aarond

Hello from one of the victims in this fall. I apologize for not responding earlier - I know there are at least a few out there who are wondering how we're doing. I've been on enough pain meds that I didn't feel like I could be sure of writing something coherant. Not that it'd be the first cc.com post composed while under the influence... A brief summary of my injuries: --Broken left Occipital Condyle - a boney finger like structures of the skull that rotates around the spinal column --Broken jaw --Various facial lacerations and abrasions, requiring a few stitches The facial injuries have mostly healed. The jaw now sports 2 small titanium plates and a few screws. And I'm stuck in a cervical collar for approximately 12 weeks. So no driving, hiking, climbing, kayaking, etc. for the summer. I'm recovering at home and will probably be back to work in another week or two - thankfully I have a job that will allow telecommuting. And I'm backing off on the pain meds, so perhaps I'll be able to write sensible code sometime soon. Our other partner is also recovering at home, but I'll leave it to him to post other details if he so desires. Yes, we learned the hard way that a vertical picket won't always hold a fall. I hope our experience might help save someone else from a similar fate. As Brad said, many thanks to the PMR crews, and AMR RAT team, the 1042nd, etc. And I should probably shut up before this starts sounding like an Acadamy Award speech...

Apparently it isn't Cleese's after all. But they're all pretty funny (as are some of the rebuttals) http://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/revocation.asp

Nope. That's not it (thankfully). Thanks for the heads-up, and sorry about your camalot.

Name the piece and route and it's yours. PM or Email: aaron dot dunlop at mail dot com

Your glacier axe will do well enough on shallow terrain where you can stand up and beat on the picket from above. But of course on shallow terrain, you usually don't need pickets anyway. There are often closeouts on hammers at rei-outlet, sierratradingpost, gearexpress, etc. Usually you can pick something up for <$100. But even better, watch the yard sale forum or ebay and keep an eye out for a used one. Or make an offer on this guy's third tool: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/482619/an/0/page/0#482619O Hope that helps.

sobo's right - I think my wife gets almonds in the bulk foods dept at Winco.

I concur on the Gu recommendation - it can certainly be overdone, but a packet or two is nice to have along. When I take newbies up easy routes, I usually tell them to 'take food you like. If you don't enjoy it at sea level, you REALLY won't want to eat it at altitude.' For me it's often Twix bars - they just seem to hit the spot. For the approach and munching in camp, I like a can of Pringles. Carbs, fats and salt - what more could you want? And they fit nicely in the water bottle holster on my pack for crush-free easy access. Other big hits: --Dried strawberries (topping the list for a reason) --Dried pears (a close second) --Mountain House Pasta Primavera (Freeze-dried vegetarian meal) --Almonds (smoked or honey-roasted) --A small bar of swiss dark chocolate for a summit celebration And a few losers --Freeze-dried brownie mixes - tried a couple. Won't try another. --Mountain House Seafood Chowder --Taco Bell bean burritos before heading to altitude with a partner or two... --Power Bars - If it doesn't taste good down low, why would I want to bite into it when frozen? Just my taste and opinions. Good luck as you develop your own list of menu staples.

Either I set it down somewhere at a rest stop or I have another reason to hate tool tubes. Somewhere between the summit and the middle of our descent along the North Ridge route. 45cm hammer, black with yellow accents, with leash. There's an 'A' mark in the yellow near the head. I can't remember if I engraved my initial or if it just got dinged up that way, but I noticed it the other day. If somebody finds it, sweet! If not, maybe it's an excuse to start saving for Quarks...

Couloir - thanks for the kind words. Glad you enjoyed my ramblings. pup and wazzumountaineer - I'm impressed you tackled it at all after watching that slide. We saw the debris of course, but I'm not sure we would have been so ambitious if we'd watched it happen. No wonder you moved so fast!

