chris

There's also a great program paying Sherpa staffs for bringing down loads of trash from the high camps. I'm told that the famous pictures - like what Dru showed above - don't reflect the current view. Edit: I just broke my own ban. Goddamnit.

Doesn't Redpoint still have a shop in Bend too?

Wow, I find the Millet, Lafuma, and North Face packs to not fit my back very well. I've had a lot of luck lately with Black Diamond, and I'm looking at Deuter and Marmot for next season.

Timy, Things are pretty busy that time of year, you should be able to pick up a partner in the Portal parking lot or at Iceberg Lake. You can also check out RockClimbing.com - a lot more California climbers are there. Chris

Choada, There's a for real library at WWU's Outdoor Center - If you offer to leave behind a driver's license they'll let even non-students borrow a guidebook to take up to the photocopier on the 6th floor.

This REAL climber thinks the "route" is an ethical atrocity. "Enjoy" it while it lasts....its days are numbered. And you say you're from Exit 39!

Latest news is that they're working to open the Nisqually Road by 15 May, and the White River Road by 25 May. http://www.nps.gov/mora/parknews/upload/RebuildingRainier022607.pdf

I climbed it a few years ago. This year my goal is to climb it again, then to repeat the original West Face solo ascent - I'm convinced that the WF solo only shares a few pitches with IB, and I want to see for myself.

True, but I have always been surprised by this. Set up a test anchor biner that is somehow fixed in place such as maybe loaded with something else hanging from it. Then tie a clove hitch to it and wiggle and whip the ends around. It is distressingly easy to deform the "knot" and open it up so that it looks not at all like any kind of knot but merely some loose loopes around a carabiner. I have actually had this happen spontaneously while I was messing around with haul bags and stuff at a belay. I haven't tested it, but I bet the "knot" will slip a ways before it catches again (I hope testing would reveal that it will always catch again, but I have seen this result in loops running through the "top" of the carabiner in such a fashion that I could imagine it might be possible for a pull from the wrong direction to cause one to spontanesouly unclip). Anyway, it is distressing. I'm guessing this is why it is called a "hitch" and not a "knot." I never rely on a single clove hitch for an anchor even if it may be AMGA approved. I have discussed this with several guides and they have uniformly rejected my concern. Matt, I'd argue that an appropriately tightened clove will not "shake-out" as you've described in normal circumstances. At least, it never has for me. Any knot, and any technique, needs to be applied appropriately.

As my girlfriend just pointed out, people's hand size plays a huge role in deciding what qualifies as OW. For her, #1 is hands, #2 is fist, and #3 starts OW...I'm like you, #2-hands, #3-fist, and +3 starts OW. Your climbs are added to The List. Blake, enough alpine out of you. No one is going to hike hours to climb a multipitch route just to climb the OW pitch at the top!

I hear you. I don't climb with a daisy anymore. Another cool feature of a clove is that it can be tied one-handed on the biner.

Check again, especially at the bottom. With a 9mm rope, correctly tied knot failure was at 2600 lbs, meaning an incorrectly tied knot could cause a carabiner failure as low as 1560 lbs. Not inconceivable to have this occur before your gear fails. The point of the article was to be aware, and be careful. And for what its worth, the clove is considered a suitable tie in knot without a "backup" by the ACMG and AMGA.

Dudes, I don't make the news, I just report it...

Trip: Snoqualmie Pass - Patrol Race Date: 4/2/2007 Trip Report: Inspired by reading Lowell's account of the Patrol Race (http://www.alpenglow.org/skiing/patrol-race-2004/index.html), and a few encouraging e-mails from Lowell himself, I decided to ski the route, and invited my friend Greg to come along. We headed up last Sunday, from the first lot for Snoqualmie West. The weather was light rain showers and low clouds, and since I forgot to change out the dead batteries in my camera before leaving the car, there aren't any pictures. After shuttling a car to the end of the tour, we started skinning at 8:30am. Greg's familiarity with the cross-country trails solved any route finding problems to Windy Pass, which we gained at 10:05am. This was also the snowline, and the rain showers turned to light snow for the rest of the morning. Our traverse across Tinkham basin was plagued by no visibility and climbing too high too fast - my fault - and we actually crossed the NE Ridge of Tinkham peak about 150' higher than we needed to. The low clouds kept us from having any view of the East Face of Tinkham Peak. This basin is full of old growth snow and would make an awesome tree-ski descent. Along the way we spotted two of the original Mountaineer Patrol Race markers, sturdy metal flags hammered into tree trunks about 3 meters over our heads. We descended down to Mirror Lake linking big Christie turns through the three inches+ of mash-potato snow. Mirror Lake is the edge of "civilization" and we followed snowmobile tracks out to logged hillsides and road beds to Twilight Lake and Yakima Pass, reaching lunch at 12:45pm. The weather continued to improve, and a quick climb up to the Gravel Pit lead to almost 3 miles of down-hill skating on a logging road to Stirrup Creek. This was great, except that now we had 3 more miles of uphill road shuffling to gain Baldy Pass. Along the way we heard the buzz of snowmachines, and finally we were passed by a team of 5 and another couple on Stirrup Creek Road. The end was in sight (literally) at 3:40pm on Baldy Pass, and 30 minutes later we were at Lizard Lake. A brief final climb to the Stampede Pass weather station, past a family of three sledders, led to our last transition, and skins were packed away for good. A short descent to a road, plus a little bit of uphill skating, and soon we found the top of the Meany Hut rope tow. By now the snow was deep, deep, slush, so we carefully turned our way down to Meany Hut, reached at 5:30pm. Three more miles of skate skiing across the flats led to the car we had parked at Crystal Camp Ground. The Patrol Race: 21 miles / 33 kilometers (18 miles on route, plus 3 miles to return to the car). Approximately 5200' gained and lost. 9 hours on route, 9:45 car-to-car. We lost about an hour to an hour-half total in three or four route-finding mistakes. Conclusion: Despite the sled-heads, the logging, and the roads, this was awesome! It was just really, really fun to be constantly on the move, with lots of short transitions between skiing and skinning. I definitely want to do this again, and maybe try to organize some-sort of online registration to recreate the original Race. Just a brainstorm, there. Gear Notes: This route is a perfect candidate for metal edged, waxless BC cross-country skis. Otherwise, do it with the lightest gear you can. You do cross several avalanche paths underneath Tinkham, so transceiver, probe, and shovel are recommended. Approach Notes: A second car is needed to park at Crystal Camp Ground. If you want to do this as an overnight tour, there is great camping at Windy Pass and Mirror Lake, but do not leave a car parked in the Snoqualmie West lot.

