Maxtrax

Did you get much of a look at the NE couloir on Colchuck? I'm curious as to how much snow/ice there is vs. rock.

I agree 100% with what JH said. You should never ascend a line with your weight directly on the hauling device. The line should have been tied off with a butterfly to the anchor.

After owning/climbing on Edelweiss, Sterling, PMI, Beal, Bluewater, Millet, Petzl, Mammut and New England/Maxim ropes I won't buy anything but Mammut or Sterling with the exceptions of the Edelweiss 9.6mm Laser ARC and the Millet 9.8mm Silver Triaxle. I've been very impressed with both the 8mm and 8.5mm doubles from Mammut.

I've never been to South America but I just wanted to chime in and second the Nallo and Hilleberg tents in general. I spent 10 1/2 days in a Nallo 3 in the Bugs in September this year and it performed flawlessly. The GT model was pretty sweet, we had a nice dry area to do our cooking, leave our boots, etc. when it was storming on us for multiple days in a row. The only day we had any issues with condensation there was an inch thick solid crust of ice on the outer wall from a very cold night after a mixed rain/snow/ice/sleet storm.

According to NOAA the night time lows at Vantage are supposed to be around 27 and highs 38-40... Why did I have to be working last weekend!?

Size 8.5 Jet7's, the velcro replacement for the V10. I've had these shoes for about 2 months and only climbed in them 9 or 10 days. The toe and the rubber in general are still in great shape, I'll post some pictures when I get my camera tonight. I love the shoes but they're just a little too big, they'll fit you perfectly if you wear a 42-42.5 street shoe. They retail for $135, yours for $60. Pick up in Seattle is best but I can ship if needed (buyer pays shipping)

apparently I shouldn't leave cc.com logged in at work...

Excellent job keeping it together and leading everything to get you both off the mountain safely. I just climbed the complete n. ridge this weekend, I only had to lead half and I was absolutely worked by the time we made it to the top, let alone to the car. Also that picture from the top with the ridgeline splitting the clouds is phenomenal.

I haven't used the old reverso very much because I always found it to not be as smooth when rapelling as an atc or atc-guide. I have an atc-guide which I replaced with a kong ghost when I found one of those over at Second Ascent and then I recently got the reverso3 to check it out too. I would say the reverso3 is the most versatile of the devices, it has handled everything from 8.6 doubles to my fuzzed out 10.3 cragging workhorse with equal aplomb. The ghost is the lightest of the devices but it has pretty narrow slots so I don't like to use it with anything fatter than 9.7ish, otherwise belaying the leader and pulling slack through in autoblock mode becomes more work than it should be. A couple things I really like about the new reverso when compared to other autoblocking belay devices: the orientation of the device when in autoblocking mode makes it so that the rope strands are coming straight out from the wall rather than to one side or the other like the atc-guide or old reverso the device itself is noticeably lower bulk and less weight than an atc-guide.

Do you have any sort of proportions or recipe for this? it sounds awesome. My standard food is either Pro Bars, GORP+M&M's and dried mango or a burly ass bagel sandwich for on-the-move food, granola with raisins, protein powder and powdered milk (just add water) for breakfast, and some sort of high carb/protein egg noodles or dried lentils or some such plus summer sausage and smoked gouda for dinner. And I usually bring some satsumas, fuji apples or some other fresh fruit for the first day. I also try to eat a big Italian or similar carbo-loading meal the night before a big trip.

As I said I can't find my guide book so I'm not sure exactly which route I was on. I think it was ~3 routes left of the 5.9 slab on the right hand side of the wall. I had climbed Steep Street and Negatherion last Thursday and was considering climbing one of those again or getting on Rude Road or Under Arrest but they were both a bit damp(er). I'm definitely glad that we decided to move to the right side of the wall last night.

Hey, just heads up for y'all. I went out to the Nevermind wall to get some after work climbing with a coworker today, while I was leading one of the routes on the middle to right of the wall, somewhere between Neverigine and the 5.9 slab (I couldn't find my guide book) we watched some pretty gnarly rockfall come down from the top of the left side of the wall. It happened around 8:30-9:00, just after we broke out the headlamps. I estimate that between 15 and 25 chunks of rock from the size of a softball to the size of a basketball came down and pretty much obliterated the belay area for Steep Street, Under Arrest, Negatherion, etc. If anyone had been there they definitely would have been severely injured if not killed. I don't know whether the rockfall was caused by an animal walking along above the wall or whether it was just a random natural occurrence. There was about 2-3 seconds of "warning" when I heard rocks start to tumble from above the wall - just enough time for me to yell rock and make myself as small of a target as possible. Until the rocks started impacting the ground I didn't know where they were coming from/hitting. Also, there might (or might not) be some damage to the routes, quite a few of the rocks ricocheted off the wall at various places.

From Ingalls pass on Monday it looked like Cascadian was devoid of snow. Bring a dust mask to help with all the dust from the scree

Just climbed the east ridge and south ridge/face yesterday. There were pockets of snow above the lake but kicking steps in my trail runners was just fine. I had two light weight trekking poles with me, no ice axe needed.

My first pair of boots were the original Freney's, although they've gone through the Pros, XTs and now XT GTXs since then the basic idea of the boot remains the same - high performance on steep/technical ice and mixed climbing. (Mountains steep, not overhanging fruit boot steep). The asymmetric shape of the last really helped focus power to my big toe whether front pointing or standing on small edges. Definitely a boot designed primarily for the climb and secondarily about the approach. Not ideal for the Cascades but for me personally they had enough comfort for approaches < 8 or 9 miles. Although I haven't climbed in any of the newer iterations, judging by trying them on in a shop I would place them in between the Trango Extremes (yellow or silver) and the Nepal Evos in terms of stiffness/support, weight and dexterity. If you can find a pair to try on and they match the shape of your foot well I think it would be a great boot for what you're looking for. As Mark mentioned they match up almost perfectly with a G-14s with the asym bars.

