BillA

Everyone involved with those shennanigans deserves a cock punch.

Selected Climbs mentions there's a more direct route to Sahale Arm from the parking lot than doing the endless switchbacks. I can't picture it right now, has anyone taken this route? Is finding it pretty obvious? Thanks!

Thanks for the info guys, interesting.

I'd be interested in seeing your source for that Joseph...

Seriously John? The most assanine thread on this website? Not even close. Anyone who doesn't think new ownership will change the culture of the company is delusional. They moved production to China a couple of years ago because they want to "compete globally". That's great they have their own facility there and everything, but that doesn't change the fact that they now have a factory in a country with an atrocious human rights and environmental records. I don't care if their factory is 100% on the level, by moving there they are supporting Chinese policies, and the Chinese economy at the detriment of ours. And now they get bought out by some guys who KNOWINGLY sold defective body armor to law enforcement and our military? Why would I ever want to support those people? That's great BD is keeping the same employees, I hope their quality control stays the same, but I'm guessing the realities of being a publicly traded company will change things. Anyway, I'll vote with my dollars and not support treasonous war profiteers, thanks.

Nice! I didn't know you had climbed that one...

Brad Englund route?? Whose pic is that?

It was a great route! Highly recommended, although I would probably try to find a window with a little colder temps or overcast skies as it is essentially a garbage chute and gets immediate morning sun. This was my third attempt at climbing the Black Spider and Dustin's first time climbing Hood. Not bad! We approached via the Tilly Jane Trail and bivyed at 7,500', carried over, descended the South side and did the car shuttle thing.

Went there for the first time in January and definitely found the approach to MG to be quite a bit quicker than anything else we did. The other routes we did looked significantly closer to the road than they were. Cody is pretty rad though.

A couple more pictures from the Concerto and a few words can be found here if anyone is interested: http://postjock.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/dean-fry-and-smith-rock-grade-vii/

Nice job boys!

Shit Nate, that's a nice birthday present. Motherfuckers. Were you parked on Stark or at the boat or something?? That blows.

I too met cord man at Smith last weekend. He was even wearing corduroy pants! He was one of the most stoked people I've ever met, you can't help getting psyched talking to him. Rock on with your bad self cord man!

I was very happy to clip the anchors on Methuselah's Column. I found the climbing to be bold and scary even with modern sticky rubber and 1/2" bolts. Very, very impressive considering Dean did the FA 37 years ago and on lead! And I was scared just belaying the A4 pitch on CL Concerto. Most impressive aid lead I've seen: loose, hollow mud nailing (yeah Tyler!). And again, Dean did it almost 40 years ago! He was the man!!

Haha, you're right, it IS country hand jive jubilee! A quality name for an extremely high quality route!

"Nate Farr's all-star hand jive jubilee" is probably my favorite.

Yeah, Ryan is a badass. When you onsite M10+ and have repeated many of the hardest mixed routes in the world, those M6's and 7's at Cascade probably don't feel all that hard.

Does anyone have information they can share on climbing in Eastern Tibet? I have Nakaruma's book "East of the Himalayas", which has maps and good info and stuff, but I can't find anything online about logistics regarding permits, liason officer requirements, any travel restrictions on Tibet, etc. Thanks for any info you might have!

Jeff Walker, Marcus and I got out today and climbed Gathering Storm. It was totally sweet, one of the longest routes in the Gorge. It's definitely in, but a little bit wet. Hopefully Marcus will post some pictures. Today was Jeff's 100th day climbing outside this year! Sweet! A note about The Deer Hunter: I bolted the first pitch rope solo in the late spring/early summer this year. Marcus and I went up in late June, cleaned up the route and worked out the moves. It makes a really fun little drytooling excursion that's worth doing even if there is no ice. Also, if you're gunning for the second pitch, don't expect to find WI5. Did anyone else get out today? This freeze is awesome!

Pete! Nate and I drove through the gorge this morning on the way back from Montana. Things are starting to come in really nicely, nothing looked ready yet, but if the forecast holds it should be good to go in the next couple days...

Seriously? Rock and Ice and climbing are crap. As far as advertising creating climbing communities, that makes no sense. The internet, for better or worse (probably worse), has much more to do with modern climbing communities than anything else.

I think Scott Semple is right on. Is Sponsorship a Sin?

Carver Cliff About a month ago I replaced the first two bolts on Smerk and the anchor at the top of the crack to the right (the anchor most people traverse over to when they climb Smerk).

I wish I would have taken some pictures inside the couloir, but I was a little preoccupied. As per John's suggestion I would definitely say go a few weeks earlier than I did if you want to hit it as all snow. The couloir was the technical crux, but not the mental crux, which I believe was the massive amount of exposed, loose, grovel climbing involved. As far as my route through the lower section, I'm not really sure. I wandered around through some gullies, chimneys, steep schwacking, etc. looking for the path of least resistance. I switched in and out of rock shoes twice and was able to keep the climbing to around 5.6/5.7. I descended the East ridge, sorry about the typo! I had a picture on my cell phone from somewhere on the internets with the Dougs Direct route marked and I used that without any issues to get over Mixup, it's pretty straight forward. Didn't see any bears this trip, but earlier this summer my buddy and I saw a rather large black bear on the Cascade River Road right before the Eldorado trailhead. It would be pretty awesome to see a grizzly in the Cascades...

Yeah dude, thanks for doing that! Now twitter that shit braaaah!