Dane

Damn, can't belive I am posting in Spray with the unwashed masses Working as a ski guide does not make you a climbing guide. I doubt any fully certified UIAA MTN guide made the original comments. So I'll call BS on the "I am a guide". But feel free to prove me wrong. It isn't about ethics or disagreements in style as some image. It is all about respect. You don't have to be outfitted in the best gear or know the latest techniques to be a good or a safe climber. A UIAA full guide knows that. How much damage can an old fart/ or young kid for that matter do in an afternoon pounding bongs? Ever pounded bongs? The answer is not much.... Lots of ways to approach people and make your own or the areas ethics known without unduly insulting another climber. Safety and age? I generally can trust the rational thought process of someone over 20/25/30. I may not like it but I can trust they are making a good decision from their own experience base. Someone under 18 maybe not so much...under 16 I know there are parts of the equation missing for the decision making. That is just life.

Don't know about Joe's stuff. But Bill helped me a bunch of times by letting me use his library for research before trips. I had thought much of it (Bill's) was actually the Spokane Mountaineer's library. If not, hopefully it was donated as such as the basis for a SML. Steve Reynolds would know I bet. At some point in the future I'll donate these as a collection. Doug Robinson and I have chatted about a "ice climbing project" just for that occasion and others like it.

RuMr I'm not advocating drilling, aiding or chopping rocks in a practise area. I am advocating a little respect and mutual understanding. Too easy to be a dick when someone isn't more like you

You think? First no one died. And no one got hurt. Some knicklehead starts threatening an old guy for nailing at a practice area? What is up with that?, Think about it for a minute these guys have been climbing longer than the igit posting has been alive. So far what they have been doing has kept them safe and sound. They are over 21 and still climbing.... We should be celebrating what they are doing instead of ragging their asses. Think about their experience that day and the "guide" who really made an impression. Ever seen Becky out? Take a look at the TR with Jim Langdon in the the Stuart range last week. And then we get to techniques....if you don't know how to do a hip belay or any belay that doesn't require a piece of gear to accomplish it you should be sticking to TRs and practice areas like our "guide".

Oh you explained it just fine....dumb ass.

People giving me shit about my harness again First, when has Exit 32 ever NOT not been a Circus? Might help you to remember that long before your mommy thought about giving you your wasted little life, there were actual guides succeeding with clients on real mountains with even less technical gear than the guys you are ragging on. Too bad you didn't open your mind a bit. You might have actually enjoyed yourself and may even learned something if you had bothered to talk with either of them. At least the old guys are still out doing it and dragging the kids along. As a "guide" your tirade is embrassing. The obvious list of what you don't know is astounding.

So how long has it been since RMI guides wore those nice Demetri Ski sweaters Like 30 years or more ?

10 hrs to go.....

Knew something wasn't right but the flipped image is it I think. I am pretty sure that is Hood. Herm? Sure, didn't know he was in Bishop but makes sense.

Hood and Adams in the back ground. I'd bet it is an RMI picture by the sweater and taken in the Nisqually Ice fall on the SE side of Rainier. More than likely someone here will know who the climber in the photo is, the photographer's name and when the picture was taken

Yep, it is the "It's FUCKING FINE" that should be the hint I have a special hearing aid that does translations.

craig's list... married and went climbing on the anni 'cuz it was "OK"....alzheimers or what? Mark, maybe it is time for a new helmet to avoid any more brain damage

Pope, it's all in good fun. If us old guys can't get along around here who can

Geeze Pope I fall out of bed. 5.6 is way beyond me these days. You guys are hilarious....

Don't take my comments to Pope as a condemnation, it wasn't short of the potty mouth Almost everyone went through a Chouinard axe pretty quickly if you climbed technical ground with them. Broken picks and shafts were common. I did both on my original one and rewelded the tip several times before relagating it to guiding Mt. Rainier. Many guys went through several (Chouinard/Chalet/Grivel) wooden shafted axes in just one season. It got expensive @ $35 to $60 an axe depending on year. Even the later curved gear you didn't break...the Curver was pretty tough. You would quickly file through the first tooth after banging rocks. Replaceable picks were a big advantage. This is one you won't often see, an early Grivel (mid '70s) with a laminated Rexilon handle. Zero like...eh? Now it is obvious you can grind through several teeth and still make a tool usable. But dropped picks make that easier than curved picks. The numerious adventures of old guys with new tools should prove just how much easier and safer ice climbing is these days Hard to really appreciate till you get the chance to try it again. I could tell you stories Here is the direct linage of the state of the art in 40 years ice tool development, 1970 to 2009. If you don't see everything that came inbetween it all seems simple doesn't it?

Off, I used both (all three?) but unlike others (many of them my partners) was never very impressed. MY collection is just stuff I actually used, (not the original tools though) except for one obvious set of tools. So nothing from Grivel, Stubia, Lowe or much of the early Charlet gear. Just my own history. I decided I needed to stop some where Hard to pony up $100 or more for a tool that cost $60 the first time around and you hated it then! The only real value of these tools today is the climbing memories behind them and the lost art of hand forging the heads and the careful fitting of the wooded shafts. Before anyone else gets their panties in a twist helps to realise the Chouinard wooden shafted Piolet was first available in '70 and ceased production by the spring of '78. That includes all the models, ash through bamboo and Rexilon. The reason? UIAA new rules about the strength of the shaft on all ice axes. A few hand forged heads were attached to California made carbon fiber shafts. But by that time the curved pick was already a dead animal for hard climbing. No doubt the wooden shafted axes kept being used though. Although Chacals and Forrest Lifetime tools were available in limited numbers in the US and Canada this is the gear used on the 2nd and first one day ascent of Slipstream winter of 1980/81. All of it out dated by then. For an idea just how fast things were changing..I used a Curver and a Zero hammer a few days before on Polar Circus...my partner used Lifetimes.

