Clarence

The route on the cleaver is established and there are fixed lines on the traverse and partway up the spine.

As of 8/2/12 there is only one number 4 stuck in the off-width.

Trip: Chair Peak - Date: 12/4/2010 Trip Report: Skied up to the Chair Peak col just to check it out. Conditions were stable, but the most recent snow is over a slight crust and will be forming a little slab as it gets sun this weekend. I'd be concerned about climbing the upper slopes.

I got one this spring and used it mostly for ski mountaineering. It's comfortable to walk in; you almost forget it's there. I liked it enough that I started to use it on easy alpine rock routes too. In my mind, this is an Alpine Bod killer--half the weight, half the size and you get a belay loop. Good harness.

US Size 10.5 Scarpa Inverno. Warm boots, lightly used--no more than 10 days in the last two years. The boot is not heavily scuffed. The soles and the liners are in fine shape. $150

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I've got the Baker Super Lights and I really like them. I used them about 45 days this season as both my inbouds/slackcountry ski and my touring/ski mountaineering ski. For backcountry applications, you can't beat them, especially considering their weight. I wish they were a little stiffer for the inbounds riding, but the normal Mt Baker would fit that bill. I have no experience with the Shuksan, but hte Mt. Baker has a versitile and fun geometry, which I would recomend.

Hey tazz, Thanks for the video! I can't blame you for taking pictures with light like that...I wish I had taken more. Hopefully we'll bump into each other again out there.

Nice video! It was good to meet you guys up there. I'm the guy you dubbed "fast-skinning-guy". A good weekend indeed, with perfect weather. Here are some of my pictures from the weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/petey5287/EnchatmentsSkiTrip5232509#

It's a pretty gnarly washout. Here's a picture from 5/20/09

Very beautiful indeed! Congrats on checking off a long standing goal--those are the most satisfying objectives.

I'd say a 45-60L pack is about the right size to cover you for most 1-3 day trips. You can go smaller, but I have found 50L to be a very versatile size.

Yeah, mine stretched about a half size after one day climbing in hot weather.

My first lead was Clamshell Crack at Clamshell Cave in Icicle Creek. It's a hand crack. I think 5.7.

I'm on Garmont Megarides, K2 Baker Superlights, and dynafits and I love them. For all forms of uphill travel dynafit is the way to go--they are several pounds lighter than anything else. The dynafits have excellent control when skiing the steeps, and the release reasonably well. A couple of days of using them in bounds made my concerns about their release ability disappear and you can always lock out the toe in situations where you can't risk a ski coming off. The downside is the changing modes, but the slight inconvenience is made up for by the substantial weight savings.

Nice work! Where are everyone's skis? That lower part looks like it could have provided some great turns.

I skied up the phantom on Wednesday. The new snow started out pretty light, but was getting pretty heavy even by the afternoon. You'll almost definitely need some kind of flotation.

I toured around Chair Peak today. The snow was fun slushy corn in the sun and icy S-H-I-T in the shade! Although the air temps were warm, the snow on the N aspects didn't seem to be affected--it was rock solid. I saw a bunch of ice on the S, SW aspects of Bryant and Chair, but the temp was 55 F by the afternoon, so that won't be around long.

I like the guy in the foreground who appears to be completely oblivious to the hillarious situation above.

Very rad indeed! THis is one of the most interesting blogs i've seen in a long time

Here was another study about brain lesions caused by high altitude climbing: Abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16443427 PURPOSE: There are only anecdotal and small reports on brain systematic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies in mountain climbers. The purpose of our work is to study the risk of brain lesions in mountain climbers by means of conventional MRI and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). METHODS: We recruited 35 climbers consecutively (12 were professional and 23 were amateur) in 4 expeditions without supplementary oxygen: 12 professionals and one amateur went up to Mt. Everest (8848 m), 8 amateurs to Mt. Aconcagua (6959 m), 7 amateurs to Mont Blanc (4810 m), and 7 amateurs to Mt. Kilimanjaro (5895 m). The mean age was 33.8 years (range: 22-46). All of them underwent general medical examination, standard blood tests, and MRI of the brain after the expeditions. MRI also was carried out in a control group of 20 healthy subjects. Single-voxel MR spectroscopy was carried out in 14 amateur subjects after the expeditions and in 10 healthy controls. As outcome measures, we evaluated changes in the hematocrit value, presence of cerebral lesions on MRI, as well as atrophy and dilatation of Virchow-Robin spaces, and differences in the metabolite ratios obtained from brain MRS in comparison with controls. RESULTS: Only 1 in 13 of the Everest climbers had a normal MRI; the amateur showed frontal subcortical lesions, and the remainder had cortical atrophy and enlargement of Virchow-Robin spaces but no lesions. Among the remaining amateurs, 13 showed symptoms of high-altitude illness, 5 had subcortical irreversible lesions, and 10 had innumerable widened Virchow-Robin spaces. Conversely, we did not see any lesions in the control group. We found no significant differences in the metabolite ratios between climbers and controls. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that there is enough evidence of brain damage after high altitude climbing; the amateur climbers seem to be at higher risk of suffering brain damage than professional climbers.

The Coleman seracs were where I first climbed. 3 or 4 screws for an anchor, a rope and a set of tools is all you'll need. You can walk behind most of the seracs and set a top rope. You can also find anything from really easy to very overhung.

I think that kind of risk taking is sort of inherent in speed climbing at that level. While watching "To the Limit", a documentary about the Huber brothers' attempt for the El Cap speed record, I noticed that at some belay stations they were using a single quickdraw for their anchor! Another common practice was running the pitches out so that many of them only contained one or two pieces of protection for the whole ropelength. These guys are just operating on a different level.

It's interesting that the majority of fatal accidents occur on either the Ingraham or Liberty Ridge. Most of the fatalities on Liberty ridge are falls, while most of the fatalities on the Ingraham are avalanche related. Makes sense, given the terrain.

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