crackers

you make me miss my old life. Every spring: two weeks going slowly from les calanques to cimai and then up to buoux before at least four strong days in the verdon and then back to the last spring alpine stuff... it looked wonderful. thanks for sharing your pictures. I can almost smell that crazy combo of the heathers, the cassis and lavender starting to flower.

I love bacon. When I lived in islamic countries, I imported it for personal consumption by the kilo on a weekly basis. Mmmmm good!

I love my sterling nanos, they've got soft catch / stretchy down, but I tend to get rid of thin cords quickly as I never develop 'amourous affection' for their history the way I used to love thick cords. I also like Mammut, Beal and Bluewater ropes, more or less in that order. I've heard good things but never used Metolius or Lanex. I do not like Edelweiss or Edelrid or Maxim and I'll never use a Petzl rope.

yeppers...

[img:center]http://alstrinfilms.com/images/Continuum-cover-high.jpg[/img] The AAC announced that the Continuum Project film is touring the Pacific North West in an email I got this morning. I have to say that it's an awesome film. I watched part of it -- with more than a few other folks from PDX -- at the Bozeman Ice Fest, and I am going to pay the money to go see it at the Hollywood Theater on the 14th. Here's the list of places and dates...and a link to a preview at the bottom. * Ashland, OR: March 11 @ 7:00 p.m. Venue: Southern Oregon University, Meese Theater Cost: $10, or $5 for AAC Members * Eugene, OR: March 12 @ 7:30 p.m. Venue: Backcountry Gear, 1855 W 2nd Ave Cost: $5 general admission * Portland, OR: March 14 @ 7:00 p.m. Venue: The Hollywood Theatre Cost: $12, or $9 for AAC Members * Bend, OR: March 15 @ 7:00 p.m. Venue: INCLIMB Rock Gym Cost: $10, or $8 for AAC Members * Leavenworth, WA: March 16 @ 6:30 p.m. Venue: Leavenworth Mountain Sports Cost: $5 general admission * Bellingham, WA: March 18 @ 7:00 p.m. Venue: Back Country Essentials - 214 W Holly St Cost: $5 general admission * Seattle, WA: March 19 @ 7:00 p.m. Venue: Feathered Friends - 119 Yale Avenue North Cost: $5 general admission * North Bend, WA: March 21 @ 4:00 p.m. Venue: North Bend Theatre Cost: $10, or $8 for AAC members * Tacoma, WA: March 23 @ 7:00 p.m. Venue: University of Puget Sound - McIntyre Hall, Rausch Auditorium, Room 003 Cost: TBD [video:vimeo]8919232

that's my experience with slovenia as well. it's my favorite place.

Mike, I think you might know somebody who has nefarious sources of the stuff. edit: also, I'm pretty sure that MEC will send those pads to us yanks...did you actually talk to anybody and try to get it shipped to you? or did watching ice dancing with brit turn you into a canada hater?

So Dane, a question. How many days did you get out with the jackets? Or did you just take pictures of them in front of a mirror and play with them in your house? After reading you smear Andrew Bisharat's review in R&I, in which he describes how the jacket functioned after a season of testing for his usage, I gotta say that anything less than full functional testing for at least a couple of weeks in the field doing what you're claiming to be reviewing the jackets for will just be a buyers guide but not a review. In my mind, if there is no time spent in the field, it's not a review.

redpoint?

I know, I know...I was actually hoping that somebody had a link to it cause i couldn't find it. Do any of you Old Farts know Glen? Can we rent a copy from him? It's called El Capitan as far as I know. Glen carried a camera with him on their ascent of the Nose, and there are AMAZING AMAZING long shots...

