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I'm looking for a partner for Icefields Pkwy ice next week. Leave Mt Vernon morning of the 4th and back the 8th. I am driving. If you can climb WI4+, have all of your own gear and can get away, PM me. Or perhaps hookup with someone already up there?? Chris M

Which route on Whitehorse? Justin and I attempted the Whitehorse glacier route yesterday. We got to the top of the last big waterfall in 2 1/2 hrs. We were still a long way from the glacier and the going got worse above. There was very little snow on the last traverse right on ledges...just enough to add some serious spice . It was brutal bushwacking and wallowing in snow up to our sacks to get to that point. There's not enough snow and what there is is not solid enough to get on top of. The weather was moving in so we bailed. At least you can follow our boot tracks that far, which will help. Have fun!

I was going to check it out sunday. Thanks for the info...

Looking at doing Whitehorse glacier route or the North Twin Sister or something else Monday. Anyone interested? PM me...

Dru - I don't believe I ever said I went to the Rockies to find good rock. I went to the Rockies to climb something big and I did. Unfortunately the avalanch danger was "severe", so the big mixed climbs were not an option at the time I was there. I was commenting on the rock quality as mostly a reply to Twight's comments of "Verdon quality" limestone. I was at the Verdon Gorge last year, and I couldn't figure out where Twight came up with that unless it was just to get a good laugh at dumbasses like me that get suckered in. As I said before it was a great adventure and climb, and that was in spite of the rock quality.

There's a reason some folks call it the Tower of Gravel. Be careful.... a girl on TelemarkTips was helping people post pictures, and she ended up getting engaged! Except it was Mt Babel, which is a fair distance away from the Tower of Babel. Oh well. A quick initiation to "solid" rockies rock. Yikes!! That dude got blind sided...sucker

Would include pictures if I knew how...oh well.

Climb: Mt Babel-East Face Date of Climb: 8/8/2005 Trip Report: My buddy Donald moved up to Canmore last winter, so I figured it would be a good time to finally get up there in the Summer. I’ve been to the area countless times to ice climb, but never to climb in the summer. I made the 10 hr drive and arrived at his place with no idea what we would climb. I packed just about all the climbing gear I own to cover sport, alpine rock, alpine ice or whatever else I might be getting in to. Don suggested that we sport climb at Lake Louise the first day to warm up and then maybe tackle something bigger. He had been thinking that he wanted to get up the east face of Babel. It’s written up as Twights climb in 50 Favorite Climbs. Twight blazed up it in 12 hrs car to car. It’s given a 5.11a/d(??) rating on the second to last pitch out of 15 total. I said if it’s the D instead of the A I might have problems freeing it, but I could French free it if need be. Twight describes it as in places reminding him of the Verdon Gorge as far a quality limestone. Quality rock in the Rockies? We’ve gotta see. We figured it would take us longer than Twight, but the book states the climb is typically done in a day, so let’s do it. We arrived at the trailhead at 4am at Moraine lake. The approach is mellow for the first 45 minutes and then its up a steep scree slope for well over 1000’. It’s not fun going, but we make it to the base of the face at 6am. We solo up the initial 3 pitches of low 5th class to a ledge. The rock is crap quartzite, but we’re ready for the “Verdon” limestone that awaits us up high. I take the lead for what’s supposed to be a 5.8 pitch after consulting our vague topo. The climbing starts easy then get’s hard fast. The rock is still crap. I get on a face with cracks running through it that looks easy, but the cracks are flaring and dirty when I get on it. Now I’m on 5.10 hard dirty face and sketched completely out. Bomber nut, move 5 feet and then take a flyer. It turned into about a 20’ fall after rope stretch on the 8.2 floss. I go at it again and pull through this time. I continue up and the rock is really getting worse. I get to a band of completely rotten rock that I have no intention of trying. I tell Don I’m coming down and there’s no way I’m doing this line. I set up a rappel leaving a Alien and a nut and get back to the belay. Look again at the topo. Maybe we see the line around the corner?? Don takes the lead as I’m fried from my adventure. He finds a ancient pin beside a completely rotten crack…at least we’re on route! Don takes the crack and is cursing the poor rock quality. I’m just happy we’re back on route after losing 1 ½ hrs on my little adventure. I follow Don and climb the 8" crack stuffed with rubble to grab on to. At least there was no pro to clean. I lead a easy 5th ramp and try not to trundle Don too bad with bowling balls. Don's up. Topo say's 5.10 hard face climbing around a chimney, then enter the 6" rotton crack above chimney. We find no doable face climbing! Totally unprotectable rotton face is all we see. Don says he's going to attempt the chimney around the corner. He thrutches and kicks up. Gets through and see's nothing that looks good after much searching. He then downclimbs said chimney and comes back to belay. We look around more. Nothing. Don goes back up and reclimbs chimney and keeps continuing up bad rock and makes barely adequate belay. I follow the heinous chimney with pack. Climbing is probably only 5.10b, but it's loose and scary with 800' of air between your legs. The pack added some thrill as well. Another wasted 2-3 hrs on that pitch alone! Now we're thinking there's no way we're going to finish this thing today. There's no way to back off of the route either, so we're in for the long haul. I go up another pitch and find another ancient pin...back on route! 1 more pitch leads to the large sandy ledge that bisects the whole face. We figure we can make it to the 1st ascent party's bivy ledge by dark. Another 4 pitches of up to 5.10d takes us up to "3 meter ledge". It's 9:30pm and we're burned out. We had maybe 50' of solid rock the whole day. We love Twight... Only 4 more pitches left, and they're the crux. We spent the night on the 3 meter long x almost 1 meter wide ledge. I got to know Don a lot better than I wanted to. We spooned, hugged, jumped up and down and basically did all we could to stay warm in our very minimal selection of clothes. At least I had rain pants and a light shell. Don had no rain pants and he crawled into the small alpine pack as best he could. By morning we had 1 liter of water and 2 cliff bars each. I took off at 7am and did another rotten wandering pitch that was 50+ meters long. Now we're at the crux and Don's up. Twight say's that the offwidth is hard, but just when you need it tiny holds show up inside for finger locks. We can't see the pitch from the belay, so Don takes off into the great unknown. "Holy shit!!!" is all I hear. He free's for awhile, then goes to full on aid. The 2 ropes make the aiding fairly easy for the leader. Don's screaming really bad words around the corner. Rocks are falling around the corner. I'm dreading around the corner. An hour later Don gets to the top of his 3 meter pitch. I take off with prusiks ready. "Holy Shit"!!! The offwidth starts 5 inches wide and goes to a 12" squeeze. It's overhanging, flaring, rotten and slants to the right. I tell Don to fix the rope and I jug the whole thing without even trying to free it. As I pull gear out large blocks travel down for 1000' before hitting anything. Shit! Don's wasted. Last 2 pitches are stellar solid rock at 5.10d that are fun and exciting. Finally, solid rock...thanks Twight! We summit at 2pm and are ready for beer. Descent involved 4 rappels down a huge drainage. We get off the last rappel and walk for about a minute when we hear a rumble and head for cover. A huge rockfall comes from the top down the drainage. The second rappel station is completely obliterated. Now we're ready for whiskey. Miles of side-hilling shale scree fields leads to the final descent beside the Tower of Babel to the car at 7pm. Close to Twights time, right?? Water never tasted so good. A great adventure when looking back. Don was an excellent partner to have on this climb as we had all we could handle and we kept it together fairly well. Gear Notes: Full rack up to #5 cam...we used it all. Include some pitons. Should have had a tarp for bivy possibility. Bailing from this climb would be VERY serious. Better be ready to commit to it all. Approach Notes: Easy to Consolation lakes, then a grind up scree.

