mccallboater

Great. Sleeping under lots of stars, though Saturday was chilly and windy. I'd post a few picks, but we didn't do anything special. Lucy the wonder rock dog mastered some mid class 5 bouldering. Talk about running it out...she's a wonder on slabs. I even caught her working on jamming a few offwidths.

Great price. Go for it. Just make sure the binders fit your boots. I just realized the word "binders" kind of dates me, doesn't it?

My first suggestion is to get some downhill lessons at your nearest ski hill. You can usually find some kind of first timer deal with lift pass, equipment rental and instruction. A few days with a good instructor and decent gear will do wonders. If you can stem cristie down a steep slope you can navigate most alpine terrain. Then, shop around as the previous posters recommend. Look for deals, check the archives here for advice, and get a light Silveretta setup if you are intent on using your mountaineering boots. I use them to good effect with my skis, K2 8255's, nothing special. I also pack a few ounces of cheater gear; shin stiffeners taken from my alpine race boots plus velcro straps ,to stiffen the boot upper cuff. That improves the downhill performance considerably. I can ski comfortably on a typical resort "black diamond" slope with this gear, though if skiing 50 degree coulairs are the goal, I'll take ski mountaineering boots. But that's with 45 years of practice. Keep your skiing plans modest and you will have lots of fun.

We'll see if we get stormed out. 18 year olds arn't very stoic, in my experience.

As far as I know. I like mine a lot. That said, there were many antique bindings that worked with climbing boots. By antique, I mean not made anymore, not neccessarily poorly designed. Ramer bindings, for instance. But don't expect perfect release function from any of them. What do the special forces use nowadays?

Looks like I'm herding a half dozen high school seniors from Boise down there. All climbers though, more or less. Any CC.com'rs going that way? The weather has been great, though cold in the mornings. We shall see if it holds.

Move to McCall. http://www.littleskihill.org/membership The tyke can ski all year for less than a day pass at Crystal.

Now temporarily retired after selling my own Internet service company. Reference librarian before that.

Ski swaps: $150 for each kid every two years, or grab everything you need from the leftover room at the little ski hill. Season passes: $200, $25/year if you just want to ski the little hill. X/C out the back door: free. Bus to hill after school each day: free. Living in McCall: Priceless. http://www.littleskihill.org/membership

also coming to Boise Details: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17, Student Union Special Events Center. $5 advance, $7 at the door.

I use the first three items on my Lowa mountaineering boots. Intuition liners, a power strap, and plastic shin supports taken from my old alpine race boots. It all helps to lever my Silretta 500's and K2's into respectable turns, enough to get down the slopes you mentioned, but that is after 45 years of practice. Regular AT boots with Dynafits are way better for skiing, but the boots are harder to climb in. I would love to see a Dynafit compatable mountaineering boot with an upper cuff that converts for the ski down. What I have now reminds me of the "Stein comps" we used to rivet together to make a decent tele boot back around 1980.

I suppose that should go in the "freshies" list

leave no turn unstoned

This is easier. Really dry air, say, 15% humidity or so, the lapse rate approaches 5 degrees F per 1000 feet gain. Really wet air, 100% or close to it, the lapse rate approaches 3 degrees F per 1000 feet. That rule of thumb has worked for me. So in the Cascades one could use 3.5 most of the time, right? Here in scenic Idaho, I use 4 or better.

NC Basecamp is a GREAT place to stay. It's worth it. Ski, rock climb, ice climb; name your poison.

Never bothered to check out this thread before. Sounds fun. Anyone coming from S Idaho? I'll drive if I can find a rider or two.

In snowy McCall, where barstool snow tire debates rival the intensity of the recurve vs compound bow issue during September, Nokian tires rule. The company has developed a series of light truck tires for US style trucks that excel on snow and ice, yet remain a good year-round choice. I bought my first set in 1982 for my Saab 96 and have used them on every rig I've owned since.

