Julian

Everyone was hankering for an Oregon bolting argument since there hasn't been one in a couple of weeks,

Well knock me over with a feather.

One of my friends swears by the Variant 52 so I imagine both it and the 37 are top-quality gear. I picked up a Mammut Ice 45 on closeout from REI and love it. It feels lighter than a typical "45" and has all the attention to detail I usually expect from Mammut.

This might just be me but I've personally found that on any terrain that is too low-angle to comfortably use an ice tool, I feel comfortable with just crampons and trekking poles. Consequently I haven't used a longer "mountaineering axe" in years.

Calamity Jane's in Sandy, OR either before or after a trip to Hood. The chili cheese fries are 5.25 and too much food for me to finish. Digger Don's diner in Sutherlin, OR before or after a trip to the Callahans or a choss pile in southern Oregon. Huge biscuits and gravy platters for breakfast, or a massive burger platter for dinner that is free if you finish all of it.

I'm interested in the WT belay parka and am wondering about the fit. For most things I wear a size L, would an XL work well if I am planning to wear it over say, two base layers and softshell jacket, or do you think it would be too loose and baggy?

Good information as always. "Although Petzl says no on both" Of course they would say that, they want you to buy the new tools! In a similar vein, Stephen Koch responded to a question on Backcountry.com about putting a Quark Griprest on to an Aztar and claimed it couldn't be done, and well, we both know (thanks to you) how that one turned out.

My favorite tent ever in the "3-season 2-person backpacking" category is the unfortunately discontinued REI Sub-Alpine. Roomy, easy setup (all clips, no stupid pole sleeves, easy to set up even with only one person), pretty light, and it was very well-priced. If you can find a used one I would highly recommend it.

Five Nominated for 2010 Piolets d'Or Congrats to my friend Jed Brown, who, along with Kyle Dempster and Bruce Normand, have been nominated for the Piolet d'Or for their new route "The Great White Jade Heist" (M6 WI5 5.7 R, 2650m) on the north face of Xuelian Feng West. In addition to being up there with superstar climbers like Denis Urubko, Alexander Ruchkin, Nick Bullock, and Mikhail Mikhailov, they also get to share the stage with none other than The Man himself, Reinhold Messner, who will be receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. Congrats guys, and well done on a superb new line!

Verizon, just like everywhere else.

I pretty much exclusively use a 4 year old pair of REI Mistrals, which are awesome light Schoeller softshell pants, and add layers (or thicknesses) of long underwear as needed.

Did I miss something here, or will everything be revealed by a trip to Spray?

The GriGri is for people who do nothing but single-pitch cragging and don't know how to tie off a climber and initiate a rescue scenario. People learning how to belay on a GriGri just leads to laziness and bad habits.

Which is especially funny because if she gets pulled off the ground by a fall that's a great way for her to get taco-ed by her harness and be spitting up blood from a kidney injury.

Anyone got any recommendations/suggestions for good choices of tape to use on upper tool shafts? Obviously waterproof/resistant and grippy are the main considerations, I'm just wondering if anyone has played around with options here and knows what works best. I was thinking hockey stick tape, but I'm all ears for other ideas!

Anyone have any opinions on the Outdoor Research Chaos jacket? http://www.outdoorresearch.com/site/m_s_chaos_jacket.html It's been on SteepAndCheap lately at 50% off.

Norrona stuff has also been featured prominently on SteepAndCheap over the past week or so.

I teach lower-division mathematics (pre-calculus, calculus, statistics, etc.) at the University of Oregon.

Totally unrelated product but this line reminded me of a question that you might know the answer to: What happened to those SUN-ICE insulated one-piece suits that pretty much every badass Canadian alpine climber (Blanchard, Doyle, Robinson, Cheesmond, etc.) was wearing back in the day? They seemed like all the rage in the 1980s if photos of Everest, Nanga Parbat, etc. are any indication.

Steck climbs the Ginat route (north face of Les Droites) in 2 hours and 8 minutes, "for fun": http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web10w/newswire-steck-solo-ginat

From the Vertical Limit goofs page on IMDB: There are many other good ones on that page, but that one pretty much summarizes this movie in one sentence.

Looks like certain people in this thread have been busy on Will Gadd's blog: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14697721&postID=2593522273575648945

PM sent on the Tanglewood pants.

LOL @ the guy on Will's blog who is whining about them protecting it with bolts.

Awesome TR, looks like a really sweet line!