selkirk

Will second "The White Spider" by harrer, but I'm a bit obsessed with the Eiger, "The Climb up to Hell" (famous rescue on the Eiger) "Ascent" biography of Willi Unsoeld (teton guide, FA west ridge of Everest with Hornbein, teacher, very cool inspiring book) "Feeding the Rat", Antonio Alvarez.

Nice work mods Hopefully you banninated him.

Don't take too much offense wdsgirl, he asks for lewd pictures of guys and sheep too.

Phil... I'm not particulary familiar with all the in's and out's of MLU's but as I understand them their akin to an avalanche beacon or a tracking device, and assist in the finding of people. My own background is that I used to be a certified lifeguard, an eagle scout, have currently been climbing for about 4 years, and have been following/reading up about climbing accidents for the last 15 years ever since my dad crushed a disk in his neck climbing and here's what little info i've gleaned about rescued devices. Drowning Lifejacket: saves you from drowning. Time to drown, 5 or 10 minutes, critical factor getting to them quickly. Avalanche Avalanche Beacon: If you survive the initial trauma, survival chances drop off quickly aftr 15 minuts, critical factor getting to them quickly. Climbing accidents: If they survive the initial accident and injuries aren't immediately life threatening, chances of survival are actually very good. Time frame to get to them and rescue them is in hours or days, not minutes. The two critical points seem to be iniating the rescue and getting word out that there has been an accident, which can either take minutes with a cell phone, up to days if they have to hike out/be reported missing. The second critical point is getting to them and getting to them down. This is not the same as finding them. They're on highly technical terrain and often dealing with extremely bad weather. Getting to them and getting them down could take hours or days. MLU's or PLB's might help climbers iniate the search. But they did that with the cell phone anyway. And none of those things will help the rescuers get to the climbers or bring them down. This combined with the added weight, makes MLU's and PLB's not particularly usefull for climbing. For the non-climbers reading these posts: Once the rescuers are capable of reaching the climbers, finding them is not usually a problem. Climbers are typically on a given "route" up a mountain, in the case, the North Face gullies. This immediately narrows the search region down, to those gullies, and the descent routes. As soon as the weather breaks, if they're capapble, all three guys will have their heads out, their arms waving, and will be either coming down or actively looking for rescuers. As grim as it is, if they don't appear on their own it's probably too late already. The MLU's would be good for recovery. Further as the MLU's are only currently available on Mt. Hood, chances are these guys had never even heard of them. In my opinion the MLU's would be more effective if issued to hikers and people likely to get lost in the woods than to climbers. Just like PLB's or EPIRB's are typically taken by sailors. For those sports the hard part is the rescue initiation and the finding of them, not necessarily the getting there and getting them out. bottom line. IMHO MLU's are good for finding things, but that's not the hard part of climbing rescues.

Looks like a Turgid Pinnacle to me

My parents had an EPIRB on their extended sail to alaska, bu haven't had experienced beyond that. Any mountain rescue folks care to comment on these or MLU's? Do they make a significant difference in rescue times?

This isn't spray Pink. Runningrat, for Washington, you might consider the southside of Mt. Adams. No glacier travel, reasonably well traveled route, and it'll get you to 12,000 ft. To my knowledge the other Washington Volcano's all have glacier travel. Anyone care to speak up for non-technical outings in Oregon?

Sunshine has one lonely bolt, way the help up there

That translates to a $70 dollar rope.....

It seems like some flexibility is needed whenever your climbing. If your time frame is fixed and doesn't allow for weather your're better off having a somewhat flexible objective (i.e. weekend climbing in the PNW in the spring) . Where if your objective is fixed you had better have a flexible schedule (Denali).

Sending good vibes to the folks on the mountain, be they stuck or rescue folks. Be safe and come home!

The purple one scares me. It looks like it belongs on my keychain.

I've got Z3, Z4, and Z5 and have been reasonably happy with them. Though I haven't fallen on them yet, action is good, floppy stems good, extendable sling good, and smaller/less bulky then the equivalent TCU's (though I have TCU's in the larger sizes). Did talk to an aid climber friend who really disliked them though. She felt they tended to get stuck more easily than Aliens or TCU's.

I got out last week. Itching to lead the M5 now, but of course it's supposed to be wet all week

I'm so envious!!!!!!

In the current era with the current technology everyone is our neigbour.

bugger.... online has it at having been at or below freezing all week So at 40deg I take it it's completely shot?