"The Seven Mountain Travel Books" by Tilman Anything written by Kim Stanley Robinson "Wind, Sand and Stars" by De St Exupery "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins "Darwin Among the Machines" by Bellingham's own George Dyson

The fledgling Idaho Mountain Recreation group has a meeting tonight in Boise. Linky: http://idahomountainrec.org/default.aspx I'll be attending for the first time. Apparently it is modeled after the Colo Mtn club or Spokane Mountaineers. But no polypro/shorts attire required. Some of the (tangently related to IMR) Idaho Outdoors Forum list folks will be there. The Forum fall outing to Howard Peak in the Pioneers is this weekend, so bring your rideshare ideas.

Ok. I'll bite. Sawtooths, near Finger of Fate (since that particular crag has notariaty with this group) OR somewhere around Ship island Lake.

We have a winner! DIng DIng! N Face of Harrison! Now for my guess. The last picture is the saddle and SE ridge of Lions Head.

Most of the NF stuff is crap, but the snowshoe bag is still good, improving steadily as the years go by. I have a hunch the special forces folks who buy it keep NF honest, but I have no proof.

Come on people. This is not that hard. Google Earth shows enough detail to pick out the line up the middle, if you want another clue.

I've been poring over my copy. Nice work, though spotty in coverage. Laird makes clear he had little success in finding evidence of early climbs in either the Selkirks or the Cabinets, though he tried. He does credit pioneering climbers when he can. I also applaud his committment to the established trad ethic in both ranges. I think I can add a little background to the history of the Lion's head. On page 136, Laird writes "the summit register located in the massive summit cairn held the Holy Grail of climbing information regarding the Lion's Head. So I extracted this historical relic gingerly, as if performing an archeological dig. ... Inside the metal tube was a faded piece of paper. Scribbled on it was a barely visible date: 1938. It was the first recorded ascent of the peak made by a man from Bonners Ferry, Idaho." I can shed some light on that. I think, though I can not prove, that the man was my father, Bob Pace, accompanied by his best friend Everett Davidson, both of Bonners Ferry. That summer the two 17 year olds hiked from the west side road at the Sundeen ranch (now the Kootenai wildlife refuge) up Myrtle creek, traversing the spine of the Selkirks north with stops at the Wigwams, Harison Peak, Mrytle peak, Trout creek, Smith peak, Fisher peak, the Continental mine, and finally Abandoned creek and the Lion's Head region, phoning my grandfather for a ride home from Priest Lake 2 1/2 weeks later. He said if Bob and Everett could get that far, they could find their own ride home. What made such a journey possible, given that few roads penetrated the Selkirks, was the string of lookouts the boys could mooch off of, all connected by phone line. The boys were the only visitors most of the lookouts had seen all summer, so a good meal was waiting at each. I really need to see that slip of paper. Both Dad and Everett are dead, so I can't ask them. I do remember planning a trip to the Lion's Head 30 years ago, and Dad saying, "That's a real steep one" but I didn't think too much of it at the time, since he had ALWAYS been to every place I wanted to go to in the Selkirks, and could recall details like "put your tent on the big boulder across the outlet from the lake and you will find a real nice 4 foot stream pourover for water about 100 yards uphill past a really big spruce". If Dad and Everett didn't make the first ascent, I'd guess it was either Irby Walter or my uncle Dave Pace, both manning lookouts that summer. I can see Dave playing hooky and traversing over from Fisher Peak. He used to tell me he got pretty bored up there and took trips when the weather permitted. Irby was quite the mountaineer, and after the war performed the snow surveys up in that country for many years. Before the original West Fork cabin burned down, one could see Irby's snow measurements for a 20 year stretch written on the logs inside the cabin. Neat stuff. A final possibility is one of the Davidson boys, whose parents ran cattle up Smith and Cow creeks all summer. My dad worked for them. That's why it's called Cow creek, BTW.

I'm having problems sending a pm. Send me one maybe with more details? Lets go do this: