OlympicMtnBoy

And of course, don't forget your competitor product. While it's not exactly the same (straps on the floor instead of nylon, and no hood, it still probably takes a portion of your already small market share. Nunatak Dual Arc Alpinist $500-$600, ~2 lbs, 20 degrees, and available with Epic. Not to discourage any healthy competition though of course. ;-)

Yeah, probably not something I would pony up for (although I'm generally cheap), but something I would possibly use given the right route and partner. I think the attached hood is key,and something the differentiates it from some of the other quilt style bags out there. You don't get to twist and tun as much as you would in your own bag anyways, and being able to minimize heat loss with a continuous barrier on the bottom of the bag is great. Some thread drift now, here is what I would really like to see in a new FF bag, and might actually buy (although not at the custom rate). I really want one of these: Montbell UL Down Hugger #3 (ie: ~1lb 30 degree bag), with a real neck baffle, plus zip up or drawcord closed arm holes and a foot hole similar to your rock wren, or the Exped Wallcreeper. Maybe you can incorporate the stretch stuff like montbell too, but I haven't actually tried it. Basically a super light Rock Wren with a more tapered shape and a neck baffle. I like the idea, but no one that makes that sort of bag makes it light enough, shaped well enough to take full advantage of the insulation. And I don't understand why neck draft collars get dropped in warmer sleeping bags, it seems like a big warmth improvement for a small amount of weight. I would use it for summer mountaineering and nice weather spring/fall trips where keeping the pack light (and SMALL) is important. Ok, that's enough for my rant. :-)

So sue me, I rounded it to $100 for my 5 mins of work (100/5*60=1200), it really should be $105 for 5 mins work which would make it $1260/hr.

I just want 30 meters of a Beal Joker, then I don't have to worry about all that. It's not realy that much heavier either.

Ok, so maybe it belongs in the REI appreciation thread, but I'm feelin happy so I'm sprayin (heck, maybe it belongs in spray)! So I was in the gear garage downstairs at the downtown store last week and I see a pair of OR Brooks Ranger overboots in a bin. Hmm, only $30, but there is still a pricetag with the old $135 price on it too. Oh, now I see, one of the overboots seems to be missing the closed cell foam insulation. Wait, what's that in the bin next to them, a funny shaped closed cell foam pad. The garage tag on the overboots says "Someone took these apart, put them back together if you can". Ok, lets see, use the whole one for a model, work the foam piece back in . . . 5 mins . . voila! $135 overboots for $30, plus my 5 mins of assembly. Sweet! I'm gonna have toasty feet in my Nepal Extremes this year, now I just have to get my crampons to fit.

Really nice climb and pics guys, really makes me wish I didn't have to sit at home working on my thesis for most of the this ice season.

Arachnid arch under Iron Horse/Sagitarius? might be a bit similar to the first pic, only smaller and shorter and not so high up. It's way easy with enough small cams but good practice for the sort of thing, esp for the second.

Check out www.beyondfleece.com. They do custom stuff based on your measurments. What I've seen has been good stuff, and not really that much extra $$ for it. You can customize your options too (different pockets, etc). I haven't got anything from them yet but I've been meaning too. Does anyone know any other companies who make stuff for us long torso short leg folks (35x29 or so?)?

Good you got off free, when I was up there a few weeks ago we came out and there were a whole bunch of folks with nice pink tickets on their cars, including a couple WITH sno-park passes who thought it would be a good idea to start a new row of parking in a pretty dumb spot right on the corner off the exit. I was glad I paid my $8, even if it does suck.

No, these are Russian ice fifis.

Ebay link Looks like they got the handles on sideways.

Thanks WD, if only I could convince VW that E-burg is on the way from Portland to Bozeman. Anyone else with ideas farther east near Ritzville?

Anybody on cc.com live near there? I'm heading out to find some ice with vw4ever in MT, but I'm in SEA and he's in PDX. The plan is to start driving seperately and meet up over there where our paths converge, then ditch my car somewhere. I need a relatively safe place to leave it from Thursday night through Monday. It's an 87 Subaru that was stolen earlier and thus has no stereo, so I'm not too worried about it, but I don't want it towed, or the windows smashed in. Any ideas? :-)

Hey, hey, I found a neutrino on the N. Ridge of Stuart last summer! Can I join the party?!? Am I cool yet? C'mon everyone, look at ME!