Climb: Adams-Adams Glacier Date of Climb: 7/3/2005 Trip Report: Psychological Protection - Newbies on Adams Glacier, 7/3-4/2005 OK, I admit, we're not complete newbies. I've been climbing for a few years now, but previous highlights of my career were routes like Leuthold, Wy'East, and DC on Rainier. And Brad's experience is even more limited. So Adams Glacier was a definite step up for us. Short story: It's a great route, it was in good shape, we had a blast! Long story (in chronological order as I remember it): Late June: Brad and I have been talking about trying to get in a good mountaineering route over the July 4th weekend. DC, Emmons, and Fuhrer Finger on Rainier came up as options, but my wife has heard about too many fatalities on the big one, so she's not very happy about approving even a relatively easy route there. And Brad's wife works in the news industry, so he can't ever hide an accident story from her... Jefferson sounds interesting, but eventually we settle on Adams Glacier, and for some reason a more technical route on Adams goes over better with my wife than an easier route on Rainier. We try for another partner or two, but no luck so far. 6/29: I get a call from my neighbor Rob - he's in. So we have a team of 3, and Rob has a lot more technical experience than Brad or I. Only one problem - he's pulling out the axe and plastics for the first time since he had kids. Not even a slog up the Palmer to warm up with. We'll see how that goes... 7/3, 7 AM: Rob and I leave Newberg, meet Brad in Tigard, and head for Trout Lake for permits. The Divide Camp trail drops us onto the PCT, and soon we head cross-country up toward the glacier. Walking over the glacial moraine, we aid erosion in its appointed job until we can find handy (and environmentally friendly) snow fingers to climb on up to ~7700'. 4:30 PM: We've pitched camp and pulled out the binoculars to survey the route. Rob is already feeling pretty beat and wondering how tomorrow will go. We decide to wake up at 2, planning to be climbing by 3. The weather is beautiful, with only occasional clouds obscuring the route, and nearly no wind. 7/4, 2 AM: The alarms go off, evoking much murmuring and dissent amongst the troops (well, mostly from me, if the truth be told...) Our snow-camping skills are clearly not up to par - it takes us 2 hours to organize, cook breakfast, discover we don't have enough water, melt more snow, rope up... We leave camp at 4:08, over an hour behind our planned schedule. 5:00, 8800': We're making good time. We see one other party on the route ahead of us, taking approximately the same line we're hoping for. But Rob's already realized he's not really in shape for this, and begs out. We're still on very mellow ground, and he feels comfortable tracing our footsteps back to camp unroped. We tell Rob that if we summit, we should be back around 4 PM. Brad and I continue, knowing we'll be faster as a 2-person team, but well aware that we've lost Rob's experience and thus some of our safety margin on technical terrain. 6:00: The group ahead of us is moving fast, and has disappeared from view. But we come across their footprints, and we're certainly not too proud to 'borrow' a little of their routefinding. If you're out there, guys, many thanks! You made our lives easier. Somewhere around 9800' we come to the first major obstacle - an 8' wide crevasse with a short vertical wall on the other side. Me: "That's big" Brad: "Yep" Me: "And once we cross this, we're pretty much committed" Brad: "Yep" Me: "On Belay" Brad: "Belay On" Me: (As I start to lead across the ramp of ice and snow that seems to be where the previous team crossed.): "You know Brad, this isn't the smartest thing we've done this week" Brad: "(Laughing) I suppose you're right..." I try to set a screw in what turns out to be more packed snow than ice...that won't work. I find a spot to hammer in a picket instead. It makes me feel better... (Our first instance of phsychological pro). I feel good to top out of the little vertical step, onto a slope of maybe 55 degrees and set another picket and an axe to belay Brad up from. Soon we're back on more moderate terrain. We follow the footsteps of the team ahead of us where we can find them, but lose them occasionally in harder snow and ice, or possibly due to simple carelesness as we tire. I get pretty sketched on 50-55 degree ice covered in snow, and stop to set a screw in what appears to be nice solid ice, but which cracks terribly with every half-turn. Again, purely psychological, but again, it makes me feel better. We set pickets occasionally as running belays as well, and trade off leads for the next ~2000' whenever one of us hits a dead-end in the seracs. 10:15, 11,700': After a somewhat sketchy crevasse crossing, we're off the technical terrain and onto the summit plateau. We drop in the snow and shove down some food before we head off across the snowfield for the summit. Only here do we encounter any of the 'stiff winds' we'd been warned about - the north side was nearly calm the entire day. 11:00, 12,276': We did it! A real glacier route! Pictures, celebration, congratulations from a couple jealous teams of South Spur climbers. We're certainly not world-beaters, but we felt reasonably happy with our time of just under 7 hours. Snickers, Gu, etc...and off to the North Ridge for the descent. Nobody in their right mind would want to climb this route! (Or climbers either, for that matter) We'd seen a team or two heading that way earlier, and there are fresh footprints, so there have obviously been people on the route today, but we can't imagine why. Patches of sloppy snow with significant exposure lead to loose scree and talus scrambles (with the same exposure). We're trying to get back to our camp on the lower Adams glacier, but we clearly must have missed the easy route there (assuming there is one). Many hours later, we find a relatively safe scree slide down onto the Adams and return to camp. It took us as long to come down as to climb! By now, we're 2+ hours overdue, so Rob's VERY relieved to see us. And to top it off, I lost my second tool (Quasar Compact) somewhere along the descent. I love my Lowe Ice Fang, but I'm learning to hate tool tubes. (of course, it's also possible I just set it down at a rest stop somewhere and walked away) 6:30 PM: A couple minutes of sitting in camp, and we decide that a burger sounds a lot better than freeze-dried and another night on the mountain, so we pack up and head down. Of course, by the time we reach civilization, Taco Bell is the only option, but none of us are complaining by then. And bed feels wonderful at 2 AM... Gear Notes: Glacier Crampons and axes 2nd tools 3 pickets (used them all) ~5 screws (too many, needed 1 or 2)

