jfs1978

Yeah, it was warm today again. 40 in the parking lot at 4:30. Felt like a spring climb. FWIW I was going up to check out Leuthold, scrapped that with the high temps and nasty rime falling out of the sky everywhere. Headed up to the crater instead and watched a bunch of crap tinking and bashing its way down right after sunrise - mostly down the old chute - wide swaths of fist size chunks sweeping more often than looked fun to me. Scrapped that idea and decided to avoid what looked tempting around the crater rim too, for obvious reasons. Went down and took a couple pics of the Reid and Yocum. Looked good to me...but still wouldn't want to be anywhere near the bottom of those couloirs til she sheds some of the nastiness. Back in the parking lot around 10:45. Couple guys headed up as I came down - and I thought I started late... Curious what they found at that late hour... Solid sheet of ice and rime gargoyles everywhere above top of Palmer - more than usual for me. Yocum is of course covered. Wheeeee - have at it hardmen.

Anyone up higher on the mountain today/recently for a conditions report? NWAC is suggesting moderate and low. Heard a report of a couple deep layers around 5 ft that haven't set up yet though...and it ain't gettin' supercold overnight right now. Thinkin' west side. Would do onsight eval...per usual...but any reports welcome.

Past couple weeks have been a little rough...tough to say at this point. I usually say with anything under a 50% chance of precip at Smith, it's usually dry enough to climb. But with the crap moving through here right now, rain is a pretty good bet. Dec. 25th... Some climbable stuff if you were willing to brush off the holds, mostly not. The rain will have gotten rid of most/all that...but if you are coming a long way it's a risky bet. That said, come with an open mind and be willing to climb in some wetness...and you just might get lucky. FWIW, it was dumping rain in Bend today, and clear in the afternoon. Not sure about Smith.

ok - not gonna beg fer hard earned local beta...but how worthwhile is it to come up from down south...and just drive down the gorge looking for lines? Dumb question? Waste of a day? Lost my copy of the only guidebook I had that had any gorge ice in it... Might make the drive regardless...getting desperate enough...

No need to over-complicate the issue for yourself. I wouldn't think of either as a "system" you need to "set up". Your primary challenge will just be dealing with rope management issues. More ropes at the belay just mean it's tougher to keep them from turning into a tangled mess. With twin ropes, both ropes go through each piece of protection, and with doubles they alternate. Simple really. I think Petzl catalogs might have some good pictures of this in action, or most any intermediate/advanced rock climbing instruction manual. Twins can essentially be treated like a single although the belayer needs to be attentive to twists and tangles. Usually running a finger between the ropes as they are fed into the belay device helps to keep them separated enough. The leader just clips and goes. Doubles present the same challenge for the belayer with the added complication of needing to simultaneously hold both ropes ready for a lock-off in case of a fall while feeding only one at a time as the leader clips. It's something that just takes practice. The leader just needs to keep track of what rope to clip where, call which rope is being clipped to the belayer, and keep the ropes from wrapping/twisting around each other.

7/10/08 Snow is patchy the entire way in. PCT is pretty clear...gets more continuous just before hitting the N Ridge climber's trail. North Ridge route is clear of snow the entire way...but east side of ridge still has a good shelf of snow if you want to use it to bypass some of the scramble.

no problem Couloir. Have fun.

FWIW - 6/19/08

Found one pair of climbing shoes at the base of Phoenix Buttress at Smith on 6/15. If yours, post the description.

A #8 Kouba brass nut (from Czech Rep.), from 10 feet short of the anchor on Moonshine Dihedral at Smith. Took about a fifteen footer, catching my foot on a nubbin on the way down. I wish I still had the nut but I was too chicken to finish and the tweaked ankle was a handy excuse to go whimpering home - shameful. Some lucky climber got to booty the nut...hopefully it found a good home. =)

weird place indeed. 11 pages deciding if a fall was HUGE...Really BIG, kinda big, not so big, sorta small, or just plain weeny. Still kinda fun watching some fireworks.

