Mark_L

Trip: Clemenceau Icefield - Various Climbs Date: 7/20/2014 Trip Report: On July 18, 4 Canadians and 3 Americans converged in Golden, BC on the residence of David P. Jones and Joie Seagram for the latest installment of "David P. Jones' Flying Circus". Our plan was to spend 2 weeks in the Clemenceau Icefield area where David was planning to do some research and take pictures for his upcoming guidebooks to the Canadian Rockies. After a 120 km drive along the shores of Kinbasket Lake, we arrived at our helicopter pickup site where we were met by Mark of Alpine Helicopters along with David's friend Colby and a client that he was guiding up Mt. Clemenceau. By coordinating with other parties, we were able to save a considerable amount of cost for what is usually a prohibitively expensive helicopter ride into this remote area. After 3 flights, the group was all assembled at basecamp on a shelf above the Cummins Glacier. Over the next 2 weeks, a number of summits were attained including Tusk Peak by the SW ridge, Shipton (peak 3030)by both the N Ridge and by the NE Face (FA by Robb Schnell and Mark Landreville), Mt. Clemenceau via the W Face/W Ridge, Irvine, Morrison, Sharp and the NE ridge of Mt. Shackleton. We were picked up and flown out on August 2, just as the weather was deteriorating again. SW ridge of Tusk Peak on the right skyline. [img:center]http://cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/500/Tusk01.jpg[/img] Approaching the couloir to the SW Ridge of Tusk Peak. Jim Ruch in the couloir. Carl Diedrich on the rock step on the SW Ridge of Tusk Peak. Jim high on Tusk Peak. Carl and Jim on the summit of Tusk Peak. The East Face of Mt. Clemenceau. Looking North from Tusk Peak. Duplicate Mountain in the foreground. A July storm made for a brief interruption in the climbing. Drying out and preparing to climb Mt. Clemenceau. Crossing the Clemenceu icefield toward the West Face of Mt. Clemenceau. Delightful Canadian Rockies scree. The West Face of Mt. Clemenceau from high camp. The route weaves around icefalls to reach the ridge on the left and then goes to the upper summit glacier. Team Canada at Clemenceau high camp. L-R, David Jones, Lyle Rotter, Gord Bose, Robb Schnell and Jeff Nazarchuck. Team Geologist Jeff, shows some prehistoric ripples in the ocean bottom. Getting a predawn start on the Tiger Glacier. Bypassing some seracs on the way up to the W. Ridge. Jim and Carl happy to be above the worst of the crevasses. Team Canada leading the way over the Bergschrund. The final summit ridge of Mt. Clemenceau. We climbed one at a time to the fragile summit cornice. Heading back down the summit ridge of Mt. Clemenceau. Happy to be back over the snowbridges by noon. Returning to base camp. Robb at the start of the NE face of Mt. Shipton. Crossing the bergschrund on the NE face of Mt. Shipton. Above the schrund on the white highway to the sky. Robb showing how they do it in Banff! Mark on the Summit of Shipton. Pic Tordu from the summit of Mt. Shipton. Gear Notes: Standard glacier/rock/ice gear. Knifeblade pitons essential for rappel anchors. Pick up the single malt scotch at the duty free before crossing the border. Approach Notes: If you don't coordinate your heli flights with other parties going to/coming from nearby locations, the cost is prohibitive. Otherwise the approach involves crossing water and horrendous BC bush.

I did it about this time last year. It had a double, (soon to be triple) bergschrund. Getting into the couloir was pretty reasonable via the rock on the right, it was probably in the 5.6 - 5.7 range. A small rack was adequate. The upper part of the couloir was bare ice, with rockfall coming down once the sun hit. It would obviously be a good idea to get up the thing before the sun. In September, that's easily done. Keep in mind also that this is a considerably lower snow year than last year along with a sustained drought/heatwave since late May. Unfortunately, the couloir is well hidden and you can't really see its condition until you are right underneath it, unlike the regular North Face which currently looks pretty unappetizing. Hope that helps. Mark

"But dude what about the Throne???!! The Throne did NOT look appealing from our side." The other side of the Throne has a good route, the East ridge I believe. The rock is quite enjoyable on it. (easy 5th class) Good work on Monarch. I've been up there several times but Monarch has eluded me so far. I'll bet Bill had lots of stories to entertain you all with.

