Julian

It's the fucking Cascades man, reliable forecast is a contradiction. But seriously, any big, isolated mountain (such as a Cascades stratovolcano) has the ability to create its own unpredictable weather, even weather that's localized to particular areas of the mountain. The last time two of my buddies went to check out the Black Spider on Hood they were in a zero visibility white-out, then in t-shirts and sun once they got back to the south side.

NW-Alpine, here's a suggestion I thought of. Feel free to consider it and/or reject it outright: Browsing the catalogue, I couldn't help but feel the Black Spider hoody was a much cooler name than any of the other products - not that the others have "bad" names, just somewhat "generic" (fast/light pant, etc.). I thought a neat theme for your products could be to name them all after distinctive PNW climbing features like you did with the Black Spider (rather than the approach most of the big manufacturers take which is just to randomly name stuff after big/well-known mountains). I know the name of products isn't really a big deal in the long run but I thought it would add a degree of cohesiveness and distinctiveness to the line.

Excellent choice of approach.

This was one of the better climbing sequence films I've seen - far more interesting than most "professional" videos. About half way through, when he's making the hand moves on the rock shelf and then plants his axe in the ice bulge, I was thinking "That doesn't look like it's in too well" Then when he matches hands on the tool with one on the head, I was thinking "No way can that be a secure position, he's going to leverage out the tool" Then he did it again and the tool blew, and I jumped out of my chair watching that fall. Awesome stuff.

Buy some ultra-fine sandpaper and use it to scrape the rust off. My BD Cyborgs have developed a bit of superficial rust on occasion, and this gets rid of it quickly.

glassgowkiss I wouldn't waste your time getting too worked up over anything from ExWeb. This is a site that glorifies polluting siege-style expeditions and commercial climbs while ignoring almost anything that happens under 8000 meters.

My favorite part of this video is right at the start, where the rope comes out of the pack as a total rat's nest.

This could practically be an advertisement for the Arcteryx Atom LT Hoody. Try it out, I doubt you will be disappointed.

Good stuff Dane. Not to go too far off-topic but in your OR show recap you pointed out the new Trango tools (that from the pictures look a bit like green Fusion knock offs). Any info on Trango's pricing for these? If they can knock off a chunk of the Fusion's price while still delivering comparable performance I'd definitely be interested in them.

Stretch is definitely a problem if you fall (I know from personal experience), but if you make sure your sticks are always solid and plant each tool well above the next vertically (rather than side-by-side), it's not as bad as it might sound. Of course if your placements aren't good then the tool can pop and come flying down at you - I've had that one happen as well.

Good comments Dane. Personal anecdote related to this: The first time I used my BD spinner leash was on a climb up the Reid headwall on Hood, with the wiregates clipped directly to the metal holes in the spike. They were coming off all the time due to the biner gate coming open, it was incredibly frustrating and I almost returned my umbilical setup afterwards. Then you did the leashless mods to my tools and added loops of cord as the attachment points, and since then, they haven't accidentally opened themselves once.

I actually think this plan of Lama's would be getting a lot less criticism if it weren't for what he and his team did last year (adding bolts to the Compressor route, adding rappel stations, leaving tons of fixed ropes on the route, leaving garbage on the mountain, etc.). He's basically lost any benefit of doubt he might have gotten.

Pretty sure the governments of Argentina and Chile own the mountains in Patagonia...

Are we really equating one of the most beautiful and iconic mountains in the world with some PNW backwater?

Now that is an esoteric request - good luck with it though! May want to check with Chessler books or a similar bookseller.

You should see the photos from last season. Makes some of this look thin by comparison: SE Ice Conditions

