kurthicks

I'm pretty fond of travel shirts from Coolibar--lots of colors, light fabric, breathable. Lots of folks also like the Columbia one too. The OR Ensenada is very warm, too warm for daily use in my opinion.

It's a rechargeable battery, so it depends on the accuracy setting - from 8 to 24 hours of tracking at 1 sec, 10 sec, or 1 minute intervals. It's plenty for most 2-3 day trips in the Cascades.

1a) For trip planning: Avanet (export .gpx to phone), then Caltopo for custom .pdf maps. 1b) on my phone: Gaia, Avenza PDF Maps 1c) on my computer: Strava (for running only) 2) Suunto Ambit 2R with GPS tracking. I download the saved tracks from my watch to computer, then sync with phone for the next trip.

I tend to go up via the Wilson, rather than the Fan. That said, the Fan has't been subjected to very much rockfall yet given the recent snows...that will change as it warms up and melts out more. If I had the choice, I would approach via Comet Falls all the time. It's nice to approach via a different route and see new terrain.

I just came off the Kautz two days ago. The Nisqually has two good crossings right now. The first is basically an even contour from the head of the moraine below Glacier Vista. Cross towards The Fan until close to the rocks and go straight up. Option two is to do a rising traverse across some cute little crevasses towards the Wilson gully. Both are pretty straightforward, but I would certainly rope up. The ice pitches received about a foot of new snow last week. The lower step was entirely walking and only needed one tool. No ice to speak of on that step. The upper step was mostly snow, but we did one long pitch up the steepest and iciest bit. This will change with the warm weather this week, but all told it was in the easiest conditions that I've ever done it in the past ten years.

The road is perfectly dry and driveable to the the Eightmile trailhead...where there is ample parking on dry ground.

That road has historically been open in mid-late April. Not having a valid reason to keep it closed is not the way local land managers should be managing our lands; not to mention that it is one of the most popular hiking trails in the area.

That seems like an active plan to reduce access to our public lands to me. Time to make a phone call and write some letters.

The road was closed on Saturday, but was dry and fully cleared from the Eightmile TH down. I didn't walk up to the Stuart TH.

It looked huge from across the valley a couple days ago. The Gerber-Sink is melted out from what I've heard.

Because a double length runner isn't long enough. A triple or quad length sling works just fine too. Well, you can do that, but you won't achieve redundancy in the materials.

Just use standard cord and forget about it. Anchors aren't failing due to the choice in materials in real world applications; they fail because the individual pieces or structure (rock/ice) is bad. I'd use 6mm or 7mm and call it good.

Sorry to hear about your injury! Be sure to put this on the AMGA Facebook forum. Courses often fill from the waitlist, so hopefully it will work out for you.

Sorry to hear about your injury! Be sure to put this on the AMGA Facebook forum. Courses often fill from the waitlist, so hopefully it will work out for you.

I like to make my own custom maps on CalTopo. Then I use Avenza PDF Viewer to give me the blue dot.

At least they haven't expanded the zone to include the Stuart area.

Glad the approach beta worked for you! Nice work.

When did you find them? A friend left a pair there in September, probably near the Angel staging area.

I had the pleasure of doing the second ascent of the Mile High Club with Rad. Simply, this is a great route with good climbing, solid rock, an excellent position, and a unique location in the Range. There were numerous moments when I was grinning from ear-to-ear from the pure joy of this alpine gem. That said, the route is not without hazards and should be viewed as an alpine climb. Go climb this thing and you'll be psyched! I was.

I climbed it on Saturday. The route is in good shape overall, but getting onto the glacier above the Hogsback is more difficult than normal. Traverse west from camp along the bench below the glacier for about 15 minutes before gaining the low angle ice on Heliotrope Ridge (near where people ski in the early season). Then a rising traverse back towards the standard route leads directly to the Black Buttes camp. Above here the route is largely normal and the cracks are quite manageable. The Roman Wall is a piece of cake, but does cross a small rock band near the top.

A few things: Use Comet Falls. the net gain is only about 500' compared to the lower nisqually approach (if you count climbing back up the moraine on the descent). The lower nisqually looks absolutely atrocious. Trust me. You couldn't pay me to cross that zone or go up the Fan right now. Cross over Wapowety Cleaver around 13,000' and gain the DC track around 13,600'. It was easy last week. as for the descent--take a v-thread tool. The ice steps total to about 350m of ice (of variable steepness). Comfort downclimbing and a long rope (60M) will make it faster. the skier's left edge may allow you to rap off some penitentes for the upper half.

fun reading: http://www.sunrockice.com/docs/Snow%20Anchors.pdf

I'm hoping to have it on the shelves for Christmas.

Nice Sam. Thanks for sharing--I saw the new fixed line recently and wondered who had been poking around. I'll put them in the new book! Shoot me an email with complete FA info here: kurthicksATgmail

Bringing this back to the top. I've got some rock pro in good condition that I'd like to pass along to an upcoming climber. Shoot me an email about yourself and we can go from there. kurthicksATgmail