Cost varies depending on whether you can piggyback on someone else's flight in or out. We got flights in when ACC camps were flying out from somewhere and vice versa. It was about $350 per person. The helicopter is a big heli ski rig so it can carry 4 with gear comfortably, 5 if you go super light. If the West side road on the Columbia weren't washed out in 9 places, it would be about a 5 hour hike. If you were really feeling ambitious and had a watercraft, you could paddle/sail/motor across Kinbasket Lake to get to the trail.

Trip: Selkirk Range - Adamant Range Traverse - Gothics Date: 7/25/2009 Trip Report: On July 25, Carl from Sandpoint ID,Kale from Bonner's Ferry ID and I flew from Kinbasket Lake up to the Moraine below Friendship col. Our plan was to do the fabled Adamant - Austerity Traverse. After setting up basecamp, we climbed to the Gothics Glacier via Friendship Col and hiked to the top of Sentinel Peak to have a look at what we were in for. It didn't look promising, as the glaciers were very broken up and snowbridges were going or gone. Here is a view of the Adamant group from the Granite Glacier. The sharp peak on the left end is the Stickle. Kale suggested that rather than just climb Mt. Adamant via the Granite Glacier, which appeared to be probably impassible, we should start at Pioneer Peak which anchors the East end of the Adamant Group and traverse the entire group, including the seldom climbed Stickle. (We later observed during the traverse that the N. ridge route was completely swept by a massive slab avalanche set off by an enormous serac fall.) In order to do this, we would have to rappel the 210 meter ice face below the summit of Pioneer Peak. Here is Kale rappelling the ice face. He did a brilliant job of engineering the rappels. The ice was well frozen and we used Abalokov anchors to get down it. After going over the bergschrund and pulling our ropes, we effectively cut off our retreat and were obligated to make it work. Our next problem was to get up the drippy ice covered with sugar snow and festooned with slots to get on to the rock on the Stickle. Here is Carl on mixed ground leading to the rock. The rock climbing was considerably more difficult than the 5.0 stated in the guidebook, (more like 5.7) but after a few routefinding false starts we made it to the summit. Here is Carl and I on the summit of the Stickle. Several extremely steep rappels off of the summit brought us in to the basin between the Stickle and a rocky crest that connected to the E. ridge of Adamant. We traversed a very steep knife edge snow ridge. This was one of the more elegant spots on the traverse. Kale is here in the lead. This is looking back at Carl. We thought that the rocky crest that we reached would be easier going, but the crest was gendarmed and we had to traverse the South side of it on very loose exposed rock and steep fluted snow. We reached a notch under the E. peak of Adamant as daylight was waning and decided that we weren't going to be spending the night on the summit of Adamant. There was a ledge under the notch that wasn't especially spacious, but did have a nice view of Mt. Sir Sanford. The following morning, we rappeled off of the ridge into the basin beneath the East and Main peaks of Adamant. We were able to get over the bergschrund via the only remaining snow bridge and summitted on Adamant by the upper North Ridge. We were now on known terrain, but we still had a ways to go. There were more overhanging rappells. (All of the rappells were that way.) The next summit was Turret. We napped for about an hour on the comfortable summit. After that it was on to Austerity. Austerity offered another comfortable summit for napping. It also had the most elaborate summit register. Its one of the milk runs for the guides. They'll have to work harder to get their clients up there this year with the condition of the Granite Glacier however. We did our first non-overhanging rappels down the West Ridge of Austerity. (Looks like an enjoyable climb.) and continued on to Ironman, which anchors the West end of the main Adamant peaks. An interesting mixed move from the snow finger brought us to the top of Ironman. We rappeled and downclimbed the ridge that descends Ironman and divides 2 branches of the Granite glacier. This culminated in a rappel down some steep ice and a glissade over the bergschrund to get to the lower part of the Granite Glacier below Unicorn Peak and the Horn. We found a comfortable camp in the scree between the upper margin of the glacier and the peaks of Unicorn and the Horn. The following day we did leisurely ascents of the Horn and Unicorn Peak. We still had to cross the apparently very crevassed Granite Glacier to get back to camp and we decided to get an early start the following morning due to the horrible snow conditions. We heard later on that it hit 103 in Seattle. The glacier crossing was much easier than we anticipated and we arrived back at basecamp by 8 AM. Still early enough for our first coffee in 4 days. Later that afternoon, Kale's friend from Fernie, Louisa dropped in to join us, having gotten in on a flight to an ACC camp. She entertained us with various off color jokes along with jokes about Canadians. (She hails from England) We spent the following week swimming in the nearby lake, resting and doing some fabulous rock climbs in the Gothics. Approaching Gibralter Peak. The Toadstool is the little bump to the right of Gibralter. Carl and I climbed the N. face of Gibralter which involved launching from the edge of a moat onto an incredible splitter crack. Kale and Louisa climbed the Toadstool and raved about the quality of the rock on it. After a couple of days of questionable weather, we all reunited on the Gothics Glacier for another day of spectacular climbing on the E. peak of the Gothics. Here is the ice ridge that leads to the rock. Louisa on the stellar rock on the upper part of E. Gothics Peak. We then concluded the day with a mass ascent of Pioneer Peak via the mixed upper East Ridge. Kale and Louisa remained up on the Gothics Glacier that evening and the next day traversed Pythias and the Houdini Needles to Mt. Quadrant. We got an early flight back to Kinbasket Lake on Saturday, August 8th Gear Notes: For the Adamants traverse: small mid 5th class rock rack. 2 ice screws ice hammer for leader. seconds followed with ice axe. flukes all around 2 60 m 8.1 mm ropes made for exciting overhanging rappels Gothics climbs: rock shoes make it fun Approach Notes: Alpine Helicopters of Golden BC. will shuttle you in from Kinbasket lake. Its a 15 minute flight.

