dylan_taylor

John Dunne...

Ride, thank you for giving us enlightening information on these two stoves. I have both, and I agree that the PR can boil water faster, but I think the JetBoil is a better stove. I do not like the larger pot very much, even though it is efficient. The lid on my large jetboil shrunk the first time i boiled pasta noodles with it - haven't been able to get it back on since. I don't understand the arguement over stove efficiency. I disagree with this statement: . I just don't see the link between stove efficiency and stove boiling speed. If I wanted to drive from bellingham to seattle as fast as possible, a corvette could get me there in just over half an hour, but that doesn't mean that it is more efficient than driving my toyota wagon, which would take me at least three times longer, but burn only a fraction of the fuel. The jetboil barely uses any fuel at high power. But the engineers figured out how to get most of that heat to go from the burner into the pot, rather than out into the atmosphere. I sometimes value speedy boiling when i am in the backcountry - big groups, cold temps, etc, but usually I am far happier to be boiling my water in four minutes instead of three, as long as I know my fuel cannister will last three or four times longer. I like the jetboil (small pot, not big one) the most because it nests into a compact package, it is fairly light, it is incredibly efficient, it makes decent coffee, it has an included tea cup/bloatmeal bowl, and, best of all, it hangs in my tent! That way I can use that extra minute or two of slow boiling time to clip my toenails while it is raining outside... I am excited to see the production Reactor stove. It sounds like it will be jetted to burn fast and efficiently. I just hope we can figure out a way to hang it.

ANWAR: a red herring that the republicans have sent evironmentalists on in order to distract them from pressuring their congressmen and representatives to vote on something that might actually matter, and might actually hurt Big Oil, like CAFE. The CAFE standards remain the same for the last 21 years.

It is happening quite quickly on the valle blanche:

slop test perhaps it is better to say that alpine ski boots will generally outperform softer Randonee boots The difference in weight (once brakes are added to the explore's - not a bad idea in avy terrain or ski-mountaineering) is only 3 oz. 3oz for a slightly beefier toe piece, a higher DIN option, and perma-brakes seems almost worth it for the freerides... Then again the dynafits are top-notch 99% of the time.

Like other workers in the service industry, guides expect tips. How much depends on the type of work. Guides working in day venues are often tipped proportionally more (~$50/day for a day on rock) than they are on long, multi-week expeditions, probably due to price fatigue, because the work is less consistent, and because the client's fun:suffering ratio is high. On Denali and foreign expeditions, Guides anticipate being tipped in the neigberhood of ~$10-~$30/day (per client), though these tips could be adjusted based on how much technical work the guide did (e.g. Were guide and clients tying into ropes every day? Such as on Denali or in the Alps? or was it only 3 out of 15 days (Ecuador volcanoes). Furthermore, I don't think all guides deserve the same tip amount. There is often a lead guide who, while responsible for the well-being of each client, is also responsible for instruction his/her junior guides on how to guide in that particular environment. To tip all equally is to tell the lead guide that their additional effort is not appreciated, and to tell the junior guides that, upon reaching the status of lead guide, they should not expect any additional reward for their hard work. Tip each guide invidually based on how you feel they contributed to the success of the expedition. For most places in the world, this is bullshit. For something non-technical like Kili, sure, a guide is a logistics liason. But for the majority of foreign guiding work, the guide is the glue that holds the trip together - not some freeloader picking up coin for interpreting between boistrous clients and "shy locals" On south america work in Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, if I didn't start working my ass off a week ahead of time buying/packing food, paying support staff, confirming hotel reservations, arranging transportation, contracting some arrieros in a village, then the trip would fall apart. This is the invisible work that the clients never see. In third-world venues, the guide is responsible for educating the clients on a little culture, history, etc. The guide needs to teach the clients on appropriate behavior in a cultural environment they are not used to visiting. Yes, the guides should pass on tips to the local staff. On foreign trips I have worked, it is customary to remind clients during the expedition about the hard work the cooks/porters/drivers do and remind them that they deserve a tip from the clients. We as guides are able to instruct the clients on what is an appropriate tip for the locals: too little is insulting to the local staff, too much sets a precedent of laziness and unrealistic expectations. The clients can fill in the blanks - knowing what guide wages in the U.S. are these days - and calculate what is then appropriate for us - the guides. If the trip runs safely, smoothly, and efficiently, if clients have fun, regardless the outcome, if the support staff is able to do their work well, then chances are the guide(s) did an excellent job of keeping it together and they deserve a gratuity from you.

