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tbunch

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Everything posted by tbunch

  1. Oh, thanks for the offer but that would require painful surgery! My current plan is to go out and win the lottery, then buy some La Sportiva Nepal EVO GTXs. The 103s are in the trash. If anyone wants to dumpster dive I'll give you the address.
  2. I pulled my Asolo AFS 103's off the shelf, doing a gear check for the upcoming season like we do, and, well, just look at them. [img:center]http://people.omnigroup.com/tom/images/BootsForSale.jpg[/img] I can't believe it! They're barely even 25 years old! Do you think Dave Page can do anything? Would you like to buy them, cheap? Ok, I guess it's time to check out that new Gear Deals section we have. I think I'm looking for a good boot for slogging up volcanoes that can make the crossover to moderate ice if you'd care to nominate one.
  3. Sounds like the very definition of a classic climb. I believe it was the well know dirtbag climber Mark Twain who said, "A classic is something that everybody wants to have climbed and nobody wants to climb.", was it not?
  4. So, if I understood you correctly, you encountered some women and a goat, and CascadeClimbers clamors for pictures of the goat? Sounds about right.
  5. I used medium leathers and strap ons and it was fine. The Blue will probably be running with water and from Snow Dome to the top may be slushy, so just expect wet feet. I would not characterize any part of it as steep except possibly the summit rock. I'll bet the Blue has receded about a half mile since I was there last.
  6. I had a .75 Camelot vanish from Breakfast of Champions. I think that place is the Bermuda Triangle of Camelots. Anyway, if you're digging around for your Camelot and find a .75 that looks like it's been there for over 20 years, it's mine!
  7. I'll chime in with the "non-technical descent is often the scariest part" crew. I'd probably be up there myself today if I hadn't dislocated a shoulder in a tumble descending from Green Giant Buttress 2 weeks ago. Instead I'm watching youtube videos and typing this with one hand. More well-wishes to the injured climber and another shout out to SMR. You guys rock. I want to be you when I grow up. -Tom
  8. Well, I didn't find anyone there for the CC/AAC meet up, but I did manage to crash Kevin's birthday party and score a free piece of cake. Then I regaled my beer with the harrowing tale of my semi-conquest of almost half of Green Giant Buttress with Warren last weekend, including our encounter with an evil wizard disguised as a toad, who cursed us when we refused to answer his stupid riddle. Yeah, he parked his car and got toad. We get it. We probably shouldn't have trundled him off the trail. Ultimately I think this is the real reason I dislocated my shoulder on the way down the approach scramble. Kevin says he'd like to see us back, though!
  9. I'm not good at dates (just ask my wife) but I think this Thursday is the third, and I hear they still have beer in Ballard. The Facebook page hasn't been updated for almost a year, but I think I'm going to show up and hope to meet some of you all! I'll be a tall skinny blond dude with his left arm in a sling. I'll regale you all with the tale if you like.
  10. God dag, Alan Arnette has a fine writeup answering most of your questions here. I'm sure everyone has their favorites but all three authorized guide services are great. It mainly depends on what route you want to do. Mt. Rainier is a serious object for a novice and you are talking about a somewhat early season climb. I would recommend being very fit when you arrive and having gained what experience you can manage. There is no reason novice can't safely succeed but the weather will be unreliable and you should be prepared to bail on your attempt.
  11. My battery dies very quickly in the cold, and my phone shuts down if it gets too hot. So far I haven't had a smart phone I would rely on as much as my own .
  12. You're actually quite right. One fatality blamed on avalanche in 1896 and one in 1998. Far more fatalities have been blamed on falls and weather. So I guess we don't have to worry about avalanches for another 84 years or so.
  13. We all assess the risk, make a decision, and so far all of us reading this have come home, anyway. It's the social dynamics of the decision that scare me. Hopefully everyone has read the New York Times story on the Tunnel Creek avalanche. If not, this is a really good time for it - it's an amazing bit of journalism.
  14. It's easy to judge from the comfort of my armchair, but I have to admit having the same reaction. Still, thanks for the stoke, and especially for not becoming another statistic in what has been a pretty grim year, avalanche-wise!
  15. Actually, I avoid hiring, for example, the plumbing companies that spend a ton on advertising, on the theory that either their rates subsidize it or they are spending less on training, employee benefits... I don't care what. I look for word of mouth referrals. But that's totally irrelevant. I suspect wannabes dressed in all the latest North Face hard core subsidize your gear than you are subsidizing amateur sponsored climbers. Me, I'm just jealous.
