cluck

Oh, and I pronounce kautz "cowts"

I'm not sure if this is where it comes from, but 'Quien Sabe' means 'who knows' in Spanish. My high school Spanish may be a bit rusty, but I believe it would be pronounced KEY-en SAW-bay

Friday: Running Friday night: Running Saturday: Running Sunday: Beer and couch and Zzzzzz's

Glad to hear you made it back down OK, but I gotta point out that we warned ya about newbies on this route. It sounds like you handled the difficulties well, but your partners required a bit of babysitting. Of course, the weather didn't make things any easier. Either way, I appreciate the TR. Better luck next time!

Ogre... glad you got up after you previous attempt that went wrong.

Not to pile on or anything, but think you are wise to listen to folks sending you to Sulphide Route. It is fun, you will like it and are unlikely to have an epic. No offense but sahale, adams, helens via dog routes = newbie. Solid alpine ice on Winnie's Slide does not sound like the place for the "novice" as you describe members of your party.

Damn - that's gotta suck putting your ice axe through your trachea. Just goes to show you that people can get hurt in all sorts of wierd ways. Hope Katlin heals up good!

Politics are funny/sad these days. As far as I'm concerned, whether Rep or Dem, federal politicians are all jack asses. None of them should ever claim to understand and relate to us regular folks because they don't want to and don't really care. All they want to do is feel powerful and get re-elected. Giant ego trip... not about real need to serve the public. Maybe your local town mayor, city counsel member or even state government legislator may still have respectable motives to "serve the public"... but by the time you get to the big leagues in Washington it isn't about doing what is right for the little people or necessary what is right for big business fat cats, it is all about doing what is right for ME the people, not WE the people. Exceptions of course, but by and large, politicians are so suck.

3rd vote. Last time I took the Green Lakes route up SS (mid summer) our group was only people we saw from time we got out of our tent until we hit the Southside route connect by the lake Ian mentions. Almost felt like wilderness until we ran into hoards of blue jean clad day hikers with their army canteens and canine companions. If you have the time and are feeling adventurous, you can also hit the NW ridge of Broken Top from a Green Lakes base camp. Be careful at the top though if you don't know what you are doing. One other thing to consider if you were thinking of Green Lakes as a camp site for Saturday night. There are a limited number of camping spaces available there and they could be full on a weekend night.

Agree with Dr. Crash's logic on 2 man rope team practice. If you are planning to spend time on glaciers on a two person rope, it is wise to be sure both parties have practical experience. While one person may be able to hold a fall, don't think you can always count on the person in the crack being able to get out by themself or good samaritans coming along and bailing you out. If nothing else, being on a rope team of 2 reminds you to pay attention to how you store glacier gear on your pack. For example, if you are laying on the snow holding your partner's fall, you will want easy access to snow anchors (picket most likely) and you should be able to get 'em off your pack easy with one hand while prone, in arrest. Assuming you can get to some pro, still wouldn't want my life depending upon someone pounding in a picket, and getting it tied off while in arrest unless I knew the person on the other end of the rope had at least practiced this before. The easy answer is to avoid rope team of 2 on glaciers. Sure, you can probably get away with it on busy routes like DC, but it may not be the safest path to longevity in glaicer climbing. Just my 2 cents worth.

Hey Wadester - check out The Benchmark (on Vista near downtown Boise). If I recall correctly, they have some pretty serious mounteering gear down in their basement and might have options that REI doesn't.

What I read said 4 miles to junction with PCT.... Trail is darn near flat for most of the way and a highway. I made it in little over an hour on a day hike crusing pretty quick. Approach is a breeze, even with a full back pack, can't imagine it being more than 2 hours.

Can I substitute PBR for the Beast, or would that make me too much of a hipster? What R U - Crazy !??!? That would surely kill you!

Actually, the best knot for this specific purpose is this one: Note: it is crucial to tie the Beast can in with a single overhand slip-knot

Chriznitch is probably right on. Should be a dry trail to the glacier, and miserable scree wallowing above the glacier to the top.

