sweatinoutliquor

My mistake... I though I reconized you in some of the photos, but we we definetly not up there then.

I think I chatted with you guys on the summit, I was the dude wearing the red jacket. Good TR and photos. I have similar shots of St. Helens with the smoke... Pretty awesome!

Nice climb dude, thanks for the report! Chriznitch, what up in AZ?

Trip from yesterday 2/25/05 --> Approach Bergschrund with caution... Snowbridge deteriorating rapidly due to really warm temps. It wasn't corniced on the down hill side so you should be able to peek in there to see what's going on.

Glad you made it back man... I have had to bail on that route a few times due to poor visibility, unconsolidated cement steps, and suppy shortage at base camp (stupid porters forgot my PBR). Thanks for the TR and Beta... Pics?

Yeah, me too... I was pissed to have to spend an extra 22 after spending that much... No mention of that in the agreement and no customer service to discuss over. At first I thought it was just some sort of shipping mistake, but I guess they are doing it to everyone. Plus my credit card company didn't allow the transaction at first cause their security got concerned when someone (me) was trying to spend 425 bucks overseas. Also, the conversion that sportextreme provided me with (from euro's to USD) came out to be 20 bucks less than I paid... In the end what I paid matched the correct conversion (I checked exchange rates), but what they quoted as my final USD price was like, 20 or 30 bucks less (I think they quoted 407, and I paid 430). Add this to the $22 import tarrif and I was pretty annoyed. Sorry this is more of a review of sportextreme than the quarks, so... yeah... the Quarks work good.

Nice work up there dude... I wish I had seen you working 1e... After bailing on Reid I thought briefly about trying one of the DK HW routes, but decided against cause I wasn't exactly sure what routes went where, etc. You had good ski conditions? Coming down from Ill saddle I kept breaking through the surface crust. Anyway, great TR and photos.

Hey Oleg and Greg- Nice to meet you guys up on the mountain on Friday. Thanks for the heads up about the Reid... I was probably going to bail on the HW by the time I reached the Ill saddle just because of the wind... I figured all sorts of crap would be coming down the gullies. When I saw headlamps pop back up over the saddle I knew it must have been crappy down there. I ended up slogging up the west crater rim to the castle crags route (after it mellows out, not the spicy part) and following that to the summit. I got great views of the upper Yoccum and down the Elliot headwall, and had the summit (which was suprisingly windless) to myself. Anyway, thanks again for the avy forecast at Ill saddle. Not every Hood trip that you get up to the minute, first hand beta for what conditions to expect.

Why would you ever want high end climbing gear? Doesn't that stuff cost all sorts of money? I prefer to use homemade stuff made out of popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners and glitter. It's cheap, fun to make, and for some reason everyone must like it cause they point at me when I'm on the wall.

Are you saying that I'm not supposed to use the dog bone shaped carabiners for sport routes? Boy have I been doing it all wrong... And to think that I just finished updating all my quickdraws...

I have a thought to simplify/complicate things. I have toyed with the idea of using a petzl mini traxion pulley/ascender and attaching foot loops to it for glacier travel. If someone goes in, you arrest and place an anchor, then clip the leg loops (attached to traxion) into the anchor. At this point, you already have the ratchet component of the pulley system, and just need to finish off the rest of it. It works as an ascender as well, so if you fall in, you can get out. Seems to work much smoother than the autoblock system, and I find that if you need to work a tension release mechanism, it simplifies things a bunch. Problem is that it's a pretty heavy peice of metal to be bouncing around your crotch when your just walking. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Cool NOLSe, I never noticed that you could move the forecast point on the detail map. Thanks for sharing... Now if there was only a way to find out if it's accurate!

Yup, that was me! Good luck on Chair if you make it this weekend. Hopefully the weather will be decent!

Dude, based on the photos here, I would say that you have the coolest looking friends...

I guess it could be considered art, but 1500 bucks?