selkirk

First Blood, hand crack? A good joke perpetrated by the guidebook authors. No "hand crack" requires a #3 or larger camalot.

Dude i've got friends on Colorado! What the hell they were thinking when they moved there i'll never know. It's fun listening to the one who hate's snow bitch though. Prior to that he lived in Jackson hole Actually saw the aftermath of the lowering accident. Good to hear your mending. Did anyone ever figure out what actually happened? That's the 2nd gri-gri accident i've heard of this spring. A friend was learning to aid climb and nearly decked from 30ft when her top piece popped, and her belayer somehow managed to get the gri-gri fouled with her tag-line. She stopped all of 2 ft off ground

I've had and Edelweiss Laser (9.8mm) for a couple of years and been pretty pleased with it, though the hand is definitely stiffer than most other ropes, hasn't seemed to cause me any real problems though. PMS carries them so you might talk to the folks there?

Sweet, congratulations Luke . Too bad about the wait for the visa. Had some friend get married in Hungary and even after the wedding it still took 3 or 4 months

I'll take that challenge! For the Biners go to Pro Mountain Sports, Jim carries Mammut Wiregate carabiners for $5.25, and if you buy 10 you get one free. The action is sweet, and their about 25% lighter than the Trango's for the same cost. Get a 5-pack of alpine draws at PMS for $82.50 Gear Express has the Huevos for $50 As for the Cam's check out pagangear.com. I'm personally a big fan of the DMM's cams and they're at $38.40 piece right now get sizes (0.75, 1, 2, 3, 4 up to camalot size 3 equivalent) So... Cordollette $15 Webbing $15 Huevos $50 a 5 pack of alpine draws at PMS (10 biners, 5singles)$83 2 double 7mm $20 11 lightweight Biners$52 DMM Cams (5 cams) $192 Total: 1 set nuts, 5 cams, 7 draws, 7 spare biners, cordollette, and webbing for $427.

Any thoughts on whether or not the NW Gully on Guye will be in? And if so does anyone know roughly what the grade is? I'd hate to get in too far over my head.

Was any up in the area over the weekend? How's the Snow/Ice? Is there any ice left to be found?

Why? That takes way more fuel, and time. Last time I was out the time to melt a pot of water was probably 15 min? Added time to boil was maybe 4. I guess a filter might pay for itself in weight if your out for a several days in the snow and need to melt a great deal, but for an overnight trip for 2-4 people I'd leave it at home. Not to mention if the snow isn't yellow or brown, exactly how critical do you think filtering / boiling is?

Water filters are great for backpacking trips, or large group multi-day trips with water available, then just volunteer to bring a tent or stove instead. You can always get around having a filter. If your just doing single day alpine stuff though just get a little bottle of Iodine tablets 90% of the time you'll carry enough water anyway, and on glaciers if your going to melt snow you might as well just boil the water.

Any thoughts on Weather Hubba Hubba is still in? Or is it likely gone until the next cold snap?

Close, but College Prof's came in damn near last

and you think Tenure will help you get laid? I remember some research thing that came out a couple of years ago the looked into frequency of sex by occupation. As memory serves Fireman had more sex than anyone else... any guesses who came in last?

Even crappy gear that pulls out above the belay absorbs energy and will prevent a true factor 2. Just thing of those initial nuts and little cams like screamers! Sacrificial energy absorbition!

I think one of the TR's mentioned 10hrs car to car, which seems about right. Probably want to be leaving the trailhead no later than 6:00?

Someone's just envious that they haven't been getting any of the good ice in

Miner are bondage bunny slippers with lots of buckles and straps so that they fit nice and tight and have lots of support! Very nice for front pointing and they're even baby-blue!

