OlympicMtnBoy

I've got an OR Alpine Bivy with one pole that I use on solo trips when I'm expecting crappy weather. I have been through some significant rain storms in it and stayed mostly dry with the old school gore-tex (mine is several years old). If I'm going light and not planning on a bivy I take a space blanket type thing. if I'm going light and solo and planning on a bivy with nicer weather I often just take a silnylon tarp (8 oz). Most of the people I know with really light bivy sacks like the ti-goat use them with a sil tarp, it's a good light solution if you are going out for several days and want a comfier setup than a bivy alone and also avoids the inevitable condensation of a waterproof/"breathable" bivy (which isn't an issue for a night but can build up with prolonged bad weather and no drying. I wouldn't use the ti-goat as a stand alone shelter in a WA rain storm, but some folks just decide not to go out in that weather.

I'll second that. I got a second pair of those stupid rubber things for $5 in a closeout misc. bin somewhere, but they still suck. My first pair, one ripped after 2 days, so I replaced it with a milk jug plastic, coat hanger, and duct tape jobby which far outlasted the other side.

Hehe, nice, I like sunny rock climbing pics in winter. I'm pretty sure I pulled on my #4 for a moment when I groveled up Split Beaver a couple years ago. Nice job.

Didn't they just change the name when they released the TLT Vertical a couple years ago (ie: it's the new version of what used to the called the Comfort)?

A guy on the backpackinglight.com forums did a version with a titanium head too at a similar weight. Cool beans.

Nice job! Beautiful day!

So I'm spending x-mas with the folks near Port Townsend and the weather looks decent for Saturday. Anybody interested in heading up to Lake Angeles for some ice climbing or doing some easy ski touring? I probably only lead WI 3-4 right now and I ski worse, but would prefer to share lead or trail breaking duties. Have gear and a non 4WD car. I've climbed at Lake Angeles before but haven't don't much ski touring in the Olympics. Drop me a PM here, I'm heading out there this evening and should figure out what gear to bring along. - Stewart

I was there last weekend touring the Titan Missle Museum (worth doing if you like that sort of thing). It would have been great climbing weather! I was mostly just walking around in a t-shirt or a thin layer if the wind was blowing. There is a reason all those old folks head there for the winter.

I skied my Free Trek Ventures (basically the same ski) for several years with La Sportiva Nepal Extremes. I'm a crappy skier but could turn them marginally well on groomed runs at a resort, and pretty much fell down anything when i had a pack on or backcountry variable conditions. Maybe I should try again now that I know how to ski better.

I had a funny fold/bunch in one of my liners when I first molded them (actually Second Ascent did). I had to remold them a second time with some extra special attention to putting them into the boot while hot and floppy. The second time they came out about 90% better and I haven't had any problems with them since. Given I've only worn them for a few colder trips in Peru and a training hike or two here (~20 days), but I've really liked mine for being warm, comfy, and still fairly light and technical.

Since I was there too I'll be helping (heckling) Mountainmatt with slides! More beer and shwag too, woohoo!

Fred was blissfully unaware of this show when I talked to him at the Timmy O'Neil show and showed him the flyer. I'm sure his agent will get him there and give all the Tacoma folks a chance though!

For $1000 bucks that jacket better climb some serious shit for me. Wait, for $1000 bucks I probably could get some dude (or gal) wearing another companies jacket who would put up some serious shit for me.

I'd never seen his stuff before, very cool. Condolences to his family.

I didn't know there was a prequel to Vertical Limit! I sense a new drinking game coming on.

Cool, thanks for translating that!

If he doesn't get the pants I'll take em. :-)

I actually called Ritzville a couple years ago since it was a convenient place to meet with me coming from Seattle and my partner from Portland to head east. I spoke to a nice woman at the city who seemed confused as to why they would bother towing my car. She suggested parking "downtown" near city hall or something like that (probably not right in the main retail parking spots). I think I went down Division across the railroad tracks. I left it there for like 5 days over a weekend with no problem. YMMV Also this was my old beat up Subaru.

Nice job Dave! Having been on the original volunteer list, I'm pretty sure that we all suck. Good on ya for getting out and doing us all a favor! Glad the bear turned out friendly, I still use my copy of Washington Rock once in a while.

http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/995254/The_Monkey_on_the_Trip_Tangerine_Trip_October_2009_PhTR I normally dislike cross posting, but this was a great TR! - OMB

BOLT IT!

"In truth, $75 is a bargain for a screw like the Radion whose manufacturing was only possible after three continuous years of research and development." Oh wait, that's from CAMPs website. Looks cool to me, they get around the need to have a folding or collapsing lever that doesn't interfere with your biner hole by adding a permanently attached rotating sling. Could be cool, maybe I'll get my hands on one in a year or two when they are on closeout somewhere for $40.

