smithisheaven

I will say that I was a dealer of CCH Aliens for several years and my opinion of CCH is not good. I had a problem with a run of cams that were swaged with the wrong hardness of materiel on the trigger wires. The first or second time I placed the cam the trigger wires pulled right out of the holder, rendering the cam useless. Never mind I was run out and in need of a quick placement. When contacted, CCH, Dave in particular, he said that some wrong hardness material was sent to them by mistake and used in a run of cams. I was told to send mine back and they would be replced, whigh they were. BUT, there was no recall, no public mention of the wrong material being used or any kind of attempt to fix this problem, short of replacing broken cams. I have loved Aliens for years but this experience gave them a black eye in my opinion. Not the kind of reaction I would expect from a company who makes potentially life saving equipment.

yo teleboy exactly what kind of weather u lookin for anyway, you can aid climb in any weather, I think. You give up the skis or what, be multi talented like me, its good. ha ha. Shoulder is doing a little better been gettin in some turns.

I guess some of us have a different idea of what "vacation " is. Everybodys idea of fun is different. I guess multi pitch good routes with some "fun" in the approach and "interesting" decents are my idea of a good time. Yes the approach to eagle dance does take a good long while, ha ha.

whats mod to you? Frogland is a good multi pitch that 5.8, Crimson Chrisalis is another good multi 5.9, Epi is always good but cold 5.9 multi chimmneys, Prince of Darkness, multi, bolted 5.10, Eagle Dance real good multi, trad and bolts with aid ladder 5.10b. Have fun

to my knowledge there is alot of poison ivy in the wenatchee and surrounding area. Vantage has several patches, the Zig Zag wall has some. You can find it it Leavenworth, Ski Track Cracks has alot and Banks Lake has some of the largest patches I have ever seen protecting some of the climbs there. It can also be found in abundance at the China Bend crag north of Spokane. The local climbers have even named some routes after it (ie poison Ivy Crack in Leavenworth)

I specificaly said i did not want this to turn in to a argument over docs or no docs, but take it where you may. dru i know that a chiro can't help poison ivy smart ass, I never said he could, maybe you can apply your suggestions to yourself. By the way Chiros have more schooling hours that DM's

your right about the clothing it has the oils on it and can be transmitted to others, like nuclear man.

She did not go to a doctor. She beleives that if she went to the doc she probably would have gotten worse. She actually works for a Doctor of Chiropractic and she has seen to many horror stories of things going wrong at the hospital. She stayed at home and kept it clean and just let her body fight it. It has gotten much better as in it is all scabbed over and healing well but it has taken a long time. I do not want the thread to break down into the pros and cons of doctors, just want people to know the seriousness of poison ivy if you are reactive to it. I will post some pics if I can figure it out.

We climb around it all the time but thought I might enlighten a few of you about how bad it can be. I happen to not react to it but the same cannot be said of my climbing partner. Took a few days to show up and has progressed to a horrible wound on the leg with severe itching all over the rest of her body. Her leg swole up to about twice its size and had weeping holes in her leg. She has been out of action for almost 3 weeks. Threat of infection is great and care must be taken to keep it clean and dry. Emailed some pics to my friend at the local clinic and the doctors freaked out . Said they had never seen a reaction so bad. Be carefull out there we climb and live near alot of the stuff!

snowing hard here in wenatchee today at about 2300'. mission should be gettin some goods. cant wait to get back on the skis

where is Bin Smokin I have been looking for him for some time now. He is the 5th member of the original crew and the most laid back and mellow . For some reason he never seems to get all riled up and is always the peacekeeper.

shorts over poly-pro, steve, steve, steve. good job guys. looks like a cool route.

I know I may recieve some abuse for saying this because alot of people find them excellent, but Alien cams have had a mixed history with me. Have had the trigger wires shred on me in the middle of a route at the crux trying to place the thing and a new unit as well. I used to be a dealer so I called them to let them know. It turns out the owner, who is an ass, used the wrong sort of material on the swages that held the trigger wires in place and they failed. He did replace them for me after about 3 months of waiting/whinning. The customer service there is horrible. That said if they are put together right they work well.

The reason that it costs so much to climb at a quality gym has to do with the fact that the overhead is incredible. You do not just set a few routes and then its all profit. I ran a small gym in wenatchee for 4 years so I know what I am talking about. Insurance is insane try paying 500.00 a month for insurance and rent or lease fees on a large building can be enormous. Then you have employees and all the state, fed, l&I, B&O, unemployment taxes and such. New holds, pads, good ropes and quality equipment all cost big $. Ad to that everybody bitches at the price no matter what you set it at. A gym is a hard thing to make work. Espaesially when the other guys in town try to shut you down, shame shame shame on you.