Marmot Hydrogen bag sold, everything else still for sale, also added new items.

Nice job Joe. Glad to hear those cam hooks got put to good use.

Marmot Hydrogen +30 deg. F bag (2007 model) reg. length - black Pertex quantum exterior/quantum taffeta interior, 850+ fill down, left half zip, 1lb 5oz total weight. Only spent three nights in it, all in temps right around 30 deg., the bag was plenty warm and is still in perfect condition - always stored uncompressed in the storage bag. It retailed for $309, asking $225. SOLD Marmot Pounder Plus +25 deg. F bag (2004 model) reg. length - blue nylon exterior/black taffeta interior, primalof insulation, left full zip, 2lb 3oz total weight. This bag has seen 2 solid seasons worth of use, spent the rest of the time stored uncompressed in the storage bag - I estimate it has another 2-4 season's worth of life left. It retailed for $189, asking $80. REI E1 Elements waterproof jacket - men's size "small" but fits like a medium in every other brand (I'm ~5'9" 160lb and it fits quite well). Two chest pockets on each side, good technical hardshell, I've just replaced it with an eVent jacket. orange color. $50. "Black Diamond" brand softshell - men's medium khaki color, not a super technical piece but fine for around town or cragging. $20. Wild Country Zero 5 and long stem Zero 6 (blue and red) cams, used for 2 summer's worth of climbing placed/carried a fair amount never fallen on, etc. etc. They retail for $59 and $64 respectively, $35 each or $60 for both. Salomon Kamooks Snowboarding boots, size 8.5US/26.5MP/42, these were $190 new ~5 years ago and only have 1 season of use. $90. 32 Prospect Snowboarding boots, size 10US/43, bought these new 4 years ago, they have 2 1/2 seasons of pretty good use. I think they were around $200 new, asking $90. Petzl Ultralegre "pulley" (nylon sheave that goes on an oval carabiner). Free to the first person who buys something and wants it. Pictures are available upon request - I just can't find the memory card for my digital camera right now. I'm in the Seattle area but I'm happy to ship if needed via UPS or USPS. I will entertain reasonable offers.

It's basically exactly what you described - a non-dry treated price point rope from mammut. Not the same Mammut durability you might be used to but still quite respectable. My partner got one and took it on a 6 month road trip through the southwest and then to Idaho. It's no galaxy or supersafe but it held up remarkably well, definitely better than any other $125 rope i've seen.

I have the PMI 8.6 fusion half rope for glacier travel. So far I am quite pleased - the dry treatment seems to be holding up very well and the rope has a nice hand to it. A guy I know has the verglas ropes and seems to like them a lot. For skinny half ropes I've also been very happy with the Mammut 8mm Phoenixes.

I have the mammut 8mm phoenixes and am VERY happy with them, especially durability-wise. I've also heard really good reviews of the mammut 8.5mm genesis half ropes from friends who have them.

I borrowed Reactor to try out this week for 3 days/2 nights of backcountry skiing. Off the bat the performance was awesome. I barely had time to put the lid back on before I needed to add more snow to melt. However as the evening wore on, the air temp got colder (~22F w/ winds steady at 5-10 mph) and the canister got colder due to the gas being used/escaping. After the first ~3L the performance definitely dwindled. I had a second canister already warmed up in my down jacket which I swapped out and had the 4th L boiled for dinner in no time (which made me realize how much the performance had deteriorated on the first canister). I also had made a cozy out of an old closed cell foam pad for the canister to help combat the cold issue - I'm not sure how much good it did. The best might be a windscreen and/or heat exchanger to try and get some warmth back to the canister in use - however this presents another problem, the thing is super-freakin-efficient - it puts out very little ambient heat so a windscreen might not be all that effective and a heat exchanger might be asking too much for a canister explosion. The fuel efficiency wasn't quite as good as I had hoped. We had intended to make a 4 day/3 night trip with 2 people and melting snow for all our water and brought one large and one small canister (8 & 4 oz). Even with the trip ending up shorter than intended we were starting to run low on fuel, we probably would've had enough, but just barely. Despite a few shortcomings I'll be buying a Reactor to add to my quiver of stoves, especially since I don't have a Jetboil or other stove that is good for quick brew-ups. I'll bring 3 big canisters if needed to have snow melted and water boiled that fast - it blew my mind. It put my Whisperlite and my partner's XGK to shame.

Spent 3 days camping/skiing in the Table Mountain area this week and I left my Dynafit ski crampons sitting in the snow at our campsite and didn't realize it until I got back to Seattle this afternoon. The site is pretty obvious at ca. 4400' and about 25 yards to the left of the main skin track that goes up to the saddle between Table Mountain and Mazama Dome. The crampons are on the near left side of the tent platform as you face it. Since I can't legally buy booze I can offer whoever returns them some beer money. Thanks, Max

email sent

bumpity bump - still for sale. a couple things added: Black Diamond Vapor Lock carabiner (56g HMS locker) $8 Marmot Pounder Plus 25 deg F. primaloft bag. $90 The bag is a couple seasons old but in good shape, I haven't used it since Apr. '07, stored uncompressed.