Adams Glacier was great over the weekend. I'll try to get a real trip report up soon...

Bump - Anybody with current info on Leuthold conditions? Or even just Hood in general? I was thinking of heading up there this weekend, but I was out of the country for a month, so I'm a bit out-of-date on what things are looking like up there now. Thanks in advance, Aaron

I've been using the Half Dome (2-man 3-season) for 2-3 years now for backpacking and kayak camping. So far it's held up quite nicely. It's not the lightest around at ~5 1/2 lbs, but it's nice to have two vestibules. And for ~$40 at the return sale, I sure can't complain! I'd say if you find a good deal on an REI tent that matches your requirements, go for it.

I just got my Nikon Coolpix 5200 a few weeks ago and have been quite happy so far. 5 MP, ~6 oz, 3x zoom. The lithium battery seems to last plenty long enough for me (although I have a spare I'll probably carry on multiday trips). Startup time is very quick, and it seemed to work fine in the cold on its first trip up Hood. Picture quality is good so far, although the guy behind the viewfinder could use some practice... The Canon S500 was the other model seriously in the running. The specs are very similar. Nikon uses their low-dispersion glass, and it was a little bit cheaper (~$400 w/1 GB card and spare battery). But really the decision came down to: I'm a longtime Nikon shooter and have always been happy with their products. The Canon looks like a great camera as well. You'll do well with either one.

I rented several models before buying a few years ago. Some were reasonably pleasant. Others were terrible. My shins were pretty beat-up after a couple. I believe it was a pair of Asolos that were the worst for me (although I've done my best to block the memory of that painful weekend...) When I rented a pair of Koflach Degre's, they worked so well for me I went ahead and plunked down the $$ (Yes, the same red ones REI has rented for years). My climbing has all been easy to moderate glacier routes - Leuthold, Wy'East, Disappointment Cleaver, etc. They might be too soft for ice. I haven't been disappointed, but my climbing partner has never been all that happy with his Koflachs (some other model they don't make anymore). So as always, your mileage may vary...But at least as of a year or so ago you could still rent the Degre's from REI and try before you buy. Hope that helps someone. Sorry you're already stuck with a painful pair, Dryad.