Different stokes for different folks I guess. The Coleman was full of giant cracks and a couple of the snow bridges weren't exactly giant and concrete... yet we saw probably a dozen folks cruising through the route without a rope. Several using only trekking poles with no ax. Having done CD Sunday, I guess my assement was that chances of falling in a crack you didn't see were fairly small, but I was happy to have a rope and 2 others tied on anyway. We did run into a party coming down the lower section of Coleman who had a party member punch through twice not that far above the base of the glacier. Saw one of her holes... it wasn't completely obvious and anyone could have done the same thing. Good news about Easton is that it is really busy. So it isn't like a rope team of 2 would languish beyond the reach of additional help..... but of course I would never advocate counting on others to help you out of any difficulties you may encounter. If you and your partner can hold a fall,get in a picket and tie off the rope while still in self arrest, go for it. If not, think about it. But, what the f*ck do I know.

If you do Sulphide on Shuksan, finish up via the Southeast Ridge rather than the Central gully on the pinnacle. This way you get far better scrambling over good rock and don't have to worry about other parties clogging up the gully. You can downclimb the route (4th with may be a couple 5th short moves) or downclimb the gully.

I'm like totally there dood. Nuthin like a couple of to soothe those sore muscles!

I guess maybe I could contribute rather than just giving you a hard time. I've never been on the Easton, but I climbed the Coleman-Demming over the weekend and thought it was a great route. There were icefalls, seracs, giant crevasses, and other kinds of interesting terrain that while not presenting much objective danger were certainly cool to look at. From what I hear of the Easton glacier, it sounds like C-D is just as easy, but with lots more cool stuff to see. It took us about 4 hours to get to camp and another 5 to get to the summit.

Ouch - beaten by the approach to camp. That's pretty harsh, dude. The weather on the mountain was sweeeeet today too. Better luck next time, I guess.

So how is that any different than last year? Actually, I think Broken Top is a fun scramble. You can take non-climbers on the N. Ridge, but be prepared to turn around just below the top if some get weirded out. The technical part is just a couple of 4th class moves, but it feels kind of airy and newbies might not be comfortable. But, its just below the top so the timid can stay behind and wait (or turn back and start down) while the more adventurous continue the quick scramble to the top.

Check out Ericsbasecamp for a TR on a scramble up Sluiskin and Old Desolate. Don't know if your friends are up for but this, but Eric's TR makes it sound like an interesting objective. If they are looking for less demanding stuff... mostly hiking rather than loose 3rd class and are heading in or out to Mystic via Sunrise you can hit Skyscraper (easy, short) Burroughs Mtn (good views up close to the mountain) or Mt. Freemont Lookout. All are hikes you could take anyone on without worries. http://www.ericsbasecamp.net/trips/NMRNP/NMRNP.htm

sobo... my reason for being up there Sunday was similar to your description. Had a free day (no family obligations) and all my climbing partners were otherwise occupied. Since I was hyper not to waste a perfectly good Summer day and had never been up to Goat Rocks....thought I would go check it out. I only did Old Snowy and Ives. Figured I would save CG for a time with a climbing partner so we could also scramble up some of the sub summits over by CG. Have heard Becky calls 'em 4th class but others think they may go at 5.4-5.6 and I didn't want to free solo choss at that grade. Traverse over to Ives was the most interesting part of the trip. Chose an interesting path on one Gendy traverse. Dropped down into a deep ass moat at a crumbly headwall that required some crap climbing and chimney moves to get to the other side (actually kind of fun as the west side of the ridge in that place was tedious talus tettering). I started at trail head for Snowgrass flats and round trip time was 6:40 minutes (I trotted about 2 miles on the way out) so linking them up solo in a day is easily doable. Heck, I spent more time in the car getting to Goats from PDX and back than I did out hiking/scrambling. Good news is that I didn't get eaten alive by skitters but of course your luck with the blood suckers may vary. RIP Cluck. We will miss the little fowl-mouthed, hard ass climbing, species-confused bastard. Have fun.

Get a little tired of folks in the back country not wanting anything or anyone to intrude on "their" view of what the wilderness is supposed to be and then enforcing their view by doing something like destroying a summit register. Trashing a summit register, in my opinion, is stupid and childish. I'm with Beck on this one....if you don't like em, don't open em. Knowing that there is a register on the summit shouldn't spoil your whole climb / experience for heavens sake.