Yeah, I want a 30 meter section of one of those super skinny single ropes too.

To my knowledge, the stairs and walkways WERE carved by monks to reach the top. There are numerous alcoves with religous displays, including several full sized rooms carved out entirely by hand. I'm not sure about a monastary on top, there are a bunch of things up there now. I'm sure amongst the hotels and restaurants there is one. Yeah, it's kinda wierd since its a holy site, but hey, lots of China is a little wierd to American eyes.

Definately Huashan in China. I was there in 2001. It's a pretty awesome spot. Me and a friend did the 3000 ft. hike up from the base instead of the tourist gondola ride. It was a lot of fun hiking up since the only other folks there were the chinese guys hauling up loads of propane tanks, cases of beer, watermelons, etc. It must be cheaper to have people hike the loads up 3000 or so ft of hand carved steps than it is to send a gondola car. The top was crowded and touristy with hotels and stuff, but the space in between had awesome routes carved into the sheer walls. We took a side trail and ended up in this high hanging valley with a small subsistence farm there and a woman who sold us tea. Unfortunately I believe rock climbing there is illegal because it is a "holy mountain". Otherwise it would be a lot of fun. Also it can get a bit overcrowded, in 2000 40 or so people died on one of those chain stairway things because it was so crowed that some folks got pushed off the edge. And the hardware isn't exatly expansion bolts in the rock, much of it is hand drilled holes with steel or wooden spikes pounded in. The main route up has been "improved" but some of it is still pretty sketchy. Oh and those steps do a number on your knees if you have to hike down. :-) One of the coolest spots on my China trip though.

BTW, this isn't a new innovation, this is basically a fancy Russian Ice Fifi. They've been using em for years. I climbed with em a couple of times, awesome for hooking, not so good when you have to swing. Some of the ruskis can climb super fast in the speed comps with em though. I imagine these swing a bit better though with a real pick. The Russian ones I used were basically cut out of sheet metal with tape wrapped handles and a sharpened point. I also hear that some super scary verglas has been climbed with this sort of thing.

So does the condom act as a vapor barrier and keep things warmer, thus minimizing shrinkage and enabling the reach to Seattle??? Damn, i better start wearing a condom when i climb too!

I have some of those old coat hanger screws that I inherited from a friend who used them "back in the day". I took them out once and placed some near the ground. Basically it was that same effect on the hard pure ice, but they actually did ok on wetter more plastic stuff. I bounced the crap out of one and it held (although watching it flex was entertaining). Not that I'd ever want to climb on one or place it on lead. Ice blocks are fun though, made some in my freezer when I got my first real screws just for the heck of it. I just wanted to screw something. ;-)

I got the smallest REI UL pack which is a bit smaller but the same concept, also not waterproof, but something like $18 on sale. It works great as a summit pack, climbed Triple Couloirs with it this year. I wouldn't pay that much for the OR though, it's too big and heavy for a summit pack/stuff sack, and too small and uncomfortable (at least in the store) for much longer than a day.

Pulling the skinny cord first is a pain, but if you pull the fat cord first you are more likely to end up with a stuck skinny cord anyways. The skinny cord is much lighter and much more likely to get blown off route. Also I find they twist and kink much more easily making little squirril knots that get jammed in cracks and flakes. I've always pulled the skinny cord first the few times I've gone this route (with a 5.5 mm spectra cord that was super kinky). But there's obviously no consensus on it. :-)

Awesome! Who wants to go tent testing in the mountains?

Cool that you headed up there, bummer on the summit. It sounds like maybe you took one of the western gullies that the guidebook says blank out. I was on the ridge until that big huge blank gendarme right before the summit (the blank rock in the pic above). I traversed under that to a gully that comes right up to the east of the summit, between the big gendarme and the summit. It would have been sketchy with more frost (there was some already), but it wasn't 5th class except for a move or two that could have been avoided. Anyways, it's not going anywhere for when you want to try again. Im still aiming to post pics but the film still lives in my camera. :-)

I got mine from AlpIndustria in Moscow, Russia. If you're headed that way I'll dig out the metro stop for ya. ;-)