Well, the big tipping point on the moral equality in for WWI/WWII was that the Germans were both gassing their own people and were the initial aggressors actively attacking initially non-hostile countries with the intent of taking over. That said, some of the shit we pulled was pretty ugly as well. Anyone ever read Slaughterhouse 5? From a pragmatic standpoing however, the decision to return tit for tat in blatanly going after civilians, wasn't playing any role in actively increasing the ranks of the Germans. Besides it was an organized government that we were fighting. In that case going after the civilians could justifiably be seen as attacking the country as a whole and decreasing it's ability to continue to make large scale war by destroying it's resources (in this case people). The same doesn't apply to the guerilla warfare in Vietnam or the current terrorist movement. The more we crack down, the more civilians we kill (collateral or otherwise) the more the population see's us as the threat, and in the end breeds more terrorists. I've said it before, but if we want to use conventional tactics to end the war in Irag, Afghanistan, or the the Middle East in general it will require that we raze the entire region to the ground and salt the earth. IMHO there are only two ways to end terrorism. Kill anyone and everyone who might ever become a terrorist, or convince the populations who provide recruits for the the terrorists that we aren't their as a threat and don't want to play a role in governing them. The problem is any chance we had of doing that in the near term is toast, we've blown any clout we once had. and will be much better off stepping out of the region almost entirely. To end the violence there we need allies with local respect to step in and provide a stabilizing influence while we bow out. Iraqi troops would be great, but they can't draw any support from us at all or their tainted. Egypt, Syria, Iran, Pakistan etc. would all be better choices. They all have a vested interest in a stable Iraq, and the local jihadi's will have a much harder time recruiting people to kill muslim troops from the region. We might almost be better off stepping entirely out of rebuilding efforts or any effort to affect or facilitate local politics, and serve only as a policing force responding to violence and/or the threat of violence. Let the local develop their own government from scratch independantly.

She'd make a great Senator.

Because the people who work at the ACLU are already paying taxes to support the government and military who is trying to kill those fuckers already. But if you hold the iraqi insurgents and international terrorists up as a standard for our the behavior of our own military than that is the best moral and ethical behaviour you can hope for from our people. Our torturing people serves absolutely no ones best interest. It mentally scars our troops committing the acts, tarnishes our reputation and diminishes our clout on the international stage, destroys our credibility in the Mid-East, gives the insurgency another selling point for recruitment, and at best extracts only highly questionable information or outright lies told only to appease the individual committing the torture. Travelgate, Whitewater, and the Lewinski scandal were wastes of time. Clintons morals may have been questionable, but he did a good job running the country. None of that should ever have been serious news and only served as a distraction. Rumsfeld, Bush, Gonzalez etc. are a different story. Not only are their morals questionabl, their perceptions seem to be blinded by arrogance and righteous indignation. And their solutions seems to be to stoop to the lowest common denominator in this war. The ACLU and the Germans shouldn't have had to sue Rumsfeld. It shouldn't have happened in the first place. And with the Gonzalez memo supporting the statnce that we shouldn't be bound by the Geneva conventions, in my opinion impeachment should have at least been considered. Should Rumsfeld be held accountable? Fuck yeah, but it shouldn't stop there. Everyone who was aware of what was going on and did nothing should be held accountable. It's interesting, the people who commit blue collar crimes (assault, murder, robbery) typically screw up the lives of one or two people per incident. Those who commit white collar crimes ruit the lives of huge numbers and are treated more gently. Those who who turn a blind eye or facilitate torture on an international scale, probably get a very nice severance package, and a lucrative consulting gig. "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. " Franklin

lol. I just didn't want anyone the size of the Fremont Troll climbing on my gear However there are always enough tools and ropes to go around, and I've got a spare pair of crampons I can throw in if your interested. Just need boots, a headlamp, and clothing you can abuse a bit. Well, and we need to get off our asses and get something regular going again

Wow, your cool. Only when held up to your shining example.

Not so much a statement about the community as about Dru, and the fact that 1/3 or all registered users are his avatars. Kitty, If your not interested in scratching around on rock by headlamp, you might want to drop in on a Pub Club. Good way to put faces with names for at least a few people.

Regardless she's welcome to come to the next DT night Though if she is a troll she has to bring her own ice tools, crampons and 11 m rope, I don't want her bending mine http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/615358/Main/38051/#Post615358

Managed to sneak out there last night for a couple of hours. It's all in good shape. Someone was kind enough to put in a but in a bit of a belay platform at the bottom, and add some links of chain to rap from the top bolts. Was that you Alex? Thanks to whomever it was. Still need to look more closely at the route on the far right more closely during the daylight to see if it'll go Maybe next week we can do an official Seattle DT night.