EastCoastBastard

Man, what's up with people thinking that NZ is a good place to go for climbing? I thought that once, but now I know: It sucks. NZ has a lot of things going for it: nice mountains, easy access, good hut system, cheap helicopter flights, but there is one overriding negative: the weather SUCKS. Don't waste your time or money coming here (yes, I live in NZ - and I don't even bother going into the hills anymore, it's just not worth it). Most of your trip will be spent sitting in the rain. The alpine climbing can be brilliant. The weather's just usually too bad to actually do much. Oh and to Hugh C. - NZ is a very small island (not counting the North Island which is pretty lousy all-around), and as such any weather system that prevents you climbing in one area will likely prevent you climbing just about anywhere else. So you can't just "pick up and go somewhere else". Well you can, but you won't get any climbing done there either. Some of the sport climbing areas are so overhung that they stay dry in the rain. If you like: sitting in a nice hut in the rain, bushwhacking through heinous vegetation, being in the rain, looking at rain, crappy rock, then NZ is for you. Oh and if you like bouldering, then Castle Hill is great (unless it's raining...). If you actually like climbing, especially alpine climbing, then NZ is not for you. There is some good rock here, but it doesn't even compare with Australia or North America. The only worthwhile destination spot *might* be Castle Hill. The Anti-NZ crusader (aka EastCoastBastard, aka One Grumpy Climber) PS: Australia will likely be very hot in Dec. too hot to climb the locals say. But the climbing is brilliant

Don't go to NZ - it blows. It could be good, but the weather is so bad you can't get much done. If you decide to waste your money on NZ, PM me and I can tell you some decent spots to go to avoid the inevitable rain. The Anti-NZ crusader

I find it hard to believe nobody's mentioned No Picnic on Mt. Kenya (Felice Benuzzi) yet - I've just re-read it for the 10th or 12th time. Such a great story and well-written too. a less well known, but still pretty good read is "A spy on the roof of the world" by Sidney Wigall about a welsh expedition to Northern India that gets caught by the chinese (as they're taking over Tibet). The Flame of Adventure, Simon Yates is excellent as well. + all the classics previously mentioned: the white spider, touching the void, kiss or kill, etc... Two books to be avoided (IMO) are: Killing Dragons, Fergus Flemming about the history of climbing in the alps and Tomaz Humar by Bernadette MacDonald - a pretty lousy read.

I've been pretty happy with my Mammut hooded Stratus jacket. It's warm, not too heavy and pretty nice. I've played with the Montbell Flatiron is a pretty lightweight jacket - I'd call it a "summer" weight jacket. Nice, but not very warm.

I usually mark my tricams with a little bit of appropriately coloured tape in the recessed area that the webbing runs through. Works okay, but not great. I just keep an eye on them and make sure my sketchy partners don't swipe them. I thought tricams were pretty decent until I stiffened mine with some plastic strips from milkjugs and duct tape - and now I LOVE them. Stiffening them makes it possible to place them one handed. If you're on the fence about tricams, try stiffening them and you'll be firmly in the "I love tricams" camp.

DO NOT go to NZ. Go to Australia instead - amazing rock, surf etc... Remember that that's the heart of winter down here, but AU should still be warm enough to climb. The following is a bit of an anti-NZ rant: Going to NZ is a terrible idea. Forget it even exists. I've been living in NZ for 4 years now (grad school, now vet school)and I've completely given up on alpine climbing in NZ - there is the potential for excellent climbing - it's just almost never realized. The weather is so incredibly shitty. In 4 years here, the ONLY successful alpine trip I've been on here has been to Aspiring with Blake (which was within a month of first arriving here! I must have pissed off the mountain gods or something!). I've spent countless (probably in the 50-60 night range) sitting in various huts/tents/cars, waiting for weather to clear, or waiting for avy danger to drop, waiting for something to change so I can actually go climbing. And that's only when the weather looked good enough to try. This is mostly because I'm only able to get out on breaks from school, so I can't watch the weather and go only when it's good. Although, a "good ratio" of bad weather days to climbing days is about 3:1, even by people who can drop work/school at a moment's notice. Not good odds. I don't even bother with trying to climb in the mountains here anymore - it's such a waste of time and money. I leave whenever I get the chance, with much better results... Went to Peru in June/July - great climbing. Only got one route in, but it wasn't the weather's fault. Rock Climbing- pretty good, but definitely not a "destination", unless you're into bouldering - Castle Hill is great. Skiing - pretty lousy most of the time. Synopsis: NZ sucks. Go somewhere (anywhere) else.

