kurthicks

I took a megalite on Hood in December when the winds hit ~70mph. It held up OK, but we used trekking poles to save weight. they popped from the grommet in the top, puncturing the fabric. it did not tear any larger than the pole tip however. All of the stitching around said grommet (the gray fabric at the roof apex) ripped out though. the buckle also ripped out. we had to collapse the mid to prevent it from shredding further. BD warranty replaced it.

I just got a Trango harness and am going to "modify" it to make the seat a little more dropable. just cut the elastic in the back and sew a fastex buckle on it. good harness.

check yo pms. I'm out.

thanks klenke. going elsewhere this weekend though. too much freshiez. Check your PMs in a minute.

get one of those metolius idiot harnesses. supposedly those loops are full strength.

Bump^ anybody know if they've since re-closed it? or how far it's drivable with this new snow?

Mine is relatively simple. If the weather is good, go alpine. What I do in the alpine is not the point, but it's just getting in the hills. If it happens to be a walk-up, so be it. If the weather is crappy, go cragging and push my rock limits. It might be trad, could be run-out slab--it doesn't really matter. If the weather really sucks, I go backpacking or skiing as is the case this weekend. As for picking specific rock routes, it all depends. Often I look at aesthetics or recommendations of friends. sometimes from the number of stars in a guidebook sends me out on something. I like doing routes that I haven't done before, but if it's a good one, I'll do it again. It's all climbing.

agreed. I think it's the "social" trail and the wilderness powerdrilling that set them off. That said, I'd still like to climb the route.

I was told that the FS was considering chopping them (which would be quite a precednt, i believe), but haven't talked to my source in a couple months. I'll post details if I hear more. just because a face isn't climbed before it gets bolted does not mean that it should be bolted.

I only use the EDK, but the double fish is an option for times when you're not concerned about it getting hung up or if you have ropes of significantly different sizes.

Some flavors of emergen-c have 6% RDA. just have a couple packets...

www.montanaice.com edit: looks like you've been there already. try calling Barrel mountaineering.

I get those a few times a year. I've taken to eating bananas before I head out, then pop potassium tablets every hour or so. Emergen-C has good amounts of potassium too.

the best digital camera is the one having the most fun.

what size mittens? how much?

in addition to Bill's suggestions: a DMM Revolver 'biner (w/a built in pulley) on the travelling prussik. Tiblocs are nice. probe/ski pole to probe for hidden slots.

I have one that I use a lot for slinging trees, bushes, horns, icicles, equalizing belays, etc. Quite a utilitarian piece. They're 24kn if you clip both loops. They're easy to take off when clipped over the shoulder too, one handed w/o having to pull it over your head. A definate bonus for those sketchy and balancy stances.

Triple Couloirs/Dragontail - 4 attempts, skiing in from Icicle Creek each time. Rainier - 2 attempts. A partner of mine took 10 tries on Mt. Jefferson.

according to a Trango rep, they will be available in "large quanities" in Mid-June.

Da grasslands are always free, just a little out of your way. Or you could car bivy at the Crooked River rest area (Ogden, I think)...heated bathrooms and water.

that's a rip off of a Edmund Hillary quote "the hardest part of climbing everest was getting to 2" of dick through 8" of down".

yep. usually you should put the most experienced person up front when climbing and be the last one down when descending.

just make sure you only use it for TRing. "7. Summary The drop tests carried out on mountaineering ropes, which were aged in lowering procedures (toprope climbing), have shown that with an increasing number of lowering cycles the number of drops without breaking strongly decreases. Rope sections, which were bent in the figure eight descender or in the Munter hitch, for only 80 lowering cycles have only about half, or less than half, of the capacity of a new rope left. This safety loss occurs customarily after few days of top rope climbing. By superimposing other factors of rope degradation upon those caused by the bending in the belay devices and the top carabiner, one can expect a further decrease in the number of drops held without breaking. The safety loss is of no consequence for a rope used solely as a toprope because fall factors are small but is critical for lead climbing, when larger fall heights are possible." Safety Safety Loss in Ropes from Top-Rope Lowering Cycles Edit: "When to retire a rope; a study of rope wear: - it is hardly any news that the principal factors of rope wear are the combined effects of rubbing against rock, mechanical reduction (rappelling and belaying devices), dust and microcrystals that penetrate the sheath and the number of meters climbed (not the time used), - the enemy of rope wear is friction - most intense in abseiling and top roping, made worse by dirt, and the inevitable rubbing against rock, - to weaken the sheath means to seriously compromise the dynamic performance of the rope, - the sheath of a sport rope is about 30 % of the weight of the rope. The core alone, of such an 8 - 9 fall rope, holds only one fall, - some abseiling devices produce much more wear damage than others, - after only 50 descents with a figure-eight, the dynamic resistance of a rope is reduced by one third (number of drops). The descents were undertaken with extreme care - slowly and without impact, - rappelling with a Robot (a multi-use device manufactured by Kong) does not appear to compromise the dynamic resistance of the rope. The device functions like a carabiner brake, - not surprisingly rope wear is much more severe on granite than on limestone, - rope degradation is approximately proportional to the number of broken textile yarns of the sheath, - current work confirms previously published information. After climbing approximately 5000 meters, the dynamic resistance of the rope is reduced to half and after an additional 6000 meters it is down to 30 % (UIAA Bulletin # 146, June 1994, in German), - see also The Journal of the UIAA #3, 2000, pp. 12 - 13, available on the Internet under www.uiaa.ch." A Summary of the Conference on Nylon and Ropes

According to ODOT it's controlled by the Deschutes county road dept. I called them late last week, they said they'd start on the 28th. there is some sort of agreement with the snomo crowd to keep it closed until then.

Just trim the one lug that it hits, it's pretty obvious. It's on the rear, outside of the boot.