OlympicMtnBoy

I had this hole wear out on the outside of my boots near where my little toe is, maybe too much crack climbing in backpacking boots. There is a great little shoe repair stand in the market in the city of Turkistan, Kazakhstan that fixed it for about a dollar. They even offered to add an identical looking patch to my other boot so they would match. I'd definately look them up. If you can't go to Kazakhstan though, basically he just patched it with a piece of leather and some heavy duty upholstry/shoe thread. I slobbered shoe goo on it too and it's held up pretty well for the last 10 months or so although I have a new hole forming on the other side and the tread is entirely flat now so it might be time for new boots. Good luck.

Yep, I put my pack on, and then slide the picket up from the bottom so it goes under the compression straps on the side of my pack. Then I clip the top hole of my picket (which is on the bottom cause I slid it up upside down) to a gear loop on my harness (or to my pack strap where it attaches to the pack at the bottom). This way when I need the picket, I just unclip it and slide it down and out. This can be done relatively easily with some practice. If you clip it to your harness, you have to deal with it when you take your pack off, but on one of my packs this is more convenient then the pack strap. Of course, sometime when cleaning during a running belay I still hang it over my shoulder with a runner in front of me cause it's more convenient. Just put your pack on and experiement and find out what works for you. Make sure you clip the damn thing somewhere good though, or you'll loose it on a glissade somewhere and not notice (of course I've never done that before. ;-) ).

I'll be back up in Washington in mid-July after a couple week stopover in Yosemite on my way up from Florida. I'd be up for some aid at Index or Squamish. I've got plenty of gear too. Look me up in a month. :-) - OMB

Hey, it's MY birthday too!!! I want some of the action! I even have Oly in my name. What if I ride the tiny bike 50 miles? And wear brighter colored spandenx? - OlympicMtnBoy

They're not that old or rare though, I saw some in Sierra Trading Post a few years ago. I've always wondered why tricams never had a hinged wire like the little camlocks though, that would be cool. Even the wired european tricams don't do it the same way. I've never climbed with camlocks except once when aiding Wrist Twister up at Squamish and my partner had one on his rack that he had bootied somewhere. I found a place for it that worked great, but it didn't seem like it would be as versitile as a tricam.

That's not what I get when I go to that site. A google search doesn't get me anything on ciloa either???

Hmm, I had that same thing happen on my Flyte. It's about 8 years old and has seen a lot of use though, including two trips back to Osprey (when I tore a shoulder strap off and blew a couple buckles). Mine blew in Kyrgyzstan after a 20km ride on a donkey. I temporarily fixed it with a bunch of ducktape stitched into place. The backstay hoop on mine is removable through the inside of the pack, only took a few mins, a bit harder to put back in but manageable. It was a lot of work to stitch through that stuff but it can be done, a speedy stitcher would probably work well. I just haven't had enough time since I got back in August to get it fixed as I have other packs. I don't know if I could convince Osprey to do it on warranty again.

I climbed it in July of 2002 at the end of my Peace Corps service in Russia. It's just a slog, but it was still pretty awesome. There is a route up the other side from the standard route that is slightly harder, but not much. The hard part is getting around to the other side. I organized the thing myself and led 3 other volunteers. We did it really cheaply, but we all spoke Russian to some degree or another and had trains and stuff figured out. If you want to get up to 18k feet and climb one of the seven summits, it's a great destination. If you want a technical challenge go do Ushba or nearly anything else in the area other than Elbrus. Let me know if you've go more questions. - OMB

I don't think the wire in that thing is supposed to be left, it looks kind of like you thread a cord through it and just use the swaged wire thingy to make it easier to fish out the other side. You still just end up with a piece of perlon or whatever through there. I agree that the Candela kicks ass, but it won't work on a 30 cm hole like the Russian drill makes. Doesn't seem useful to me either except for rescue work and stuff as it says. But the Russians are known to do wierd things during competitions and club practices that might need something like that.

