OlympicMtnBoy

Pics please (approach shoes)!

More skiing stuff: The truth about backcountry http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6345207/ The soulful splitboarder http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6345207/

Cool I wondered about he rest of that route (and the descent) from the top of Dark Shadows (which was fun all on it's own).

Awesome! Someone post the other links if you find them, I've only seen Schralp.

Apologies for reposting, I keep getting a database error when trying to view my other post. Let me know if you want this by tuesday or it's going back, just trying to pass the deal on. Brand New with Tags $175 price tag still on it, on sale for $90, yours for $70! Men's Medium in Red The Under Armour Men’s ArmourLoft Jacket delivers down-like warmth in a lightweight and water-resistant package. Highly effective on its own and compact enough to fit under a shell, the ArmourLoft excels in the coldest conditions. Whether you’re heading out for a night on the town or planning an intense cold-weather workout it can’t hurt to have these core-warming powers on your side. The Coldgear lining will wick away moisture quickly as you chug towards your destination or get stuck waiting in line under a roasting space-heater. Great as a climbing or mountaineering belay jacket, ski coat, or just around town warm jacket, waterproof zippers, internal pocket, low profile hood (under helmet type). I have too many jackets and really didn't need this one, thought it might be a tad thinner like a montbell parka but it's the same weight as my other jacket. Never worn, still in packaging! Cash or paypal only, you pick up or we can find a mutually convenient location. Stewart - 360-301-2585 If it doesn't sell by Monday I'm returning it, otherwise I'm passing the deal on to you and saving myself return shipping.

Bump again, should I roll these back out of the closet in the spring? $70?

Brand New with Tags $175 price tag still on it, on sale for $90, yours for $70! Men's Medium in Red The Under Armour Men’s ArmourLoft Jacket delivers down-like warmth in a lightweight and water-resistant package. Highly effective on its own and compact enough to fit under a shell, the ArmourLoft excels in the coldest conditions. Whether you’re heading out for a night on the town or planning an intense cold-weather workout it can’t hurt to have these core-warming powers on your side. The Coldgear lining will wick away moisture quickly as you chug towards your destination or get stuck waiting in line under a roasting space-heater. Great as a climbing or mountaineering belay jacket, ski coat, or just around town warm jacket, waterproof zippers, internal pocket, low profile hood (under helmet type). I have too many jackets and really didn't need this one, thought it might be a tad thinner like a montbell parka but it's the same weight as my other jacket. Never worn, still in packaging! Cash or paypal only, you pick up or we can find a mutually convenient location. Stewart - 360-301-2585 If it doesn't sell by Monday I'm returning it, otherwise I'm passing the deal on to you and saving myself return shipping.

My condolences to the family. I only met Joe briefly a couple of times and he was always a super nice and down to earth guy. I occasionally ran into his summit register notes on the peaks us average folk climb too and his Alaska guidebook is good. He will be missed.

That looks totally awesome and I'd love to give it a shot, but maybe just the 100 ft hill with a farm field landing part. I believe these small wings trade more speed and lower glide ratio for the ability to fly in less desirable winds than large paragliders, but maybe someone who actually flies will correct me there. It doesn't mean they aren't susceptible to fluctuations in air currents (which of course you can't see and most people aren't that good at predicting). Take for example the above clip around 0:30 where you can see the guy's wing collapse with the likely colder air in that gulley and the corresponding loss of altitude and crash. I'm sure the pilots on this forum (Lowell?) could confirm the difficulties involved here of recovering (hopefully you don't tangle anything or crash into something first). For those of you who haven't seen it, there is an excellent history of mountaineering paragliding in the NW from the NWMJ here by Lowell: http://www.mountaineers.org/nwmj/07/071_Paragliding1.html And a chronology of first descents, fatalities, etc: http://www.alpenglow.org/paragliding/history/nw-chronology.html Like I said, would love to try it, and be scared a shit to take it up anything but the bunny hill. Also I imagine you'd need to be a pretty damn good skier (ie: never have to thing about it) to do a lot of what you are watching, skiing at a high level while also waving your arms around and shifting weight to control the wing. Can't be pretty if you catch an edge and jerk your arm the wrong way either.

