mccallboater

Trip: Spain: La Pedrasa, Monserrat, Mallorca - Many Date: 5/12/2013 Trip Report: If you ever get the chance, go. Leave the trad gear at home. Spaniards don't seem to mind bolts everywhere. I joined my daughter Carolyn, mostly as her belay slave, since she leads 6a or 6b and I don't. 1st week, Mallorca. Staying in Soller, we sampled the big crag of Sa Gubia. hundreds of limestone bolted routes of up to 8 pitches. Steep, wonderful, in a beautiful canyon. The highlight was Carolyn's send of 6a Tierra al reves. "outrageous route at the grade" per the guidebook. No pics of Carolyn on this one (our camera card was left at Monserrat by mistake) but here is another. The outdoor stalagtite was very cool. We canyoneered the classic Torrent de Paise too. An all day excursion in a magical place, followed by a dip in the sea. Another highlight to wet your interest is 100m away from a 4 star restaraunt, with the sun setting over the ocean to admire from the chains. "El Mar de Amor", 6a, Porto de Soller. A few days later, after enjoying Barcelona, one of the world's great cities, we tackled the stiff (by Spanish standards) approches at Montserrat, perhaps the birthplace of sport climbing. We enjoyed a long moderate route on the interesting conglomerate rock, run out and a leg shaker for me. Lots more to do in the neighborhood. Note the trail and iron cross to anchor your belay. The long ridge on the biggest lump is a classic. Back nearer to Madrid, we scrambled up a 4th class route to a peak at La Pedriza, a dead ringer for City of Rocks, but bigger in area, if not in height of the individual pinacles. Rainstorms kept us from roping up, but later Carolyn was able to return with a Spanish friend who bumped up the route difficulty quite a bit compared with hanging around with Dad. I left for two weeks walking the Camino de Santiago de Compestela, a whole other story. Gear Notes: Lots of draws. A dozen or more with at least half shoulder length. Approach Notes: Trains, planes, hitchhiking, buses. The 1911 train to Soller on Mallorca is cool.

This is stoke for my trip at the end of April and the first few days of May. Bringing glacier gear, hope to bag some peaks along with turns.

Penny Schwyn, in Spokane. The best in the business. Specialty Outdoors.

Just had a peak at the new 2 and 3 person Imogene tents from GoLite, at their Boise store. Impressive. Not for high winds or deep snow, but for backpacking, bike tours, self support kayaking, bingo. The 3 person version is a touch over 3 pounds. I checked the weight with a scale in the shop. The two person version is less, but the roofline is low enough to make changing clothes not fun. Lots more room in the Imogene 3 than my stolen BD lighthouse, for the same weight. This might be the replacement. Won't fit on a ledge though, or, I expect, ride out storms as well.

Just yesterday I was twisting the arm of a friend for a Valhalla trip. Fantastic that the weather was so perfect for both the Valhallas and the Selkirks. I've never seen such detailed pics. Thank you so much!

Gaston's 1955 classic how to climb film is now available on the web. Newbies, or anyone, can learn much about balance from this. Please place more pro than he does, and understand that modern belaying and rappeling techniques are very different. The runnouts and exposure gives me the shakes. I've never seen anyone climb so effortlessly. 5.9 or 5.10 in rigid mountain boots. French cramponing up 80 degree ice. Soloing up beautiful vertical limestone.

Trip: McCall, ID - N shoulder of Snowshoe Peak Date: 2/16/2013 Trip Report: Had a great weekend with Steve (pindude on CC) enjoying fresh turns while most of Idaho suffers through the drought. Check the link for current pics of Slick Rock, ready to be climbed with 800' vertical of WI2 and WI3. Most of the snow has slid off. Pics and vids here. Lake Fork Creek is like having little Cottonwood Canyon next door, all to yourself and 20 or so friends. Note the lack of tracks, ski and sled. Gear Notes: Low avi danger right now, but that can change quickly. For ice climbing Slick Rock, be ready to rap the route. Approach Notes: Sled to skip the 12 mile road slog. 6 miles to Slick Rock.

Sawtooths on the way out from the Perch.

So that would be no, or just no one knows? The approach is to rap to the bottom after a tromp through the woods from the road to the power plant. One problem may be that the 6'+ change in the daily level of the reservoir would break off the lower portion of the ice column. It also make make a belay stance at the bottom problematic. Here is a better photo by Jeff Tetrick, from Wikipedia

I've canoed by it several times. Big. This picture is from the Spoksman Review. Pee Wee Falls

When? I've got the last two weeks of September, plus two tickets to the City of Rocks festival at the end of September.

Trip: Disappointment Peak, Tetons, Wyoming - East Ridge, grade II, 5.6 Date: 7/1/2012 Trip Report: As a capstone to a beautiful week in the Tetons, Mike Fox joined me on a Tetons moderate classic, the East Ridge of Disappointment Peak. It's dwarfed by the surrounding peaks, but offers a classic climb on great rock from a beautiful campsite at Surprise Lake. My pics Route Description. Gear Notes: One set of cams .75 to 3, one set of nuts. Take at least a 1/2 dozen runners plus a few doubles. Could be done in approach shoes. Lots of water, especially for the 1000' 3rd class scramble to the peak. Approach Notes: Like almost all Teton climbs, the approach is beautiful and a leg burning cardio workout. In this case, 5 miles and 4000' up to the beginning of the climb. Not so bad by Teton standards.