Trip: Squamish - University Wall (5.6 C2) Date: 10/10/2009 Trip Report: Having both been somewhat unsuccessful on our recent wall attempts, Matt and I made plans a few weeks ago to “get up to Squamish” if we could before it got too wet. Weather, family obligations, stupid excuses, etc but finally a nice weather window and we assembled a support posse. When the support posse promptly bailed with the colder forecast I had to taunt Matt over chat at work and remind him that they made these things called belay jackets to keep you warm when climbing in chilly weather. We loaded up the car Friday night with lots of gear and some good canned beers and headed north. - University Wall follows the prominent cornet system, our bivy was at the tree halfway up. - Saturday morning we woke to chilly but mostly clear skies and loaded up my giant haul bag and backpack and hit the base of the Chief. The approach up to University Wall was a little exciting but featured a nice new fixed rope in the worst part. After some gear sorting I took the first lead doing the 5.6 traverse to the real start of the route and heading up the awesome C1 first pitch (or 5.12a for those so inclined). Approaching the wall we thought we saw a portaledge hanging in the middle of pitch 2. As I got closer it shrunk to a midget ledge made of plywood and nicely sized for standing or sitting on. It seemed like a good place to stop on the otherwise steep wall and I started the haul while Matt seconded. With the over hanging nature of the route and the fairly light bag I was done in time to mock Matt as he cleaned the somewhat awkward corner. He took over the lead and made his way up some more awkward corner bits and past some anchors not on any of our topos, finally stopping at a nice bolt and tree belay at the top of pitch 4 just as the sun was setting. I had a bit of trouble cleaning a few pieces of gear in the fading light, since of course I had left my headlamp in the haulbag. I arrived at the top of the pitch and we threw up the ledges (given the nature of the route and our plan to rap it, we each brought our own ledge). I cracked open a Guinness as Matt struggled with his double ledge. After a minute or two Matt let out a somewhat horrified “oh shit” and I looked over expecting to see a ledge or some other vital piece of equipment hurtling down the wall and was instead greeted with a golf putter. Apparently Matt was a little confused as to what type of trip we were planning on (or maybe he just got his gear a little mixed up while moving). I’m pretty sure we’ve set the record for highest ever golf club on the route. We passed an otherwise pleasant evening with canned ravioli, more beer, and cigars while watching the lights of Squamish pass by. The night was windy and tossed us around a bit, but I slept pretty well anyways. Waking sometimes well after first light we reorganized and I was off again close to the crack of noon. Our plan was to fix the last two traversing pitches thus allowing us to leave our bivy gear and haul bag here and rap back down after we hit the top (the usual descent is to rap Uncles Bens next door). I hard to start with some thrutchy squeeze chimney moves off the belay but soon hit a fixed pin and then was in great high stepping C1 again. I linked the next pitch with some tiny offsets and more awkward overhanging corner stuff up to pitch 6. Matt made good time getting to the belay and I was happy to get my belay jacket from him as the clouds had moved in and the wind was ever present. Matt made some angry vagina like sounds but I told him he was leading the next pitch anyways. He did well on probably the hardest aid of the route through some ratty fixed pins, hooks, and loose bits. I followed the traverse, thankful for my gri-gri and then set off for the last pitch featuring a cool easy hook traverse to some more hand cleanable fixed pins and then a bit of 4th and two more aid moves to the top. Actually the route ends on a ledge about 2/3 of the way up the Chief, but close enough. With some bushwhacking I managed to set a belay from a tree more in line with my last gear and Matt jugged. With brief celebration we managed a double rope rap right back to the top of pitch 6 with our fixed line allowing us to jug over to the anchor before the traverse. Another double rope rap got us back to our bivy. With the day continuing to continue we wasted little time in cleaning up and splitting the weight for the next rap, which got us back to the wooden platform of the day before. One more 60m rap got us down to where we started, but not wanting to carry stuff back down the ledge approach, we did two more full raps all the way back to the chief trail. Now we were in the dark and our only hope of living through the night was to ditch the gear and make our way to the brew pub for beer and burgers (yes, bacon, a fried egg, pineapple, and a pickled beet really can all fit on one tasty burger). It was 30 degrees when we woke up in the morning so we retrieved our gear and had a leisurely drive back, finally with at least one short wall done this year. Good times, good beer, good partner, just the way it ought to be! We had topos from McLane and Maddaloni, both of which had some glaring errors like the three extra bolted anchors not shown on either. Matt used his mad topo skills to make this: More pics are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthiesen/UniversityWallSquamish# And Matt's pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthew.clifton/UniversityWall# Gear Notes: Standard aid rack with extras in the blue-orange TCU size or blue-yellow aliens. Two med-large hooks should suffice. Don't forget your putter as well. Approach Notes: Head left when you hit the base of the Chief, past the flake trail and up to the next ledge system, grovel up and use the hand line, then squeeze past the trees to the first bolted anchor.

This looks a bit suspicious to me: http://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/spo/1421919358.html http://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/spo/1421919358.html Climbing and Reppelling Gear $80.00 - $80 (Puyallup) Date: 2009-10-14, 5:53PM PDT Reply to: sale-rqkrt-1421919358@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?] I am selling all my reppelling and climbing gear, new ropes, d-rings , locks, 3 harnesses, gri gri, safteys, cams, gloves, alot of stuff. too much to photo. CALL FOR DETAILS. $80.00 253-840-1576 * Location: Puyallup * it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Sounds like a great day out there!