Wastral

So, with this data, you had better be climbing before the end of July at worst. August will be too late with WIDE open crevasses unless you get lucky. Enjoy. Its an awesome place.

Says the guy with 17,600 posts on cc.com..... Personal experience I take it?

buy the snowshoes without the heel lever, save yourself $100 easy, make your your own heel levers. Buy used, no one uses their snowshoes. Or nearly no one.

I take a cordelette for rescue situations only. Sliding X with a single backup is always far faster to build/take down and unlike a F'Ollette actually equalizes at least 2 pieces in ALL situations. The problem as I see it, is that in a fall the load is near instantaneous requiring the cordelette to stretch near instantaneous as well to equalize said load onto the different pieces whom also have to Set themselves into the rock firmly. This simply cannot happen in such a small time frame before putting the full or near full load on a single piece. Now when you build your 3 point cordelette and are already hanging on it say on a BIG wall, then you have pre-stretched said cordelette and any new load can be applied to all of said pieces whereas with the typical fashion where one is sitting on a belay ledge, said cordelette is always only tied firmly to 1 piece and has to stretch say a half inch to load the 2nd or 3rd piece due to the nature of how it is tied. It is impossible to tie all 3 legs evenly. It gets even hairier when its in a pendulum traverse(VERY COMMON in alpine) to the side and if you do a F'ollette you are truly screwed as your fixed 3 piece Tie in point will have one leg far shorter than the other 2 in regards to where the load(Fall) will come from... the side. In this situation you MUST use a sliding X otherwise your "belay" is all of 1 piece strong for the FULL FALL load. Not Good. Not Good at all. Newbs, DO NOT use Cordelettes to begin with. Please. Thankfully most newbies usually don't climb vastly outside of their comfort zone. I know, we all claim to be fearless heroes, thankfully most actually do have fear and are heroes smart enough to retreat.

It should be noted that most all steep snow routes generally follow shallow gullies allowing the placement of rock pro. The reason one wishes to do so should be obvious to even the novice... Climbing steep snow is not hard. Descending steep snow/ice is harder. Learn abalakov anchors. Learn correct self arrest with axe/pons technique. The rule of thumb about not using Pons is for the novice only and applied to generally places where from experience one know they can stop by using axe only. On the other hand with Experience, note the big ol' "E" word there again, with experience, one quickly will understand that to stop a slip/fall one has to do so in the first 5 feet on steep terrain and most certainly WILL include the use of crampon points. Practice, practice falling/slipping at first without a pack or crampons, then with pack and no pons on and finally, with crampons on. If you have access to an old junk rope, tie a junk old, Kelty aluminum frame pack to the end and fill it with 150lbs of rocks. At a very shallow angled slope, push down hill and practice stopping it, go to steeper slopes ONLY as you get comfortable doing so. SO many people NEVER practice this. It is COMPLETELY different than stopping your own fall. In this instance you most certainly DO use your feet/crampons along with your upper torso ice axe combo as power to stop said fall is produced by churning your legs as if you were running up hill. In short, on snow, you are soloing. Mentality must be of a kind. The rope is there for as others have said Crevasse problems, rock fall knocked unconscious problems, and pendulum issues, and as I brought up first and formost, nearly all steep snow/ice routes will be next to or on rock allowing the placement of more reliable pro. Enjoy PRACTICE falling!

I second that motion. The only joy will be attaining the summit. Cascadian etc on South side are just fine if you go at the right time of the year. Late may/June is fine. Last year, bro bailed on the North ridge due to snow/ice as they didn't bring ice gear, but the south side was in perfect shape. Beware avalanches. Make sure a Hot few days have already happened and said avalanches are done for. Generally this happens in April in Stuart range, but can happen later. Remember, Stuart region gets far less snow than Snoqualamie pass and is a month ahead at a minimum on the spring melt cycle. Baring an odd spring anyways.