If you haven't seen Glen Denny's film Yosemite, you really need to. It's amazing.

hey nhluhr, Absolutely no idea what the story is with the biners other than they looked really really cool, had CE stamps and felt great in my hand. The US sport division manager and then the chef de groupe gave me the 20,000 foot run through their new stuff before the show. Our conversation was about five minutes long, and other than discussing the protocols for testing ice tools, we didn't talk details about any of it. Unfortunately, we were there for work, not play. I suspect that if you look around their websites, you could probably find decent amounts of info on all the new stuff.

Well, after the show...and just because you asked! I got branded after we finished up with our meetings...The wallcreeper is underneath me. I was still finding stickers on me two days later...

Forgive the brevity of my response, I am doing post show follow up... I doubt the world wide market for real alpine packs is in excess of 10,000 total. We are on track to sell well over 100 NWD packs this year. At our size of operation, with our customer base, it's a worthwhile side line. If I didn't have the Steve House / AMGA Board / Jed Brown & Jared Vilhauer kind of customers already, it wouldn't be worth it. Here's the thing: they weigh less than any 210d Dyneema / Cordura ripstop (whether you make up some bullsh!t about 'spectra/carbon diamond weave' or you're honest about the material), the tear strength is out of the world, the abrasion resistance is much better than any 210d Cordura based fabric, and you can easily patch the material. For all of those reasons, and a few more, they are the best packs for folks doing multiple expeditions in a year, guiding serious stuff (cassin) or dirtbags who are out every day and usually measure their packs' lifetimes in partial seasons. More likely than not, the NWD packs will be the gold reference for "rubber butt" and Seam Grip mastery in a few years.

The divots are considerably shallower. There is no way that they will be as deep for sucking into rugosities and crystals as the DMM/HB ones are...

I can tell from the above who was actually at the show! hahahahha! i hate the show. buybuybuy!!!!

Of course, no discussion of "neat shit" at the OR show would be complete without a discussion of NWD CiloGear WorkSacks... From the left on top, there is a standard 40B worksack in blue grey, and then a red 20L NWD, a red 30L NWD, a Red 45L NWD, a standard 30L in Green and then the HUGE 760gram 75L NWD in Red. On the bottom, it's all 'normal' worksacks, with a new bumblebee Yellow/Black 75L pack.

The new petzl tools are for the fall. They've actually been in the pipeline for a long time, and the samples at the show were production. Here come some pictures of the Petzl stuff, which includes a really rad biner... First off, the Ergo. Now, the Quark... and then the Nomic... Here's the detail on the bottom of the tools...there IS another hole under the pinky rest. Wire gate. One wire. Keylock. Pretty neat. August(?).

You're screwed. I figure that $80 is cheap for a bottle. Sorry.

I wish I had the time to write a real reply. IMHO,if you don't like islays you're either a spineless punk without a shred of guts or a girl. And no scotch should be wasted on you. Malcolm: Compass Box Peat Monster. Trust me. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. The only thing I'm really looking forward to next week is the delivery of two bottles of the stuff. One for the show, and one for home...

" " "

Bridgedale generally has guiness stout on tap. I think they've got the best regularly appearing beer at the show. But I'm very eager to sample any others...just bring a beer for me when you come over to our booth! hahaha!

How about saying 'screw it' and skipping the nice language. If you have to be at OR next week like I do, maybe we should just get drunk as early as possible on Thursday. Sure, we've all got appointments and stuff, but, come on, you know you hate the setting up, the meetings, and tearing down. So why not party like the set up is all done half way through the first day? Ok, maybe not. But swing by and heckle me...booth 4050, all week. Strategically located by the men's bathroom in the rapidly contracting climbing ghetto.

here's looking at the next serenity! A true lange girl!

As ColinB kindly wrote, check out: http://cilogear.com/info.html for details on a visit. This is a factory, not a retail outlet, and we just aren't set up for drop by visits. This week (11 to 15 January) we're prepping for the OR show. Please do us a favor and stay away. I'm the kind of guy who will spend an hour with you talking about materials or whatever, and I really need to focus on getting the work done. Thanks for understanding, and we'll be happy to have you over at the end of the month or in February...