Maxtrax

Index was chilly but sunny and fairly dry yesterday. Godzilla was fine, Gorilla My Dreams was pretty soppin wet but climable. It was supposed to start raining last night and continue for like 3 or 4 days so I wouldn't count on it for this weekend.

I take it you haven't had any issue with skinny cords in the ghost then? I picked one up a couple months ago but I haven't used it on anything skinnier than 9.8 yet. It sketches me not having any sort of increased friction grooves (a-la atc-guide) for my 8mm doubles or my buddy's ice floss. I do like the fact that it's half the weight of my guide though.

Might wanna check your math there - 30L is around 1850 cubic inches and 40L is around 2450 cubic inches. I find that for day/in a push style trips 30-38L and for light multiday trips 35-50 or 55L is good. For reference the CCW Chernobyl is 3,000 cubic in/49L and the Wild Things Ice Sack is 3,200 cubic in/52L.

For 3-season climbing La sportiva Trango, Scarpa Charmoz or Triolet, Garmont Tower, Kayland Apex Rock. My favorite of those is the Triolet but go with whatever fits your foot the best. For a boot that is lighter than your plastics but warm enough for 4-season or ice climbing use check out the La Sportiva Nepal Evo, possibly one of the all-time best single leather boots, including all its previous iterations.

I would second the Cilogear pack as a climbing pack. I've carried the 45L and plan to get a 60L. I wouldn't necessarily go for a Cilo if you're going to use it for skiing much. It can be made to work but isn't as good for skis/avy gear as a purpose built ski pack like the Arcteryx Khamski or BD Coverts and Anarchists. Also check out the BD Jackal and Wild Things ice sack or rice sack.

I measure a hair over 41.5 (european) on a Brannock. I wear 41.5 approach/running shoes from La Sportiva - Exum Ridge, Barr Trail and Sonic TR. For boots I wear a 42 or 42.5 in the Trango S Evo, and a 42 in the Trango Extreme or Nepal Evo. I currently have a pair of Eigers (fit similar to a Makalu) in a 41.5 but with thicker socks or liner socks I wish I'd gotten 42's. FYI I usually wear one light hiking weight Teko sock and on the Trango models I can wear a 41.5 for length but I need the 42s for width, my foot is E to EE. I don't know if or how the relative sizing changes with the bigger boots like the Spantik or Oly Mons but I met one guy who wears a US 12 street shoe and got 46 Spantiks. Give AMH or possibly Mountain Gear a call and see what they say.

You always want to have a matched pair of ropes when using twin style (both ropes running through each piece of gear), and although I couldn't tell you exactly why you would want to do the same with halves, I personally wouldn't climb on mismatched ropes. The reason for having matched rope with twins is that if they are mismatched they will elongate at a different rate and that differential will cause friction between the two ropes where they run together at placements and can cause abrasion to the sheath, or in extreme examples burning/melting and significant damage to the integrity of the ropes. With halves if they are mismatched one rope will stretch less, thus putting more of the force from a fall on that rope and whatever piece of gear it is attached too and thus weakening the entire system, so although you could probably get away with it, I still wouldn't climb on mismatched half ropes. It's a little late so I might not be 100% clear, so ask any more questions you might have, I'll try to answer. Also, those Metolious 7.8mm half/twin ropes look awesome and I definitely want to try them out, but right now my favorite skinny cords are the Mammut Phoenix 8mm x 60m half ropes.

I have a Pounder Plus bag and have really liked it for the 3+ years I've had it, the Pounder seems like a pretty sweet bag too. The only complaint I have is that primaloft doesn't breath that well and I wake up pretty sweaty sometimes, compared to a down bag or even some polarguard bags. I would also recommend the FF Vireo half bag (yes I know it's down, but it's awesome and <1lb) or the Wild Things primaloft half bag, if you were planning on using it as part of a layering system.

If you're looking at the mini-pearabiner I would get the Vaporlock instead (also BD), it's lighter and to me it feels like it lowers/rappels smoother. I haven't tried doing a munter with anything over 9.8mm but I imagine it would be quite a jam in either carabiner. The DMM sentinel is a nice carabiner too, but I personally can NOT stand DMM screwgates and much prefer the action on BD and Petzl lockers. Also, those superfly lockers are the bomb, I have 1 and I'll probably replace the rest of my old rusty quicksilver lockers before long.