Panasonic LX-1. 8.2 MP. 28mm wide angle equivilant, high aspect ratio, 4x optical zoom, image stabilizer, and RAW support. Drawback is that lens is not fully retractable so camera is hard to fit into chest pocket

I used to use the GiGi, but gave it up. Too specialized. The reverso and BD guide are much better for most of us. For a while, I always thought that the two biggest problems with the reverso were the tendency to form a sharp edge, and the relative lack of friction when belaying or rapelling on the new "standard" of skinnier ropes. Fortunately, if the reverso is used right, the two problems cancel each other out. If you rappel with the reverso "reversed", you get more friction, and you will either a)not develop a sharp edge or b) round out an existing sharp edge. The sharp edge frightened me for awhile, but in reality it never seems to have a highly tensioned rope over it except for in rare cases (such as pre-rigging a client with an old, sharp reverso above several other clients and/or a guide). I have used the BD guide device, and though I like it for some things, i don't like it for others. With its teeth, it handles skinnier rope belaying and rappeling a little better than the reverso (however, i have not used the latest generation reverso, with teeth and more taper included). But even with its gimicky release hole, meant to have a piece of cord or webbing girthed to it for releasing in autolock mode, I thought the Reverso was far smoother and easier to operate. A guiding colleague of mine tests gear for part of his livelyhood. He tested the reverso in a situation where a loaded rope with 4-8kN is wrapped over the sharp edge (in a pre-rig scenrio as mentioned above). Here are the details: "Dylan and I made a stink about Tom's Reverso being so sharp when we saw it on the exam (at the top of a rappel). He had been using it a lot at his local sandstone crag and honed a couple of really sharp edges (see photo). I traded Tom out for a new Reverso and took his home with me. I pull tested it a couple of days ago. Three tests were done: The device was placed in rappel orientation for all tests. A Sterling 10.5 mm dynamic rope was used in the first two tests on the side with the most damage. Both times the failure occurred where expected, at the sharp edge of the Reverso. What wasn't expected is that it failed at 2424.5 lbF (10.8 kN)! Dylan and I would have to gain some serious weight to have Tom's Reverso do much damage, and we were the heavy weights in the exam. Sheesh. The other test was done (same orientation) on the side with the least amount of damage with a new single 8.8mm dynamic double rope. It didn't fail after pulling 48", but started to have some sheath damage at 1941 lbF (8.6 kN). I thionk it would have taken much much more to fail it. The other interresting thing that was observed is that the sharp edges of aluminum were rolled over after pull testing, much like what happens to a really sharp knife blade when cutting on a hard surface." Obviously, the sample size is small, only two ropes were used. A photo of the test reverso is included. DT

Hey John! What memories! I was just looking at old slides of Triumph... Anyway, Google is an amazing thing. This satisfied some curiousity: Bina, C. R., and A. Navrotsky, Till Hell freezes over - Ice in subducting slabs?, Eos, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, Western Pacific Geophysics Meeting Supplement, T22B-05, 2000. T22B-05 During subduction of oceanic lithosphere, a series of progressive dehydration reactions occurs. The water liberated participates in geologically important processes. It has been invoked in melting point depression responsible for island-arc volcanism, in enhanced pore pressures responsible for intermediate-depth seismicity, and in transport of soluble chemical constituents from slab to mantle. While supercritical fluid water is liberated during dehydration of most slabs, the stable phase of H2O is solid ice VII along portions of the geotherm for the coldest slabs. The substitution of ice VII for fluid water as a product of dehydration reactions has significant implications for the physical processes by which H2O is generated, stored, transported, and released within cold subduction zones. The locations and slopes in P-T space of dehydration reactions change, potentially affecting depths of seismogenesis and magmagenesis. Significant amounts of ice VII can be accumulated during progressive dehydration of mineral solid solutions during subduction. As the sinking slab warms, melting of this pure ice will occur at a single temperature and pressure, releasing large amounts of water in a small spatial region over a short time. This univariant melting reaction has a significant positive volume change and may trigger seismicity. The initially chemically pure liquid water that is formed, being undersaturated with respect to all dissolved constituents, will react strongly with the surrounding rock, with possible implications for trace element distributions and metal transport. Accumulation of ice VII in a cooling planetary interior (e.g., Mars) may eventually lead to a decline in or cessation of tectonic activity.

I wonder what subduction model their evidence is based on. Most subduction zone models put the 600 deg C isotherm at a max depth of 120km on the cool, descending slab. Much warmer in the mantle wedge and descending oceanic lithosphere adjacent to it. It could get cooler at the same pressure for a more rapidly or steeply descending slab, but not that much cooler. By that depth in most arcs, amphiboles have dewatered. Hard to picture that water turning to ice, since it is what we attribute to be a primary cause of partial melting in the mantle wedge. Where's the link to the whole NYT article? I wonder if it is causing debate among earth scientists, or if some think that its a crock...

2 inches! and only a 20% chance of that...

There go the freshies... Maybe the snow will get blown all the way to bham. Boilerplate and man-eating sastrugi waves from now till the end of next week...