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I've spent the last 2 Septembers in Cham. Best month to visit in my opinion. For hiking Zermatt is hard to beat, but for climbing and scrambling, Chamonix is my favorite. I haven't done much scrambling there, but the Rochefort arete is a great ridge climb that I did alone. Excellent exposure. There are other good ridge climbs out of the Torino hut that are great and can be done alone. It's also very easy to hook up with someone to climb with, especially for doing Mont Blanc. You won't have any problems getting a place to stay at that time. The town is winding down and is fairly mellow. You definately don't need a car if you are in the valley. There is a train that runs regularly up and down the valley. If you go to Zermatt, DON'T take a car as it's a pain in the ass to park it down valley and the Swiss public transportation system is one of the best in the world. I took the train fron Cham to Zermatt and it's a fantastic ride through the Alps. I found a partner and a lot of info on this website. Do a search for Chamonix and you'll find plenty of stuff...and they're friendly blokes too. http://www.jagged-globe.co.uk/jg/forums/i.php?f=8 Enjoy your time over there...I wish I could go again this year

ALL firefighters are in top physical shape when they get out of drill school at age 24 .... but then most fatten up with time, just like the general public. Not most, but surely some. As a whole firefighters are not as overweight as the general public.

I just had to respond to this post. I'm a firefighter and Bill really has no idea what we do for a living to make that statement. While we do attend to old, SICK people regularly, we also respond to many car accidents, fire alarms, sick YOUNG people, and some of us actually go to fires quite often. I have never issued a burn ban violation and no firefighter in this state has as far as I know as it's not our job. We also train a lot and do public service appearances. As to why we as a profession are in the climbing accident news lately, there are probably a number of reasons. It's easy for the media to say "firefighter killed", but I never hear "computer programmer killed" and maybe that profession has the same accident rate as us? Yes as a whole firefighters are probably more active and fit than other professions and some of us can even get our big fat "40 # heavier" asses up big mountains. Maybe as someone else said we just get out more. Who knows.. I've been climbing for longer than I've been in this gig and most of my partners have not been firefighters. I think it's B.S. to think that we take more chances than other people because of "the brotherhood". Most of us have a family at home that we want to see again just like anyone else. I think Alex is right on about the East Coasters as well. Peace

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About a week. Not bad considering they're coming from Europe. Enjoy them, they are great tools!

http://www.sportextreme.com/pz315x232yEUR/ This is where I got mine. I've gotten some other stuff there as well and had good luck.