If the Suiattle road Ever reopens(Jack ass evnironwackos and their lawsuits without any basis, and moron judges allowing said frivolous lawsuits in the first place), the Image Lake--> Canyon Lake--> Stonehedge ridge traverse --> Down Sulpher mountain trail, or reverse order is likewise spectacular, though this is quite a bit of off trail and not well maintained trail. If it doesn't open, take bikes. Its an easy hour bike ride even with packs. The loop you did is still my favorite, anywhere in the state, though take an extra day to divert to Glacier Peak Meadows on the other side of Red Pass. Make sure to check out Pilot Peak and the Jet BLACK volcano plug just to the west of the PCT.

Rechargeable lithium. Buy, modify existing case, done. Lose 25% of power compared to non rechargeable lithium, save a HECK of a lot of money. Use your spare camera lithium battery if nothing else. 2 birds 1 stone and you now have a double backup either for your headlamp or your camera. All you have to do is make the connection modification. If you want to go really light and really powerful, get the lithium batteries sold to RC airplane modelers. If you want to keep your lithium batteries around for nearly forever, never charge them over 70-85% and when the battery is getting low do not keep using it till its dead dead. Doing both of these will keep your rechargeable LI-ion or Li-poly around for a VERY long time. If you are pissing about a couple of ounces, take a leak, dump, work out more, or quit eating so much.

Bowline on a coil. If you do 8 on a bite it gets loose and makes a Heck of a mess generally. Bowline keeps the loops tightly tied in my experience whereas after a bit one is always fiddling with the bite when it loosens up and pretty soon you have loops dragging on your gear and soon your thighs/knees. Enjoy

Lost Grey Tarptent squal 2 Teanaway trailhead Lake Ingals. Fell off of my brothers pack. If you found it and picked it up. Call me at 425-392-0975 Will come and pick it up and bring you a blackberry pie and vanilla ice cream to "sweeten" the deal. =_)

Sorry, can't have mine. =-) Don Serl is sometimes online and you can send him a Personal Message. Put the request in the Canada section he seems to check that fairly often. Tellot Spire can't be beat. Quite a bit of ice though. 5.9 Claw peak right next to Plummer Hut also is great. 5.8 Several I have not done. There are numerous such routes. Several on the upper Tellot Glacier around 11,000 feet. Forget their exact names. Never had time for them. If I was in kick ass shape, I am not, rather piss poor sick shape, I would be very tempted to try for Serra 5 west face. Its 5.11 and??? 1100 feet of pure vertical granitic rock? I believe.

For 2-5 days I have seen guys get away with as little as 35L packs. If 2 even less. I prefer a 50L pack myself. Not as nice for climbing. Then again I have a tiny "pack" for summits I take with me weighing all of 1/2lb big enough for down jacket, snap on pants, camera, water, snacks, rain jacket, 1st aid. A 50L pack is More than enough for week ++++ trips with climbing gear, camera, tripod, etc.

-2 on small hexes. The larger ones can actually be used. The smaller hexes are a complete waste IMO. I dutifully carried them for a season but found that small hexes I never used as they are a pain in the ass to place and one usually has nuts that fit instead and take a bite easily and postively. The larger fist sized hex, I still tote around along with the 1 1/2 inch guy. These actually have enough camming action to fit a wide variety of cracks and can take the place of a very valuable #2 cam at a fraction of the cost. No you are not going to be placing hex's on 5.10 stuff, but there is a LOT of ground that is 5.0 or 4th class where hex placement is easily done. PS. I notice you have a #4 4" cam in there. Personally I find I never need such a cam. EVER. If I do, it needs to be MUCH larger (off width stuff) and I can always find placement for nuts, tri-cams, slings, or #2 sized cams. Personally, I would sell the one I have if I thought there was a sucker out there willing to buy it. Biggest waste of money I have ever spent. Hmm then again, that movie I paid $10 bucks for the other day has got to be tops.....

Well, A guy I know Carl Stanky, used to practice tying the knots in the shower with the water on cold. Not sure how much it helped him though. Then again he also slapped a piece of plywood across his lap, grabbed the SkillSaw and nearly killed himself as said powered saw cut both of his legs 1 inch deep... Genius in many flavors!

So, disagreeing is trolling. I suppose disagreement in your world is also hate crime?

His death was effected by his Jumars. It was not the cause. Sheesh yourself.

So, its also a death trap when used on rock walls. Wonderful. More reasons not to waste money on it.

