BillA

I would say that conditions on the face were less than prime. Much of the ice was the consistency of a slurpee and would have held screws about as well. When I howled at your party (alex?) descending it was 11:50, right before I led the crux. The crux was WI4+/5X and very frightening. I placed three screws in the only remotely decent patch of ice on the pitch about halfway up. None of them would have held any substantial fall. After finishing the vertical section I ran the rope out looking for a belay. It took me twenty minutes to lead, but an hour to excavate a crack that I could get a small angle into and set up a shaky belay. It really burned up a lot of time. We thought we might be able to take a variation that looked like a shortcut, but turned out to be a stupid choice. The view from up there is very foreshortened and the corniced ridge looks like it's two rope lengths away, when in reality it's very very far. We were lucky we tried this variation because I punched through some snow into a cave where we ended up spending the night. Unfortunately I now have pretty bad frostbite on my big toes, I won't know how bad it really is for a couple days, but the doctor was convinced some of the tissue damage is reversible. We will see. I'd like to send a big shout out to all the SAR people and everyone who came to help out. You guys rule. Also, that pic of the face is totally sweet.

MIKE, CLIMB THE SOUTHSIDE OF HOOD WITH ME, I'LL CARRY YOUR PACK. LOVE, BILL

There's more than one Chere Couloir...

Mike's ass.

It looks like they took some extra handles from the old rambos they had lying around and then attached the upper shaft from the machine. Kinda lame, but then again I haven't used them.

Yes.

Anyone have any suggestions for trips around the coast range? My buddy is thinking about cruising up there for part of the summer in his sailboat and would like to hit some climbing. There looks like there might be some good stuff around desolation sound...any other interesting areas people know about?

Sunday's crossfit sounds brutal. Damn, fucked up my back doing crossfit last Friday. Gonna have to take it easy tonight...torture torture torture.

It's really quite nice, wish it were warm over there. Ahhhhhhh...

Okay, that sounds like a good way to alleviate boredom.

And someone should buy those fucking axes i have for sale.

I'm really bored. I have been for the whole week. I sang karaoke last night. I was drunk. Tomorrow night I'm going to the Madrone wall thing. I think one day this weekend I'm going to do the "Murph" crossfit workout. Run one mile do 100 pullups 200 pushups 300 squats, run another mile. All while wearing a 20 pound weight vest. I want to go climbing, but the weather is the ass. Wait, why am I posting this here? I thought it was myspace.,,

Oh, I was just letting him know I've got Vol 1 of the Mont Blanc Massif Griffin book and that if he wanted it I would sell it to him. I think I paid like 50 euro for it in Chamonix, it was hard to find. If anyone else wants it I don't think I'm heading back that way in the near future so PM me.

Check your PMs...

Nice! So what do people eat? I totally suck at the nutrition aspect of things and get totally lost when the talk goes to percentages of carbohydrates and shit like that. I wish someone would tell me how much to eat of something and when, it would be so much easier. As for now I will probably continue to eat like shit.

That's where I've been doing crossfit. I'm pretty lean.

Just got back from crossfit, can't move.

It wouldn't be too bad, but you'd be limited unless you had a kettleball, rings and a rope to climb, that sort of thing. Plus, if you don't have any room for it like me, then you're screwed.

Yep, the Academy of Kung Fu, 21st and Powell. Mon, Wed 7:30-8:30 and Fri. 6:30-7:30 and 7:30-8:30? I think.

I've done a couple of the workouts with the class, it's fucking awesome. It's nice to have people to do the workout with and the instructor to correct form and everything. They actually offer three classes a week and it's 60 bucks a month for as many classes as you can make, so it's not to bad at all. It's a seriously badass program and at the end I always end up in the fetal position feeling like I'm going to die.

You could have walked off. I've done it.

Oh God no Bill! Sorry we didn't leave you more death-cicles on the last pitch. Those made it more interesting. I broke my index finger on that fucking climb. The crazy part is, I have no idea how. That's right, I can't fucking move it and I have no feeling in the pad. It's super swollen and the nail is black as death. I have waves of pain that make me want to cry. Bye bye ice season...

Does anyone do the crossfit program? I'm intrigued, but the crossfit portland classes cost like sixty bucks a month for six one hour classes, so it's a tad pricey. Any thoughts from those that have done it?

Just got back from checking shit out in the gorge. Crown Jewel looks like the best thing out there, although a bit thin at the top. This was in looking, but missing the bottom six feet or so, you could probably dry tool, it's the first obvious falls east of Multnomah. I went up to the base and there was some shit coming down. There is one big hard looking line behind Ainsworth campground that looks in, but thin and I couldn't see the base. Checked out Hamilton mountain with binoculars, it looks like there would be three independent absolutely stellar and difficult lines on it, but it would have to be super cold for a while for them to form up. The temps need to get cold again soon or everything is going to fall down.

I want to cockpunch both the huber brothers. One time I hung-overly got my truck stuck in the camp 4 parking lot (don't ask how) and dean potter showed up and singlehandedly (with the help of five other people) got it unstuck. Does this make me a "soul climber"? Please advise.