Forgot your crampons did you Bill? I know you better than that. Good way to save weight. I was not too far from you, climbing the East Peak of the Gothics on that day. Report forthcoming.

Nice photo essay. Looks completely different from when I was up there several days earlier. I especially liked the picture of the old Forrest ice axe. Was Kip (the volunteer ranger) up there to make sure everybody was tucked in for the night?

I've ascended and descended the gully left of the couloir years ago with a single 150 ft rope. It did take several rappels, but I recall that the anchors connected up. The climbing wasn't any harder than 4th class. It is definitely loose in places.

It was good stepkicking at the bottom, dirty (but soft) ice in the middle (sometimes hollow too), and firm neve at the top. Surprisingly good considering the heatwave weather. The night was cool, probably because it was so clear.

Trip: Mt. Buckner - N. Face Couloir Date: 8/5/2008 Trip Report: On August 5th, David Nicholson and I left our bivi at the base of Sahale Peak and climbed over Sahale on to the base of Boston Peak to the Boston Glacier. We had to do a little poking around to find the route as, much to David's dismay we didn't write down the route description from Nelson's book. We continued across the Boston Glacier eying the N. Face of Buckner and pondering whether we should go for the N. face proper or the N. Couloir. The N. Face didn't look all that inviting, but we couldn't tell if it was possible to get over the bergschrund in the couloir. We decided to look at the couloir first. As we got under it, we realized that there would be 2 bergschrunds to get over. It did appear that we could sneak by the first one on the rock just to the right. It was wet, steep, downslabby and loose, but somehow we made it go, thanks to Dave's bold leading. We bypassed the second schrund on the rock too and found that there was a third schrund forming. We were able to do an end run on this one and soon we were stepkicking up firm snow in the lower couloir. Eventually, the couloir narrowed down and the snow petered out, putting us on dirty water ice, that was hollow in places. We had also squandered our shade in dealing with the bergschrund problem. We belayed two pitches which involved crossing the debris chute which was starting to become active. David found a sheltered alcove which put us out of the line of fire after crossing the chute. After two rather scary pitches we were back on white ice and after crossing a rock band were able to unrope for the final step kick to the top. We summited at about 2:00, later than we anticipated, and after a little rest, lunch and sunscreen, descended the southwest face to Horseshoe Basin. The route back to Sahale Arm follows the basin around the corner from the ridge coming off of Sahale Peak. We exited the upper basin in a couloir on the left side (the one at the dividing line between sun and shade) to avoid the hanging snow slabs which while easier appeared much riskier. David hightailed it for the parking lot, while I chose to enjoy both strolling down Sahale Arm at sunset and not feeling like I was in imminent danger for the first time that day. Gear Notes: Small rock rack up to 3". Small TCUs are especially useful. Can protect the couloir on the rock. 4 screws. Flukes for the glacier. 2 ice tools. Crampons. 50 M rope. Approach Notes: Easy hike to bivi at the foot of the Sahale Glacier. The route from Horseshoe Basin conveniently exits right there too.