Cold Cold World packs rock. I own the Chernoble and the Chaos and they both rule. Not to heavy, in fact light for what they offer. Look at the other competitors wieght and you will see just how light these things are. Not any extras that you dont need. The Chernoble is great for 2 to 3 day alpine trips and climbs real well. The Chaos has seen alot of time on Rainer and longer trips and works great. They dont have any real frame but 50# loads with the Chaos are very doable. Both have removable bivy pads. have a parter who carried 60# with the chernoble once. Looked like a gypsy with everything hanging out and clanking, it was a bit to much for that pack. He swore he shrunk by 2 inches after that trip.

No $ but have a GPS unit...hmmm. Maybe priorities are a little skewed to the left, wait or is that to the right?.

would not be so secret if it was posted here. do you not know that there are people (read law enforcement) on here that would love to find our secret spots so that we will not be able to use them anymore. talk to someone in person about that not in a public forum like this. Just looking out for our future.

I went to the Roc trip this last week with a couple of friends and it was great. Got to climb a little and watch and hang out alot. Met some of the best climbers in the world there and all were really friendly and hella strong! One of the highlights for me was seeing Dave Graham out late on saturday night, 1am, and them watching him warm up the next day on a V-12 to get started. Crazy! Lisa Rands came within a inch of sending Zero Zero, a V-10 thats only seen two female repeats. Liz Sansoz also just came up short on sending that problem. The weather was great. Ran into Steve Townshend in the Circus area in Chek and belayed him on a 13d with Sonnie Trotter watching. All i kept thinking was I hope this rope is long enough to lower him off, Ha Ha, True story though. Great weekend, next time I go I will climb alot more.

Hey olyclimber, you were not kidding when you said you were not a good public speaker, ha ha just a little stab back at ya for the screen name comment. All in all I did have a good time at the event and I am glad we raised some money for WCC.

Is it just me or was there quite an "attitude" at the days events. I am a local climber and normally everyone you meet in the area is great and full of info, advice, suggestions and all but on saturday all I ran into were people who looked at me like I did not belong there. I was out bouldering with Beth and Tommy early in the day, which by the way was super fun and they had a great attitude about the area and were willing to talk and share info about routes and projects they had been working on. It made up for the others that must have been having a bad day. That night at the slide show the attitude was back in full force. Very clicky and I saw absolutly no locals, come on Wenatchee and Leavenworth get in gear and help support our sport. Just my .02 worth.

I took a 15 footer onto a not well placed out green alien on the lower full N Ridge of MT Stuart, with a pack on! Had a orange placed and was pulling up rope to clip and popped. Ended up looking at my belayer squarely in the eyes. Hopped back on and finished the pitch. When my partner got to the belay he said that when he cleaned the green alien it just fell out in his hand! I love aliens.

Not totally true about Black Diamond. I was a dealer of BD equip until this year and alot of the stuff is made in the Philippines. Packs and clothes all have the little hidden tag that says made in philippines. Packs used to proudly display made in the USA on the outside, not anymore. Poles also are not made in the US. That said, cams, biners, poons and tools are still made in the US plant. A couple of other companies that are US made, Cold Cold World and Colorado Custom Hardware.

South side access is a big no by vehicle. Went up on fri nite the 1st and tried for the lunch counter on sat. Had to skin up 6 miles of road before the cold springs tr. Passed two vehicles that will be there untill the thaw. Got to the 9000' level just below lunch counter. High winds and snow made us stop there and set up the bibler. Waited till noon on sunday for a break but it never came. Packed up at noon and headed down. Visibility was about 150' and hard to tell where drop offs and ledges were. Fell several times. Once we got a little lower the snow was awesome, about a foot of new over a stable base. Wish I was feeling stronger to enjot it more. My partner Rob was rippin it up. We descended a little to far into the trees and missed cold springs tr but came out on the road before morrison creek. Fun skiing but bad weather and a long skin in. This was my first big mountain ski tour and it was incredible! I love skis, snowshoes suck!

It will load fine if you have high speed connection. The Heinous Cling whipper is not the full distance. I shot video of a climber on the top of the ridge another 10 or 15 feet up the route. He intentionally took the fall from the chains and it was relly big but totally clean. I personally have taken a good 30 footer off of the big rail right after the crux. Totally great route. Nice distance between the bolts.

have a couple used but in great shape Gri Gri by Petzl for sale. Both were used in a gym and have never been outside. Give me a call if interested 668-0478.