DC route gets soloed, with the trough to follow and the hordes of climbers the risk is a little lower. Of course check the NPS website on getting a solo permit, that's a different thing.

Kinda makes one wish they were arranged the other way with the little one on top so you could just slide the bigger pieces down the wire to reach the smaller cracks. An argument could also be made that the extra weight isn't worth the extra versatility cause you still need the same number of pieces to protect the route. Of course I don't know what these guys weight. I've got a couple of Viamont's wired tricams that are kinda neat, don't use em too much still though.

Climb: Mt. Hood-North Face - Right Gully Date of Climb: 12/23/2004 Trip Report: I hadn’t been to the top of Mt. Hood yet, my two attempts over the last six years both ended near the top of the Palmer lift in really bad weather, so when vw4ever suggested I come down and do the North Face with him I figured I ought to give it another try. The route looked a lot more appealing that the south side slog, maybe even motivating enough to get me to the top this time. I headed down to Portland on Wednesday afternoon to meet up with vw4ever and DonV, piled my gear in the car and we headed out around 8pm. After dropping off DonV’s pickup truck at the Timberline parking lot, we drove vw4ever’s jeep around and up to the end of the Cloud Cap road. The gate was still open and the snow was soft in spots, but we made it all the way to the end of the road. We crashed out until about 2:30 AM when we awoke and shouldered our packs and headed out about 3:15. We made ok time up the Elliot and then took a short break to make sure we didn’t hit the bergschrund too early. After the break we got to the schrund right as the sky began to lighten. Finding a nice relatively solid snow bridge we crossed without incident and headed up the right gully. The left gully looked nice too and there were several other nifty looking icy bits in the area. Conditions were nearly perfect with hard snow that just loved our ice tools and crampons and the ice steps all took screws pretty well. VW led the first step, Don the second, and myself the third, Don retook the lead for the final bit taking us up to the right from the last ice step and popping us out right on the summit with a bit more thin ice and funky stuff near the top. We stayed roped up from the Elliot to the top, simul climbing with very occasional pro for most of it and pitching out the two steepest ice bulges. We kept a pretty steady pace only stopping to switch leads or when I wanted to spend more time futzing with belays (where I managed to drop a 10cm OP ice screw if anyone finds one). We made the summit around 2 PM. The weather was beautiful the whole way although the wind picked up a bit near the top and started raining ice chunks on us. Don took one in the eye that gave him an interesting bruise, but other than that it wasn’t bad. Popping up onto the summit we were suddenly rewarded with a beautiful sunny, warm, calm spot, truly amazing. After a half hour break to snack and unrope we headed down the south side trough. Descent was uneventful except for the glove I donated to the mountain when the wind grabbed it as I was removing it from my hand and tossed it down into the steam vent just west of the Hogsback. I briefly considered rapping down to retrieve it but then realized just how idiotic that would be. I was obviously getting a bit tired but considering I was coming pretty much off the couch and I hadn’t been above 3000 feet since July I figure I was still doing pretty well. We ran into John and Julian coming off the Leuthold Couloir on the walk down the cat track which made the last few tiring steps go a little faster. We reached the truck just after sunset. ---------- And thus any normal TR would end, back at the car, drinking beer, heading out to get a well deserved dinner somewhere and then driving home to beautiful women and warm beds and champagne and strawberries to celebrate. Hmm, nope. We all piled into Don’s car to go pick up the jeep at the end of Cloud Cap. About halfway up Cloud Cap we were confronted with the rather surprising sight of another pickup, lying on its side, crossways in the road. The two interesting gentlemen who had been in it were unhurt but couldn’t really give a clear explanation of how they got their truck into that position. We managed to sneak by on the road shoulder, hook a chain to one side and pull their truck upright. We hoped they would be able to start it and get it out of the way before we came down again, but that turned out to not be a concern. About a mile from the end of the road we bogged down in the snow and despite pushing, pulling, shoving, digging, and cursing we couldn’t move. VW ran up the road and got the jeep and tried to push the pickup out with it, also to no avail. Eventually I crashed with exhaustion as VW and Don continued fruitlessly to try to dig out the truck, eventually getting the jeep stuck as well and then unstuck again, but still blocked in by the pickup. We got a hold of AAA for a tow, but they didn’t relay the information properly and when we finally talked to the actual tow truck operator he said he’d try to get up in the morning. We called at 6:30 AM and were told the driver should be there soon. That’s what we heard at 7:30 and 8:30 too, so we started to think about hiking out or spending Christmas with the trucks. Fortunately the tow truck made it just after 9. We were rather skeptical after watching his truck get stuck 4 or 5 times just coming towards us, but with some excellent winch work we were soon all on our way down the mountain. We hit the Huckleberry Inn for a long overdue dinner/breakfast/lunch just after noon. All in all, it was an excellent trip, even considering the costs of actually getting out. We were granted passage on a really beautiful route and I finally checked Hood off in the book. We lucked out with good snow and ice conditions, good weather, and good partners. Pics to follow soon. Gear Notes: Two ice tools, 3 pickets, 8 screws (lots of stubbies) and a bit of rock gear, we used the screws and pickets. Approach Notes: Cloud cap road is passable to SOME vehicles, but not for long. Don't get stuck, the tow bill sucks.

