Dane

"Anyone have any opinions on the Outdoor Research Chaos jacket?" One of the better lwts but sadly in ECO instead of Primaloft 1. At 1/2 might be a deal but the Eddie Bauer Igniter jacket that is similar can be had as low as $50 on sale in store ($100 on the web) and all Primaloft 1 in 100g fill. Been hearing some good feedback from guys that bought them this winter.

Messner's story

You have to host the photo somewhere first...CC.com has a gallery to do that in. I use an off site hoster. Left click and copy the properties line of the hosted photo then paste in the link with xyz.jpeg on either side. Add a back slash in the last one like this /img and the photo should show up in the preview. I have almost no clue on this stuff so someone else might have a faster/easier answer for you.

You might want to ask Bug to get the word out. SMR had three full teams that staged from the thumb tack early yesterday morning. From what I heard it sounded like they were digging around there looking for gear/snow shoes at one point.

Bret and Dave, Glad you guys made it home OK. Stuff like this happens to everyone sooner or later. Easy to get confused on the top of Chair in failing light and the fog. Which is why Wayne and I first started down the same gully as you and had to retrace our steps to go one gully to the east. I felt some responsibility for your well being because of it. Well done in any event and way to get yourself up the hill and out of what could have been a bad bind as well. Good on ya. For your veiwing pleasure Not a lot of pictures with you in here but a few. I have the full size jpgs if you'd like any of them. At least some of them might help you remember the fun time you had

Figures on the Narrona deals I'm always a few minutes late or $ short! Re: the Review? I have 3 big trips (big for me) coming up back to back and stretching well into March so I have just ran out of time and energy for the review trying to get all the photos posted, edited etc. while still getting any work or climbing done locally. What is published for details that might help someone else out on their own decision is posted on my blog. I have to think that most will be better served with a lighter jacket for belay use though. http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/ If anyone has specifc questions on the jackets pictured above feel free to send me a PM and I'll answer as best as I can.

Nice

Ah, missed that originally. Yes smaller grip dia. allows you to expend less effort to hold on. Think of doing pull-ups on a 12" dia. pipe or a 3/4" dia. pipe. So that part was intenetional by Petzl. Same reason a Cobra's shaft is smaller than a Viper and Viper's is smaller than a Reactor. I use a Viper's grip differently than I use a Nomic's grip fwiw. Med hand, thin gloves? You should be climbing with the Nomic on the smallest grip setting.

Nice work!!!...wooooaaa on the fall That had to be exciting! 3rd pitch? Straight above the climber's right shoulder and finishes on the weird rounded knob of ice shown in your upper picture as the top horizon. Bit of an effort and contrived to have a belay there and finish up the last 100' of ice right of the tree in the gully with tat on it. This is that last pitch taken from the tree rap point with a lot less ice. But literally straight above your climber's right shoulder. Good photos of it in Wayne's video as well. And Wayne following Josh's lead last week.

Not an uncommon problem on first use. On a totally leashelss tool you will find you need much less glove than normal even in the coldest conditions. Nothing will blow your forarms faster than not having a good fit in the lower grip, btdt...and found it kinda scary and totally disheartening to be honest. I wear a solid XL in gloves and use the mid point (there are three) for the bottom pommel on the Nomic. But if I use my thickest cold weather gloves I can't get a full hand into the grip. So I use three fingers in and a finger over the ledge. Not the best use of the tool. One of the worst positions you can put your hand in for strength. My cold weather mittens are similar but actually have a little less bulk and more room so I can get a full grip inside the pommel.. But almost any of the newer lwt gloves work great, fit easily fully into the grip, set at the mid position. When I am doing hard bolted mixed (hafner ck for example) I'll tighten the grip and wear an even thinner glove. Just so I don't have to grip as hard to stay on the tool. Tighter the adjustable grip on the tool is, the lighter the glove, the easier the Nomic is to climb difficult terrain with. If you are coming from any tool besides another fully supported leashless rig takes a bit of use to learn to *hang* (almost like a hand jam on rock) from the tool instead of *grip* (more like a face hold rock climbing) the tool. Two totally different techniques in use. You won't be able to take full advantage of a Nomic until you develope that subtle bit of technique. It is also the Nomic's big advantage over almost any other tool available.

I'm easy to find. So is most any alias here. When did it become a unique concept to actually stand behind what you write or say. Kinda like climbing isn't it? Either sac up and do it, or tuck your tail and bail.

Hey Pete mind giving me a link to that specific quote from KOMO? Thanks!

Nicely done Seattle Mountain Rescue! And to the Bug as well for catching the details and getting out the word asap. You guys put a lot of effort and people into the field today. All of us should keep that in mind and look for ways to help out when we can.

For anyone that saw the KOMO web report earlier in the day or the 5PM KOMO news cast I'd be interested in your take. People bitch all the time here about how the media treats climbing stories. In this case having been there when it all started I hoped for the best but it wasn't looking very good till the guys got a phone call out late this morning. Because I have an intimate connection with KOMO and was feeding them detailed info as it was happening KOMO was able to post good info and followed up with a good story IMO at 5PM. Garbage in and garbage out is the usual situation. In this case thankfully, it all had a happy ending. But what the media told the public was EXACTLY what they were being told. Good for KOMO! We as climbers should rememember that. Great for Dave, Bret and their families!

