Bigtree

Just mucking about with a new scanner, so...

That's helpful to know Markmckillop - thanks.

Billcoe, I'm always impressed with your gear collection (and advice). 3 hammers! I can barely afford 1 at ~ $80 CDN.

Sacré bleu! 40 holes per charge. The wee thing I use only gives 4 (well, really only 3 and 3/4 before it starts to whimper):

I certainly don't want to mix it up with MattP or G-spot, but if you feel the urge to bolt, do yourself a huge favour and purchase a Rigid (or other similar brand) battery operated hammer drill. I have the Rocpeck (3/8" SDS X 6 to 8" bit by the way) and its painfully slow. I just placed a couple of bolts/hangers/rap rings atop a new route last Saturday in a newly developing area and used the hammer drill for it - 5 mins per hole vs. > 1 hr with the Rockpec. A full battery charge typically does about 4 holes per. Also, don't use cheap crap (i.e., spend the money and buy good stainless gear that won't rust out). Lastly, if you're determined to whack away with the Rocpeck: a) try a practice hole or two someplace benign before messing on a potential route; and, b) bring some mind-occupying music.

Peter S, I lived in the Bella Coola valley for a couple of years in the 90's. The Nusatsum Rd. access via the Noeick meadows is spectacular (have flown and hiked the area), but can be deadly at this time of year. I played a very tiny part in a search and rescue operation that turned into a body recovery operation of a husband and wife who got chopped by avalanches en route to Ape Lake. The event turned into an even bigger bummer when the Chinook kacked and dropped out of the sky and onto a fellow who was being long-lined in from below the machine. All that said, if you decide on this route I suggest you start with a phone call to the Ministry of Forests and Range Field office in the valley (1-250-982-2000). If you can connect, I'm sure they would help you out with a road access report as well as other info like the tel nmbrs for VIH and Bella Coola heli. Cheers.

Porter, explain to me please why your presidential farm team is so apparently shallow in the land of 300 million + that you guys can't seem to get past the Bush's and the Clinton's? Is it some kind of weird throwback to your colonial ties to Britain or just plain old pathological illness. Not that our bench is that deep to the north with a 10th of population, but I expect more from our cousin's and frankly you're scaring me.

"Whoa"...I've never heard a guy get a woody over the size of gill slits before.

Clipped from a "reliable" news source: "The “accidental” cable cut sham being fed to the mainstream by many Middle Eastern emirs, and being swallowed whole by the masses, is a modern day example of the problem with white elephants. Whatever that means. “911 scholars” claim the US did it to hamper communications while the military launches an attack against Iran. “Some of us fear that internet access may have been deliberately severed to isolate Iran and make it difficult to communicate in response to a ‘false flag’ attack in the United States, possibly during the Super Bowl, an attack upon Iran, or both.” “False flag” attacks are conducted by a government against targets, including its own citizens, in order to blame an enemy and justify taking action against it." I kinda beleive the giant squid theory myself. If it happened to Captain Ahab in Moby Dick then it must be true, no?

Good links and feedback guys - thanks. The reviews look rather positive. I suspect they'll perform fine for the majority of my intended use in a new Bibler Fitzroy here in the Cascades. Of course I can always swap back to the aluminum set if I'm anticipating something more gnarly. Now, how to rationalize the purchase to my wife. Hmmm...

ScaredSilly, I have not read White Winds or Mtn. King nor do I have two friends buried on Denali. I have however read this particular book and have expressed my opinion above. You may or may not come to the same conclusions should you read it yourself. That said, and based on what appears to be a well researched and balanced account of this catastrophe, it would appear to me that: Washburn was: a) a hypocrite having climbed the mountain previous to Wilcox via the W. Butt for money (ref. the RKO film) with his wife who had no experience; and, b) had a massive ego and a clear vindictive streak which he repeatedly and forcefully directed at Wilcox. Sheldon appeared to be more motivated with servicing paying customers climbing the W. Butt at the time rather than meaningfully helping the Babcock rescue effort. Moreover, his actions, when he chose to engage were less than helpful.

Billcoe, the purchase rationale/mantra is as follows: a) its only a modest amount of money in the scheme of things; b) you only live once; and, c) owning one of these babies may prolong said life referenced in (b). Re: map scales, I've loaded the 1:24,000 scale mapset of US national parks on my 60CSx via a separate micro SD chip when I'm playing in places like Rainier, Olympics and J-Tree. I presume that you would be able to do the same for the new Colorado unit. Cheers.

Billcoe, the 60CSx is very nice for all the reasons stated above (I have one by the way and am very pleased with its utility and performance); however, Garmin is about to release the new Colorado 300 and I would give serious consideration to buying one. Its got very impressive features here: http://www.gpscentral.ca/products/garmin/colorado-300.html

Does anyone have any experiences with Fibraplex (or other brand I'm not aware of) carbon fibre tent poles (e.g., strength and durability vs. aluminum)? My new tent is a little porky for my liking and it appears that I can shave a pound with a set of these babies: http://www.fibraplex.com/tentpoles2B.asp (stock aluminum poles are 32 oz/911g vs. 15.4 oz/436g for the carbon fibre).

Krisjhn, get yourself a copy of "Oregon High - A Climbing Guide" by Jeff Thomas, ISBN no. 0-9629042-0-1. Inexpensive, but lots of good information.