I've got both the cyborgs (the old orange ones) and the latest sabertooths. I use the cyborgs almost exclusively for steep ice/mixed anf use the sabertooths for everything else. The sabertooths are great all-around crampons - the original poster will probably be very happy with them until he gets into hard ice climbing. If Will Gadd can climb WI6 with them (sabertooths) they have to be pretty decent. never used the seracs

Hey I've got an MEC ski bag, the Deluxe Ski bag and I really like it. I can fit 2 pairs of skis, all my ice gear, ski and climbing helmets, plus clothing. It's great. and at $37 CDN, it's stupid cheap. Very light, but well built and burly.

I should preface this by saying that I ALWAYS get pulled out for "random" bag checks/extra scrutiny. I dunno, maybe a clean cut, white, male university student sets off lots of warning bells for the TSA. A few years ago, I was flying with a rope and a rack in my carry on and I got pulled aside and had to show the TSA person how every piece worked and they made me remove the rope from my carry on. All of my other bags had been checked already, so they had to find me a box to put it in, and checked that. Fortunately they didn't charge me for having 3 checked bags (2 bags and a box). I asked them why, and they said I might try to rap out of the plane. I've never had this happen in North America, but I fly around New Zealand a lot and I have gotten in trouble for my carry on being too heavy (with a rack and rope in it). my two cents...

I don't think I'm going to review the Convert 2 - Alpinist did a good job, and there are some other reviews floating around the internet (also positive). I couldn't find anything on the Marmot tents, so I wrote the review.

I wrote a review of the Alpinist (both the original and the current model) here a little while ago - do a search for it. It sucks. Big time I returned it to REI and got a SD Convert 2, which got rave reviews from Alpinist magazine, and rave reviews from me too. convert 2 review

I know this is a bit of a long shot, but I'm going to be in the Ouray area from 2/11 - 2/18 without any partners (I'll be there the week before too, but my partner has to go back to work). I'll have all my gear, but no car. Anybody heading out that way that would want to meet up and go climbing (not neccessarily at the ice park, but maybe some of the classics around CO - Rigid Designator, Ames Ice Hose, etc...) Me: lead WI 5, M5 trad on a good day, Student on a small budget. Have tent and camping gear. Safe climber, reasonably nice guy. Thanks Graham

I have a pair of Charlet Moser Blackice which work great. Petzl also makes a replacement bail for their crampons that fits with tele boots. I'd probably just bring your boots to a shop and try some crampons on them and see what fits. Happy tele-ing

As promised, I'm back from my trip (a dismal failure) with a report on the new Trango Extreme evo's. They're pretty nice, kept my feet warm and dry, climbed rock pretty well and did just fine on ice. The lacing system was great - so much better than my old ones. My biggest gripe is that the soles flex a bit when frontpointing. Apparently all the modern ice boots do this nowadays, but my previous ice boots (the old trango extremes) didn't flex nearly to this degree. It's just something I'll have to get used to. My other gripes are about the durability of the boot - the lorica stuff started to get a little rough around the edges just from walking through snow, and the edges of the rand got worn faster than my old boots. The kevlar mesh stuff got very fuzzy where my gaiters rubbed against them, but that's not such a big deal. Overall, I give them a solid A- . They'd get the A if they were a little stiffer.

The Omega/Alpha is sized using the UK sizing system (which is 1 away from the North American system), which explains your "weird sizing". Nice boots...

I thought this idea was worth sharing Bacon Sushi Maybe call the hospital before you consume - and alert them of your impending arrival.

My extreme's just arrived and I'm looking forward to using them. The workmanship isn't as nice as on my old extremes (the original yellow leather ones) - some of the new-age fabric around the ankle has a fold in it, but it's not a high-wear point so I don't see it being a problem. And they're so much more user-friendly than my old ones - those were a big pain in the ass to get on and off. I've got a big trip coming up in the next couple weeks, so I'll write a report on how they hold up.

I don't own a pair, but I have used them and they are sweet! They are a bit lightweight without the head weights (included, I believe). Really nice tools, good clearance, nice pick, comfy grip. Cheap too. Camp may have made some lousy stuff in the past, but their current line of ice gear is excellent.

Oh man, bummer. I just ordered some Trango Extreme Evos to replace my worn out old trango extreme's. Those Primes look like they'd be a better replacement though. Better insulation and I like yellow. "Hello, REI....?"

