ketch

There is a sticky at the top of the Freshie forum for Avalance center deals on beacons. Take a look there and you will find lots of good stuff including a link to the site where they maintain a catalog of Avy courses. I'm sure there is something that fits your schedule.

I don't know E. You can only use these in the high country. It would take an awful lot of huffin and puffin to blow up a wet cement tent. Or do make the partner carry the compressor since your have the tent.

Iain, you make an excellant point. There is one other thing in regard to that. Where I am at the fire dept. requires all volunteers to be first responder or EMT certified. What I discovered is that the FR is practicum based, the WFR is based on an understanding of physiology involved. End of a long story is that WFR does not cover emergency deliveries and ambulance based care. My WFR allowed me to challenge the entire rest of the certification and pass after a little tutoring (3 hrs) to cover the missed items.

check out this FORT SUMNER, N.M. (AP) -- A mouse got its revenge against a homeowner who tried to dispose of it in a pile of burning leaves. The blazing creature ran back to the man's house and set it on fire. Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner said he caught the mouse inside his house and wanted to get rid of it. "I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," Mares said from a motel room Saturday. Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the burning mouse ran to just beneath a window, and the flames spread up from there and throughout the house. No was hurt inside, but the home and everything in it was destroyed. Unseasonably dry and windy conditions have charred more than 53,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes in southeastern New Mexico in recent weeks. "I've seen numerous house fires," village Fire Department Capt. Jim Lyssy said, "but nothing as unique as this one."

I think you missed something chriss. The idea is to lay the webbing over the hammer and strike it with the other hammer. The more square the corner the better. You are in essence simulating a rock fall strike. I can chop a piece of 1" with usually three swings. Super tape doesnt seem to cut quite as quick. As an aside I use the same technique but when I have just my tools I hold the webbing over the top of the adze tool so that it passes directly above the shaft. You can hold the webbing and the tool easily and brace the spike for the impact. A couple well placed swings with the hammer and it's a done deal.

Been out and about for a bit and on this trip I got to compare the Myo XP with this lenser. I really like the diffuser and the boost function. The Lenser is a pretty old school light turn/turn off, one pattern. It is noticably brighter than the XP. It is also a bit lighter. The lenser uses three AAA batteries as opposed to the AA that the XP uses. I like that as most of my other goodies use the AAA and carrying redundant spares sounds good. I still havn't tried it in any nasty weather so the jury is still out.

Nacho, Good on ya for trying. I would revisit the price issue though. There exists some photographers that make good money. Their pics are worth it but only when you are specifically looking for "that" photo. If the pics are of good quality and priced within reason they get purchased sometimes just because. John Scurlock is an example, he doesn't make a living from his pictures but I have bought several just because I really liked it when I saw them. Here is Some of Johns work

Just curious John, there are little generators that are smaller than some briefcases. Easy to carry, quite efficient, allow you to use a much lighter smaller drill on the wall. If you are developing concrete I would assume it is not that hard to access. Are you really commited to a gas drill?

Roasty, good job on the smashing yourself. It reminded me of tipping up a wall on a steep hillside addition I was working on. We tipped up the wall, than when I went to nail a brace it got bad. I hit my finger with the hammer and when I reacted I hit the side of my head with the claw end. When I pulled back from that I fell through the wall about 8 feet to the ground and tumbled to a stop. My "friends" where all laughing so hard I had to make my own way back up the hill. No dignity but hilarious to look back on.

I love the exchange at the end of the vid Girl Offcamera "How deep is it?" Guy lookin in "It's uhhh....... Too Deep!"

Like many I have been looking at changing my headlamp to LED. Yesterday a friend gave me a Head Fire 1.25w lamp by Led-Lenser and said I needed to check it out. I was pretty sceptical as it was single led and non-focusable. When I went out late last night to compare I took along the trusty old Halogen Zoom (even with a new 4.5 volt) This thing hands down stomped my Zoom. It also has a much cleaner white light verses the usual blue tinted. Here's the catch, it is a german import and comes with a headlamp in a bag. No info other than what is on the box. A web site says it is water resistant. The Germans claim it to be a good light. My initial feelings are what the heck at 120 grams It can't be that bad. Besides the 100 hours from three AAAs is better than the 12-16 from that 4.5 volt. Any body out there have other input I should consider

That's common on any phone. The signal strength indicator just shows you the relative power level of the incoming signal. (from a high powered tower). In order for you to get out the signal from your phone(a low powered transmitter) has to make it back to the net somewhere. What happens is that cell phones auto regulate their transmit power in acordance with the incoming signal. If the phone sees a high signal level it thinks it is close to the net and transmits at a reduced level. You are in essence trapped by the fact that you are up in the mountains where the signal flies around good. There are ways to trick your phone into transmiting higher levels. I will look into the codeing for your phone give me a PM if interested.