If you wanna start in the snow go from Hurricane Ridge (just let the rangers know and park down in the snowplow lot below the main lot). Hiking out obstruction point rd. can be fun and get you out to some pretty mellow peaks and you can play on Steeple Rock on the way. I've gone from the Dungeness TH in winter too, it probably will be open. Hiking in to Royal Lake is really pretty and you can climb anything in the Needles from there. There are some good winter climbs in there.

Yeah, and I know, this belongs in the ALPINE LAKES forum. Stupid slow internet cafes. I'd move it if I could. :-)

Climb: Prussik Peak-West Ridge Date of Climb: 6/14/2004 Trip Report: Ok, so it's a little late, but I was rather in a hurry to pack for the next trip so I didn't post this earlier. Oh, and now I'm on my next trip, after travelling through Germany, Slovenia, Serbia, Romania, and Turkey I've just arrived in Kygyzstan and am headed towards to Karavshin Valley for some REAL rock soon, so this'll be a short report. On Sunday, June 14th or so I heade out with HBM (non CC.comer) for a nice little climb up Prussik. We hit the ranger station in the early morning and got permits without any problem, but after hitting the store to buy food and whatnot we didn't get hiking till 12:00. We carried some beers up to hide in the creek for the hike down and left them about 2 mi in under snow creek wall and kept moving. The trail had a few trees across in spots (that magically dissappeared when we headed down the next day) and we didn't hit any snow till after upper snow lake. We camped up at the first high lake we hit and made a nice dinner, then crawled into the bivy sacks. We were a bit worried about the goats chewing on our pack straps for the salt so we hung our gear up in a dead tree out of their reach. We woke up rather late and had a leisurely breakfast and finally hit the bottom of the west ridge around 10:30 if I remember right. The climbing was pretty straight forward and mostly scambly. I led the 5.7 slab part and HBM did the final 5.6 summit block. We ended up doing it in 3 roped pitches with a bit of scrambling between 2 and 3. The weather was great and the views were pretty nice. I think it was around 1:30 at the top. We snapped some pictures, had some lunch, and then headed down. Three raps got us to about 2 minutes below where we had started. We headed back down, retrieved the gear from the tree, and made the long hike out. The beers were great when we got to them. It was a great climb and a fun time, but I kept lookin at the south face cause that's where I wanna be. It looks like it could be a nice nice thin seam aid line up on the left of the south face too, but maybe I'm making stuff up. Next time I do that appraoch I'm going in for several days to do a bunch of routes up there. Gear Notes: We had a small rack, one set of nuts, 4 cams (or maybe 5), and 3 hexes. We also took ice axes which were handy in the morning on the icy snow, and for some glisading back down from Prussik pass. Approach Notes: Trail was good, still lots of snow past there in the enchantment lakes though, most lakes still mostly frozen up there.

