cluck

Great example of a place where many folks fix a hand line is "the crawl" on 3 Fingered Jack in central Oregon. One short traverse with some exposure that is too time consuming to belay if you have several folks climbing, but may be too exposed to free for many since consequences of a fall are dire. 1st climber is belayed across from an anchor built at one end (sling around a rock horn). Leader builds an anchor (another sling and horn) at far end and ties off the rope onto a biner cliped into the sling. Belayer then ties off other end. Bingo. Hand line attached to two rock solid anchors. Rest of the party follows, often with a prussik knot on rope (clipped into a biner on the harness) so any fall would be stopped quickly. On this route, there is a short section of roped climbing later on, so typically everyone has harnesses anyway. Process is reversed on the way out. Works in the vert. world too for short rock scrambles that are pretty easy to climb (some 4th and low 5th), but exposure is of concern to climbers. Way slower than free climbing but safer. Faster than individual belays for a group larger than 2.

There's good top-roping and sport leads at Post Falls (forget the name of the park, but it's right by the dam/reservoir). Not too far from Spo-Compton. The book Inland Northwest Rockclimbs has good route beta.

Don't ever factor in weather when making plans. The forecast will always be wrong anyways. .... In fact, don't even bother checking the forecast before going out. If some weather moves in while you're high on the mountain, just whip out your celly and call SAR, right?

Camped on Meany Crest Sat. night and climbed Little T Sunday 6/22 by the same route as Chilly. Good advise from Chilly on rock fall. Even knowing this hill is a loose choss pile, good idea on warm sunny days (our weather was quite different that the epic weather Rainier climbers had 24 hours earlier) to get an alpine start or climb earlier in the season when more of the choss is nailed down. We saw a couple of missles and evidence of many more. Fryingpan and Whitman on standard route in good shape. The summit scrable itself was super easy. Nice exposure looking North down into the Emmons. Props to those that do this car to car in a day. Was pretty tuckered out only doing 1/2 up and 7000'+ down in a day. Without the rock rockets, a really nice climb with great views of the East side of Rainier.

Wandering around the Tatoosh on Sat and then sloggin to Muir on Sunday.

A guy I climbed with once used a foam block slightly larger than his crampons and pushed his crampon points into the block facing each other. He ended up with all his crampon points buried into the foam block and the whole thing was only slightly larger than the crampons themselves. Me, I'm a gear junkie so I bought an OR crampon bag. Works great inside a pack and had several attachment loops for strapping to the outside...

Newbies need to practice knots and working with a rope team in a safe environment before they head out to do some "real" climbing. That way they have their shit together when it counts. It's better for them to trip over their crampons and fall on a ski slope then on the Cleaver.

School and work both suck but at least they pay me at work. I had more time for climbing when I was in school, but I have much nicer gear now.

Appreciate info from you guys. Regarding rock fall.... yep, rock rockets aren't much fun. Cascade volcanos can be a high stakes game of dodge ball. Anybody read about the amputee training for Everest with Jim Wickwire who took a rock to the head last Fall on the DC? He didn't have a helmet on but speculation is it wouldn't have saved him anyway.

Any beta on Little T climb? Can read stuff in books but am interested in info from folks who have done the climb. Thinking of White River with camp at Sumerland or above on Fryingpan. Late June. Two days. Anything we should know?

This reminds me of a similar incident that happened a few years back. Some guy got his leg pinned under a rock and had to hack it off at the knee with his pocket knife. Then he hopped a couple miles back to his truck and drove to a hospital. And, the truck was a stick shift. Now that's hardcore.

I've had good experiences with Northern Mountain Supply

I climbed the South Spur early season last year and we had to park at Morrison Creek CG (3 miles from Cold Springs) and start from there. It adds some xtra distance, but not that big of a deal if you do it over 2 days.

A naked hippy doing Thai Chi by a lake in 3 Sisters Wilderness. I guess that's a different kind of booty....

I whine about permits YEAR ROUND I'll have you know...

How about leading long overhangs on a bungee? (the kind used when you jump off bridges, not the kind used to strap shit to the roof of your Pinto) Climb 20 feet past your last placement then bail. You could combine 2 extreme sports into one fun filled afternoon.......

For the longest time I refused to buy a NW Forest Pass. If there was a pay station at the trailhead, then I'd put in my $10. If not, I wouldn't sweat it. I've poached plenty of trailhead parking lots and campsites w/o any problems with the law. I don't have any problem with the free self-issue permits. I'm more than happy to help the forest service collect usage data. But I'm less willing to fork over my hard earned $$$ to use nature for a couple of hours. Basically if it's convenient, I'll begrudgingly pay the fees. If it's a pain in the ass to comply, then fuck 'em.

I spent Friday night/Saturday at Smith. The weather was questionable but held out with only a few sprinkles. I was suprised at how crowded it was despite the poor weather forecast. Most moderate routes at the Dihedrals and Morning Glory were taken, but we didn't have to wait too long to get on.

You should never use your powers for evil.....only good

I dropped by City of Rocks on my way home from the Teton's last summer. Only got in one afternoon of climbing but it was AWESOME. There are some nice routes on the breadloaf (or something like that) that can be toproped from chains with a 60 meter rope.

GRAVITY IS AID

uhhh - Mountain HardWEAR

If it weren't for gadgets, I'd have nothing to spend my money on ...and toss out those worthless compasses too. Who needs 'em! Stupid technology.

You have a Gore-Tex Columbia jacket??? I thought WL Gore wouldn't lease their product to Columbia because Columbia didn't make the cut. Acquiring Mountain Hardwear is just an easy way for Columbia to capture the serious outdoor enthusiast market niche without putting the time or effort in to build a serious outdoor product line. I know all the companies do it, but I don't have to like it.

Yuck. Columbia blows. Mountain Hardwear has an entirely different target market. Columbia should continue to focus on the cheap-O resort skier who doesn't care if their jacket weighs 10 pounds and leaks like a sieve.