Cobra_Commander

daisychains - the pocket protector of the climbing world

you're scooping the Baron of Beacon!!!

holy shit someone actually climbed at beacon? I thought people just bitched about it.

I remember the snow/ice downclimbing to be a little intense with aluminum crampons and a dinky axe.

I skied this with some friends last Tuesday. The route was in great shape and very direct. Trail to Glacier Basin was ~40% snow. We started at 5am from Schurman. A little ice up high, but nothing unexpected. The entire corridor was pretty damn sweet. Inter was closed up and we could open it up and have fun from the top of Steamboat. Making the most of the weather at Schurman: The route:

It seems the 50 classic climbs book put Price on the list when it was a more reliable climb. These days it seems less classic after a little global warming. Painful to be so far in and turn around! But what a beautiful cirque. Worth the trip alone, in my opinion.

[video:youtube]

Still more impressed by this stuff: [video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWCljD5_Rew

And what if one of these broken alien pieces beams a falcon egg? This is the cornerstone argument in my forthcoming dissertation for Bachelor of the Arts in Zoology (minor in chemistry).

good Wx indicator is the 500mb map. 400 tauntauns says 5460m is where the nozzle of the jet is usually aimed. http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/sathts_pac_500_00.gif

Fuckin LOL

I though kml was just a reference to the markup language rather than a specific item.

There's good powder skiing in central oregon if you poke around a bit right now.

If you have a sled you can start from Wanoga to avoid the madhouse.

the top of the gully looks to be downright cruiser right now. I remember that sorta sucking last time I was there, hooking through iced-in blocks and thin ice. amazing how dynamic conditions can be.

sure, I didn't know anyone here actually went down on that trail once you couldn't climb on the rock it accessed, so I didn't see why people were complaining. there are just so many other places to go, even in the gorge. hamilton mountain, for one, is pretty cool. I don't think it's realistic to have climbers self-govern which routes they go on, unless the park could close half the face (like young warriors open, pipeline area closed type of thing). And climbers out there have a hard time controlling how much shouting they do and in general impact a much larger area than just the route they are on.

I wholeheartedly agree to open the place if there are _no_ birds, but if there are any at all, I'm happy to avoid completely screwing over their lives so I can get yet another run on something out there when I can easily go some place else and come back when the birds are done with what has been theirs for thousands of years. The pigeons at Smith get along fine with climbers around, but falcons do not. If they are closing for no reason, or out of "tradition" (which I find hard to understand or believe), well that's another story.

Maybe because they don't want people screwing around down there? I don't know, and I don't really care if I can't climb on the rock. Do climbers go down there to sit by the tracks and listen to the blissful whisper of BNSF's finest, reminiscing about how sweet lap 1034 of the SE corner was? Maybe ponder how to pile little handfuls of dirt on a tree that is going to die soon, no matter what you do to it? Maybe have a summit conference in the winter poison oak about whether webbing lasts longer than chains? Why don't you diplomatically ask them for an explanation why you can no longer hike on the "trail" like I'm sure you used to do many times when it was open but you couldn't climb on it? "Hey guys, screw climbing anywhere else, let's go hike the beacon climbers' access trail!"

Why the hell does the trail need to be open? Do you guys still go down there and stare at the routes with binoculars all winter? I love Beacon, but I like a lot of things. If there are birds there, let them be. It's a big place we live, and there are other places to go and things to do. Go check it out.

Until you go past the first marker.

You're going to fall down a pit of doom if you fall of v-launch or mcnuggets at smith, clip away. I couldn't imagine wandering out on the blade off that rock w/o a clip in, nor could I imagine the pain endured by the belayer if you fell.

I've found plastic boots nice for long periods on the front points. They don't suck. The Scarpa Inverno is surprisingly comfortable to walk in and it is bombproof. As for Rainier, I don't think it matters much. There are some comfy plastic boots out there for that, there are great leather boots, and each have seen thousands of happy ascents. I do believe that plastics are more likely to fit your feet comfortably right out of the shop, while leather/synths need to be bought first and evaluated. Whatever you do don't buy a pair of boots and show up with them in the box at Paradise. Have fun on Rainier, whatever winds up on your feet.

or at least put a red tag on it to signify you are working the route