stillcrankin

Try this site for the video... OUCH! http://www.ebaumsworld.com/emovies.shtml

Tioga opened on Friday the 14th. I was up there on Sunday and it looked like they could have opened it a month earlier. There's very little snow but there were backcountry skiers lining the road- inside and outside the park entrance. There were tons of tracks above Ellery. I saw cars parked at the Westcrack parking lot. Bouldering at the lake was dry and GOOD. Great time to be up there except that a storm seems to be heading in right now.

Nice video!! There are some cool videos at the Petzl website, also.

Just got back to where I live (Tahoe) a few hours ago, from Bishop, where I spent the last week. I'm looking out my window at the lake and am seeing whitecaps. It snowed from just North of Bishop all the way up 395 to Walker. Even with the weather funky in Bishop we were able to clip bolts in "The Gorge" and boulder just about anywhere we wanted every day. We had to stick to the sunny spots when the wind was up but were still able to climb in tanktops and shorts. Got to try out my new Franklin Mondo pad. Sucker is 6" thick and BIG. It can do anything this time of year. Typically around here (Tahoe) in May, it's beautiful. There will still be snow at Donner Summit but it's been a low snow Spring so things should be dry. Sugarloaf is several thousand feet lower then Tahoe and is typically warm even when it's cold at the lake. May in Bishop can sometimes be way too hot. Pick up the Gorge guide which mentions several campgrounds. Plan on good weather and having fun...

Did I forget to mention?? Any money I get from this sale, I'm giving to support this website...

Anyone want to buy some old climbing magazines? I've got 53 Climbing mags from '89-2000 and 55 Rock and Ice mags from '88- 2000. I just got rid of all the newer ones from 2000 to '04. $50 plus shipping takes all. These things weigh a ton but shipping by book rate shouldn't be too bad. Contact me at dwh_96161@yahoo.com if interested...

That plaque was installed on a ledge near the top of the second pitch of the Becky route by myself and several friends in 1971. The plaque was a memorial to our friend, Marc Emerson, who died trying to free the "Northwinds" route on Castle rock in 1970. Instead of tying in directly to his harness (1" webbing wrapped several times around his waist) he had clipped a biner to his harness and clipped into that with a figure 8 knot which came unclipped after he had fallen and was being lowered past an overhang. He fell 120' to the ground. He was (we were) 16 years old at the time. Of all of us that later became dirtbag derelict climbers of the 70's venturing around the world persuing our climbing needs, Marc was by far the most normal with the brightest future ahead of him. Let this be a lesson about knot safety and rope management. Although I came extremely close many times in the next 30 years of climbing, to dying an ignominious death in the mountains, I never forgot the lesson about tying in directly to my harness.