Trip: North Carolina - Various NC Ice Climbs Date: 12/30/2010 Trip Report: As a transplanted cascade climber, I figured I'd stump for my new home base of the southeast and give a report on my first taste of Carolina ice climbing. My friend Stephen took me on a fun three day adventure into North Carolina. We left Columbia SC on the 28th and drove straight to the Highway 215 roadcut outside of Brevard, aka Zoo 215, for an afternoon of cragging. Contrary to its nickname, only two other teams were in the same general area as us, and we all had fun running laps on each other's topropes. Stephen put up the hardest line of the day, a WI4 route with some complex climbing on lead. He later top-roped a direct variation that climbed some extremely thin ground. Taking a fall that left one of his tools a good distance above him, he amusingly climbed back up to it partially by hand-jamming between icicles. Day 2 saw us hooking up with his friends Chris and Greg for a nice multi-pitch route on Sam's Knob. A quick (by Cascade standards) approach brought us to the base of a nice gully system, with easy soloing between three steeper sections. Stephen soloed the first step (about WI2) and I quickly followed on top-rope, before giving him a belay on the crux 2nd pitch. Looking up the crux pitch. Stephen later soloed some of the hanging ice on the right. The stuff on the left also apparently goes. Stephen midway through the crux. I took the lead for the final stretch, which featured an easier slabby section up to a short WI3 pillar (no photos unfortunately). This was my first proper waterfall ice lead, and somewhat counter-intuitively didn't really feel scary at all, even compared to leading a sport climb. The hardest thing was dealing with the rope drag that resulted from running together two pitches where usually an intermediate belay off a tree is used. We cut a trail down beside the route, choosing to deal with some obnoxious bushwacking en lieu of setting up rappels with other teams climbing behind us. That night we were just settling down to sleep when Stephen got a text message from a friend of his that the elusive route Silent Symphony in the Cullasaja Gorge was "in", that resulted in a flurry of phone calls and text messages to try and verify the information and find out if the approach (a Tyrolean over Class 4 rapid) was already set up. In the end we couldn't get enough hard information to justify giving up the climb we had just driven 2 hours for in order to drive 2 hours in the other direction in search of the proverbial white whale. Day 3 was the most exciting, featuring another multi-pitch climb (the Brown's Creek Falls route on Celo Knob) in a more active environment (i.e. with tons of water flowing around and behind the ice) that lead to a cool spot. The climbing here was mostly WI2-3, with plenty of harder variations possible. Between the 2nd and 3rd pitches is a large shelf that features a nice belay cave. The lip of the roof is adorned with huge free-hangers, and on the right-hand side is a massive pillar of gorgeous blue ice. Stephen leading the moderate but fun 1st pitch. Me following on the 1st pitch. Stephen firing the hard (WI4+) free-standing pillar. I declined to try this on top-rope, leaving it as an objective to work up to. Some of North Carolina's mixed climbing potential: the roof of the belay cave. On the left is an M7 project that Stephen has bolted and looks damn hard. On the right is a very featured section of steep roof with lots of ledges and incuts, that could be a nice hard mixed line. The North Carolina backcountry - I'm officially impressed and a lot more psyched about the possibility of staying here long-term than I was before. Big thanks to my new friends Chris, Greg, and especially Stephen for showing me the ropes and for a great time. Also thanks to Dane for doing the mods to my Aztars that allowed me to run them leashless, which makes for much better climbing. Gear Notes: Petzl Aztars - modified by Dane to be run leashless with Peztl's Quark griprest Black Diamond Cyborgs We climbed on a single twin rope the 2nd day, and on a single double rope the 3rd day.

Holy shit! Who the hell would think that's a good idea?

lol

Lots of harnesses on sale (including most BD and Dead Bird) at Backcountrygear.com.

There's a picture in Will Gadd's ice and mixed climbing book of what I think is an old-style Cobra modified for leashless climbing (I could be wrong though, I don't have the book with me and it's been a little while since I read it). You might want to email him or post on his blog asking about it.

Okay I guess I can see the point they were going for (full-strength attachment point = can rest/fall on it), but it just seems so strange to have the umbilical coming out of the same place your hand will be.

Thanks Dane, great informative stuff as usual. This is probably a dumb question but it's just some random useless piece of information I've wondered about: why does Petzl put the hole in the handle of the Nomic (not the small one for the umbilical, the large one in the grip itself)? Is this just a design artifact or is it there for a reason? Surely they aren't intending for it to be used as an umbilical attachment point.

If you are even contemplating putting on a griprest/trigger, then you might as well bypass all that stuff and look at (the newest versions of): Petzl Quark Petzl Nomic Black Diamond Viper Black Diamond Cobra Black Diamond Fusion DMM Rebel etc.

The Wild Country 360 is a baller helmet for side impacts (and everything else), I just got one to replace my beloved but falling-apart Edelrid Shield foam helmet.