Burglar, I think that plastic boots are probably overkill any time of the year except maybe winter. You are probably more likely to get your feet wet from the stream crossings than from the snow, although you are sure to have snow for the climb from Swift Creek to lake Ann. Usually by August, even in heavy snow years the snow up high, (like on the glacier) gets very hard packed. Crampons are pretty essential when its like this, but you won't be getting your feet wet. The climbing in the chimneys and on the summit pyramid is not difficult and boots work just fine although some people out there would probably do the whole climb in their low top approach shoes. Mark

Yep, The bivy sites at Winnie's Slide were all clear. We just camped at Lake Ann though. It was cloudy most of the time so we didn't get many views anyway.

Trip: Mt. Shuksan - Fisher Chimneys Date: 7/22/2008 Trip Report: On Thursday, July 17, my friend from Boulder, CO, Jim and I hiked from the Austin Pass picnic area up to Lake Ann with the intention of climbing Mt. Shuksan the next day. The trail was still mostly covered with snow and rather than try to follow it and have to cross Swift Creek twice, we stayed on the East side of the valley and eventually came to the only stretch of bare trail which we followed for about a mile before heading up to the Lake. We left camp at about 5:00 the next morning under mostly cloudy skies with hopes that it would clear up and we would get some views. Here is Jim at the beginning of the lower part of the route. The chimneys were mostly snow free except for one section just be fore the lower bivy sites. The rock is reasonably solid in the steep sections. Eventually we exited the chimneys to the edge of the White Salmon Glacier where we roped up and proceeded to climb to the top of Winnie's slide. Jim was curious about whether Winnie really did slide down this section. I couldn't answer that one. After crossing over to the Curtis Glacier and dealing with a couple of snow bridges we climbed up Hell's Highway. It was quite easy going with no visible crevasses near where we walked. Another hour of slogging took us to the base of the summit pyramid which was now out of the clouds, briefly. We ate lunch and then scrambled to the top via the central gully which was a poor choice with its loose, drippy rock. We were thinking that we would have been happier on one of the ridges. Eventually we topped out on the summit ridge and were greeted by a fairly recent fecal smear. Brilliant! After carefully downclimbing the loose wet summit rocks and backing down a hanging snow patch, we put on our glacier gear for the long, uneventful, though foggy slog back down. The slogging was broken up by some excellent glissades down Hell's Highway and Winnie's Slides. Both of these slopes were quite crevasse free and they were a nice change from all of the plunge stepping that we had been doing. Another couple of hours of downclimbing in the Fisher Chimneys brought us back to our camp at Lake Ann. While the climbing is all fairly straightforward, the length and the variety make this moderate climb an all day workout in the mountains. The next morning we hiked out and got in some more good glissades including this one right down to the parking lot. After changing and enjoying our post trip beers, we headed up the newly plowed road to Artist Point. There is an incredible amount of snow still up there and the highway department must have spent an awful lot of $ to get it open. There are still 30 foot vertical and overhanging snow walls at the parking lot with lots of tourists climbing all over them, seemingly unaware that if they slipped they would go splat on the asphalt 30 feet down. Gear Notes: rope, glacier gear, ice ax and crampons. We did the rock portions unroped but they are well equipped for rappels Approach Notes: Most of the trail is still snow covered. No snow free camping yet at the lake.

Jarred's assessment is about right. I'm quite familiar with the route, I do it every year as a conditioner so I know exactly where the best route goes. Almost all of the 5th class moves are bouldering moves, not sustained, but some do have death fall potential. The places where a rope is typically used are getting above Long John Tower, (Its best to go up the headwall well to the climber's left of LJ all of the way to the ridge crest which puts you on the West Shoulder)and on the final summit pyramid from the West Ridge Notch. Nothing is more difficult than about 5.4 if you pick the right route. If it gets more difficult than that and you don't want to force it, just backtrack and find an easier way. (Doing this without a rope definitely has its advantages in terms of time.) As for descending from the false summit, DO NOT try to descend from the top of the false summit. Find the line of cairns from the summit that takes you over the ridge coming off of the false summit a couple of hundred feet below the top of the false summit. Right now this will put you right on the snowfield where it is an easy plunge step to the basin. Later in the year it is a bunch of very loose rock on slabs and is much more unpleasant.

