CaleHoopes

LOL. I gave my guide recommendations on your other thread. LOL

I agree with Gene regarding the denali prep. You should definitely be able to do a prep course and Denali in the same year. Like he said, it's mostly gonna be skills and some climbing, but nowhere near the amount of work that Denali is. You should be able to do them in the same year if you're in shape. The 3 Rainier guide companies all do some kind of Denali Prep in the spring. I don't have any Alpine Ascents experience, but I believe Gene if he says its a good plan. I only mentioned Mountain Trip because of their visibility on the mountain and the way they usher folks through their trips. This of course is all based on my single experience this year. I was independent on the mountain so it was nice to see the guided groups from the outside. I would say that there was ONE major guide service I was extremely unimpressed with on Denali. You might be able to figure it out, but if not, PM me and I'll give you my opinion.

Call me, maybe.

No problem, Rafael. It was my first time out there last weekend and my partner and I put up our first leads of anything! Wasn't super risky or hard, but it was good to get practice and "feel" the sharp end for the first time. Enjoy!

After being on the mountain, I was impressed with Mountain Trip. I was not guided by them, but they were obviously the most organized up there. I've heard good things about AMS as well. Other companies such as Northwest Mountain School run their trips through guide services up there. However, John Race is a good guy, he wouldn't be a bad person to go on an expedition with.

Yes. I will tell you from just coming back. Drive to the Heliotrope trailhead (standard Baker north side climb). Then take the trail about 2.5 miles to where it splits -> one side goes to the Hogsback camp and the other trail, called the Glacier Overview Trail, descends and meanders to the Harrison Camp which is just above the glacial moraine. This camp is at 4800 ft and has a exposed sit toilet (ROCK ON). Anyhow, you then have a little scramble down a trail to reach the moraine. You'll have to navigate the moraine to get onto the lower glacier and then hike up the ice to get to the more substantial ice seracs and such. Here's a good set of links: http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/979060/Re_Mt_Baker_Coleman_Glacier_Se http://books.google.com/books?id=2Jf8X-26pjMC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=Mt.+baker+harrison+camp&source=bl&ots=JZJp52gAoA&sig=19jk-qoVV02tUDqc0OMc-2hug6k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UZN1UP-KO6fxiwLDrICQCA&ved=0CF8Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Mt.%20baker%20harrison%20camp&f=false The turns CAN be kinda tricky to get there. Just be sure that when you make the turn you'll descend around a little ridge down into a pretty well flowing stream (can be a spicy crossing in the morning as the rocks ice up). If you found the stream in about .1 miles, then you're on the right trail. The trail is probably heading in a bit of a northeast direction. Good luck! Maybe someone here has a bit of a GPS route to get there.

Scared Silly is right. I got SPANKED by Denali. I took too much crap. The weather was fine, but I was ruined after day one. I did get to 16,500. I would say I have all the technical skills - I just should have thought a lot more about how to make the trip lighter. Strategy on carries is very important. Being sick the week before did not help. I actually injured myself carrying too much crap.

Interesting list. Here's the best advice I have. Find someone who wants to do this with you. Even on guided climbs, it's an actual advantage to bring along a climbing partner who knows you well and you know well. You'd be surprised. Depending on what you're doing, different guide services do different things better. Adams doesn't need a guide at all. Do keep in mind that with the DC under your belt, the climbing on Denali won't be TOO much harder to be honest. More importantly is your ability to ENDURE Denali. And until you go, you won't know.

You have to wait for a sale to get it pre-filled with Miller Lite. And since when did this site promote Miller Lite over the climbers beer: PBR?

I can't second this enough. I'm a convert to CiloGear after seeing how modular and easy it is to work with these packs. I've just about replaced all my packs with CiloGear packs now... a few stragglers left, but it's good stuff. Additionally, there's a bunch of ways to make em lighter. I bought their air-pump suspension pad. 3 oz replaces 1lb of suspension and it isn't horrible.

RafalA... let me know if you need me to order you something... I can help you out - as long as you show me Canmore if I come climbing up there ;-)

Just a bit of advice.... (I've done a ton of research too here)... GET BOOTS FROM SOMEWHERE WITH AN UNLIMITED RETURN POLICY. That usually means backcountry.com. Yep, they rock. I know you said you ordered, but the coolest thing about backcountry and ice boots is that their return policy makes it so you can try a bunch. Also, I can't underestimate the use of the FESTIVALS. Hyalite and Ouray festivals should have demo boots from Sportiva & Scarpa with occasional stragglers like Asolo. I've been intrigued by the Salewa boots too. I ended up with Baruntse and the heal lift thing usually has to do most with lacing. I intend on trying Batura's in Ouray this year and may check out the Phantom Guide or something similar. I will be demo'ing a ton of boots at Ouray. I find this is one of the hardest categories of gear. And yes, Dane's site rocks for this category.

You mean the 'X' isn't a memorial?

