's work just as well?

Don't sewage vaults typically have concrete retaining walls?

Boy Scouts scare me. And their idea of winter camping usually entails building a cave fifty feet from the car, having it collapse during the night, then spending the rest of the night in the car. Hardcore!

Maybe if it were spelled correctly.

"You'll put someone's eye out with that!"

More female s

Climb: Mt Baker-Coleman-Deming Ski Date of Climb: 3/2/2004 Trip Report: Major Chestbeating and Lame Photos Here Gear Notes: Took and didn't use crampoons and axes, roped up for a little while, but it was overkill. Approach Notes: Three miles of road.

Martha is aid.

How about a only forum?

Excellent show.

I'm going to bed.

That's just not cool.

For GregW. Shoot anything that moves.

But wire gates DO have flutter issues...just greatly reduced compared to normal biners. I'm waiting for the invention of the massless gate biners.

.. maybe not. There's also the consideration of the additioanl legnth of the screamer, which is what - 24" / 36" ? May not seem like much, but I've seen a leader fall on his first screw placement (with a plain qd) and be caught by the rope only a few inches above the deck. If he had a screamer he would've hit the ground for sure. Since then I usually use a plain old quickdraw on my first screw to prevent the extention, then it's screamears till I run out of em. You mean the fall on Icy BC that you told me about? Good point. Then again, the guy is lucky he didn't have a stretchier rope, or a looser knot, or.... I'll amend my statement and say that IN GENERAL, screamers are a good idea. Either way, Bob is wrong. Screamer battlecage!

I didn't need to see that!

I dunno Bob. People have done extensive testing, lab testing as well as in true climbing situations (eg falling on a screamer in the gym and measuring the impact force on the pro). Results show they do work as far as reducing the impact on the pro. A screamer cannot shock load the pro more than if there were no screamer at all. Physically impossible. You could argue that the vibration of a ripping screamer could vibrate a gate open and drastically weaken a biner, but that's the only sensible argument against them.