Thanks Glassgokiss, I have to tell ya, One of my favorite guys was this old guy that I met in Alaska. He was a Russian expatriot that escaped over the Bering sea and then learned to "speak" english from the swede mine workers in the north. His version was of english was "a bit differant" but he was a smart man just the same. So... Polish Bob you may now join the ranks of Russian John. Very good point, the best survival gear is keeping your head together. Besides this place doesn't have any color without ya. So every body group hug now and

In the quick and easy stuff. How about one more category in the photo gallery such that folks that want to post random junk have a place to stick it. That way we don't have to sort through off topic pics to see what we are really looking for.

So my no dignity story happened in Junior High. I was visiting an uncle who had a mean Ram. I did not heed his advice and was soon up a small tree. After a while I figured that no one would hear my yells for help. My scheme for escape involved jumping out of the tree and riding the Ram out. I ended up facing backwards with my legs in a lock around his neck. To help hang on I wrapped my arms around it's waist. By the time I was rescued we were doing laps in the field and I had severe rug burns on my chin and nose. Lots of comments at school followed my explanation.

Ice is in or coming quick. On the north side there is a couple routes. On the west side from just above the hairpin following a gulley up to SEWS is a good line. I think that this one is LB2 it's a couple hundred feet of what looks like WI4. I did a little "ice bouldering" but stayed safe as I was out solo. If you hook up with a sled head it is worth the trip. I had a brief talk with a climber who had been headed up Mid week and saw me skinning up. A couple days later he was coming up as I left the pass. He reported a couple lines on the north side just past the pass that he was headed for but I didn't see them. I took a few pics I will try and get them up in a day or so.

Wa pass is Jammin. I spent a couple Blue Bird days last week. Drove around and was supposed to meet up with partners on Thurs no show but it was a long drive and I have the days off I'm goin anyway. That was all good until my old school twist lock polls failed in a mostly down position. OK it was a gorgeous day and skinning up a sled packed hill with semi matched canes is not that bad. So as to the pass, I set up a camp at the picnic area. I found about 40" of snow on the ground and temps in the single digits to mid 20's. From here I did some looking around. Was up to the notch at Liberty bell and goofed around examineing routes on SEWS and Liberty Bell. I drooled over where I would be if I had a partner on this trip. I'm pretty stoked about a mixed climb on the Becky route right now. Temps are behaving and so the ice is coming real nice. I had to leave saturday mid morning as I had to be back at a job sunday morning. The ski down was good but all the weekend sled heads reminded me that I was approaching civilization. Levanworth reminded me of the value of mellow CD's until starting up the valley. Just outside town I saw a canoe out crossing the water using Ice tools and all was fun in the universe again. I figure that was likley a fellow cc.comer. So I may not try with the same partner again but it was a sweet weekend and I'd be willing to chat with other partners.

I spent a couple good days up at Wa. Pass over the weekend. Sadly the partner bailed so not much climbing accomplished. But here's what I saw. On the north side of Liberty Bell there is some good ice in. Most of it is not directly visible from the road. On the East side just above the hairpin is a sweet gully that looks pretty well in. It looks about WI4. I think this line is LB2. Skinnin in from the block is a long day but climbing was sweet if you spend the night. Approach would be good if you could hook up a sled head. There was several areas that were real close and the temps are behaving up there. Go get it Bob.

Hey Bob, I was close but at a lower altitude last week. I saw some ice but no routes (wrong area anyway). It looked to me like there should be something in at the top. I expect to be at Wa pass weekend after next (9/10) I'll let you know what I see.

Thanks Murray

Wouldn't lower altitude at the same place mean higher pressure and better weather? Yes it would, I am not such a good editor, huh.

You are asking for a whole bunch of stuff but this is the quick and dirty of it. Does anyone know how they work? A barometere works by measuring the pressure of the air. As you go up in altitude there is less air and so less pressure. it gives me an "absolute barometric pressure" reading which cannot be adjusted. It also gives a "sea level barometric pressure" reading that i can callibrate. which says that it "represents the present barometric reading reduced to sea level". I don't know what that means. As the weather changes the pressure changes and so your altitude wanders. If you know where you are on a map you can adjust pressure by setting the altitude. If you are uncertain but listening on a radio, you can set the sea level pressure (which is what they report) and then your altitude will be correct. Can someone give me a tip on how to adjust it correctly, and how i can find use in it As a general rule rising pressure indicates improving weather. Falling pressure indicates worsening. I.E. if you wake up and find that your indicated altitude is lower thatn when you went to bed expect the weather to be getting worse. The thing is measured in "mbars". does anyone know what those are and how i relate them to whatever is regularly recorded? The best way to relate them to what is indicated is to to be very aware of your new toy for a while. With a little experience you will reckognize patterns that match reality. Then when you are paying less attention or distracted you will know what has been going on.

I am thinking of using Canada 3 to get east of the hills. I will start out in B'ham and need to make a couple trips to Omak. With the US passes messed up it seems shorter to go through Canada and drop back along US 97. Any of you Canadians have a link for road conditions? I tried the google thing and all I get are tourist junk and history lessons. You all must be proud of your roads.

Sure, You know how it is, some battles are internal, some are a little more external. Don't worry some day I will back to my old self.

It's obvious to me that Oly is the cause of problems. He came up to visit and Billygoat got in trouble. The next day I had a rather differant hair (and beard) day.