tvashtarkatena

Follow up: The owner of the stolen gear came by yesterday with a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies that were really, really good. Unfortunately, the cops were unable to pin any of the shitbags in the household, all of whom had records, with this particular burglary. Again, here's their address 5112 Leary Way NW. Big rotten blue craftsman, 2 story, with lots of junk in the yard. Do not buy anything from these assholes.

We've got tely phreaks here.

Dry tooling...

'Whump' is not what you want to hear from a snow pack. Good call.

I didn't post using the TR feature originally, so I reposted the report so that it would be searchable by anyone looking for a spare fluke.

Trip: Dragontail - Triple Couloir Date: 4/19/2007 Trip Report: Two Codgers, Three Couloirs (4/18-20/07) After two failures in two weeks to get up anything above Colchuck Lake, the self-abuse center of my Celtic/reptilian brain remained unsatiated. After all, good things come in threes. At the first hint of a decent forecast, I PM’d Catbirdseat (aka CBS, aka Brian), knowing that he was also a miscreant bum whose hands should never be allowed to remain idle. We trudged in Wednesday to the now familiar strand of trees at the far end of Colchuck Lake. Snowshoes provided a little extra conditioning weight before we stashed them en route, unused. Trail Booty Ice is Nice Up until the moment I unpacked, I felt that we were well prepared for our venture, by then a neuron fired deep within my brain’s Accidental Lobe. ‘I’ve got something to tell you and I might as well tell it right now. I don’t have the stove burner.’ CBS’s face went blank. ‘That was an awful long hike in.’ Two former Boy Scouts without a stove: time to go Old School. CBS quickly built something not quite officially sanctioned out of locally found materials that soon boiled water for dinner while I chopped a foot-deep hole into the lake ice with the pick of my Quark; not enough to punch through, but enough to fill with liquid water. To prevent refreezing, I covered our new water source with fir branches. My cook pot still looks like it barely survived atmospheric reentry. It has a crust that won’t come off by any means. I think CBS, a chemical engineer by trade, may have inadvertently created the world’s most durable BBQ-scented ceramic. Who knows from when and where fame and fortune will come? Morning light on Cashmere We started out the following morning at 5:45. Cold and partly cloudy. After climbing the sporty entrance ramp we were soon doing the Triple Two Step up the Hidden Couloir’s firm neve. About halfway up I noticed CBS, in the lead, stopping to rest more and more often. He seemed to sprint, then stop and pant. I began to chill down and put my puffy on. After simuling the couloir in one pitch, CBS reeled me in. By now he was breathing rapidly almost to the point of hyperventilation. ‘I think I’m bonking; I’ve got to eat something.’ Then, moments later ‘I’ve never been so cold in the mountains.’ ‘Maybe you should put your puffy on.’ ‘You think I should?’ he replied with slurred speech. That’s when I began to suspect that something might be wrong. As CBS donned his puffy and ate a snack, somehow our fluke got loose and skittered down the couloir. I led the thin, slightly sketchy little chute to the base of the transition ramp between couloirs 1 and 2, then brought CBS up. His face looked ashen. 'This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.' His breathing was still very labored, and his arms were vibrating as if electrified. Finally, he bent over, 'I think I’m going to puke.' I thought: ‘Oh shit.’ We were both wearing everything we had: two under layers, a soft shell, and a puffy. At this point, it would probably be quicker to keep going than to retreat, but the crux pitch was just ahead. CBS on the Hidden to Second Couloir transition Close up of same I led off, dry tooling the lower ramp (easier than the upper) with a few French free moves for good measure, to a pre-fixed rap station (lost arrow and a nut). When CBS hit the ramp he was all smiles, ‘I feel SO much better’. ‘Me too, brother. Me too.’ The rapidity of his recovery from what was probably a combination of hunger exacerbated hypothermia was amazing. CBS on the crux (lower) ramp: Hidden to Second Couloir transition Close up of same After the short rap into the Second Couloir, CBS led a steep, short chimney (thin but decent ice) to gain the mellow portion, where we resumed the Simo Two Step up deeper snow. With the crux behind us, life was suddenly looking very, very good. I swung past and set up a belay just below the final mixed pitch that provided passage into the Third Couloir and home. By now, CBS felt good enough to lead this interesting section. The best way up this pitch is to climb directly up the obvious runnel, but CBS’s creativity got the best of him (damn musicians!) and he wound up climbing himself into a little corner just left of the final couloir entrance. Soon I was so cold I began growling loudly. Real Russian Front style suffering. After a shouting ideas back and forth we agreed that, unlike the Russian Front, retreat was the most attractive option. CBS placed a black Alien and down climbed about 25 feet to where he could traverse into the third couloir, fix a belay, and bring me up. By then I could no longer feel several fingers and toes. I quickly reached the bottom of his detour and realized just how shitty the conditions on that section really were. I got up to the Alien by raking through sugar snow and poorly bonded ice to find hidden dry tool sticks, plucked it, and began gingerly backing down to avoid a king swing. Spicy! After ten feet I called for a little tension and began a controlled pendulum into the third and final couloir. I led off and quickly unloaded our picket for my partner to lug the rest of the way up. After that we agreed to screw the pro and just go. CBS at full strength once again, and we moved quickly upward. Here we encountered the deepest post holing of the climb, but relief, a ticking clock, deteriorating weather, and summit fever kept the climbing enjoyable. CBS midway up the Third Couloir We topped out to a full blown blizzard, fortunately sans much wind. I shot a bearing on Aasgard Pass in case of white out, scarfed the rest of my sandwich (I’d eaten only a cookie and half a sandwich on the way up and was beginning to feel it), donned my goggles, and off we went. The Dragontail Glacier was perfect calf deep powder. Oh, for a pair of skis! The descent of Ass Guard was a bit less enjoyable: 2 inches of powder over ice, a perfect meat tenderizing regimen for bruised balls of my feet. CBS detoured over to base of the Hidden Couloir in a vain attempt to recover our yard sale items; I butt scooted straight for camp, a cold dinner, and warm sleeping bags. We hobbled into camp with all the fluidity and grace of stick insects enjoying a recent dose of Raid, bearing all the symptoms of an acute case of Old Man Syndrome. Just before I started snoring like a malfunctioning outboard motor, CBS had the last word that evening: ‘Wouldn’t you love to do that route car to car?’ PS: Thanks to all of you who provided recent TRs and advice on the route. Gear Notes: 1 picket 1 ice screw 4 pitons (3 bugaboos, one Z) 5 small stoppers red camalot pink tri cam blue flexy friend black alien yellow, blue TCU Approach Notes: Road gated but mostly snow free. Road work has begun. Should have left the snowshoes behind.