Bill is your post for real? Ok, try the obvious 101. Bearing goes INSIDE the pulley. They are standard sized. Likewise standard drill sizes fit their OD's if you wish to change standard bearing size, unless you want a 100% press fit. Not needed in this case though. Sealed bearings are heavy. Non sealed non greased bearings are lighter and have higher efficiency. Its not like they don't have shields, they do, they just aren't waterproof shields. Who cares if water gets in? You do if you use it all the time because over time said water will bring dirt as well and EVENTUALLY, the efficiency of the non shielded bearing will have an efficiency lower than the closed greased bearing. Oh no, you mean I gotta clean it once every blue moon! Why can you NOT release in a crevasse situation using a cam device? Really? What is going to stop the whole danged rope from swishing through? Once the cam lets go there is nothing stopping the puller from dropping the guy in the crevasse and the rope down to never never land. THAT is why you want a prussic. That being said. If said cam device cannot be locked open like the ropeman, then its possible to use. That petzel one can be locked open and Poof goes your buddy into never never land as you are desperately trying to flick that tiny little lever with frozen gloves to get it to engage and take the pressure off of you the puller. Add in that cams stop something VERY HARD putting large stresses on your snow anchor which is already marginal to start with as its in puff snow and well... Hard snow or ice? Pff, haul a tank on it. Soft snow. Yikes. Barely touch it and it moves. Yes, in any situation its always faster for the guy in the hole to get himself out. 2,3 man is the same. With 4 guys on a team its probably faster to just have the 3 haul the typical guy out all of 5 feet while he helps a bit. Actually 3 man is worse. You can have 2 guys dangling in the hole instead of only 1. Naturally, the mountaineers who seem to teach everyone around here, don't bother to teach how to undo this situation... IE if you can do the 1 or 2 man in the hole with YOU and only YOU up top, then one is prepared. Unless one knows this they are not prepared. Likewise they teach everyone to pull on the rope with their arms... 1 guy squatting can generate more power and force than any 2 guys pulling with their backs and arms. Its a damned good thing that very few actually fall into crevasses. 75% of folks don't know their ass from their elbows who supposedly "do".

The Revolvers seem pretty ideal, any idea of how well the rope tracks in the pulley in z haul systems? It doesn't generally. As far as I know from what I have read and looked at from pictures and peoples usage descriptions, ropemans and this widget from petzl cannot be released when under tension as they are a cam device. Are you trying to kill your partner in the crevasse that you just hauled up under a lip? I can see how said widget would be useful for rockclimbing(pack hauling), but for crevasse rescue? Ug, no. Already are carrying gear that does this function anyways. Why would I carry yet another heavier piece of gear? Its 2oz's for Pete's sake.

$95 bucks... Hey goobers, take a standard pulley apart, go down to NAPA, buy a closed sealed bearing and save yourself $50. If NAPA is too far for your butt to go, and you are sitting your ass down at the computer go to Grainger.com, or MSC.com, or Bergbearing.com, or ... mcmaster.com and buy a damned closed sealed bearing. Or be smarter yet and buy a cheaper, LIGHTER, NON SEALED bearing that is just as good. Oh no, once every 10 years you might have to grease the bearing! Of course no one actually uses their pullies except once in a blue moon so the one grease job that they got in the factory will be perfectly good for any crevasse rescue you will participate in in the next 30 years. NOW, if you are a guide and are teaching folks ALL THE TIME and therefore USING your pullies ALL THE TIME, then yes, it might make sense to go to a closed bearing system. If you are not a guide, don't waste your $$$ on a closed bearing. Get the cheaper bearings. Likewise the DRY OPEN bearings will have higher throughput in terms of EFFICIENCY than any closed bearing, but will not last as long. You did notice that Petzl posted their bearings "efficiency". They did this because its piss poor and therefore made it a selling point since few know better! If Petzl were actually selling these buggers to actual CLIMBERS instead of RESUCE Personnel they would be selling open higher efficiency bearings. Petzl must be laughing all the way to the bank every time some ignorant sucker buys one of these things. Don't be a stupid ignorant sucker. PS. 2 biners/garda hitch act as a far better ratchet, therefore don't need another piece of equipment via the ropeman. Heck a prussic works fine, and it releases unlike a ropeman or this overpriced hunk of junk from Petzl.