So true: "The best way to learn the most as a student is to STFU, listen, then ask questions relating to the material being presented, not test whether or not your instructor is worthy of your hyper-valuable time." I totally believe this - I never approach a student as his question is stupid or anything... also I never approach an instructor as if he owes me anything. I want to glean as much knowledge as possible. If I learned something a different way, I really usually want to know why the instructors way might be better/worse/etc. That way later on I can make a judgment on what is subjective and what is more absolute.

Honestly, I think when it comes to mountaineering there are so many things involved that you can't just devolve it down to conditioning and fitness. To be a valuable player on a team one needs technical skills and soft skills in addition to fitness. This is especially true as a leader. Also, Si in less than an hour is pretty impressive - but I've never done that myself and had a lot of success in the mountains. I think I once did it in 1:45 with a 55lb pack on the old trail. I think you can climb mountains with fitness that doesn't require running. However, 3 hours with a 20 lb pack and Rainier on the calendar in a month or less? It might be a tough climb.

I thought the three tenets of Mountaineering were: 1. Fashion 2. Safety 3. Fashion ???!?!?!?

Hey, one thing I would say about the local clubs - including the Mountaineers - make sure you keep an OPEN mind and learn all you can. I'm a board member of one of the local Seattle area clubs and no matter what dogma we spew or others spew, get as much knowledge as you can and mix it together to become a fully skilled climber. This includes balancing what the guides, paid instruction teach you. If you keep an open mind, you can learn a ton. Don't take anything at face value at all either. If you question something, read up on it and see what the community is doing as a whole and then make your decision of how you'll add it to your abilities. You'll learn a lot if you don't limit yourself to absolutes. NOTE: One thing to consider about RMI/Guide Companies (not all, but some).... they will teach you some skills you can take away. Additionally, they will teach you some things they only really need you to use on THEIR guided climbs. Some things they do/teach on those climbs may not be skills you'd want to use as an independent in the field. Just pay attention and even ask them - "would you do this on your own? or is this just because you don't trust me or others as clients?" Good luck!

Looks great, but looks unbreathable? That's the REAL challenge, right?

There's a lot to do in the winter. Climb lower and watch the avalanche danger... St. Helens can be an excellent one-day winter climb - assuming you can get up the road to the shelter. Also, you can get a lot of training in over the winter because of the snow. There's a lot of snow in commonwealth basin - which is easy to get to from Seattle - and you can do a great amount of training up there on tech skills and such. As far as Rainier - as long as you're trained up, there's no reason that a Rainier climb would take you more than 3 days. That means you don't really have that many days of vacation to take and if you went around July 4, you could potentially skip having to take any vacation to do it.

So, my opinion (for what it's worth)... Rainier is a fine first mountain. IN JUNE or JULY. December is not the right time for a first ascent of Rainier for someone with no alpine experience. This is a WINTER climb of Rainier. You have no boot pack, you get snow bridges that might not be fully formed yet and often times EXTREME avalanche danger that is in a zone that the NWAC doesn't report on. Additionally, it's much harder to get services to you in the winter for rescue when the climbing season is over. The weather is very inconsistent in December and if you get hit by a storm up there, your skills won't matter. I don't want to discourage you at all. I just want to discourage WHEN you go. Training a rock climber on glacier travel is not that difficult and Rainier is easily within your reach as a first objective. I'd just push it off a little bit and not put yourself and a partner at risk. My 2 cents.

Your third photo is a closeup of Glacier from the East? Looks like the cool glacier on the left hand side?

Hey guys. Thanks for all of the advice. I got exactly what I expected and will be buying a new rope. Now it looks like I got a rope for some fun knot tying practice.

That's totally what I'm thinking too. I just wanted to hear from some experts (or sprayers).

Folks, Call me a n00b when it comes to rope care, but I think I know the answer to my question here... I have a dry treated Mammut Infinity 60m rope that made it into a duffel with a MSR fuel bottle that had a loose lid. When the duffel got home, I found the error and the duffel smelled pretty bad... the rope WAS in a rope bag, however, the rope bag actually smelled pretty bad too. I totally let it all dry out, but I'm thinking that if the rope got soaked in white gas there could be a weakness in the rope. Therefore, it's probably getting retired as "practice rope". Thoughts? I'm really curious whether or not you'd retire your rope in this situation. The bottle was probably only 22 oz of white gas, but was empty once we got home. Anyhoo, let me know what you think - discuss - and spray too, I'm cool with that. Cale

I wanna climb Denali for the cause of my bank account (Climb for Empty Bank). Anyone pay for my permit? (On a serious note - I started with the Climb for Clean Air and it was a great experience. While I did get to raise SOME money that went to the charity, the group is a great group and they do a lot of outside training that you wouldn't get just booking a trip with RMI. I also found it quite cool because what it does is it gets everyone invested in your climb up Rainier. Not the n00bs and spraymasters on CC.com, but the real honest people in your life - family, coworker, etc. It's not a horrible cause unless you're a french climber who likes a cig on the summit of his closest 4km peak.)