Nobody has mentioned any Warmlite tents yet. A 2R would fit the bill of your requirements. I haven't owned one, but I have sure been impressed with the nights I shared a 3R with 1-2 others through some storms. Super light and strong. But condensation can be an issue if you close all the vents. People either love them or hate them. Most of the haters, I've noticed, aren't owners. $$$$$ is the only problem.

I'll be goofing around in the Teton national Park next week, with a couple of peak bagger friends from Boise on Monday through Wednesday, then with another climber from Idaho Falls the following Friday through Sunday. If any CC'ers want to join us, give me a call too zero ate eight 6 9 two to ate four. I want to have fun on longer moderate rock routes and perhaps the Grand if the weather is good. We'll be at the AAC climber's ranch on Sunday and the next Friday nights. Jim

See my edit of the original post. Consider this question finished and let's give the guy a break. I hope he sells his stuff.

Call me suspicious, but this Boise Craigslist ad looks fishy. If you know it is legit, I'll pull this post ASAP. OK consensus is it's legit. I guess the cash only aspect got me.

pm sent

incredible adventure. When you are old and gray, you won't be thinking "I should have spent more time making money and less time on that Logan trip."

The last time I ran into the Selkirk herd was just upstream of Nakusp hotsprings, summer, 1989. About 20 total, with one old doe in charge of the whole herd. The one big buck was there just for show. I had my one year old son in the backpack carrier, along with my wife. I think carrying a baby made the caribou less anxious about us. They kept their distance, but that distance was about 15 feet. We checked each other out for about 5 minutes. It was five minutes I will never forget. But in a lifetime of hanging out in N Idaho, I have never seen tracks or caribou. I have seen evidence of them browsing the lichen in the trees, but my guess is, as mentioned above, one would only see them in winter, on snow.

I've had the original Lithium bag for about 4 years now. Great bag, and roomy enough in a regular length for me (5'9", 170lbs) to put on and remove clothing inside the bag. That's my gold standard for a sleeping bag. I don't miss a full zipper at all. It keeps me warm, with long johns, hat and socks, at 0 degrees F in a tent. With a VB liner, another 10 degrees colder. It stuffs to about the size of a 1 1/2 liter bottle.

There's lot of history in military circles about soldiers dying from drinking alcohol at sub-zero temps. It's liquid, but it freezes your innerds. Nasty way to go. Fort Richardson non-coms used to teach that message to grunts heading out on their first winter trip, but usually someone doesn't listen.

Made it to the front page of summit post. A serious route, bound to be a classic. Tourists trundling off the top as an added objective hazard. Way to go Wes!

Sorry all for the topic shift, but check out Mike Zobott's new head cam conditions reports for the Norway hut.

Last week at the Norway Hut in the Wallowas, out of our group of 8 skiers, 3 were still using the Chouinard shovel. These are guys who can afford anything out there, all with at least 20 years of backcountry skiing experience. Most of us guides of some sort when we were young and stupid. Our guides (young, but brilliant and professional) took us through the requisite burial extraction practice. The lesson hammered home for me was not the particular shovel used (as long as it's stiff, durable metal) but that the group you are sking with PRACTICES proper shoveling technique BEFORE a real extraction event. Proper technique reduces extraction time way more than the minor differences in the efficiency of any shovel design. The other important issue is how many seconds does it take to stop skiing and start shoveling? I discovered I was quicker with my shovel inside my pack than it strapped on the outside. A proper shovel pocket, aka the Dana Bomb Pack as an example, is quicker yet. The K2 shovel with the handle stowed in the blade makes sense to me now. 1 second to deploy. Whatever you choose, optimize for speed, and practice the triangle shovelling team method with your bros.

I've also used all of the above. Plastic board thingy with two handles, plastic shovels, "standard" aluminum snow shovels (Voile, black diamond, others) grain scoops; all work, and all have their particular niche. What I most likely throw into my day pack these days is my well loved Chouinard shovel (2nd from top), the smaller one that fits on the end of a standard ice ax, with its normal handle, or my ice ax if I feel like the route justifies it. That little shovel moves lots of snow and has the perfect curve for interior snow cave work. My other shovel is a bigger Voile model just like the blue one in the picture that includes a snow saw in the handle. I always give it to the guy who forgot his so he can dig my ass out. LifeLink, Ortovox, K2, Black Diamond; they all make good ones. The grain scoop with a cut down, home made detachable handle was what I used to use for lots of years. A newer copy is what moves snow at my home in McCall . Nothing better for digging people out, but a bitch to carry. The curved plastic board thingy is ingenious, light, has many other handy uses. Replacing the back panel in a pack is one idea. For removing rock hard snow it is less than optimal, but better than one would first guess. Better than nothing, for sure.