Is this a joke? Out of print? Hardly. Walk into Metskers Maps for starters. IF this is too expensive, walk into REI and buy the danged 15min quad. Otherwise print what you need off the internet for free. One can download said quad from USGS and its affiliated sites itself and hit print or print what you wish.

Guess I should add that I tote around and APS-C sized sensor camera. At the time I bought it, all compacts were pretty much junk as none had good lenses on them for sharpness. That is not completely true anymore. Just mostly all true. Me and my friend tote around a Cannon s95 when rock climbing. Also the Sony W10 I believe provides good snap shots. If one wants to color correct compact cameras one can stitch and get good pictures, but it requires a lot of extra work if you are a perfectionist like me. All the new super thin/small large sensor cameras are really tugging on my purse strings though I have not jumped yet. With a pancake lens they do nearly everything you wish and are just as small as a compact camera, but without the zoom range, but also provide far better pictures as well in terms of clarity, dynamic range, color profiles.

PS. I honestly don't think one can go wrong with any camera produced in the last 5 years. Well that is a big stretch as all the phone cameras are garbage. PPS. A "TOUGH" "RUGGED" camera might be quite a few folks ticket. Don't know how much water sports, beach combing, kayaking, river pictures one takes, but they are rather nice even rock climbing because they have recessed lenses generally meaning its near impossible to scratch the glass compared to a standard compact camera. Know a guy who has trashed 2 "normal" compacts this way and his "tough" camera is still going strong several years after the fact.

Well it should really be divided into 2 or 3 categories. 1) Snap shot rock climbing shots for a screen saver - Want small and non cumbersome(Paramount) 2) Snap Shot snow ice backpacking/camp shots - Slightly better quality may be blown up large 3) Landscape camera. - Quality of optics is overwhelming need - Forces one to large glass lenses. - Body/Sensor doesn't really matter except MPix count Throw in 1) $$$ 2) How avid of a photographer are you? - Are you into screen saver Roger Wilco Shots? - Or do you print them VERY LARGE as wall hangings... Personally for me? I would rather have top quality pictures and climb slower attaining fewer summits giving me lasting memories to hang on my wall and also as conversation starters when people come over. This DOES NOT MEAN that I buy the newest, latest and greatest camera body. In fact, I generally use OLD equipment. Its half the cost and 85%-99.999% of what a newer camera is capable of. I rarely use a camera at anything other than Base iso when in the mountains. This includes sunrise/sunset shots. I don't see any need to upgrade from a camera that is 5 years old. The new 36Mpix Nikon that just came out might sway me as it has 3X the theoretical resolution of my old camera Meaning I could theoretically blow the picture up far larger assuming I could actually afford to buy the printer/costs that is... PS. Rock climbing with a large camera is next to impossible except for the rear guy and then you get nothing but butt shots... PPS. Stitching pictures is near seemless today without any work at all. With a little work it IS seemless, so why on earth do we really need trillion pixel cameras? EDIT: Detail of macro shots for starters. Purist landscape photographers who can't stand the thought of stitching and a slight blur. In some instances they are 100% correct, usually its undetectable with a little forethought when you take said pictures in question. Give me quality glass everytime, sensor doesn't matter for 99.999% of mountain shots. Indoor photography, people photography on the street one needs the newer sensors on a real camera. The tiny sensor cameras are still garbage.

I think 3 of us are going, but not flying in. We might want to have food dropped off. Not sure as our plans ourselves are not finalized. I will tell my bro and the guy we are going with. We will probably be down south. Though if its good weather we will probably run from Marcus/Merlon and go North with next main objective being Spearman/Waddington itself. I don't know what the snow load conditions from the Winter are like up there this year as I haven't called the guys in Bute Inlet, but last time we were up there at the last week of July and 1st couple weeks of August during a light snow load year and the crevasses were WIDE open. Got skunked on Jubilee of all peaks as we weren't thrilled to go up the super loose 4th/5th class death ridge footeab@yahoo.com