OlympicMtnBoy

Wow, I'm not sure I still want to go there, but there are plenty of other things still on the list! What a great TR!

I have some Salewa Mountain Trainers that have worked well for me for some of these situations. They err more towards mountain boot than rock shoe, but climb fairly well for a light boot and better than your average hiking shoe. The current model is a bit changed though so I can't comment on it, (and now there is also an "alp trainer mid" that looks more hiking boot like). You are right though, there aren't really many good options that do both rock and snow well.

Looks fun, you can't feel the heat in the pictures!

Sweet! I'd love to see some captions!

Cool, looks like a good time, I love chimneys!

Nice work!!

That brings back some good memories! One of my first Olympic rock routes, I led on my brand new rack of 4 cams and some nuts I brought back from Russia. Glad you got back there to finish it!

Nice work, thats a full days work even with 2 of 3!

Yeah, I did that on the old site I think. It's kind of cool to look up what routes were climbed in "August" over the longer history. It helps get around the rush when a single TR is posted somewhere saying something is in good shape. At least if you see a bunch of TRs for a route in a particular month for a few different years, you might guess at your chances. I haven't tried to find a way to do this on the new site yet. :-)

Sweet, thanks for sharing! Looks like a good "day" out!

Cool, looks like a fun solo!

Nice work, it’s a fun ski!

Nice trip!

Nice work, what a way to do a "long weekend"!

Cool, I still need to do that one!

Where are you at? If you are on the east side Wenatchee Outdoors has an informal climbers forum and a few folks who get out regularly weekday afternoon. If you are in the Seattle area hit me up or post up here, sometime I can sneak out of work. Index was nice on Tuesday.

Old Lawn Chair? Probably a good story with that! Cushy belay seat?

Nice pics, sounds like a fun trip! I need to head up there in winter one of these years. Snowshoer sounds kinda badass to make a sound call and bivy safely, but obviously nicer to get to the lookout. Even nicer when other people bring you the wine and whiskey!

I like all the people poking their heads in on this forum. I've been casually lazy about posting TRs for several years, but I'll get something up eventually. It does seem like there is a little more activity lately, hopefully the new system helps. Our lack of an ice season doesn't help the winter TRs much either.

Welcome Khattak! Yes, you are a long ways from the Cascade Mountains but you are certainly welcome to post up here. We have a few big wall climbers on the site and some pretty nice wall climbs in the area (Index, Squamish, Smith Rock, Washington Pass, etc). You should post up some pictures of the walls in the Karakorum you are looking to climb! Maybe that will entice someone to visit. If you are interested in big walling and A5 gear you should also check out the forum on supertopo.com. There are a lot of Yosemite climbers who post there including John Middendorf who designed the A5 Haulbag and is still making innovative gear (he recently had a kickstarter for a new D4 portaledge). He also has the site bigwalls.net which is a wealth of info on his gear designs. Cheers, OlympicMtnBoy

Another great TR, I love reading these! How the heck do you event find the route at places like Duiwelskloof? The lines don't look obvious at all for my NW sense of trad climbing!

Nice! Now I feel like I've been missing out! Way to get at it in these odd conditions!

Sweet, thanks JSG! That is great beta, we'll have to check some of those spots out! Do you normally just rent a car there then? And any thoughts on renting BC gear? We will probably only be skiing for a portion of the trip so not sure about dragging our skis around if we might be able to reasonably find some powder boards over there better than ours anyways? Probably take our own boots.

Good to hear! We are heading to Hokkaido, but really don't have anything set in our itinerary other than tickets to/from Tokyo. I've done a fair amount of touring and ski mountaineering but my wife is not quite as good of a skier so we are probably aiming more from scenic and moderate. My powder skis are K2 Sidestashs, 108mm underfoot, she doesn't have good powder boards and may just try to rent, we haven't decided that yet. Any suggestions?

Hey CC.comies! My wife and I are planning a two week trip to Japan the second half of Feb. Anyone skied over there and have tips/suggestions? We'd like to do some resort and some BC skiing. Neither of us has been there so we were considering joining a ski tour group or getting a guide for a couple days. Also trying to decide about gear as neither of us has a great powder skis right now. I'm also open to non-skiing suggestions! Cheers, OMB