Yep, You go right past the bivy corral, up and then step back left. Then you can traverse back left to the boot crack.

Trip: Mt. Stuart - W. Ridge Date: 7/2/2008 Trip Report: I met my good friend Carl from Sandpoint, ID at the end of the N. Fork Teanaway road on Tuesday evening. We left the parking lot at 5AM the next morning and headed off to the West Ridge of Stuart. We started the climb in the first couloir from the West Ridge proper since the second (main) couloir had snow in the lower part and we didn't want to take our chances with snow sitting on slabs after lots of melting action. We traversed into the main couloir above the snow and climbed it to its head. We traversed into the basin beneath Long John Tower and climbed the headwall to the left of Long John to the shoulder of the West Ridge. Some pleasant scrambling across the ledges on the shoulder led to the notch at the head of the Stuart Glacier Couloir route. From the notch it is possible to completely avoid climbing on the North side of the ridge, which is somewhat loose and is drippy in early season. Here is a key step across on the South side of the ridge: We arrived at the summit at about 12:30 in the afternoon and spent an hour lounging in the sun before the long, hot, dry grind down the Cascadian Couloir and the trudge over Long's Pass. We were back at the car by 6:30 in the evening with very sore feet. Gear Notes: Ice axe, helmet if you worry about the goats kicking rocks on you. Approach Notes: Snow after Ingall's pass. Good footlog over Ingall's creek at the start of the trail to Long's Pass.

I have traversed from Easy Pass to Fisher Peak via Graybeard. Graybeard is a terrifying pile of rubble. No rope is needed, you wouldn't be able to place any anchors anyways. We dropped from Graybeard into upper Fisher Creek at the base of Fisher Peak. It involved downclimbing through some cliffs, easy 5th class or 4th class. You can climb Fisher from the head of Fisher Creek. Haven't been any further than that.

This is a great piece of History. That Bravo Glacier is a nasty spot. I recall that it was definitely the scariest part of the climb when I did it. The Bravo headwall comes in close second though. When we descended it we started a bunch of avalanches with boulders to clear about 2 feet of slushy snow from the ice and then chopped bollards down the alley of ice that we created. Thanks for sharing.

Its not at all surprising. Over the years, I have known and personally witnessed a number of quite accomplished climbers (I won't name any names but you have probably read about them in "Climbing" and "Rock and Ice" magazines as well as various North Face advertisements) who feel completely justified in abandoning not just trash but gear that they feel is no longer needed, even when taking it out just means a little more helicopter air time. Some of it is toxic waste, like abandoned white gas. You will find all kinds of that shit in places like the Mt. Waddington area and Devil's Thumb just to name a few. Its too bad that it also happens in such easily accessible places like Mt. Stuart too.

Trip: Dorado Needle - SW Buttress Date: 8/24/2007 Trip Report: On August 23, Dave Nicholson and I hiked up to the base of Eldorado Peak on our way in to climb the SW Buttress of Dorado Needle. On our way up we encountered someone who was trying to get a sub 5 hour round trip up Eldorado. He selflessly jeopardized his goal to offer us some route advice on Dorado Needle and then continued on. We arrived at the Eldorado Bivy around 5 PM and had a leisurely evening cooking dinner, photographing the alpenglow, etc. The next morning we had a leisurely start at 7:30 AM and we were on our way across the Inspiration Glacier toward the Eldorado - Dorado Needle col at the head of the Marble Creek Glacier. In about 2 hours from camp we were at the bottom of the snow below the SW Buttress. After easily gaining the slabs on the right side of the buttress, we headed up an open book to gain the ridge crest. From there the route stays close to ridge, wandering to either side to get around vertical steps and gendarmes. The best pitches are the ones above the feature described as the "5.7 gendarme" in Nelson's book. Overall, the climbing on the entire buttress is quite enjoyable. About 4 hours after starting on the rock, we were at the NW ridge. We had a quick lunch and climbed 1 pitch of excellent rock including the legendary cheval to the summit. We downclimbed this pitch back to our lunch spot and made our way to some rappel slings overlooking the McAllister Glacier. The rappel appeared to just drop us into the large moat between the glacier and the rock, but further investigation revealed that it was possible to exit the moat to the glacier by either a jump or by climbing the wall of the moat. Dave chose the former and I chose the latter and soon we were roped together for the descent of the McAllister Glacier which was steep but straightforward. We trudged back to camp and when we arrived we decided that it was more attractive to watch the sunset views and stay another night than to try to negotiate the boulder field in the dark. The winds picked up that night, testing out Dave's new megamid which held up just fine, if not a little noisy. The next morning we groped our way down through the fog and drizzle and negotiated a very slippery and treacherous boulder field. We were the only car left in the parking lot when we got down early Saturday afternoon. Here are some pictures: The base of the SW Buttress High on the Buttress On the knife edge One of the outstanding upper pitches Gear Notes: ice axe, aluminum crampons, small to medium rack to 3", 1 60m rope got us from the NW ridge to the glacier easily. Approach Notes: Be careful on wet mossy boulders. The glaciers are in excellent shape this summer, very simple travel. Don't look at the picture in Nelson's guidebook, it doesn't tell you anything and its wrong. The start of the climb is pretty obvious if you scope it out.