Just finished reading James Tabor's 2007 book "Forever On The Mountain" re: the 1967 Denali expedition that resulted in 7 unfortunate deaths (ISBN 978-0-393-06174-1). Certainly is a thought provoking account and analysis in terms of the what the moutain is capable of dishing out. It also takes a lot of luster off the reputations of the fellows like Don Sheldon and Brad Washburn. Certainly seems like Joe Wilcox was scapegoated by many folks. I'd give it a 4 out of 5 on the grip-o-meter scale.

Typical. Your hypocritical refrain sounds something like "Its OK for me to speculate, but no one else should unless they agree with me and my sage analysis" Lighten up. I'm obviously having a little fun with a rather funny image when juxtaposed against the original message.

"You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things — to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals. The intense effort, the giving of everything you've got, is a very pleasant bonus." said Sir Ed.

Clipped from Wikipedia for you eggheads (I don't really know what all this stuff means, but I still prefer a polarized lens): "The simplest polarizer in concept is the wire-grid polarizer, which consists of a regular array of fine parallel metallic wires, placed in a plane perpendicular to the incident beam. Electromagnetic waves which have a component of their electric fields aligned parallel to the wires induce the movement of electrons along the length of the wires. Since the electrons are free to move, the polarizer behaves in a similar manner as the surface of a metal when reflecting light; some energy is lost due to Joule heating in the wires, and the rest of the wave is reflected backwards along the incident beam. For waves with electric fields perpendicular to the wires, the electrons cannot move very far across the width of each wire; therefore, little energy is lost or reflected, and the incident wave is able to travel through the grid. Since electric field components parallel to the wires are absorbed or reflected, the transmitted wave has an electric field purely in the direction perpendicular to the wires, and is thus linearly polarized. Simply stated, only light traveling in a certain direction passes through the polarizer, and the rest of the light is absorbed or reflected. Note that the polarization direction is perpendicular to the wires; the concept that waves "slip through" the gaps between the wires is incorrect. For practical use, the separation distance between the wires must be less than the wavelength of the radiation, and the wire width should be a small fraction of this distance. This means that wire-grid polarizers are generally only used for microwaves and for far- and mid-infrared light. Using advanced lithographic techniques, very tight pitch metallic grids can be made which polarize visible light. Since the degree of polarization does little depend on wavelength and angle of incidence, they are used for broad-band applications such as projection. It is interesting to consider why there is a reflected beam, but no transmitted beam, when the symmetry of the problem suggests that the electrons in the wires should re-radiate in all directions. In simple terms the transmitted beam does "exist", but is in exact antiphase with the continuing incident beam, and so "cancels out". This, in turn, seems to contradict the idea that the incoming wave is "driving" the electrons in the wires, and so is "used up" (leaving no continued beam to cancel out the transmitted wave). In fact, if we assume that there is no heating, then no energy is used to drive the electrons — a better mental image is to think of them as "riding" on the waves that result from the interaction. Certain crystals, due to the effects described by crystal optics, show dichroism, a preferential absorption of light which is polarized in a particular direction. They can therefore be used as polarizers. The best known crystal of this type is tourmaline. However, this crystal is seldom used as a polarizer, since the dichroic effect is strongly wavelength dependent and the crystal appears coloured. Herapathite is also dichroic, and is not strongly coloured, but is difficult to grow in large crystals. Polaroid film was in its original form an arrangement of many microscopic herapathite crystals. Its later H-sheet form is rather similar to the wire-grid polarizer. It is made from polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) plastic with an iodine doping. Stretching of the sheet during manufacture ensures that the PVA chains are aligned in one particular direction. Electrons from the iodine dopant are able to travel along the chains, ensuring that light polarized parallel to the chains is absorbed by the sheet; light polarized perpendicularly to the chains is transmitted. The durability and practicality of Polaroid makes it the most common type of polarizer in use, for example for sunglasses, photographic filters, and liquid crystal displays. It is also much cheaper than other types of polarizer. An important modern type of absorptive polarizer is made of elongated silver nanoparticles embedded in glass. These polarizers are more durable and can polarize light much better than Polaroid film, with low absorption of correctly-polarized light. Such glass polarizers are widely used in optical fiber communications. The best known trade names are Polarcor, made by Corning and colorPol, made by Codixx."

I couldn't resist. Here's a stylish pair for you...worked for the inuit for thousands of years...

For the record, my credit card was refunded by Moosejaw this morning. Nevertheless, I found my experience with them off-putting given that I could have used the tent over the holidays and having to pay for something I hadn't been sent/received.

Don't worry about looking like a dork. Styles come and go - function is what counts. 1 pair of all purpose sunglasses should be fine. My preferences re: specs are: 1) polarised; 2) 100% UV blockage; and, 3) > 80% visible light reduction.

I was recently in the market for a comfortable + bomproof bona fide 2-man tent. I was very interested in both of these tents, but particularly the EV3. However, after reading a number of owner reviews I concluded that: a) the EV2 was too small for 2 (i.e., really just a solo tent akin to my Bibler i-Tent, albeit with more length); b) owners found the integrated vestibule on both the EV2 and EV3 somewhat impractical (e.g., the benefits of the added length for comfort/living area were offset by the tendancy for collecting snow/rain from entering the tent/gear storage and the need to hang stove for cooking); and, c) a couple of folks experienced snow press/collapsing concerns around the door (design flaw? and concern of the PNW area). I ended up buying a Bibler Fitzroy + vestibule instead.