Climb: Chair Peak-N. Face Date of Climb: 2/19/2006 Trip Report: Took a very relaxed trip up to Chair peak over the weekend. Hiked in Saturday afternoon so we could get a nice early start on Sunday, and spent the evening relaxing at camp by the Thumbtack. Headed out from camp about 6:30ish and headed up to the col and then traversed the base of the N. Face to the start of the route. After a little luck and little digging we managed to dig out a nice fixed belay anchor at the base of the first pitch (composed of a slung pinch and something frozen into the ice ) (Also bootied a sling and 2 biners from the anchor, of unknown age. They were just clipped to fixed anchor slings, for some unkown reason ) The first pitch had reasonable ice though it was a bit thin just out from the belay. Managed 2 reasonable screws, with 1 picket out of the iced gully, then traversed over to fixed pin, backed up with 2 tools for a belay. A wee bit of 70 degree ice in the gully followed by 50 or 60(?) degree snow. (About 50m total?) From here headed up to the trees and managed 2 pickets, 1 marginal screw and slung tree before getting to the larger tree slightly above the top of the small stand of trees. (full 60m from the pin). Mostly 50-60(?) degree snow with some ice for pro by the rocks. 3rd pitch ran past another tree (leaning almost horizontal) staying slightly right and off the face (allowed more secure climbing). 1 bad picket, a couple of trees, a small cam below in high and right of the ice bulge, then a marginal screw in the bulge led to a smallish tree on the right for a belay. (50+ meters) Last pitch had about 20 m of steep snow, leading to easy terrain up to the summit (1 picket) The ice was in OK condition, but the snow is deteriorating and turning into sugar. About 1/2 well consolidated styrofoam and 1/2 sugar with weak crust. Did 1 single rap followed by some downclimbing to the large saddle in the SE gully. The snow level is high enough right now to reach the three fixed pins at the saddle, and did a double rope rap from here, then downclimbed/glissaded back to camp. Also saw a party of 2 on the route. Sorry to slow you guys up at the first belay! Once they started the simul-ed the full route on about 1/2 the gear we used and blew past us. Very mellow pace but a heck of a lot of fun for my first ice climb! Of course after reading about Jens climbs on monday I feel like a bit of wanker Gear Notes: Used: 2 pickets 2 screws (17cm) 1 cam (#1 WC I think) 1 nut (#2 or #3 BD) Also took but didn't need. 4 small-med nuts 2 small-med cams 2 pins A stubby ice screw might have been nice as well. Approach Notes: At an easy pace 2 hrs to the Thumbtack and 3 to the base of the climb is reasonable. Completely packed down, no flotation was necessary, though we were punching through crust and into the sugar on the downclimb/glissade just above Thumbtack

which are of course way more impressive in their combined 200 ft than say any of the summits in the Fitz Roy group. Applesauce, meet orange juice. My point exactly. The boys got brass balls, which are much harder to come by then iron fore-arms.

Isn't the route just right of Endless the short 10d dihedral? It's certainly stiff but I don't think it's a 12 either!

How do AT boots hike/climb? (Denali XT's to be specific). I'm heading up to Chair peak this weekend and wondering if I can get away with just taking these or if I should just rent a set of plastics instead? Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Anyone up for this afternoon, say 3:00 at the Issaquah P&R? It might very well be the first "dry" Dry-tooling night! A perfect afternoon for leading!

no, i'm booked wed and thurs night Then doing an Av 1 course over the weekend. Maybe next week though?

I can do the downhill part reasonably well, and my bindings have reasonably good heel lifters so that should be ok. I guess that makes the decision easy! Time to go buy skins!

Is it as easy at seems like it should be? I'm looking at trying to do an overnight trip and have the choice between skis/skins (though I still need to buy and trim the skins) or slowshoes. I'd rather skin but I've never done it before, and would have to screw around too much on the fly. Any thoughts or advice?

In an evenly matched game small factors have large consequences. The Hawks definitely dropped some passes and didn't always capitalize when they should have. That said the Steelers were f-ing pathetic. All game it seemed they had a grand total of about 3 effective plays and a handful of moderately successful ones. Left on their own it would have been a tight game. As it was the Ref's persistantly called the Hawks tight and the Steelers loose which is B.S. You want to call both sides incredibly tight, that's fine but it also wasn't the case. If any one of the about 3 different calls against the Hawks had gone the other way it may have significantly changed the game. That and how many holds did you see the Steelers get away with? I wonder how that would have affected the game. The Steelers sucked eggs up and down the field and pulled a 3 miracles out of their nether regions. The Hawks moved the ball consistantly and effectively, but lacked any miracles. In this game the trophy should really go to the Ref's. Not only did the play nice and dirty they didn't get penalized for it at all and completel dominated the game. Iv'e usually got a soft spot for the Ref's and don't think they usually deserve the abuse that get's heaped on them. These guys deserve it though.