Years ago (about 1980) I traversed from the top of the Sherpa Glacier across the South slope above Ingall's creek to Sherpa Pass and I recall it being pretty straighforward. When you descend the Mountaineer Creek valley there is a big timber blowdown above where the trail up to Stuart takes off, but the route is completely non technical.

If you needed to do A3 moves up there, perhaps you need to hone your friction climbing skills some more! See: The Bridge Flake Pitch on Lost Charms

Trip: Mt. Stuart - West Ridge Date: 8/14/2007 Trip Report: Climbed the West Ridge of Stuart on Tuesday, August 14. About 13 hrs. car to car so chucK needn't worry about his "record". This is one of the premier moderate alpine single days in the Cascades so I try to do it every year. Some suggestions: 1. I think one of the primary reasons for so many parties getting off route and benighted is all of the cairns leading every which way. I swear that there were cairns all of the way from Ingall's Lake to the summit of Long's pass. Trying to connect up the cairns tends to distract you from actually trying to pick out the best route which is really not very devious. 2. Take a few minutes at Ingall's pass to pick out the correct couloir to the base of Long John tower. (Its the second one from the left.) 3. As you ascend the route, kick over any cairns that you come across, they ruin everyone's opportunity to practice some real route finding, they are unsightly and I honestly believe that they are probably responsible for a number of people getting off route. I caught myself following them and found myself getting off route on occasion. 4. On the final summit tower pitches, stay on the ridge crest or the south side. The rock is much better, warmer and dryer than on the North side, especially if you do it in early season. 5. If you do, for whatever reason, become benighted, don't worry, there are bivy corrals about every rope length or so on the entire route. Although you may be shivering uncontrollably, you won't need to tether yourself in or fight for space with your partners. 6. The entire route, including the descent down the S. side is currently snow free, so you can get by without an ice axe, although it may come in handy for chopping the snow to pack in your water bottle. If you would like to see pictures, there are some excellent ones in other trip reports made this summer. Sadly, the Ingall's Creek valley is dying. Nearly all of the trees around the camp at the Long's pass way trail are dead. There are several inches of needles on the ground that have fallen off all of the trees. At this point, any lightning strike or errant campfire will send the valley up in flames, which is about the only cure for the budworm infestation in the area. The Teanaway valley is also infested, but is not as far advanced as Ingall's creek. This is going to result in some major changes to the area in years to come. Gear Notes: Could be done naked this time of year, but rock shoes make it more fun and allow you to get around obstacles more directly. Bring lots of water, there is no snow left. Approach Notes: For a little variety, go around Ingall's Lake on the right side. Follow the trail out of Stuart Pass to get to the base of the climb. The goats are very appreciative of any bodily discharges that you may leave, so avoid doing your business on any of the sparse plants.

I don't know where you saw the 28k file size, maybe on one of those HC emoticons. The Jade Lake picture, (just like all of the others) is more like 284K. (right click on the picture and select "properties") With 7 pictures it takes a while on dial up. The FAQs for this bulletin board say: It is possible to display a 800x600 image that is less than 100k if you boost the compression a little. You won't even notice any degradation in picture quality when you view it on a monitor. You can always provide links to print quality versions of the pictures. Mark

Hey Dave, When are you going to learn how to size your pictures? 640x480 is plenty big enough. Set the compression to 75% too. You need to get the file sizes down below 50k for us dial uppers if you want us to bother to read your posts. Mark