Alpinist - On Sight Movie Website: Posing Productions Film By: Alastair Lee 2008 Posing Productions On Sight is a gripping adventure into the world of cutting edge rock and ice climbing documenting what is possible with a ground-up, no pre-practice approach. The climbers in this film aren't necessarily the strongest, but they are willing to take a 30-foot fall for the ultimate onsight ascent. Since Alpinist is the arbiter of all things bad-a$$ and stuff.

Overnight: A 40 percent chance of snow. Monday: A 50 percent chance of snow. Monday Night: Snow likely. Tuesday: Periods of snow showers. Tuesday Night: Snow showers likely. Wednesday: Snow showers likely. Wednesday Night: A 40 percent chance of snow showers. Thursday: A slight chance of snow showers. Thursday Night: A chance of snow showers. Friday: A chance of snow showers. Friday Night: A chance of snow showers. Saturday: A chance of snow showers. Saturday Night: A chance of snow showers. Sunday: A chance of snow showers. ...................... ............................. .................................... DAMMIT!!! stop already!

PM sent...

They were my starter cams too (Robots). They're ok...any issues/shortfalls have already been mentioned - but they are totally functional. I'll second the stability and range comments...more likely to walk/twist than my normal C4s. As a result, I only use them now if I need triples/quads of a given size. As a starter set...they're fine. But they will eventually get relegated to the bottom of the gear horde/pile. Buy/save accordingly.

Anybody up for a day at Smith tomorrow? Trad or Sport...5.easy to 5.11- or will follow a ropegun? cheers, js

Well, hardly famous but..might as well chime in...and add to the inventory of booty-able gear out there... Worked on a shiny #4 Metolius at the base of the offwidth pitch on Dragontail's backbone arete last August. Another 5 minutes and it woulda been booty. Looked to be in good shape too dammit.

Getting the shoes resoled... Just curious if anyone has preferences between Vibram XSV, Stealth C4, and Stealth Onyx (XS Grip, my old stuff, isn't available at this shop). Climbing is mostly at Smith...so tuff and basalt. Have always climbed in La Sportiva shoes...Vibram only I think. The only time I've climbed on Stealth was in shoes that were two sizes too big...so i hated it. Others swear by it. Any opinions y'all?

And i'm just a faceless asshole on an internet forum. cheers to ya and good luck on your climbing career...

JEEZ dude, go back and proofread your posts for s***'s sake! I think it's awesome that you want to get out and climb...but holy crap, I can't understand half of what you're saying! A (hopefully) helpful link for you... Proofreading It might reduce the amount of crap getting flicked your way. At least it'll reduce my annoyance level. cheers.

No worries. I'm not one to turn down a well-intentioned word of caution or beta. Appreciate the concern. The NWS has precip arriving a bit earlier than NCAR and local tv (not sure what rbw is referring to). We'll keep our eyes out and can always either bail to WCR/SS (pretty familiar) or, of course, the parking lot if we aren't feeling it at illum saddle. am fairly careful - thus the request for thoughts here (the forum where I'm guaranteed to get the beat-down if I ask or do something idiotic ). thanks.

Noticed the outlook getting worse as today moved on...but the system still looks to be 24 hours out. 6, 12, 18, and 24 hr outlooks still had the precip staying in southern oregon...unless I'm missing something. Enlighten and/or educate me? cheers js

Planning either Leuthold or RGH tonight dependng on how things look when we get there... NWAC sounds like things s/b mellow. Am expecting everything to be pretty stable after last bout of sunshine and dry...but never been on West side. Possible windslab build-up? Any comments on recent conditions on routes? Thanks any...

got a link handy by any chance? thanks.

thanks for the route descrip. We definitely didn't hit the upper HW on the red line - seems like we were just right of that, but well left of sunshine. thanks again.