Thanks for that! I'm all about public service.

DT madness looked, from our newly wisened viewpoint, impossible. Fucky, sucky upper crux pitch x 1000. I tink, maybe, we made good tinking.

True security can be had by gaining liberty, not giving it up. Safety in the wilderness, for example, is not ensured by taking a partner, who may be a bozo, or a gun, which is just as likely to get you into more trouble than less; it is enhanced by familiarity and experience with that environment. That is true liberty. Personally, cougar or psycho attack is pretty far down my list of worries when wilderness bound. I've seen, let's see, 3 lions in 40 years of back country travel...all within a single minute. Furthermore, I've found that shooting a storm cloud, avalanche, or falling rock isn't very effective at stopping them from doing their thing. And adding several pounds of gun to my pack doesn't exactly help my fat ass from avoiding any of these hazards.

PM if found, please.

Two Codgers, Three Couloirs (4/18-20/07) This report has been moved to Trip Reports. Someday I may even learn how to post correctly on this site.

TR?

I think the 'everyone should be armed' crowd have it right. I'd love to live in a place where every meth head, undiagnosed mentally ill person, and angry young aggro, and senile senior was packing. Such a policy would affectively recreate the Wild West, which boasted the highest gun death rates in our nation's history outside of the Civil War. An antidote to the Boredom of Modernity, to be sure.

Once you're mental status causes you to become involved the court system, it becomes part of the public record, and therefore fair game to be used in a gun purchase backround check. The system failed in this case. I see no invasion of privacy here. Mr. Cho's public behavior put him in court and in the public record, not his private thoughts or actions.

Cordless drills don't work worth a damn for driving screws. Buy yourself a cordless impact driver. The screws will go in like buttah. Buy a drill chuck for it and throw your cordless drill into the trash where it belongs. Cordless Impact Driver review

I've got an old Specialized Stumpjumper hardtail and it's still one of the lightest, most versatile bikes out there for the kind of riding you're talking about. Great for tri racing with slicks on. A lightweight pair of clipless pedals is highly recommended, if you don't have them already. There are some great mag alloy versions that are inexpensive and feather light...great unless you're launching off sweet jumps and landing wrong a lot. Lite tires & tubes also will make a big difference. For accessories: Performancebike.com, nashbar.com

Vertical yardsale: 1 fluke, 1 sling with a DMM wire gate biner and locking biner, 1 thin bugaboo piton. Throw it further down the couloir and we'll pick it up at the bottom sometime.

I'd get out MY gun, and order everyone in the room to stand between me and the assailant while I discretely step out for coffee. Hopefully, the class is graded on a curve.

Only crazies and illegals smoke pot? But you're right. We should all be armed all the time just in case a South Korean goes crazy and starts shooting people randomly. For me, that's the number one thing on my mind every minute of every day: who in front of me is going to suddenly snap and start shooting? You have no idea how many tranquilizers it takes to keep me from going over the edge.... I'd like to see that experiment run some day. Give everyone in New York or LA a gun for the summer. Put a big wall up. See if the results actually jive with the premise that if *everyone* had a gun, no one would get shot. Seems to me that's an unproven statement. It's kind of like saying, if everyone had a computer, no one would be rude on the intertubes. New York City did an experiment already: it legislated strict gun controls. It also boasts one of the lowest violent crime rates of any major city in the US. For you gun lovers out there; the typical reaction of much of the country is after mass shootings like this is to demand tighter gun controls. Read the papers. If you think most of the country is nuts (because of this 'illogical' reaction, from you viewpoint), I won't disagree with you. After all, look who sits in the Oval Office.

If we banned "crazy" this website would be strewn with blowing tumbleweeds.

Curling may or may not be gay. Curling with Mythosgrl is not gay.

??? I've got nothing.

Only crazies and illegals smoke pot? But you're right. We should all be armed all the time just in case a South Korean goes crazy and starts shooting people randomly. For me, that's the number one thing on my mind every minute of every day: who in front of me is going to suddenly snap and start shooting? You have no idea how many tranquilizers it takes to keep me from going over the edge....

I am not sure why we're interested in knowing any of this.

Yes. That would be an interesting, but very brief, media event, of that you can be sure. Even the mafia doesn't go toe to toe with the feds. But then again, you're Sheaf Stout.