rhyang

That's interesting news. Are the various fabrics going to be made by someone else, or are their products basically obsolete ?

Oh ! Very cool - thanks for the info !!

I've never seen / heard of this technique before ("raking holds", "rake point", etc). I'm wondering if you could describe it - maybe it's also called something else ? Dumb questions, I know ...

Bought quarks and rambos from them in January and they delivered within a week. However, I got charged import duty by UPS which kind of diluted the savings

They are exactly the same length - I have a pair of each. However, I have heard people claim that the aztars are shorter before, and wonder if petzl made them that way originally and changed the design slightly later.

Ah, sweet memories of pdx ! Why did I ever leave

those carabiner style clipper leash systems are sooooo suck. especially the way they clank every time you swing Deal, or deal not, there is no suck. Ahem. So anyway, just another datum - the quark (non-ergo) grip is about the same diameter as the aztar. Something else for her to try out.

I've used some of the newer petzl's (laser sonic) with the swiveling clip hanger. They worked fine. The turbine thingy just seems like something else to drop.

They had some fantastic end-of-season sales on ice gear last spring too. Ropes, crampons, screws, picks, tools ... nice folks.

Are these the ones where you can screw them in, but the crank is useless for taking them out ?

btw Any advantages of these other bolt-ons over the Darts ? Other than I guess being able to replace the frontpoints without taking the whole front off... (not that I am ever going to be good enough to need fruit boots - just curious)

I've got one, and I like it for ice climbing in milder temps (above 15F or so). For colder temps I personally like something warmer. The hood fits fine over my helmet (petzl ecrin roc). The EPIC fabric is great for repelling spindrift and such.

Buy a pair of each, test, then ebay as needed.

My air tech evo has been pretty good to me. The grip tape hasn't been a problem of any kind. The gloves I've used with it all have leather palms and fingers, so that hasn't been an issue. I've climbed 6 pitches of 45-55 degree alpine ice (paired with a technical tool) and a couple of snow couloirs with it too. Werks gud.

I'm not a big guy but have managed to pop one of the rear rivets off that holds on the flotation tails (replaced it with a stove bolt). Someone with a larger build told me that the 8" tails are no longer recommended for that reason.

The weight difference of lightnings over denali's are a couple of ounces to a half pound per pair, not much. There is more of a difference in performance and the bindings. I have denali ascents and last spring had the opportunity to compare with the lightning ascent's. The denali's sidehill pretty well, but the lightning's are even better at it.

Has anyone used the Grivel Helix yet ?

Oh, I let it go alright. Think what you will - I am not accusing anyone of anything. but what's even funnier is this car insurance discussion ... I have never heard of anyone doing this, let alone spending pages discussing it. Actually now that I think about it a couple of years ago someone told me about a woman who tried to get her carpoolers to reimburse her for a National Parks Pass... a schoolteacher type I think.

I once had a guy try to charge me some exorbitant per-mile rate for carpooling on a snowcamping trip. My understanding is that not a lot of people make the mistake of carpooling with this guy twice.

I cragged ice last winter mostly with a math PhD. Stamps.com is pretty cool - you should check it out

Actually on this trip I also had an ice screw which hit rock and ground the teeth down. I'm pretty sure that was my doing. Anyway, ice screws wear out just like anything else - that's just how they are made. We could have rapped and left gear on this trip - in that case the right thing to do there would have been to split the cost of the left gear, according to other people I have climbed with. This kind of thing has only happened to me once before - went for walk-up climb on Mt. Shasta with a lawyer type and ended up missing my thermarest (we did it car-to-car and just crashed at the trailhead). I asked him if he had it afterwards, and he said no. I figured I must have left it somewhere and was getting ready to buy a new one when he emailed me saying he had just found it while going through his stuff.

I hereby exonerate him from all guilt. Not because I have found my biners. Just because I feel charitable this morning. In fact, go and buy some stuff from him (I'm assuming it's his stuff, anyway) ...

You guys are absolutely right - a pair of biners is not worth crying about. If this guy had promised to return them, or said "hey I'm sorry, I'll send you a check" or "oops, let me look again" then that would be one thing. Instead, he disappeared, and then upon reappearing got all evasive when asked. See above about the effort and expense that *I* put into this climb. Combined with some odd behavior on the climb itself, and what looks like a poor attitude, I'm steering clear of this guy. There are plenty of good people to climb with, and I just chose to go with the wrong one. Life goes on. Be well, folks.

I'm not interested in playing those games - I like to be forthright and direct. For a variety of reasons I won't be climbing with this guy again. If anyone wants to know who he is and what my experience was, feel free to PM me.

I am additionally considering warning other people about this guy. Too drastic ?