Met Dave and Bret walking down the trail. Looked a little tired but no worse for the wear Long ass walk out after rapping down the s. side of Chair. But they took care of themselves and walked out under their own power. Good on 'um Stuff like that can happen to anyone, anytime.

one p.m climbers rapped wrong gully and ended up walking to I-90

Knock on wood. Bret and Dave are missing on Chair. Last time I saw them they were two pitches up and looking good. SMR has been at it since the early hours today.

Tour over into Snow lakes looked like perfect snow for skiing to me. Bet they got a new inch or two last night.

The new baby obviously pushed Freih way over the edge

10 climbers on Chair today..regular 3 ring circus. Braydon, you might have more luck if you just show up at the base of the climb around 9am roped up, gear on your harness and an attitude, dude

No need for rock gear right now....this thing would take a screw anywhere. In the last 15 years I've never seen so much ice on this route. For the aspiring alpinists out there you'll never find any better AI2 or any better conditions than right now. And by noon today there is a heck of a boot pack in as well. You know you want to. Go get some! Wayne and Dane on the foggy, windy and cold NF It was 50 degrees in the shade when i left home on Tiger mountain at 9:30 this morning and well below freezing when I started up the face a couple of hrs later.

Some of the points missed I think. Twight suggests synthetic because you use a belay jacket to dry stuff out while you climb. You, your "action suit" and gloves as required get dried in a belay parka. Sometimes two or three pair of gloves on just one climb. No can do with down. People bitched about lack of pockets inside the XV...no need for pockets in a down jacket other than to keep a water bottle from freezing. Alpine climbers don't generally carry water bottles in their parkas. Simply because parka goes on and off a gazillion times during the day and shit falls out of pockets. XV is a great alpine climbing parka in a cold environment. It is good for places you don't end up with a water bottle in your parka and you don't go through 3 pairs of wet gloves in a day. In a belay jacket you want pockets to dry gloves next to your body ....but only if you have a synthetic jacket to dry them in. Down won't dry anything very effectively past under wear and sox and then only over night in your sleeping bag. When you realise how many functions a piece of gear is really required to do, that you have to manage its weight and size on your back, you start to realise what is required for materials, insulations and coatings. It is a system and each environment requires its own system which brings us back to DWR, Gortex, Event and other answers. The better you understand the design process behind each piece of gear the better you can decide what is required for your own use. I buy a 4x4 for off road and a Porsche for illegal public driving or the track and the BMW for the wife's car. There is some cross over on use sure. But a different tool for each specific job. Climbing gear and clothing are extremely complicated designs these days. The more you know about the design and the more critical you can look at your own use the better choices you can make. So back to the DWR verses Event comment for the XV shell. For my use with a down jacket of this weight/warmth I want the most breatable shell possible. I would have excused EB for not using a DWR, Event, Goretex shell fabric and have others in years pass to gain maximum breathability in a jacket of this type. Which I suspect is why EB choose DWR over Event or somthing else. It certainly wasn't price point imo. The big gain is a quality jacket with the warmth/compressability/breathability and lwt weight of down. It works well, as it is, for MY use. It may not work for you.

yes No. Two day trips in the Cascades can have some of the most varible weather on earth. Hard to pack for rain on the trail head and sub zero temps up high. Which is why the stuff in the Cascades seldom gets done in winter. It is like over-grown, exaggerated, Scotland winter climbing with longer approaches and more elevation gain. Most multi week expeditions are simple affairs in comparison. You know what the weather will be like as you gain elevation. Cold and nasty up high generally. You don't generally pack rain gear for the Alaska Range for example unless you are walking/skiing into the range. During the climbing season the Kahiltna air strip at 7K can have some nasty weather anytime, Plaze da Mulas @ 14K not so much. Nepal you might do a good bit of the walk in shorts and a T shirt depending on season. Base camp might be 14 or 17K. You live in cold weather clothing from there on. Rainier I will probably wear t shirt and shorts to Muir in the summer. There I change clothes and wear clothing I can layer up and down a tiny bit but suitable for the weather on the summit. Clothing insulation and water resistance is totally different than what I require in a sleeping bag 98% of the time. I might go really light for clothing knowing I will have a warm bag stuck away to "hide" in. But I might just as well take a really light bag for the temps and just enough clothes to climb fast in knowing full well I'll really suffer at night and at the belays if the climbing is harder than expected. The choices for clothes and bag are defined by the technical difficulties, the expected weather, my fitness (or generally lack of) and what experiences tell you *might* be possible. Bad experiences climbing, teaches you better judgement hopefully. No, you just need to get out more to gain your own experience of what will work for you. Shoveling snow in a XV isn't something I'd generally even think about doing do. Based on my experience even in some really cold temps, I'd put on a tech T shirt and maybe if required, a breathable wind layer, then blast away. Twight's "Extreme Alpinism" covers this conversation pretty well. It is worth the read. http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/

Bag gets Event or something better. Clothing DNR. Different animals entirely. All depends on your use requirements. I don't wear down where it will get wet easily. Down bags always get wet in my environment without a water proof/resistant shell and more importantly a VBL. Down gear's efficiency for my use is most easily negated by condensation from your person (body and mouth), not by water in the outside environment. We used down bags for years in Alaska and S. America with lwt nylon outers and a extremely light weight synthetic over bag with a breathable shell material. A VBL inside would keep them dry for weeks of use with proper management. Down jackets in the same simple lwt outer nylon material stayed dry as well if you magaged your own body temps and jacket storage well.

Rok, I'll have a bunch of Rab gear in the next few reviews, impressive stuff. Montbell is another I'll be focusing on. Rab Microlight Alpine Rab Summit Batura