BillA

YTMND

I got this letter today: "After reviewing the application carefully, we are unable to extend an offer of life insurance. The decision is due to mountain climbing activities as indicated in the application and underwriting interview." Anyone else have trouble getting it?

Mark Twight is so going to shoot you now dude, better watch your back! WATCH OUT!

Well I thought it was funny.

Oh noes!!!1111!! The picture of Bush is awesome

Saw your pic from this climb on the crossfit website today. Nice!

And this is what your toes will look like afterwards:

Awesome, I really don't remember what happened during the last two to four hours of that night.

Come on! Beer! Tomorrow night! w00t!

I will be half of fifty on Friday. Hopefully I will also be celebrating beating the red light ticket that I got in January. Fucking court and Chris won't represent me. Also, I really hope NWA shows up.

Yep, I did something similar a while ago, took like three months before I could climb. Sucks...

Come on now! What is one supposed to do? I might not even be able to prodeal them...

The Spantik sounds sweet, thank god for prodeal though...anyone know if any shops in Portland carry them?

Damn, unfortunately I wear size 11.5 or 12, that's a good deal...

Hey Hey Hey, stop distracting Pete! We're still going climbing...

I was wearing the Scarpa Freney XT. My core stayed fairly warm with my big parka, but all I had on my legs were a pair of medium weight long underwear pants, another pair of light synthetic pants and my softshell pants. I was absolutely kicking myself (literally) all night for not throwing insulated pants in. Anyway, as far as rehab goes at this point I'm making sure that I don't accidently cause any trauma to the tissue since they're still numb and I'm taking antibiotics. Other than that I think it's pretty much a time issue. Since they've blistered already, no more soaks. Thanks for the boot recommendations, the Ice 9000's sound pretty sweet. Also plan on checking out the Civetta/Intuition option. Thanks again!

Since I frostbit my toes this weekend and we're heading for colder climes in April, I'm thinking I'm going to be needing some new footwear. I've got a pair of the yellow Koflachs which are super warm, but really really heavy. Anyone know of any good light plastics that climb mixed terrain well and won't compromise my toes? Any advice is appreciated.

I just got back from the doctor. My toes will take some time to heal, but everything's going to be alright and I won't need your jarred toe dude. Thanks for the concern everyone! I enjoyed the report Pete, nicely done. Those cave pics really bring back the suffering...

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?