cman

what kind of apprenticeship are you talking about? becoming a climber is not like becoming an electrician. Just save whatever money you can, move to boulder for the summer, get some crappy job, live like a skid and climb as much as possible, that is how you become a climber.

better get out and enjoy winter this year. next winter, rock climb all the time!!

a good link on the failures of traditional avy courses avalanche avoidance

What part of 20% (not 30%) of all avalanche victims die of trauma(that's you head getting caved in, massive bleeding - things a beacon don't help) didn't you read? At best that means you've got a roughly 1:5 chance of dying - no matter what safety equipment you have. That's worse odds than Russian Roulette. You should be saying that 20% of avalanche deaths are caused by trauma. This not the same as saying that 20% of people caught in an avalanche die from trauma, because that is not true. as you can see from these figures (see link previously) of the 123 avy victims only 4.9% died from trauma. These figures also show that if you have equipment, ie a newer digital beacon, and travel with skilled individuals your chances of surviving an accident, yes even perfect people have accidents, increase dramatically. Granted it may not be possible to rescue someone from a large avy in 15 mins, thus lowering survival rates. But without any beacon/safety equipment it would likely be hours for SAR to show up and by then survival rates are near zero. Arguing that safety equip is useless is ridiculus. All the statistics show that the shorter the burial time the higher the survival rate, and the only way to shorten the burial time, outside of luck, is safety equip.

alpinek and i were skiing under chair on thursday and we saw a bunch of snowshoers who were up there and obviously did not have any safety equipment, made me wonder if they had even checked the avy conditions. we also saw a ski and snowboarder who were both solo. seems like with the nice trail and high traffic people do not realize the potential danger.

I have the slightly older version of this same binding which does not have the plastic thing on the toe. otherwise it is the same binding and i like it, i only use it with AT stuff though. check the latest Off-Piste, has a review of these bindings plus the 500 series which may be what you are looking for.

If you tried those super short skis they are on now you would find there is no backseat to be in, either you are on balance or on your ass. he does look a little back but it is just because he is basically doing a power squat for the entire run.

I have done tele turns in my AT gear for my brother's camera when the terrain was really flat. The reason is that a telemark looks more dynamic on film than a parallel turn in those conditions. I just saw that new TGR movie and those guys were doing some really dumb stuff to be on film, but I would hardly call that a reason.

the proper terminology is Brobonics, a highly de-evolved english subset

check out this link. Also the current Backcountry Mag had a blurb about the air canisters being considered classified a dangerous material in canada requiring special treatment for transport, and possibly getting into the country.

what about some skiing? backcountry, steven's pass area? PM

what about some backcountry action nearer to seattle, stevens pass area anyone?

except in Canada. I just read that you cannot buy this up there, something about the air tanks being dangerous. kind of ironic isn't it?

Ticket price: Winter 2003-4 $99 November, December, and April. $119 Jan, Feb, & March 2004 per day with a guide--no unguided skiing until the BLM completes the Environmental Impact Study. it better be sick for that much $$ although for $30 it sounds good, when it that supposed to happen?

i lived in JH for 2 1/2 yrs. the skiing is killer and it is great to be right in the mountains. don't know too much about laramie except that it is great if you like wind and cowboys. also it is pretty far from the mountains. the winters are cold and snowy, i.e. awesome, but you will definitely be moving to the middle on nowhere, that goes for pretty much any place in the whole state.

nice corey

that is a crazy picture of the sr20. i don't imagine it will be too easy to get up to washington pass skiing in the early spring.

that was a great show. the peak he climbed after was incredible, a 4 mile? ridge above7000m. i thought the race was pretty cool. i loved the pictures looking down the "course", super steep. and 7800ft up and down in 5:11, silly or not that is fast

Nice pictures. That looks like the trip from hell. rain and sleet are not the good kind of face shots. way to be gung ho but i will wait for the real snow.

I have a beacon, shovel and probe, and bring it with me almost all the time, except spring. People can rationalize not buying the equipment all they want because of ethics or just being a cheap ass but all it takes is one time to easily see that you or your friends life is well worth a couple hundred bucks. certainly education is the most important part of backcountry skiing but why not have a backup safety system? i always build redundancy into my climbing anchors.

anyone want to go to index tomorrow or sunday? i can lead lots of the usual stuff. might be one of the last weekends to get out there. or if you have some bigger plans. pm me.

Downtown Seattle. the alaskan way viaduct has a bunch of perfect splitter cracks, if you don't mind the concrete and the traffic noise. also manditory downclimb.

before you all call UW's new place the best gym around you may want to take a look. I was in there last week, while the walls are the best I have seen the place is really small. The whole place is smaller than VWs small TR room. if you think the other gyms get packed just you wait.

Barryvox. good range, small, simple instructions right on the back in case you turn into a studdering idiot. advance analog features, only if you want to use them. Also the best carrying system. comfortable and when you pull it out it is already on stretchy keeper leash, you keep the harness on, so no matter what happens it is still attached to you.

i have not been there, but i have driven to jackson hole several times, driving through Idaho, and have made it there in 14-15 hours. and that is quite a bit farther so i would think 10-11 hrs to the city would be about right. driving tip #1 -drive fast and stop rarely