OK, Thanks for everyone's contributions! The final list, in order of submission, with no effort made to clarify or quantify, is: Hypertension Pressure Chamber pitch on Hyperspace, Snow Creek Wall, Leavenworth Un-named, 5.9, 150’, Left of MX, Tieton Blue Autumn, 5.10b, Vantage Boogie 'til You Puke and others, Cirque of the Uncrackables, Squamish Split Beaver OW variation pitch on Angel’s Crest, Squamish Pipeline 2nd pitch on Aries, Index 2nd pitch on Wrong Gull, Beacon Big Bad Wolf, Leavenworth Carnival, Leavenworth Damnation, Castle Rock, Leavenworth 2nd Pitch, Backbone Ridge Northwest Corner on North Early Winter Spire Off Tempo, Lower Gorge, Smith Rock Rebel Yell 2nd pitch on Southwest Buttress, 5.8, South Early Winter Spire East Face of Lexington Road Head, 5.8+, Okanogan Hinterlands 4th pitch on Narrow Arrow Direct, Index South Ramp, Midnight Rock West Face, Gunsight Peak Dr. Doom, 5.9, Smith Rock Battered Sandwich, Index Vector, Squamish Have fun!!

How big are the trees? Do they require a chainsaw, or could a good hand saw/axe take care of things?

My left rear tire on a 2000 Forester needs to be replaced, but the shop I went to for a new alignment says I need to buy a complete set of 4. Is this true? The front tires are newer - a shop in Bishop didn't have any problems only selling me a pair. Can I save some cash by buying only a rear set, or will it cause more problems later?

Colby Coombs at Alaska Mountain School in Talkeetna would know. I imagine it has. I watched a pair of Italians ski the lower two-thirds or half in April 2002. That season it was pretty bulletproof neve/ice at the top (we rapped off of diner-plate-size bollards during the descent).

Everyone's arguments against 2-person teams are honest. Good posts. For me, I've traveled for extended periods of time, as part of a 2 man team on 5 trips to Alaska and several more in Antarctica. I'll do it again soon. I believe it can be managed to an acceptable level of risk. I second an earlier post to read the relevant sections of Houston & Cosley's book, and then decide for yourselves.

I've done it twice in the St. Elias. All this talk about crevasse rescue and hard it is made me think about the AMGA exam test. With the following equipment: 1. A partner with a harness, two locking carabiners 2. A rope to connect you 3. Cordellette, slings, and prussik cords (not to exceed a total of six, and no more than two cordellettes) 4. One ice axe 5. A picket or a second ice axe 6. Three locking carabiners 7. Five non-locking carabiners 8. A backpack See if you can do this in under 45 minutes: 1. Arrest a fall (have your partner sit on the edge of a crevasse and slide in, without excessive slack or tension in the rope). 2. Build an anchor 3. Rappel to your partner, and put them in an improvised chest harness 4. Ascend back out 5. Build a haul system greater than 4:1 6. Scenario is finished when your partner is on the surface **If you try this out, have a back-up anchor pre-built, with a seperate line, for the "victim" to be tied to. Some rules: 1. The rescuer must be anchored in some way when closer than 2 meters to the lip of the crevasse 2. The haul system either must be self-tending or tended at all times 3. The tail end of the rope must be tied either to the rescuer or the anchor at all times. That's the AMGA crevasse rescue test conducted on every Alpine Guide Exam.

The physiology has been studied to a degree. You loose acclimatization at the same rate you gain it (that varies from case to case). The best advantage to climbing at altitude before a trip is to become aware of the rate your bodies adjusts, and to experience the physical demands. Its a lot like running your first marathon - the first time is always a little unsettling.

Leaving gear up on a route, for whatever reason, seems to mean that someone intends to come back tomorrow and 1) work on this or 2) clean it up. I know that there are good reasons for why gear gets left behind - medical emergency, poor time management (it gets dark), or a quick trip to the toilet turns epic. So I expect to see someone come back tomorrow to do something with those draws I see hanging up there... Only no one does. And not the next day either. And so I ask around for the story, but no one has one. That's when these draws stop being "project" and start becoming "abandoned". That's actually the rule down in the Sierra, in the Valley, King's Canyon, and the surrounding wilderness area: gear (climbing and wilderness camping) is considered abandoned after 24 hours. If you leave a note attached, most climbers will respect it, but the rangers probably won't (there have been exceptions). Projects are just that - present tense - and I would never consider leaving draws up on a climb from one weekend to the next. I would consider it even less if I needed to drive 100+ miles home. I'm sorry your draws were taken, Manimal. But I'm not surprised at all. You ran a risk leaving your draws for up unattended for five days while you were miles away.

My 2000 Subaru Forester needs a front-end alignment. Can anyone recommend a suitable shop in Bellingham?

My 2000 Subaru Forester needs a front-end alignment. Can anyone recommend a suitable shop in Bellingham?