MountaingirlBC

Could astronomical insurance rates have something to do with why there aren't more huts in the states? It's getting ridiculous up here with rising insurance costs for backcountry huts so I can only imagine that it would be worse south of the border.

I'll share him with you if you like ivan

Decrepit Eve Read

Looks much tastier than easter chocolate. I'd like to trim is main sail and fly his Jolly Roger:

try shopping in Canada. The sizes are smaller here so you might have more selection I love shopping at REI cuz I'm a size 3 there.

Thanks much... now if you could do something about the traffic that would be great. And the border guards too please. I'd like to have the cute young guy who always waves me right through... not the short one who really wanted to be a cop who will send me to the time out room. Save me some cookies please How long do you think it will go?

I think i've gotten off relatively easy in this dept. My dog is 2.5 and until a couple of weeks ago had not destroyed anything. I was packing for a trip and as usual had all my gear spread out all over the dining room. She picked up my brand new ear warmer things and decided the destroy them. I was SO pissed because I've wanted those things for years but was too cheap to buy them. I'd picked them up on killer sale at REI just 2 days before so I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. So that made it especially painful when I heard the 'crunch crack' sound of teeth on plastic. BAD DOG!!! She totalled them. She's lucky she's cute.

Does anyone know if these things generally start on time? I want to go but I'm in Vancouver and can't leave here until 4:00 so it'll be very tight especially with that lovely seattle rush hour traffic.

A friend of mine gave me a big plastic wine bag (the kind you use for making home made wine) and it works great for weighting my pack. Has the added bonus of being dumpable when you get to the top of things so you can save your knees on the way down.

I once got in my car when I was fed up with the rain one friday after work and decided to drive south until it stopped. I ended up in San Francisco. This weekend is a good example of weather frustration. Had a trip planned for Friday/Saturday but the weather is looking like total crap EVERYWHERE. Looks a little better in Leavenworth but not good enough to justify the extra driving and time.

I usually do my first alpine rock climbing trip of the year the first weekend in June and climb through September. I find spring and fall incredibly frustrating. There are not long periods of time when the avy danger is so high that you can't get out but there are definitely stretches of time when you may have to change your plans due to the avy forecast. The weather can definitely be a bitch. Hard to get motivated to climb when you're climbing into a cloud. But the days when it isn't miserable are nice enough to keep me here (Vancouver) through the rotten ones. Also, often when the weather is crap here on the coast, a 4 hour drive to Leavenworth can get you through the clouds and into the sunshine. You really need to find a way to love winter because it's sooooooooo long. A lot of people I know are skiers first and climbers second. It really is beautiful out there in the winter. Like you, I'd rather be climbing but I get out in winter too. After years of misery on snowshoes I've recently made the move to sking which I hope will help the long winter months go by more quickly. I don't do any ice climbing but I believe Lilooet is the place for that... or Banff. Vancouver's a good central location. Relatively easy access to just about everything. Cost of living is painful though. I think it's just as bad in Seattle. That's my two cents.

Sounds like a lot of votes for dynafits. I'll keep my eyes open. I did ski this past weekend with my mountaineering boots. It was pretty hard to tell anything since we were skiing in wet cement. We were out at Baker. Was very happy to hit the groomed runs on the way down. We decided to mooch a ride up on the chair lift so we could get another run in on the groomed stuff. I think the mountaineering boots make turning a lot more work but then it's been so long since I skied I may just suck. It's so warm and wet out there now it looks like my ski season may be over anyway

it's not a spelling issue but one of my climbing partners can't seem to break himself of the habit of saying 'crevice' which always makes me think of plumber butt.

I'm planning to do it friday/saturday this week if the weather changes. Last weekend there was snow piled up blocking the road but nothing a bit of work with shovels couldn't clear. I had wanted to see how far up the road we could drive but after sking all day I was too lazy to shovel. We were able to drive 10.6km up the road to Heliotrope ridge to about 3000ft. Snow line was at about 9.5km. I haven't had a chance to look at the map and see what that means in terms of the access to Ruth yet.

It's not your mommas tea party... that's for sure. But you really can't deny the fact that in spite of it all, this site is still an incredibly valuable resource and is frequented by a lot of people who know a hell of a lot more about a hell of a lot more stuff than I'll ever know. So you really just have to put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

the piles of snow are gone. There are just two piles of dirt but you can get around them. Hannegan road is still blocked by snow piles but 15 min with a shovel would solve that problem. Drove 10.6km up the road to the Heliotrope TR today.

They don't fit my AT boots unfortunately... just my mountaineering boots. So if anyone hears of some good small bindings for sale please let me know

thx for the tip. unfortunately I've blown the gear budget for a while so unless i find something under $100 I need to stay on the wagon.

That's the road to Larabee right? There was a big pile blocking the road a week and a half ago.

I flew to RR a month after 9-11 with everything in my carry on. I have terrible luck with luggage getting lost and it would have really sucked to have gotten there and not been able to climb because the airline had lost my luggage so I carried it. They didn't even bat an eye. I couldn't believe it. They were more interested in my boots.

They told me that you've got about 15 miles of unploughed road to get to the th right now.

awesome... thx for the update!

new reality show..... lock 20 climbers/skiers in a room and don't let them out until they can all come to a consensus on something. Keep 'em coming!

thx so much for the input everyone... I asked the mec tech to see what would happen if he went ahead and mounted the 404's and then I swapped them out for smaller bindings next season. So he tape marked on the skis where the bindings would go and tried on a bunch of other bindings and none of the smaller sizes would create a hole pattern problem so I told him to just go ahead and mount them. At least I can get a few days of glorified cross country skiing this year. I'll stay off the fun stuff. The skis are beginner skis and I scored them for $100 so it's not like I'm mucking up expensive skis I'm planning to use for a long time. So now the question becomes which bindings? Going to look into your suggestions. MEC dude also recommended Silveretta Pures and 500's. These are my skis: http://www.backcountry.com/store/ATO0127/c1/s3/Atomic-MX7-Telemark-Ski.html My mountaineering boots are Asolo 103's. My ski boots are Scarpa Lasers size 6 mens. The bindings I have now are Silveretta 404's size N.

Dropped my gear off at MEC the other day to have my bindings mounted. Well... turns out that the bindings (Silveretta 404s) are too big for my Lasers but will probably work with my mountaineering boots. Soooo the question is... do I tell them to go ahead and mount them for my mountaineering boots and then keep an eye out for smaller bindings and then swap them out when and if I ever find small, cheap bindings? Or do I wait, and do it right the first time? The guy at MEC has put the fear of god in me with regard to busting up my knees when the bindings don't release. I'm an intermediate skier on groomed runs but have only backcountry skied once. So I'm not going to be doing anything very interesting in the foreseeable future.