Depends what you are training for I guess, if you want to work on your M-superhard overhanging figure 4s and 9s then yeah, the E38 and 900 crags suck. But if you want to work on the sort of stuff you'll find in the alpine or otherwise "easier" mixed climbs that don't go beyond vertical, then I've found the local drytool options useful if not stellar. A good place to go in the rain too (and get wet).

I haven't used these outside, but once you strap crampons on they don't seem that bulky, certainly less so than a double boot and probably a bit less than neoprene overboots but more than just super gaiters. I wouldn't really want to wear them much without crampons because they cover the boot sole and nylon is slick. With the closed cell foam trimmed right at the crampon welt I don't have to adjust my crampons differently than without the gaiters on so they climb pretty much the same. I've been happy with the Ice 9000s though so I haven't played much more with this system for really cold stuff.

I went through the same debate and went with some light double boots (Vasque Ice 9000s) and was happy with warm feet. Really though insulated single boots would have been fine for the stuff I climbed though (up to 19,511 ft). As long as you are good with the weather AND don't get stuck high up something behind a slow party you should be fine. I have heard a few stories of folks being slowed down enough that their light boots were no longer warm enough with decreased circulation up high=frostbite. So basically it depends how much risk you feel like taking, you'd probably fine on the less technical routes. Also having inner boots to wear in the tent was nice up high. If you do go with single boots I have a pair of brand new OR Brooks Ranger overboots that fit my size 11 Nepal Extremes and have the inner foam pre-trimmed to use full step in crampons with them. I was going to use that combo before I found the Ice 9000s cheap. Yours for $80?

Look like fun, nice work! And nice pants!

Sounds like a good day. I liked Battered Sandwich as well. The last pitch of Rattletale is a fun stemming chimney too, go check that one out next time you are on that side. Anyone think of any other good chimneys out there?

More here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013189753_olympicpark18m.html I've always thought something scary was lurking behind those beady little eyes when they come running for my pee. Condolences to the family.

Grammar was never a strong point for me. Nice work though, looks like fun!

Xoroshe Rabota! :-)

Hehe, nice TR, although we didn't have to rap on the descent, just drop lower down to access the gulley, still a good scramble down though. I'd still recommend it to friends, just not beginners.

Nice now and then TR, even with SPAM! Welcome to the board Gaucho!

FWIW, the bathrooms were clean and stocked with TP and there was a dumpster and a recycle bin, and the sites has less trash when we were there a couple of weeks ago, which wasn't a terrible trade off for my $5/night (ethical/political/dirtbag arguments aside). Winter closure would suck though. Any other camping ideas for me and my Chinook?

I prefer step in/fully auto bindings for WI. I don't have any semi-auto crampons and only one pair of boots they would fit so I generally use universal bindings for anything other than steep ice. I have fully auto WI crampons (Petzl M10s), and fully strap on steel crampons and aluminum crampons and this setup seems to serve me well for everything I can think to do. I can't comment on step-in vs. semi-auto for the same model of crampon though. I generally wouldn't want to climb steep ice in anything other than step-in though, although some people do.

Thanks and Happy Birthday!

I'm back from vacation and these are still for sale. :-)

Yeah, somehow I managed to haul a few extra things up there including handi-wipes, a change of clothes, and an accidental 5lbs of extra food and 2 extra beers (beyond my one per day). Moof packed light with only a summit beer, but he still got to do the worst of the hauling. ;-) Ivan, yeah, I think we learned from your trip! Avoid the ugly flare and ferry gear on the 4th class. I still don't believe you guys hauled 1:1 on the first couple days. I was happy to get the hauling ratchet dialed as I couldn't budge the bags otherwise. Maybe I need to gain weight. Thank god Moof brought an extra pulley after we melted one of mine!