It is! In NZ. The Remarkables ski area opened last week, found some good snow on Ruapehu last month. Snowed 30cm last saturday in Nelson lakes. Too bad school gets in the way of skiing.

Damn, you were so far off route in that photo, you weren't even in the Cascades! Good luck with the show all the best from down under.

I have one of the newer Marmot Alpinist's (with the pole clips as opposed to the first generation's sleeves) and overall, I quite like it. I've found that it breathes as well as any of the Bibler/Integral Designs tents I've used, and is just as strong in wind/snow. My big praise for the Alpinist is it the amount of room on the inside, while still maintaining a relatively small footprint. Because of the bend in the poles, there is a lot more elbow room in the tent. the I-tent/Eldorodo/MK1's all make me feel like the roof is collapsing on me. A side effect of this is that the fabric actually stays away from your bag, allowing it room to breathe, thus your bag stays dryer. In the other singlewall tents I've used the walls slope so steeply that the fabric is resting on your bag, which usually means you end up with a wet spot. The light colour of the alpinist also makes the interior quite pleasant to spend lots of time in. The pole clip system works great and is super fast to set up - no crawling around in a collapsed tent while it tries to blow away. The detractors for the alpinist are the vents and the "bat wing" that covers them. This aspect of the tent is very poorly designed, and was heaps better on the original Alpinist. there isn't enough room under the bat wing for the flap of Membrain that covers the vent to lie flat against the tent, which can cause condensation to rise up onto the bat wing and then drip back onto you. That being said, that's only happened once when I was cooking in the tent, and it was raining outside (high humidity). Most of the time it's just annoying. The bat wing, which supports the brow pole is also a lousy piece of design. I'm not sure what it's function is (other than cover the vent, which could be fixed with a better vent design). It flaps around a lot in the wind, and when wet, presses against the roof of the tent, effectively closing the vents. I have thought about just cutting it off, but the zippers for the vent are not waterproof and I'm worried about rain leaking in. Marmot also advised me not to cut it off as the flap stabilizes the brow pole - without it the brow pole might flap out of it's grommets. A less annoying, but still poor design trait of the alpinist is it's door. There is only one, a sort of integrated membrain and mesh door, instead of a shell door and a seperate mesh door. The mesh only covers half the door (the bottom half) and there is a flap of membrain that covers it when you zip it closed. I'm not sure why they did this, as having two doors (as is normal) would add a marginal amount of weight (the zippers are almost two full seperate zippers anyway, the extra weight would be in maybe a meter of zipper and a square meter of mesh - grams at the most) and add a lot more mesh to allow moisture to escape/breeze to enter. I still like the Alpinist, it works well, is light, has a small vestibule for stashing boots/packs - it packs small, is easy to set up and once set up is really roomy inside. It handles the weather well and has plenty of guy out points. The vents leave a lot to be desired, but the fabric breathes well enough that it's mostly an annoyance at very poor design rather than something that is going to go drastically wrong. If they changed the vents back to the original Alpinist, they would have a great tent on their hands. As it is, it's just pretty good. Oh, I'm 6' and there's plenty of room for me lengthwise. Hope this helps you make up your mind. Can you tell I'd rather not be studying?

Has anybody been up to climb on Vancouver Island recently? I heard some good reports early season, but I haven't heard anything since. Any ice? Cheers

I know you said that an outdoor leadership programme is too expensive, but check out NOLS - I did a semester programme with them several years ago, and it actually worked out to be cheaper than a normal semester at school, plus I got 12 credits, so I didn't "miss" a semester either. NOLS give you a super solid background in whatever discipline you choose. It seems like most NOLS grads don't go on to do lots of outdoors stuff, but that's their problem. You don't need to pick the Andes mountaineering semester to learn good climbing skills, a semester in the PNW or the rockies would be great. The semester programmes don't focus on one area in particular (for instance, mine was 1 month alpine rock, 1 month canyoneering, 2 weeks caving and 2 weeks backcountry skiing), but so many of the skills cross over that it really serves to make you a well rounded outdoors person and be able to incorperate techniques from other disciples into whatever your eventual focus is. my 2 cents..

Hey I'm going to be in Victoria in Feb and would like to get out ice climbing, sometime during the week. Anybody keen to cut class/work to go climbing? I've got all the gear, lead WI 5, M6 but have no car. I don't know exactly what dates I'll be free, but is anybody interested? PM or e-mail me. I'd be keen for some 1-day alpine stuff too. Cheers.