Choada_Boy

More like: "I Slept With Mike Layton and He Wouldn't Let Me Look at His Face." Or: "I Slept With Mike Layton and All I Got Was This Lousy Urinal Cake."

I'm back to the 10yo model for now. I'm looking into the HB Dyneema, they are hard to track down, but score high on the impact tests and are uber-light. Anyone have any experience with this helmet?

Please bear in mind that at no point was I enjoying myself during this exchange. I was actually not looking forward to the whole thing. At no point was I anything but respectful and professional to the staff that I dealt with. I was never unreasonable, just louder and louder, and increasingly emphatic. I made a deliberate effort to keep my anger in check, but any reasonable person will get angry when they are confronted with a person that spews the most illogical statements in the face of pure reason. I was not trying to rip off REI. I was simply attempting to return a product that I honestly felt to be defective. I could easily rip the helmet to pieces with my hands, without any training on phonebooks. I have seen other BD 1/2 dome helmets that took a large amount of abuse, so after the first helmet, I gave BD the benefit of the doubt and got a second. My bad. I did not research my purchase because I have never had any problems with BD products. I have since lost faith in this assumption, seeing as many people have had the same complaint with the same product. So, two questions:

Pissing off a customer in front of a bunch of other customers, and refusing to stand behind the "100% Satisfaction Guranteed" claim unless pressed is an "awesome" return policy? I can only think that MEC staff would have given me a refund instantly, offered me a coupon for free gear for having been shamed deeply by being seen holding such a peice of crap, and offered to commit sepuku. I feel bad for the weak-sauce types who have a similar gripe but are more easily turned away...

Here's the Skinny: 1) Bought a BD 1/2 Dome Helmet 2) Cracked it while hanging it off of my pack. 3) Exchanged for new 1/2 Dome 4) Cracked it while hanging it off of my pack. So I go into my local REI looking for a refund, seeing as a helmet that cracks while hanging from the back of your pack is a piece of shit, in my opinion. The girl at the counter has no clue what helmets are all about, so she has to go and get a second opinion. She comes back and tells me that: 1) The helmet is older than the BD warranty 2) The damage is considered part of "normal wear and tear" Seeing as I'm getting nowhere with her, I say "Hold on a second" and head out to the car to get my ten-year-old helmet I brought along for this very purpose. As I'm walking out I hear her over the intercom calling "Kory to customer service please", so I know things are going to get fun when I get back in. Kory starts giving me the same schpeel about normal wear and tear, and I'm starting to turn up the volume, pointing to the sign that says "100% Satisfaction Guaranteed", and talking about REI selling defective equipment, all the while with a line of customers getting to hear the whole thing. Kory keeps going on about how it's normal wear and tear. I show him the 10 year old helmet, which I used in the same way. He tells me it's made of tougher plastic. I tell him it's ten years old, and that a helmet made last year should be made from materials as tough or tougher. He tells me the ½ Dome is a light-weight helmet made for beginners. I laugh. I show Kory that you can rip the BD material with you bare hands. (The girls behind the counter really cringed over that one, not in horror that I was literally tearing a $60 “helmet” to pieces with my bare hands, but because I was “destroying the evidence”, I assume) Kory tells me that the helmet is designed to be hit from above. I asked him if he's ever been Alpine climbing, and he says he has, and I present to him at least 10 scenarios where you could get hit by rock, or ice, or fall onto, the front, sides, or back of a helmet. I ask him what he thought a falling rock would do to plastic that you can tear with your bare hands. I ask him why REI sells defective equipment. I tell him that I’ve been using a helmet for a year with the expectation that it was keeping me safe and come to find out it’s a worthless piece of shit. He's sticking to his guns. Meanwhile I'm getting pissed, and a lot louder, and if you don't know me, I'm a pretty intimidating looking dude. Then manager man, heavy with REI flare, comes over, asks what the problem is, and says "as far as a refund, that's not a problem." I'm out of there in five minutes. Here's the kicker: While I'm at the counter, my wife is shopping around the store. When she saw the girl walking across the store with my helmet, she wandered over to where she was talking to manager man, the same manager man who told me that a refund would not be a problem, and manager man told the girl: "That's normal wear and tear. Tell him no refund." (My wife knows me well enough to have told me this story well after we had driven away from the store) So: 1) The BD ½ Dome is a worthless piece of trash 2) REI sells defective equipment and refuses to admit it 3) REI employs staff who are ignorant of the real-world uses of the products they sell 4) REI is reluctant to stand behind their 100% Satisfaction Guarantee and will only do so under extreme duress 5) REI has at least one manager who is willing to allow his staff to get put through the ringer by an angry yet reasonable customer, then come along and say “Problem? What problem?” A better strategy would have been to give me the refund in the first place, rather than piss me off, let a whole bunch of customers hear how pissed off I am and why, then give me the refund. Had I got a refund initially, for example, the WHOLE WORLD wouldn’t be reading this story about how REI BLOWS, has TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE, SELLS DEFECTIVE EQUIPMENT, and that people should NEVER shop there under any circumstances. The funniest part was when manager-man asked me how many “seasons” I had owned the helmet. ’Seasons?’ What the hell are you talking about?”

