luwayo

i agree, but i've tried to get to this plan for almost 3 years. thought i'd try something...err different. back to square one.

tx Dru, that CT report was quite useful. looks like 11k ride to Elfin; and the further 11k ride to Mamquam Lk is questionable in more than one respect. let's see....can i push my bike uphill for 22k with an overnight climbing pack? i may reconsider the obscured S-line option, however the weather is too good to waste on road recces right now. "Mamquam....routinely fail to summit".

How feasible is this right now?...via Elfin My new Kikapu wants to prepare itself for some kind of bicycle approach.

thank you i have to shove off soon and see what my adoring friends have in store for me

Happy Birthday to ME too! Guess I should have given myself the the day off for some climbing, alas I'm still sore from Nesakwatch Spires! Haven't clicked on the link, but Lance - it's another climber's b.day too: E. Hillary.

hmmm, i encountered 3 "characters" on an atv in that vicinity, and became worried about my parked vehicle. obviously i needn't have. but i still insist it was their green truck!

cool trip Dru! i was accross the valley from you that day. was keenly observing LDB. did you park at the old TH for slesse? i just saw a green pick-up obnoxiously barring access to N.fsr; and a VW van from Montana parked waaay back at the first waterbar.

this weighs heavily on me. every year since i began climbing, an accident in the alpine has befallen somebody i know, or know off, heck - even on my own climbs. it's a disturbing one degree of separation. the anticipated trend worries me.

i've tried stacking across my cowtail extension to my atc. just wanted to tell you how much that sucked. the loops of diminishing lengths looked very orderly, until the whole thing wanted to slide left & right. i suspect it had to do with the newness/smoothness of the rope, and also the rain. after that, we fed it out of a pack but first creating a false bottom with an article of clothing. this went much better. however the exit side for the rope out of the pack is counter-intuitive. after the fact, we speculated it would have been easier to exit the rope on the L. side of the pack, to create enough slack leading to the R. brake hand.

Wagnarians must have leadened arses. i always fall asleep at the opera, but i love hearing about them from the enthusiasts. isn't Parcival by Wagner? i heard about the amazing architectural structure on stage, in Seattle. You'd be blown away by the special effects - in opera - who'd thunk, huh? you should go! my boss raves about Wagner. he's contemplating the ring cycle in Beroit. $$$$$$$$ i'm told some tickets are $10,000 for the week. sound's like it helps if: you know Wagner's relatives; are in the right pointy head set; or you're an aristocrat. BTW - which bike didya get?

Where is the fucking sunshine?

regarding the mesh bags - unless you're already packing them for organizing, i wouldn't recommend bringing extras. they are deceptive in weight. including its toggle, a med.sz mesh bag can weigh close to a wiregate! i've been using plastic orange golf balls strung with lite wt. cord. so far indestructable!...even after 4 seasons of abuse. they've never pulled, not even in winds over 90kph. must bury them deep. i have a feeling they're lighter than the Mt.Hardwre product. drawback is that you can't compress the golf balls for packing.

wot! no bootlace stories Fern?

this 5.8 baby thanks you for the report, and i look forward to the day when i can say 5.8 leads are mellow too. i see your confusion. in my perfunctory posts it's a challenge to make myself coherent between rush jobs at work

indeed, that was my belief too. but i reckon i wanted to be armed with more conviction since one of my climbing partners gets wigged out by the idea. tx for discussing.

i like mine. however, on a cold trip last fall i ended up with "yet another" battery powered item in my down jacket!

what type and woeful quantity of gear have you ever taken for the intended purpose of sacrificing to get off the mountain(s)? and while I'm on the subject, how do you feel about trusting abalakovs for rapping off alpine ice, if it's not blue. carry throw away screws? i guess one more question follows, which is...anyone got experience with cheap screws being total shite? i've seen the nesting screws, which are pretty funny but the concept is good. (the largest one is so fat that it has huge friction on turning).

if you are looking for an addition on Serpentine Arete, give me shout. i can go mid-week.

quick follow up: for any body else pushing the 5.8 envelope, this 2p. climb takes good pro all the way on pitch 1. i found the crux move (using Dru's stem suggestion) over the bulge committing. sling everthing on p.1 (some double lengths) - major rope drag, as in one oblique traverse to a corner; & then a traverse in op. direction. shady

#4 Camalot - acknowledged. i was worried it needed the purple #5. i managed to peel my select guide open to the page - Fern, you climbed SCS - it's a bomb! i'm tempted to take a red pen to strike that bomb from my book. at the end of the belly slither on FtBG is where i was talking big pro. i was at leavenworth on the weekend leading Mid-way among other things, so i'm in a good frame of mind. thanks guys. i'll give it a shot.

Sunshine Chimney Centre caught my eye for "disappearing into the bowels of the mountain." i'm far from strong leading 5.8 cracks as i often get that freaked out feeling on them. any suggestions on Sunshine? will give Fungus a try as well, but my biggest pro is only the yellow slung tri-cam (and the 2nd pitch is a bit slabby - not all that appetizing on a hot day like today). leaving at 3 today to test my metal.

just polled some non-athletic mothers in the office....they say for sure, a woman could suffer some short term discomfort from a catheter, but women who undergo c-sections tend to NOT suffer incontinance so much as a woman sending one thru the birth chute. it's all about the stretching. re: fitness of the mother, what they're saying is...it makes no dif and that atheletes are not immune.

i'll be impressed if i get an answer for this here: is incontinance after child birth an issue - even for climbers?!

i saw a pregnant woman climbing at the gym on sunday. she wore a full harness. wondered if she had trouble watching her footwork.

nice lines, i agree! but Nodoubt involved A LOT of bushwacking most of the way to the ridge. i don't mind bushwhacking (but not thru devil's club: incidentally, beware the evil bush is *budding* now!). from the start, as in not long after leaving the 4x4, we were pressing full body weight on to fat tentacles of slide alder to squeeze a passage thru. i remember musing about mutant man-eating slide alder wrapping itself around a sorry victim. after the tentacles, it became merely steep & brushy. and then there were hornets. as much as gaiters are ridiculed here, brush & hornets give me good enough reason to wear them. we were fairly close to the base of the summit, but the group i was with wasn't interested in bagging the peak.