TrogdortheBurninator

Even the marble/oj/rambles stuff?

Did anybody get up to Lillooet this past weekend? Wondering how things fared in the warm weather. This week's forecast looks great, and I was thinking about heading up tomorrow.

Based on what I saw saturday, and with that forecast, I don't think it is worth an 8 hour drive right now.

Boukreev's book was may favorite of the bunch that I read too (krauauer, Boukreev, Gammelgard). I for one believed his story and think he was a real hero. Oddly, there aren't and climbing books I've read yet that I didn't enjoy (Gammelgards (sp?) was the worst so far). Some stand outs: The White Spider The Climb Up To Hell (Another Eiger bit) Brashear's Book Burgess Book of Lies Most of Simpson's stuff I've read

Things can change, but AFAIK M. Wall and Hubba Hubba are in. When I was there last, most of the roadside ice was not formed, but that could have changed. Banks is located north ~1.5-2 hrs north of moses lake. Again, it is in the book.

The millenium wall, described in Alex's book, would be a good bet too. Maybe spend one day there, then climb Hubba Hubba the next day. Millenium wall can be toproped (come in wide from the left to set the TR, otherwise you will do some difficult scrambling), but you must lead Hubba Hubba. The main alpental falls area is not in right now, although there is ice further up valley. It should stay cold enough for the next week that Banks lake will still be in a good shape too.

My favorite lines Phurba: "Tiiiim, you are soooo lazy" two days later Tim: "I'm heading up again next year with Phurba"

This is my favorite thread ever. I speculate it is everybody else's favorite thread ever because I am an expert.

I would like to speculate on how the worlds tallest man got his arm stuck in the dolphins mouth. This specualtion is based on fact and is almost certainly true. While taking a shower, the worlds tallest man (WTM) was rudely interrupted by a knock at the door. After donning two towels, one pink and one green, we answered the door. The dolphin barged through the door, running into the man and becoming entangled in the two towels. Almost simultaneously the dolphin swallowed a PLB from the man's snow cave. WTM was immediately enraged and stuck his arm down the dolphins throat to attempt to choke the dolphin. (I was taught this in the military as a means of dealing with attack dogs and cougars) After killing the dolphin, the man probably celebrated by praising 8 lb 7 oz little baby jesus and his baby einstein developmental videos. Can anyone think of any reason why this might not be true?

Alpinist.com has three little blurbs up now. The most recent one looks at their itinerary while in china. Some interesting stuff, but nothing leading much closer to finding them. http://www.alpinist.com/doc/ALP18/newswire-fowler-boskoff-beckey

Gary, There are a bunch of new phones on the market that do allow you to use the gps functionality. Some of these can do maps and directions for driving around town and stuff like that. I beleive most of them require a subscription fee for this service. AFAIK this technology is only in the E911 phones, with the user interface available in select models. i.e. http://support.vzw.com/capability/VZ_navigator_popup.html

Dru, That was a lie propagated after this event

Maybe you need the taunphin

I heard our VP tried to kill somebody in a hunting accident, but couldn't. Clearly it is impossible to kill someone in a hunting accident if the second most powerful man in the free world can't even pull it off.

If you bring a Tauntaun, you're going to need you PLB-Saber with optional P-38 can opener.

Vantage has plenty of easy user friendly climbs, but you will need someone with a little experience with you to put up the rope. Going somewhere like vantage will require very little in the way of specific training as there are many easy climbs there. I would agree with everyone else and say just join mountaineers now, and start learning hands on (unless you already have friends who climb, then learn from them). If you don't like the group dynamic, you can always start doing your own thing after learning some basic skills. I'd also recommend picking up a copy of "Freedom of the Hills". It covers most of what you need to get started. Now what can you tell us about chinchillas?

That looks like fun. Thanks for the TR.

If only there was a batch ignore function so I could ignore everyone registered in the last week. For now it is just kevbone.

Pro resuce services would be great, but given the already apparent lack of funding for preventative services such as Northwest Avalanch Center, which reaches far more users, I don't think it is realistic in the near future. Maybe incidents such as this will spark public support, but I personally would rather see that money put into NWAC. Maybe it was already mentioned, but I wonder (doubt??) if a professional rescue team could actually have done more in this situation. The conditions would have been atrocious for anyone, and now that condtions are good the multi-departmental search seems to be making quick progress. :tup: to our volunteer services!!

If you dont have redundancy, you are treating your half rope as a single rope. You need to evaluate the difficulty of the terrain, nature of the fall, etc in determining if this is the proper decision. The half ropes arent designed to be used this way, but supposedly most current half ropes can survive one hard fall (1.77 FF with 80kg). I would prefer a bigger factor of safety than that. I usually try to add some redundancy with my clips when possible. i.e. if a route wanders hard left, and would place a 90 degree dog leg in a single rope, I would ideally like to still have the rope I will be cliping after the traverse protecting me from a catastrophic ground fall. A good example route is princely ambitions: Assuming red and green ropes, alternate red and green ropes for ~50 ft. Clip only red tope for next 20 ft. Traverse hard left. Clip Green Rope for next 20 feet. Begin alternating again. Keeping the rope angles small, I dont think you will experience much more drag than if you just alternated half the route on each rope.

The department of redundancy department?

It looks like the current prices and weights of Sat Phones and PLBs are identical. What would be the advantage of a PLB vs a Sat Phone?

Alasdair, has SMR had any requests at all for additional support in this search?

I'd imagine climbing the NF of hood right now would be far more dangerous, physical, and technically demanding than climbing the w. buttress in typical high season conditions.

1) Castle Rock 2) Early Winter Spires 3) Index LTW 4) Snow Creek 5) Blueberry Hill 6) Royal Columns 7) Careno Crag 8) 3 o clock rock 9) WWI 10)Sunshine Wall