Okay, what's with hijacking my TR post to put up some pics of someone elses trip??? VW is getting some of our pics soon then we'll show ya what real men look like climbing the thing! And we didn't take no stinkin skis neither.

Climb: Mt. Stuart-Ice Cliff Glacier Date of Climb: 6/6/2004 Trip Report: I met up with vw4ever in Seattle on Saturday morning and we had a relatively leisurely trip to the TH with the requisite stops for food and gas. Packed up and hit the trail around 2:30 PM. Neither of us had been in to Stuart that way before, but the break from the Stuart Lake trail and the river log crossing were easy to find. Didn't find much on the other side of the creek we could follow but after wandering for a little bit we finally came across a flagged route in to the boulder field. I was rather enjoying hopping amongst the boulders with a big pack but I'm afraid vw4ever found it less exciting after accidentally disappearing between two car-sized beasts when some on his pack snagged and knocked him off balance. Fortunately he quickly extricated himself without any major injuries. A little farther on up the valley and we encountered a slabby little cliff and rather unwisely tackled it directly instead of skirting above or below it. I managed to smear through with my climbing boots on, vw4ever seemed to continue his bad luck on a different path around a corner when a hold pulled and he slid about 40 feet down and crumpled up in the boulders below. He was just out of view so I only heard his shouts. I quickly dropped my pack and scrambled back down to see our gear spread down the hill and a very fortunate and barely scratched vw. I thought for a minute I was gonna have to hike all the way back out for a rescue as we were traveling cell phone-less. After a short break we continued on the camp in the valley below the Sherpa and Ice Cliff Glaciers. We found a nice tent spot by a creek right before the snow became constant. The rain, which had plagued our approach on and off, continued as we cooked dinner and crawled into the tent. We couldn't see anything higher than the ice cliff on the mountain when we went to sleep. We woke up at 4:30 AM but it was raining and the mountain was still hidden so we went back to sleep and got up again at 8:30. We lounged around until 10:00 brought sun breaks and the mountain came out at which point we felt dumb for not starting out earlier. We grabbed the gear and set out, telling ourselves we'd just check out the base of the route and be ready earlier tomorrow. We got to the moraine and mutually agreed we ought to just go for it. It had been cold over night and the glacier and rocks seemed pretty quiet, and we'd only heard one bit of rock or icefall all evening before. We started climbing at 12 PM. We chose to start from the left side of the moraine as it looked way safer than the guidebook suggestion of coming in from the right below the north ridge. We climbed about a thousand feet up pretty decent snow and then put on our crampons for the real glacier section. The snow bridges were still all there and the left side of the Ice Cliff ended up being easier than we had expected. I led the only short section that actually required two tools (one tool and an axe for me) at the top of the ice cliff with no problems. We took a relatively direct route through a crevassed section on the upper glacier as well where I walked through fine and vw fell through a bridge behind me (even though he's probably 20 lbs lighter). The upper 'schrund crossing was passed on the extreme left on another bridge that still seemed pretty solid. Once in the upper couloir we endured a constant barrage of tiny ice shard but as none were much bigger than quarters it was a small price for our late start. Vw led the cornice pitch, which proved to be the sketchiest part of the climb. Vw slung an exposed rock horn (or a boulder frozen in the hillside) on the way up, but we both decided afterwards it may have been better to unrope. The snow was soft and sugary but he made it over the top and I followed happily on toprope. On the ridge we were able to see the next weather front moving in towards us. We weren't sure how fast it was coming so we decided to head for the summit but we had just come up near the false summit at ~9,250' when the real summit vanished and it began to snow. We decided to head down, having finished the fun part of the route, we'd leave the summit for later. Some fun glissades on the soft snow and a bit of traversing got us to the top of the Sherpa glacier and we headed down from there. The bergschrund was passed on the left (facing downhill) with not problems. We kept heading down in a relatively straight line until we were nearly all the way down and found the path blocked by exposed slabs all running with snowmelt. We explored several options and finally ended up climb back up hill to escape on the far right of the Sherpa (again looking downhill). It was snowing constantly all the way down but stopped when we hit the valley. We got back to camp just before 9PM and cooked dinner and had cigars before crashing for the night. It rained all night. And then it rained all morning. We stayed in bed until we got hungry and then went back to bed. About 1 pm on Monday it finally stopped raining and we managed to suck it up for the hike back out. Coming out we were a little more careful on the boulders and actually managed to avoid much of them. It took us about 4 hours total to get out. Beer and burgers followed at the Duck and Drake and there was much rejoicing. It was a great route and I'm glad we went up it with the late start, we certainly wouldn't have been able to climb in the nast weather on Monday. Gear Notes: I had a 70 cm axe and a straight shafted ice tool, vw had two tools. We took 4 ice screws, two pickets, and a little rock pro. We used one ice screw and one picket. One screw and one picket somehow stayed on the mountain somewhere later, probably came unclipped in the glissading, should've known better. :-( Approach Notes: Road is nice, trail is snow free, approach is snow free to camp around 5400'

