kurthicks

wow, that's one i haven't seen yet. it sure looks like an "accident" by the way she's covering it up...

i prefer beer in a can. it's PBR night tonight since i finished all of the Canadian beers that i brought back last weekend.

you could head to Bull River, it's only 250 miles from Pullman, so that's like 175 from Spo-Compton. there are tons of routes in right now and they're fatter than the photos in JoJo's book. the ice was blue, but brittle on Sunday. i've got some photos at home if you want them. the river crossing is a little sketch, but doable. edit: only a 10 minute approach, downhill...

from the MSR site for those inclined... the standard pump the dragonfly pump

i believe that some airlines have already started doing that. i can't remember which ones though. obviously not the one you were on...

i've got one of those cook kits, but i can't convince myself to use the aluminum pots out of fear of getting Alzheimers. nice setup though.

yesterday was probably the last time that i'll ever use a daisy. i'm going to the cord w/knots tied in it. i was bounce testing a v-thread at Haffner yesterday and the stitching started ripping out loop by loop on my daisy just as i was telling my girlfriend that they're not full strengh. go figure. oh, the v-thread held of course.

yeah, ditto. Banks had been the plan. i'll say hi if i see ya at Gib.

I'm heading up to Haffner Creek on Saturday and either Gibraltar Wall or Bull River on Sunday a.m. anyone else gonna be in the neighborhood?

maybe he'll be able to ropegun Bunny Face for me now! hey jlag.

i'll take the ascenders and some pins. i'll pm you. edit: well, i would have taken them if you'd ship. should have read further down. if you'll reconsider...

salt creek is where Wing Ridge bases out of. i've never been (going in a couple weeks), but i heard it's a couple mile skin into the goods. also, there's some stuff from the McCully sno-park from what i've heard. check out http://wingski.com/ for more info

i had a friend break one in the heel this weekend. Naxo is sending him new bindings asap. who bought them...

if i'd only known, i'd have been there too. maybe next time. nice tr.

i'll probably spend one day doing homework and the other looking at a FA and deciding if i need a snorkel or not.

ding ding. i am in my 20's and i did learn a lot from last weekend. often i find myself trying to use the weekends to fulfill all of the things that i miss each week while i'm suffering through my last year of classes and work. having any sort of lesser experience on the weekends makes Mondays just that much harder. that i mind, i think i'll go suffer in the weather this weekend...it's gotta be better than the alternative.

i've heard the same. no one seems to know any more about it. i know some people who know people in the area. i'll see what i can dig up. but the real question is...why in the hell do you want to go out there anyways?

you are kidding. right? yea, to a certain extent. i sure hope someone wouldn't ever be that dumb

i don't consider what i think or wrote to be slamming, sure it is a little negative. This trip report wasn't about the route or the people, it just reminded me to be more true to my own expectations when i get into something. if i thought that we wouldn't even get on the route from the beginning, then it would have been a great trip. there is a lot that comes from either meeting your goal or failing miserably. that said, it was a great time that i got to spend in a beautiful area, but just not the time i was looking for this weekend.

i hang mine from the foot of the bag with it zipped up and put a fan under it to blow upwards. if you turn the fan up enough, you can feel some air coming out through the fabric. if that's not enough, then i toss it in the dryer with a tennis ball.

we skied, we saw, we went home. kind of long and not too interesting, but there are pics. full size pics are in the gallery important stuff that i could have left out below: there is now a skin track to the lake until it snows, the lake is frozen solid, there is a rain crust up to the lake but above the lake it appears to go away, there is lots of rotten ice in Leavenworth and blue ice in the alpine. ------- It stared out simple enough. One short phone call to my regular partner, Shorty, and it was on. the plan: he'd get the pins, i'd grab all the stubbies I could wrangle up and we'd both try to find where we left our sanity. we'd go into Colchuck Lake on Saturday with his wife and her friend, spend the night, and weather permitting, give TC a go on Sunday morning. simple enough. we finally left the cars around 10 a.m. on saturday, after a couple avoidable delays. no worries, i though, i'd done the approach in 4 hours in the past... after 100 terribly slow meters, Shorty turned to me and said the dreaded words, "she's never been on skis before." "that's ok," I responded, thinking that we had 7 hours to get to the lake. the road ended up taking about 3 hours, so we still had 4 more to cover the last few miles. but our progress was soon stymied by a crappy breakable crust and inadequate gear for some. to cut it short, we ended up camping at the Stuart/Colchuck junction as dark fell because I knew that finding an easy way up the "hill of death" in the dark would prove to be impossible. still, we had our sights set high. A 3 a.m. start could put us at the route at 5...but we awoke to snow and still couldn't justify attacking the hill in the dark without a track to follow. back to sleep we went, having resounded to just do the NBC of Colchuck instead. we finally got our "alpine" start off around 8:30am. nearly two hours of switchbacking on skis brought us to the north end of the lake--it's not the most direct route, so be warned. a short skin across the lake brought our objectives and desires into view. we also met a pair of guys who were finishing up a ski tour through the Enchantments and were headed out after skiing the Colchuck Glacier. since we were thrashed from the skiing and pretty pissed from not getting there the previous night, we said and had lunch. we did end up climbing some ice on the NE shore of the lake (~15m, WI3+ to a WI2 slab topout) just because we had to justify hauling the gear up there. it didn't do much to lower the level of frustration i had at the moment. Shorty below the ice: (anybody climbed this before?) a short ski back out to the car solo and i headed home, contemplating why i torture myself sometimes. this is the second time in a few months that i've been forced into situations with people on serious routes, or approaches to, who either aren't capable or simply don't want it enough. Neither time did i know beforehand about their skills and it led to poor outcomes both times. perhaps, i need to screen my partner's companions before hand like i choose my own partners. i take pride in choosing my regular partners and being comfortable with thier abilities, and they with mine. it's those who "tag along" that can, and often do, make trips mentally taxing and frustrating for everybody else. i do give those people credit for getting out and trying something new, but be forthright about your ability before we leave the car. I don't consider myself to have any sort of elitist attitude, but after reading this, it appears that i do. for that, i could say that i'm sorry, but i'm too frustrated from not even getting on the route to care.

Went out to Bluewood this morning in hopes of taking a few short laps before the weekend was over. It is climbable with shitty top outs, but we didn't want risk falling and hypothermia. perhaps after another cold snap. full size pic: gallery

taken from the road on saturday:

i was up mountaineer creek this afternoon while coming back from Colchuck Lake. there is ice everywhere. don't listen to gapers tell you otherwise. some of it is rotten and other stuff is blue. also, there were a lot of climbs just upstream from the Snow Creek Wall parking area on the right hand side of the road. i don't have the guide handy for names though. i've got a photo of some ice that looks like the cover of How to Ice Climb. i'll post them tomorrow, unless i go climbing. the stream sounded like it would be tough to cross.