I've had a Pounder Plus for 3 years now and probably spent ~100 nights in it. Great bag - really compressible for synthetic, decent weight and warm for the temperature rating. I don't wear anything more than my boxers in it unless the temperature inside the tent is under 30 degrees.

Can you expand on that? I haven't had a chance to play with them except in shops but looking just at specs for range/weight it seems that they don't offer much that I can't get from C4s or my link cams.

I can't remember if Dynex is chemically the same as Dyneema/Spectra or not, but it's probably similar. Dyneema and Spectra are chemically exactly the same (ultra high molecular weight polyethylene/UHMWPE) the only difference is in the production process for creating the actual yarn. Dyneema was pioneered and patented by DSM in the Netherlands and Spectra was pioneered and patented by Allied Signal in the good ol' US of A. This is why you typically find Dyneema in Mammut slings (European company) and Spectra in Yates slings (American company). However last summer/fall there was talk of DSM licensing or buying a facility in the US to make Dyneema in order to keep up with the increased worldwide demand (primarily military). Like I said I can't remember if Dynex is just another new production process or not, but I think it's actually chemically a bit different although still a high molecular weight yarn. These types of high molecular weight yarns they are very impermeable to pretty much anything, including dyes. So any colored yarns in a Dyneema/Spectra sling are actually dyed nylon fibers woven in. This is also why the Wild Things Spectra Icesac is white and on Dyneema gridstop nylon the grids are always white. I might not have explained this super clearly as it's late but if they're any questions I'll try my best to answer. If it's slow at work tomorrow I might take a look through all the files from the research I did for my internship last summer and see what other technical info I have. As for durability/when to replace slings - I find the construction method of my Mammut slings with one end sewn inside of the other to be much better than my Wild Country slings which are just one end bar-tacked on top of the other in the standard fashion. I haven't heard any numbers in terms of years on when to retire them but I treat them just like my rope - examine periodically for obvious signs of wear and if I don't like what I see I replace them - $15 for a couple slings is a hell of a lot cheaper than a trip to the ER.

A couple guys from the UW climbing club took a go at Bonanza a bit over a week ago but bailed off - it looks pretty choss-oriffic. http://uw.cascadeclimbers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3629 for their TR. Not a lot of info regarding conditions, but some pictures and you could contact them for beta.

Hey, do you live anywhere in the greater Seattle area? I would love to get a chance to check out your pack, I'm just about ready to bite the bullet and buy a 60L worksack but i just can't quite shell out the money without having at least seen one first. Thanks

Can somebody tell me where this Garth Pillar route is?

Just noticed this thread... I took your draws down. I got to the powerhouse wall psyched to send "my project" king of the ruins only to find some random draws up on it with shitty looking webbing that I didn't trust. We didn't see another soul within earshot of the powerhouse wall the entire weekend so i took em down and left em clipped at the bottom of the route. I think you had absolutely no business leaving draws up on that route. If you have any business on king of the ruins it should be no problem to climb the .11a next to it to get to the anchors and hang/clean the draws on rappel. That's what I did the 2 days I was working on king of the ruins.

I came here to post exactly this. I rock climbed on 60m Phoenixes this summer and absolutely loved them. I prefer them over my buddy's Ice Lines I'm climbing on this winter. There's one 30m Phoenix in stock over at Marmot.

I would start with putting one of those shake n bake handwarmers in your chalkbag - they were awesome out at vantage last february. If the alibi is that glove with the black and grey fabric and little red rubber blobs on the back then I don't like it - none of the sizes fit my hands well and they provided no appreciable warmth over bare hands. Right now I'm really diggin my dainese mountain biking gloves. I don't know the model but they're the expensive ones - like $60-70. I haven't used them for technical rock but I loved em for the drytooling at the pdx ice fest. They're slightly insulated (moreso than the OR gloves) and fit my hands like ... well ... a glove, no extra fabric hanging off the tips of a finger or two or anything like that.

I really like setting with voodoo and soill holds, and also throwing on a few random franklin slopers. EP holds suck.

I'll just reiterate thanks to John, Marcus and all the gym staff/owners that made the event possible, it was awesome. I can't wait to get outside this season on some real rock and ice. You guys got me hooked (pardon zee pun) on another aspect of climbing. PS if anyone has any pictures of my ugly mug (khaki nylon pants, white t-shirt, orange petzl helmet, second to last to climb the pink route) if you could email them to me at mkawaky at gmail dot com that would be super duper.

I'll hopefully be attending. Depending on who I can get to come with me I might be pming some of you guys about carpooling from seattle.