So, with all these going on sale now, does that mean we'll see a new batch out next season? I'm waiting for them all to shrink like GPS's and cell phones and stuff. I think a Tracker at 1/2 the size and weight would be pretty nifty.

Sounds like a classic Olympics attempt, hehehe. I went up to do the west arete of Constance last summer and my partner blew the sidewall out of his bike tire about 1.5 mi up that road. So we did the rest of the hike up and then back out in the dark swapping the good bike back and forth. I found it worked better to balance the pack on the handlebars of the bike than trying to hike with it on, and wheeling the bike. It still sucks though, never think to bring a whole spare tire. ;-)

Yeah, PhilU, that may have been the crappiest part of the trip in the gully there, next time I'm fighting the forest instead. JDjr, there is a tiny spiral bound notebook in there, maybe 25 pages, plus a couple of little scraps of paper. It's hard to say, but I'd guess maybe 50-75 entries. The first entry was marked 197- with the corner of the page gone, and the next couple pages were really faded, the first one I could read was 1975. Looked like the most recent was Aug 2003. I'm sure there have been a few parties up there that didn't have any paper to sign and add, but I don't think it gets climbed terribly often. I keep thinkin about it now, I gotta get back in there and do Clark and Johnson and some of those spires.

I bought one of those Cassin $12 dealies. It's not so bad as far as I can tell although I'm pretty new to pounding on crap. It's got the same handle as the the Camp Brenta as far as I can tell. The shiny coating chips off a bit after you pound things for a while, but so what, it was $12. It seems like it'll work fine for occasional use, and it's a big step up from the woodworking hammer I had put a leash on.