Trip: Washington Column - Mideast Crisis (V 5.8 A2/C3) Date: 9/12/2010 Trip Report: The summer was drawing to a close and I was eager to get out of town to some real sun and granite. My usual wall partner suspects (who are few in number to start with) were unavailable (or unwilling) to head to California so I hooked up with Moof. We'd met before and he'd done a great job sewing up my Russian aiders, but hadn't climbed together. We settled on Mideast Crisis which he'd done not to long ago but was happy to get on again and I wanted to do it clean. I figured it wouldn't be quite as committing as El Cap with a new partner and looked like a fun and not too crowded route. We made it to Yosemite in my Chinook with just enough time to meet my girlfriend for pizza and then to do a run up to the base with some water and hardware and crash there. We headed down for breakfast and then hauled the rest of our crap up. The plan was to string together the haul line and lead line to the top of pitch 4 and do a long haul to camp up there the first night. We also chose to start via Planck's Constant roof. Moof lead the first pitch while I fought to get the haul line untangled form the tree. I got the fun roof, and then he lead up our third (4th on the topo) pitch to a tree and hanging belay. I busted out the headlamp to finish the cleaning and we set up the haul. It took us a while to get our hauling straightened out as my small pulley jammed and melted somehow, but a little counterweight helped and we were soon setting up Moof's new homemade ledge and chilling with some yummy food and a beer (albeit in the dark). We both slept pretty well and got up when we felt like it just before the sun hit us. I got the next fun pitch up an overhanging corner and into the tricky thing section which I got through clean with a hand placed medium pecker and a #1 ball nut. Sean got the next super fun roof crack and I led the last pitch to Hotel California ledge and the great slab. On this pitch we deviated again from the topo taking the obvious hand sized crack to the left of the awkward 5.8 flare. This turned out to be a fairly easy cam plugging crack and skipped the usual A2 nailing in the back of the flare. The ledge was not bad for chilling on but didn't have any real comfy place to sleep two (possible, but not ideal), so we pitched the portaledge again. The sun hit us just after breakfast and this was the only day where is really got hot in the couple of hours of direct light. Moof led the slab pitch mostly free and got to do the crappy slab hauling . I headed up the C2+ loose rock into one of the steepest roofs I'd ever climbed on mostly bombed #3 camalots. This haul was super easy after we got the bags unstuck. Moof led the last pitch of the day to a somewhat cramped hanging belay at Pitch 11. Although it was a bit hard to spread out and the wall sloped away under the bolts we decided to camp here anyways and set about some partner gymnastics to get the ledge set up while mostly free hanging. This time we barely got any sun in the morning because of the massive overhang, but it was still nice t-shirt weather as we packed up and I led up the next roof on nice small cams. Moof took the last real pitch which turned back into slab and then we both ferried out gear up the 4th class finish. With plenty of food and water left (and beer) we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon chilling and enjoying the views and hike down the next day. The hike down sucked with so much crap. We ferried two loads down the gully then sacked up for big bags in the forest and back to the car. It was long and hot, but well worth it for the climb. The route was awesome, mostly great cam plugging, only a dozen or so fixed pieces or bolts (except for belays), and I didn't think it was that hard to do clean. Moof was a great partner and the weather was great, what more could you want? I even had extra beer on top! P.S. Thanks to the x-mas white elephant that game me the 20 oz Old E to enjoy on top (actually the stout I had next was far more enjoyable, but it's the tradition eh!). More pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthiesen/MidEastCrisisOnWashingtonColumn# Gear Notes: Lots of big cams, and then some extra ones (at least triples of everything), a single set of offset aliens was handy, and a couple of peckers and ballnuts for the one thin bit. Leave the hammer at home! Approach Notes: Up the hill, not far from the base of the Prow and Astroman.