  16. I hope Adam is well. The best people for the job are up there looking out for him. KiroTV.com news article on search
  17. Just a quick note: the permit period for all five permit zones in the Enchantment Permit Area is through October 15, so you will probably need to stay in the zone you have a permit for. Or engage stealth mode, I suppose. The only time I tried that (day tip up Mt. Colchuck) I got caught.
  18. I'll second that. I remember when a buddy of mine left food in his pack and some little rodent chewed a tunnel to it, ate a bit, and tunneled out the other side. I think that, short of areas with strict regulation, no matter what advice a backcountry user reads they will just go to as much trouble as they're willing to go until they learn from personal experience that it's not enough. So just do that?
  19. You don't say where on your medial cuneiform the spur is located, but in some cases where there is a localized pressure point it may be possible to modify the shape of the boot and make a little bump-out, without compromising the security of the fit or damaging the strength of the boot very much. This is easier with a plastic shell (I had it done to ski boots to make room for a badly healed broken internal malleolus), but I would consult with a cobbler about it. The procedure would be something like soaking the boot in warm water for ten minutes and then push the leather out from inside through a ring bracing the outside as it dries. I don't know how effective it would be with leather and I imagine it would revert toward its original shape if the leather became saturated again. If the pressure point is against the insole perhaps you could ease the fit in that location by thinning the insole from the bottom?
  20. Oh, man that takes me back. I accidentally reopened an old feud between him and Tom Hornbein many years ago on Usenet when I was doing AMS research and was treated to some angry phone calls. Then a friend of mine married Larry's daughter. Well, dear Larry has long since passed on, as has the marriage in question, so hopefully I can't get in trouble again. Since we're already in the WayBack machine, let me take you back to 1996. The whole torrid affair is archived at FAQS.org and centers around Tums as a prophylactic against AMS. It lies somewhere between an incredibly dry read and high entertainment. -Tom
  21. For me, my go to anchor has to be one I can set up while escaping a loaded rope. Ideally the middle climber on a rope team will remain in arrest position freeing climber #3 to set up the anchor free of the load, but maybe this is a two person rope team. Maybe here are two in the crevasse. For this reason, step 1 is a vertically driven picket. It is also at this time that I am grateful for remembering to put a prusik on the rope in advance. This gets transferred to the picket, slid tight, and gradually loaded. Now I have a little more freedom to shift my weight about while remaining in a prepared state to take the load back from the anchor or fall on the picket. The nature of the second anchor point is not important. I may also have a fluke, or ice screws, or just my ice axe. Whatever I have goes into the snow some slight distance orthogonal to the load from the picket. My reasoning is that it is just about impossible to equalize the load in a non self-equalizing system between to anchor point at a 0° angle. If you run your cordelette such that the angle from the bottom to the anchors is greater, perhaps 50°, you'll have much better luck. Still I think 65%/35% is doing pretty well. Of course if the loads are unequal the weighted anchor will probably be shifted until they roughly are. Now I can transfer the load to the redundant anchor, escape the system entirely, and use the coils I've been carrying to rig a Z-pulley. Anyway, that's my take. I have been fortunate enough to have never had my system tested in a desperate situation. By the way, if I can I would prefer to use an ice axe under the rope to reduce friction at the edge and keep it from burying itself any deeper as you winch up the climber. For our glaciated volcanoes I like to have a fluke for the second piece. Also, if the middle climber is holding the arrest you set this all up right below them, of course, given room.
  22. I'm of two minds. As an elite mountain biggot, I love the concept of preserving pristine environments by closing roads and making it impractical to bring in a case of beer and a barbeque. No matter how much we retract the road network, there will always be something close to the end of it. Certainly it's appropriate to maintain "nice" areas with relative ease of access, but I put my meter pretty far in the "get out of my wilderness, you meddling kids!" camp. I think it was Lake Margaret that turned from a dust & broken glass bowl back into a fairly pristine area when they closed the road, wasn't it? But as a softy and squishy ex-elite father of a toddler with no time and energy to spare on long approaches, I've been considering towing a large catapult to fling me to the high camp right from the parking lot. In this particular case I think the historical legacy is extremely important but doesn't really trump the pandemic budget problems. I would put this on a list of projects to take on when, say, unusually low seasonal damages to various facilities results in a mythical faerie budget surplus, if you know what I mean.
  23. I think if you'd ever ridden a taun taun home from a boob job, you'd never suggest riding one _to_ a the appointment. Too bouncy.
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