More information HERE

Let us know how it goes this weekend. I hear the lake is frozen.

Well ensconsed into the Land of the Non-Spirits, I can say I am at least well spirited after a trip to our local purveyor of intemperance. Dos mas, por favor!!! When's your next fix, oh father to be?

I could tell you fools were up to no good, I just didn't know you were scavenging bedliner from the scene of the crime! How dare you?! You guys picked the plum, way to go! -J

Gear: 10 screws, 5 cams, a selection of nuts and tricams, 6 pitons, 2 8.2mm x 60m ropes, 4 quickdraws, 2 pickets, and a bunch of runners. Seeing as the NE Face wasn't in, we only used the 2 pickets and five runners and had the pleasure of carrying the rest all day long. A third picket would have been nice...

Post deleted by mattp

Climb: Three Fingers-FWA East Face Couloir Date of Climb: 2/19/2006 Trip Report: Three Fingers East Face Couloir a.k.a. "The Last Hurrah" a.k.a. "Journey to the Heart of the Spirit World" Darin Berdinka and myself climbed the East Face Couloir on Three Fingers. We believe this to be the first winter ascent of the route, which was a fine climb in a spectacular alpine setting, positioned as it is underneath the complex east face. We chose to forego any summit bid, deciding instead to traverse steep sugar snow above a 1500' abyss and descend mysterious snow slopes on the North side of the mountain. One rappel was made on the descent from a picket set as a deadman. No spirits were met at the Heart of the Spirit World, which was a good thing from our perspective. -Justin Thibault oops...picture HERE

BTw, how'd the trifecta link-up go?

Rumored to have recently moved to Enumclaw.

Use extreme caution. Ask jordop for more details.

Huzzah!

Washington has some great climbs, for sure, but we have some of the best winter via ferrata routes in the lower 48. The N. Ridge of Stuart, for example, is an excellent via ferrata this time of year, with great views and low commitment. It is often done in a short day, thanks to fixed neutrinos. Other good via ferrata for this time of year are the N. Rib of Mt. Triumph, Nooksack Tower, and der Murderhorne. Have fun, and don't forget your windshirt!!

If you do climb the NORTH Face, make sure you decend the NORTH side of the mountain. Do not descend to the SOUTH. Do not march SOUTH, mile after mile, into the middle of nowhere. If you do decide to descend SOUTH, though, you may get free hamburgers, if you are able to get back to your car. Remember: NORTH

Nothing beats hunting human.

Yet another valuable contribution from Spew Sprayshaw. Do you still possess any orginal human tissue or are you finally a fully cybernetic Spraybot? How's your homemade Holodeck coming along?

I'd say ~30% are permenantly banned while ~50% are Dru avatars.

Pardon my dickishness. It's easy to grow hyper-sensitized to the "Dru Factor" around here: posting for the sake of posting, rather than posting because you have valuable information to contribute to a discussion. See above for a number of examples. My apologies, I'm just looking for info, not pictures of ass. I don't claim to be a hardman, either, just interested in technique. I'd rather get a wheel from someone instead of inventing one myself at the risk of getting mauled. Why a modified gri-gri over a Silent Partner? I would be worried about reduction in strength when you drill a hole where a hole wasn't designed in. Is the weight savings/functionality worth the risk of malfunction?

Pardon my ignorance: is Bruce Hendricks still alive? Two daisy chains doesn't sound like "rope-soloing" to me. Thanks for the non-valuable input. Dru: What system do you use for rope-soloing in the alpine?

fenderfour: What system do you employ for rope-soloing in the alpine? As much as I appreciate your input, I'm looking for an effective technique, rather than a list of suggestions that may or may not work, or are so obvious they are not even worth stating ("you'd better be dialed" for example. No shit). Sadly, this site is lacking in world class superalpinists willing to share their knowledge. I do know there are some local hardmen soloists out there lurking. Any thoughts? PM if you're shy.

It's one thing to be "qualified" to climb at a certain level, and yet again another to be "qualified" to utilize a system of rope and gear management. I'd say that the latter is far more subtle, and not as intuitive as the former. The logical step for climbing at a harder level is to climb harder. Rope-soloing in the alpine is not something that is necessarily a logical step from climbing with a partner. For example, the use of skinnier ropes seems counter-intuitive. Rope-solo aid techniques may be adaptable, but they don't necessarily lend themselves to the "Light is Right" alpine edict. And, finally, I don't feel that in this case a "go figure it out for yourself" attitude is the best approach. But, please, no more bullshit, as per the cc.com normality. Does anyone have any valuable input? Does anyone have any personal experince with a successful rope-solo system that they have used in the alpine? How are skinny ropes employed without the risk of certain death (I've even heard of poeple climbing on 8mm statics)? Any tricked-out gear? What about rope management?