browntoe98

I guess I should add that I also love sheep.

I love wool. Ibex, Smartwool... I just talked with this guy at Patagonia - they're offering a wool line this coming winter. That Merino is the bomb. Relatively heavy, though, when stacked up against Capilene.

No offense to Gary for quoting the Annals of Internal Medicine, but when it comes to bugs, I'll go with entomologist's studies. http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~insects/proprom.htm

Friday drove up into the Giff Pinch with my 3 y/o and my 7 y/o to climb around on Pinto Rock. Got the vanagon stuck in the snow and had to be pulled out by a couple from Wisconsin. Camped off the road. Saturday, got up and cleared camp. Drove to Smith Rock where there is NO SNOW. (I'll try to cross post a route report letting you all know that there is NO SNOW at Smith Rock). Climbed the rock with the boys. Sunday climbed some more, my 7 y/o left blood on the rock. What a stud, but there is now a piece of dancer that is now his BITCH. Sunday night drove back to Portland put the boys and the dog to bed - exhausted. Need a beer.

Well, by golly after I read this I drove straight over to that mother son's house and kicked his ass hard. You are all so incredibly right that I just don't know what I could say to that boy to make him understand how wrong he was to leave those skis up there. If he doesn't learn to have some gratitude for the time that he gets to spend outdoors, the least he could do is learn to have a little bit of respect for the time that other folk spend outdoors. Anyway after I talked with him about it he said they were K2s and he had left them at Timberline in the parking lot. Oh well... he probably needed an ass kicking anyway. I told him that he shouldn't be leaving anything in a beautiful and pristine environment like Mt. Hood's Timberline lodge parking lot, but frankly, boys, the whole joy of lecturing him had sort of worn off by then. Sorry for the miscommunication.

No, but I didn't really get close enough to the vertical stuff to see anything that you might like.

Climb: Sisters-Pole Creek Trail Date of Climb: 2/4/2004 Trip Report: We drove over from Portland and got to Sisters in the afternoon. The weather looked great with clear skies coming and no chance of precip until Friday we figured we had three days of good weather. We took FR 15 south from Hwy 242 as far as we could (3 miles) which left us with snowshoes 8 miles from the Pole Creek trail head. We slept in the Vanagon and, after packing, left the next morning around 0930. For the first six miles or so we had six inches of powder over very old snowmobile tracks. After that we were passed by seven snowmobiles and followed those tracks for the last two miles to the trailhead. Completely exhausted, we pitched tents and crawled in. Our plan was to leave the tents and sleeping bags and follow the Pole Creek drainage up above the timber line then choose an approach for the North Sister. We would have light packs and would make a speed run up and down then back to the tents before dark. We left camp at 0800, but as soon as we stepped off the Forest Road, I was dropping in about 8 Gear Notes: shoulda had a snowmobile maybe skis would have worked, I don't ski enough to know. Approach Notes: FR 15 is plowed for two of the eleven miles to Pole Creek Trail Head. Pole Creek Trail (96) is unmarked and under about 10 feet of snow, I would reccommend using geo features such as creek drainage for landmarks.

Anyone want to go?

www.laptopbattery.net ...just glancing, looks like more than a #2 Camalot... but then, I don't climb much with those thingies.

My nephew left a pair of skis at the bottom of worm flows on 12/20... He had a shitty ride down and said that he would be (and I quote here) "godfuckingtripledogdamned if [he was] going to carry these skis another foot." He also asked that if I saw a post similar to this one that I write and offer you "a shitty pair of boots to go with them." Anyway... you didn't happen to find a piss yellow nalgene up there did you? anth

"Goodbye, Frostbite." (was there anything else I was supposed to say?)

thanks, all. I'll check it out.

this man hasn't got a wife... he used his bed. Dorm room. oh man... your killing me...

Has anyone used these? Someone recommended the K2 Asendor? But no one in Portland seems to have them. I tried Next Adventure (useless, rude) OMC (useless, polite) and The Mountain Shoppe (exceptionally sexy, one rental pair, useless, exceptionally sexy, polite, exceptionally sexy)

this man hasn't got a wife... he used his bed.

why the tennis ball?

It'll just dry out... don't use a hair dryer, just let it hang dry. The problem with getting down wet is that when it's wet (as you probably discovered) it offers all the insulation of wet tissue paper. But dry it sould recover it's loft and work just fine next time.

I'm really happy with my merlino wool bike clothes which I wear in all weather, never stinks and keeps you warm when wet. I just bought a silk first layer top. Anyone have experience with silk? For the mountain it's still polypew and put up with the smell, but now they have a merlino first layer (Ibex rocks!) I may switch to that.

I'm looking to replace my old REI Gore-Tex shell pants. They were about ten years old and I've lost them. Can anyone give me input on the various types of laminates? 2 ply vs 3 ply? REI Elements vs Gore-Tex vs Genesis vs Pre-Cip? Should I resign myself to a $250.00 pair of pants or is there some way to avoid that massive $$$ outlay? I'm sure bummed about my old pants They were "longs" and fit well. thanks

Yeah, my sons and I went up sledding the next week... sweet. Powder galore and great temps. We just got up there a week early. Oh well.

Hell boys, screw the winter climb. How about we set up a really nice prospective, randomized study of the effect of the full moon on unstable snow surfaces. It's a pity we can't control the phase of the moon or we could blind the study too! Then, instead of climbing next spring, we could get it published in a peer reviewed journal like Science or Nature. Sounds like more fun than climbing anyway.

Sounds like a great honeymoon to me... Tell your neice if her new man bails, I'll go. 'Course I'm a married fella and couldn't offer her all of the fringe benefits of a honeymoon. ...unless it got really cold and we had to avoid freezing to death. ...or we got snowed into camp and boredom was eating at our minds. ...or the altitude made us lose our judgement. ...or it snowed. ...or something. Actually, never mind, I can't go.

Glad you made it. I had a really shitty (similar) trip up Mt. St. Helens - very wet. Should have shoed, but skinned instead. Ah well. The bad ones are merely perspective for the good ones.

Hey, I was up there 12/20 all day. Skinned from Marble Mtn Sno Park to the extreme timberline. Pack about 5 feet deep. Rained throughout the trip. By the end of the day I could hear Swift Creek running under the snow between climb markers 3 and 4. The snow had the consistency of wet concrete and just about as forgiving. Temp never got below 45 degrees. Cheers. anth

Maybe this one has better chance than my pants... It's yellow and should be in one of those many spots that I wiped out, coming down in the dark, without a headlamp, trying to ride a board in snow the consistency of wet beach sand, through the rain, listening to my nephew twenty years younger than I giving me advice, soaked to the skin, with a 45 pound pack on, lost. Oh hell just keep the damn nalgene, I've got herpes anyway. Better yet, stuff it up one of those snowmobiler's asses. BTW, the nephew left the skis at the timberline - you can have those too. Matter of fact he said if you want the boots that go with them, just let me know and I'll put you in touch. Oh, don't drink the water in that nalgene...