We did the spearhead on Feb 6-8, conditions were a little softer than they are now, but the whistler area had just had a big wind event prior (and during!) our traverse. We bivied in a snowcave on the tremor glacier on N.1. We made it to the hut the next night. The route seems to allow the skiier to avoid the nastiest of avalanch terrain. One couloir below decker is a little interesting though, and the worst part for us was skinning up a slope from fitzsimmons up and over to the overlord. It was getting really wind loaded. Should be bomber now. The stretch from the platform to the McBeth descent will be chattery. Have fun. It looks cold up there.

Cool! Nice pics! We did the spearhead traverse a week ago, and arrived in the hut on our last night. We didn't ski fissile - too windy. We came down from the overlord glacier. It was interesting how the front door had blown around, forcing the doorknob through the wall. It could make for an interesting pee hole if you were creative enough. The hut was drifted in with lots of snow (and playing cards?) on the floor, and on the back bed. Pretty nice respite from the wind though, a lot better than a snowcave or tent.

Climb: Mt Baker-Coleman Glacier Date of Climb: 2/15/2006 Trip Report: We had a nice ski tour yesterday. We skied from the Coleman-demming saddle. Back in town for late afternoon snacks. There was 3-5 inches of incredibly light wind-blown snow, and some graupel chunks to give it all a nice texture. Just under the light fluff was a layer of boilerplate, so you could carve high speed turns and kick up rooster tails of smoke and look like a rockstar, all while you are really thinking you are going to catch an edge and blow out an ACL seven miles from the car. It was COLD yesterday. It was fine, skinning up through the trees. But then when we got to the glacier, it felt like the instant arctic blast. I didn't take a thermometer, but my know my nose hairs start freezing at about +5 F. It was so cold that my skis wouldn't slide at the saddle - wrong wax temp. I had to double-pole it for a few hundred feet till the snowtemp warmed. No pics, i took slides. Gear Notes: should have had a facemask Approach Notes: 4wd + high speed quads.

I showed my hands to a hand doc in boulder a year ago. Definetly dupuytrens for me. I've got a large lump midway up the palm on each hand, over the ring finger tendon. Below the lumps, stretching towards my wrists, my tendons are elevated. my ring fingers are contracting and I have very poor flexibility of the whole hand. I can barely get my palm flat on a table and it is uncomfortable. The doctor said he's never seen it in someone so young (I am 30). Usually, he says, he sees them in people in their 50's and 60's. He says he keeps up on the literature of this particular disease because he has the gene (family hx) and he knows he's gonna get it. But his advice is often opposite of what I read in the above link. he was telling me "not to stretch or massage it - it'l only make it worse" he says. I don't know if he's full of it or not. Although he did say a lot of the same things you said mike: once surgery is performed, it progresses into second-stage dupuytrens - which progresses faster. He said surgery, though effective, would only last 5-6 years, and it would be like "pulling bubble gum out of a shag carpet". I recently heard that there was a paper published by some european doctors studying sports related injuries in young european sport climbers. A client told me about it. I wish I could get my (steadily warping) hands on it. Apparently, there are frequent cases of dupuytrens in young euro sport climbers who climb a ton and get overuse injuries. Sort of goes along with what that link stated and what some people here are saying. . I do not know if there is a genetic link to those cases, or if it is simply from climbing/training overuse.

Coolscan V ! In the interest of fastest acceptable throughput I do only minimal processing with the scanning software (ICE only) & do any further twiddling in photoshop. Are your samples both scanned and posted at the same resolution? Thats what I've been using as well! After many wasted sessions learning how to use this thing, and screwing up a lot of images, I think I will go to digi ICE only (and some histogram tweaking), and save the rest for photo-chop.

Its not a dmm cam but the idea is the same. use lighter to melt cord, and/or tie a knot in it first. The weedwacker cord has been on this cam for almost four years without incident.

forget cable. fine gauge weedwacker cord! Less than four bucks for 50'. You can repair cams for life.

Sorry, I was new to digital DEE and ICE when i scanned it, thus the blue cast in the shadows and the burned out highlights on the boulder. I aim to do better next time. You are right about my shadow. It is annoying. It stung when I noticed that after getting the slides back. It's tough with a fisheye when the sun is on your back. I am not a sophisticated enough photochop user to take that out. Nor did I think it was worth my time.

Impressive! Seems like the snowpack in the Tordrillos and the Illiamna area is hurting, as can be seen in the distant background in the Dec 20 photo here.

Good luck on your objective! Could you elaborate on your charity? I've never thought that "being active" demanded much publicity. What other things are you attempting to raise awareness of? How will this objective of yours raise the funds for it? Suerte!

Baker was fun yesterday. quite deep, very soft, kind of warm. At least it was snowing.

with what?