I'll make a reply to where this post has gone and then leave it alone. I admit to poking fun at Ben when he didn't really deserve it. I hope Ben doesn't take it too seriously. He is a relatively new climber who has only gone on Mountie trips before this one. Since my trips tend to be very un-mountie like, the style was different than he was used to. I believe I climb safely and quickly in the mountains and that's an accumulation of over 15 years of experience doing this stuff. I hope Ben can take some of the things he saw us do on this climb and utilize them in the future. If he chooses not to, that's his choice(or the mounties ). I do look for partners occasionally on cc.com and I don't want a future partner to think that I make a habit of flaming on them after a climb. I'll continue to and climb for fun, won't you?

I believe you've got it(except Aaron gave his bag). I guess I should have chatted more on the approach as well...my bad.

And then, while slagging on his partners he says: I guess we should have stayed roped up on the trail! Then I could have set up a munter belay off of a tree Me thinks Ben was in a little over his head.

Climb: Stuart-Ice Cliff Glacier Date of Climb: 3/24/2005 Trip Report: I trolled for a partner on cc.com and Z-man replied that he was interested in doing the Ice Cliff glacier on Stuart. I had never done the route, so we agreed to meet in Bothell and head over. We met Zmans friend Ben at 8-mile and the 3 of us headed up the road. Road was clear to within a mile of the trailhead, and then some snow, but the Subi handled it. Drove to the trailhead! There was a cattle path to the Mountaineer creek/Colchuck split, then we made fresh tracks from there. It was easy going as the snow was shallow and somewhat compact. We put the snowshoes on just after the split. The talus field was a little bit of a challenge with sparse snow covering the holes, but it was short and we were soon up to the basin. Lots of fresh snow in the basin. We were very thankful for the snowshoes up there. We found a site for the tent at the base of the moraine; even found a hole in the rocks to hide from the snow showers. Time was 4 hours to the camp from car. Left camp at 6AM for the climb. We were in snow over our knees right out of camp, and it was the theme for the day. Conditions looked stable on the mountain with the temps and no sign of avi's or even slough's, so we continued. We slogged, and we slogged and we slogged. I felt like we needed goggles to swim up that stuff. Finally got to the ice cliff and has a brief respite from the snow as we had a mellow 150' of ice to wind through, and then back to slogging. The snow was especially deep right before the coulior. Another 20' of WI2 ice got us into the chute. We kept to the side and did running belays with a little pro in the rocks as we went. Again the snow was swimable, but we kept wading up searching for any ice to sink the crampons in and get on top of the snow...no luck. The cornice at the top was no problem and we were at the top of the glacier by 12:30PM. The weather was OK, with limited visibility above us to the summit. Zman and Ben said they didn't have any desire to wade up to the summit, so we started down. The entrance to the Sherpa required a rapell as the normal entrance had a big cornice protecting it and a scary snow slow below it. After the rapell it was pretty easy going as long as it was downhill in the snow. The snow on the Sherpa was even deeper than on the Ice cliff. Slogged back to camp, packed and back to the car by 6PM. Started driving out and got about 200' down the road when the Subi high - centered and we ground to a halt. Brutal! The snow had firmed up and the ruts were deeper, so we couldn't plow as we had on the way up. We started digging and we had a hell of a time getting all of the compacted snow from under the car. We even had to jack up the front end, dig out and put sticks under the tires. An hour after getting stuck we were whooping it up as we peeled out of there and high tailed it to town. At least we didn't have to walk the road! All in all a succesful trip. That was one of the most sustained snow slogs I have done. There was no let up for the whole route save for a couple hundred feet of ice. Gear Notes: Snowshoes, a few pins for pro, couple of pickets, good gaiters. Approach Notes: Drive to the trailhead with a higher clearance vehicle. Approach was easy with snowshoes

Looking to get out Thursday and/or Friday for alpine or rock. No newbies please... PM me if interested.

I guess it's because of interchanging the words "they" and "we" that aroused suspicion.

Sounds like he's the owner trying not to sound like the owner.

That new this year? It has been free ever since I've used it. I guess it was only a matter of time. Too bad...but it's still a good deal compared to the other airports.

Drive to Abbotsford, park free, fly westjet $185RT to Calgary, rent car cheap from Calgary and drive to Canmore. No need for 4 wheel drive to get plenty of climbing in.