FWIW I started climbing in high school...late '60s. Not every tool I have owned is represented and the late '70s early '80s went crazy with more than one new tools introduced every season. So here is what I rememebr which may or may not be totally accurate. Chouinard alpine hammers...top to bottom...'71 '75 and the last hickory version from 'early '80s. Ice tools? Chouinard piolet was available in bamboo by the winter of '70 '71. Ash and Hickory before that for the previous year maybe. We had Terros by '75, Forrest Veglass by '77 Life Time by '79. Chacal in Europe in '79 and here by '80. '80 to '85 was pretty crazy for tools. Chouinard Zeros, Simond Barracuda, others came out as well. Grivel was in there some where but didn't use it myself. Carbon fiber shafts are missing here as well as other designs. BIG gap in tools during the mid '80s through the '90s that are not pictured here. Also missing are all the great Charlet Moser tools, Ice Six, Pulsar, Quasars ect and most of the BD tools. Finally the Quark and Nomic are the last shown. And the obvious as to what is coming next from everyone. I tried to lay them out chronologically top to bottom and only one tool if there were hammer and adze unless one model proceeded the other like the Tero and the Simond. Crampons? Doesn't take much to see the lineage here. Chronologically from left to right top to bottom.

That tells me four things Mr. Potty Mouth Pope...you don't climb very hard, you don't climb very much, you are old and obviously frugal

Pair of lg, black, Arc'teryx Gamma AR pants in the yard sale.

1976...not like there were many options 1981 Stumps and Aubrey N. Butt of Hunter. Stumps used a short Curver axe, a Roosterhead hammer, white Kolfach Ultras, SMC rigids and a Wild Things Andinista. Similar gear on the East face of Moose Tooth with Bridwell. But Bridwell used a pair of Forrest Serac Saber tools. Sort of like over grown Terros. And a key piece of gear for that climb by Bridwell's account. The first written account of ice tools being used to climb rock that I have seen. Serac Saber, SMC rigid with Lauchlan the winter before on Slipstream.

Hey Bill, my pleasure Fun thing to do is pick a climb from the past that you think is important and figure out what gear they used. For example, Haston and Scott on McKinley in '76. Chouinard rigids, Galibier Makalu dbl boot, neopreme over boots and a pair of Chouinard bamboo axes for the leader.

Here is the "first" from my gear. Mid '60s, McInnes metal shafted axe, (the first metal axe btw) Salewa adjustables, Galiber Havernal dbl boots. This is the stuff that the likes of Harlin, Robbins, Haston, Desmaison and others used in the Alps, Alaska, Canada and the Himalaya to make a lasting impression. Chronologically there was a point in the late '70s and early '80 that new ice gear was coming out every season. Some have made a big difference over time, Salewa hinged, Terrodactyls, Curvers, Ice Six, the Chacal, Forrest Life Times for example. Others while good were just a flash in the pan design wise, Chouinard Zeros, while beautiful, fall into that catagory as would Chouinard rigid crampons, Foot fangs and the Hummingbird. But it took all of those designs to get us where we are today. Rigid crampons...Chouinard or Lowe is what it took to get a modern rigid soled boot for example. And I am sure there are those who would take exception to that statement and argue their own points well.

Jake had asked as a joke I suspect but here goes Guess I never realised I was always a "collector". Laid up in bed for a few weeks after a grounder I took to reminiscing. A lap top, a Pay Pal account and here I am some 50 tools richer. It started by saving some of my old tools...from the begining of the ice age....early '70s Chouinard curved gear. Then Twight gave me his tools from the CZD. A truely prized pair. Either had to sell them all or get more and make a "real" collection. Best part is the personal history to every piece. I may not have used one myself but knew the guys who did. More about the history of "technical mixed" in this one picture than in all the Chouinard catalogs. And of course you need the rest of the pieces to the puzzle. Boots and crampons. Right to left, Galiber Hivernal, Supoer Guide, Makalu and the first plastic, a Kolfach Ultra pictured here.

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/845037/TR_Observation_Rock_North_Face#Post845037 It always looks like crap with rocks and gravel showing until it is buried in snow again. This is a picture Feck took August 3rd this year (origianlly posted in the skiing "stoke" thread) at the bottom of that thread. My pictures are from Oct of '08. The nice white snice we were climbing on was very recent snow on top of all that mud and running water which is why the snow stuck to the face. Just takes a tiny bit of new snow and a mildly cold front to hang around for a few days and the n face of OR is back in condition. Alpine climbing...even little dinky alpine climbs are all about the conditions that day. Don't despair yet Save that for when they lock the gate. temps 10am Sunday 9/6....looks like snow at OR Summit 5°F Camp Muir 23°F Paradise 41°F

With some luck it might get a little snow this weekend and smarten right up