Climb: Mt. Baldy - Gray Wolf Ridge - Mt. Walkinshaw- Date of Climb: 5/24/2004 Trip Report: After a very late Sunday night I didn't get started until noon on monday from the Dungeness TH. The first mile to the intersection with the Royal Lake trail and then the Lower Maynard Burn trail went by pretty quickly. The trail was mostly snow free all the way up. I was feeling lazy so I took a nap at the first summit on the way to Mt. Baldy and then made Baldy by around 4. Continuing on the easy ridge I donned my gaiters for a bit of snow on the way up to the Gray Wolf Ridge summit and after a short break I started towards the second summit. Here the going got a little nastier as the nice easy ridge walking deteriorated into a horribly friable rocky ridge, or a crusty posthole adventure. There had been footprints on the way up to the first summit but no one had recently gone to the second summit and by late afternoon the snow was soft. Mostly I stuck to the ridge line but it took a bit longer than I expected. I made the second summit and then found a relatively nice spot to camp near the Gray Wolf - Walkinshaw saddle around 7:45 PM. 6600 feet of elevation gain in a half day with a full pack seemed good enough for me and I slept pretty well after melting some snow for water and cooking dinner. Along the whole ridge I encountered a very cold wind but it died down a bit towards evening and wasn't so bad at the saddle. With proper bivy site location I was able to get both the sunset and sunrise from my bivy sack. The night was clear and cold but the sun warmed me up in the morning and made for a nice leisurely morning (ie, 10AM). After breakfast I packed my bivy sack up and headed across the saddle and up Mt. Walkinshaw. Just as I was leaving camp the sky began to darken and as I was walking on the broad saddle the wind picked up a bit and it started to snow on me (or maybe it was very tiny hail). I started up the rocky ridge but my confidence begain to wane along with the nice weather. I had intended to continue on to traverse to Mt. Clark and Mt. Johnson but I decided to drop my pack and just scramble up to the summit and then retreat from the saddle. The snow was a bit more solid now and made for pretty nice step kicking except for one little bit where I hit a harder ice layer and wished I had brought crampons. It was nice to find some more solid rock to scramble on too. I made the summit around 11 am. The snow stopped and I kind of wished I had brought my pack to continue on. Instead I had a clif bar and snapped some summit photos. The summit log up there had gotten wet at some point and is looking pretty trashed (the metal on the ring binding is rusting away, but I read a few entries (back to ~1975) and added my own. If anyone heads up there, take a new little notebook and a ziplock. The register was placed by "The Truckers", anyone know who they were/are? A few cautious steep glisades and some down scrambling got me back to my pack and I walked back to the saddle and began heading down to the royal lake trail. I mistakenly thought it would be easier to glisade down a snow field but got funneled into a nastly gully that involved lots of sketchy greenery moves down wet crumbly rock until I could escape to the forested slop and make it to the trail. I headed up the rest of the way to Royal Lake, intending to camp there and maybe do Petunia Peak or something but it begain to rain in earnest at that point and the peaks above me totally disappeared into the cloud. It was only 3:45 PM after my late lunch break so I decided to hike the 7 mi out and have a cold beer and a warm bed instead. So the full Needles Traverse still awaits me, but the first part sure was fun. The route from Walkinshaw to Clark didn't look bad, especially with that much snow still up there. A couple people in the summit log mentioned coming from there as well. Sadly I lack a digital camera, or a scanner, but someday I'll try to post some pics. :-) Gear Notes: Aluminum Ice Axe Bivy Gear Approach Notes: Start at the Dungeness TH, take a right towards Royal Lake, right on the Maynard Burn trail, left on the closed road, left up the poorly marked trail and then follow the ridge.

Almost, Ushba is the US distributor, and they don't distribute everything that Alvo makes. You can find some more of their gear at Uralsport on ebay, although I just checked and they don't have the nice cheap screws anymore, although they do have several models other than the USHBA Ultimate Uralsport Ebay Store. Just to say, not all the $12 screws are Irbis. There are (or were) 4 or 5 Russian manufacturers of ice screws (ti and steel) and now those screws show up randomly. Sorry to go off topic.

Alvo Titanium also makes cheap Ti screws that I like way better than the Irbis ones, also with normal size threads. Sometimes you can find em on ebay at the UralAlp store for $10-20. I use em on easy ice, and I'd agree with the BDs or Grivels for steep hard stuff. The Ti screws sure are nicer to throw a couple of on your rack when you're not sure if you'll hit some ice in that mostly snow route though.

The Climbers Guide to Yosemite Valley by Steve Roper, not sure which edition cause it's missing the first six pages after the pictures, from between 1970 and 1973. A bit more rare: Rock Climbs in Yosemite, ed by Dave Nicol, collected, collated, drawn, etc by Pete Livesey, Keith Nannery (who gave me both these and a bunch of pitons), Dave Nicol no date but also from the early 70s. This one begins "This guide was originally intended as a quick 'run-off' for use by the itinerant British climber, although it has now been considerable expanded. Needless to say we do hope that our North American cousins will find it both acceptable and useful." :-)