Eli3

A few of my friends from out east are coming out the first week of july we're planning a six or seven day trip - we'd like to do a cross country traverse in the PNW or BC, but they do not have the requisite skills for any protected routes. Our primary plan is a variation of the baily traverse, but we'd like a backup in the north cascades or BC if the weather looks crappy in the olympics, any ideas?

Does anyone have any resources to find the cloud ceiling, specifically around rainier, besides the NOAA page with pilot's reports?

I'm planning on doing quite a bit of sport climbing (rope weight not really an issue) this summer, so I figure i'll bite the bullet and buy a rope - however, i'm also looking to buy a glacier/alpine rope (class I&II routes) for this spring. Should I get a non-dry rope for sport climbing and a 30mx8mm glacier rope? Or are the thinner dry ropes durable enough to withstand multiple falls from a heavy (200 lbs) beginning climber whom is hard on gear? It seems as though a non-dry rope and the rando rope combined are about the same price as a thin dry rope... Any recomendations for any of the above would be greatly appreciated.

I just got the etrex ledgend c, and the garmin mapsource 24k topo set - it includes MRNP, NCNP and the olympics. They vectorized the contour lines, roads and trails and such, which makes for some neat features. Makes it nice and easy to pinpoint your location in a whiteout. The battery supposedly lasts 30 hours too. I've had the same battery in it for two full day (~8 hour) ski tours and its been ok - I did turn the battery saving thing on, so it calculates the position less often.

Has anyone used the 24k maps on the gpsmap series? I was also wondering about the alignment - reviews i've read of the similar magellan units say sometimes the topo map isn't aligned correctly. On a 100k map, a small deviation wouldn't make a big difference, but on a 24k, its definitely noticeable - i've used similar products on a laptop with a connected GPS, where I had to align a .jpg of a map myself and it worked well, but who knows how well it was done for all of these maps. As far as using it is concerned, i'm definitely going to bring a paper map & altimeter with me, but it'd be nice to have a quick way to pinpoint/verify the location without guestimating with the UTM grid on the paper map. Knowing what terrain is above me after the clouds roll in would also be a plus Smile. This also makes it pretty easy to check the GPS & altimeter/compass nav against eachother.