penoyar

Me and another fool used a canoe to access big beaver from the dam on our way to skiing challenger last spring. we convinced ourselves it was the best option. it was...memorable.

Engaging images as always! Your first time shooting skiers? The rapid repeat shots (Kyle dropping) are a lot of fun to look at. How many times do you have to walk down the mountain before you buy proper descent gear? For reasonable people, it's fewer than 3. Get some skis and start huckin!

Is WA Pass a crag? Close enough! 1. Date: Saturday PM or Sunday early AM (Aug 29/30) 2. Destination: WA Pass 3. Origination: Seattle 4. number in party: 1 5. if you can drive or not (and the mpg of your car if so): don't have a car. I'm doing a few days around WA Pass (Sun 30th, Mon 31st, Tue 1st) with a partner from the east side. He'll drive us back to Seattle on Tuesday the 1st. Can someone drop me off Saturday night or Sunday morning up there? I'll of course split gas and driving, but it'd have to be in your car. PM if you will! Please!

I use mine directly off the anchor on every pitch, unless it's a situation where the device ends up down low relative to my stance. Having it up high is key. Use one hand to pull up slack on the climber's end, and the other to pull down on the brake end simultaneously. It's important to have both ends of the rope (climber and brake) as parallel as possible when taking up slack, this will minimize friction in the device. Although Newton says you can't push a rope, I find that giving the climber's end of the rope a little nudge into the device helps if it's getting sticky. Stay with it, you'll get faster with time as your hands coordinate their up-down movement better. I regularly bring up 2 seconds on 10.2mm lines, though my rotator cuffs are pretty tired by the end of their climb.

Extreme Darrington down-lead runout!

Great photos, Matt! My partner and I had set up the first rappel on our descent and were having a snack at the rap station when all that nonsense fell off just below us. Having never been on Dragontail before it was pretty unnerving to watch a 200m wide swath go tearing down the snowfield. Especially since it wasn't clear if the rap route went right through the carnage! Optimistic that the lower rap stations were intact we rapped away and had no issues. The biggest stone didn't seem to break up at all, just casually tumbling amidst the exploding snowfield. I wish we'd been quicker with the video; maybe next time?

Follow the yellow brick line:

That baby's fixed solid, clipped a draw to her not 8 days ago. But the sling that's tied to her eyelet? Someone ought to just cut out the tattered sling and allow leaders to feed their own dyneema as they pass by. Our knife was tucked deep away or I would have done it myself. In short: Fixed #4 remains fixed.

more 6/27/09 pics

As of Thursday there was a nice creek running in the gully climber's left of the first pitch. Route's all dry. If it's your first time up there, you'll probably have some trouble finding the first pitch. Goat Wall can be disorienting, with all the deer trails and talus. If you don't go through the obvious old structures (concrete foundations) within 5 minutes of your car, you parked in the wrong spot and are on the wrong approach trail. Helmets are a must, not for loose rock on the actual climbing pitches, but for the scramble pitches which have plenty of potential energy just waiting to become kinetic. Burdo's guide has excellent topos. Swimming hole isn't so much for swimming, but is great for a quick dunk to rinse off all the dust and sweat. Can you post up if Goat's Beard (Restless Natives) is dry when you return? It's the large white watermark on the main part of Goat Wall. Thanks!

check PM, I'm game for tomorrow

I'm all for cleaning of established lines and trundling of death blocks on new ones, but while climbing the lower town wall this afternoon (Wednesday June 3) there were several large blocks crashing down unannounced around the Thin Fingers area. This may have nothing to do with the aforementioned routes. In their defense, the trundlers were yelling "rock!" before most big crashes, but these block were seriously big enough to cause certain death of any person in their path. Just a reminder that if route cleaning is going on, we casual visitors would appreciate a banner of caution tape, a sign in the parking lot, or some other warning to stay away from that area. Keep up the good work, see you out there!

Trip: Mount Olympus - Blue Glacier Date: 5/16/2009 Trip Report: With plans for a 2-day trip up Olympus this weekend, we geared up at the Hoh River trailhead Friday night. Jeff's pack is an impressive 61 pounds, containing over 8lbs of food and 7lbs of camera. I was pleased to see mine at only 36lbs; optimistic that 1.5lbs of food would be enough. Lauren politely declined to enter our pissing match and strode off down the trail. Starting down the Hoh at 7:00am The miles ticked by and at 1pm we reached snow around 3000', mile 16 or so. We changed from tennis shoes to boots and within 5 minutes were lost in the old growth. We eventually ticked off this final mile after 4 hours and collapsed at Glacier Meadows around 6pm. Jeff ate 2lbs of Costco pastries while I played a delicate game of Cramp Chaser. Quads, now right calf! And back to hamstings. Now the left foot! Spirits were low from the delay, but we were prone and chose to re-assess in the morning. Feeling surprisingly well at 3:30am, we skinned off to the objective. The first 800' from camp up past the Moraine was wet, heavy and uninviting for a later ski down. Descending from the Moraine down onto the glacier was even worse. But once we reached the Blue Glacier the conditions could not have been better. It was easy going over the lower glacier, up onto Snow Dome and by 6:00am we reached the elevation of the standard south-east traverse around Five Fingers. Being early enough in the season, we were fortunate to have a direct route the summit available. With a softening crust over consolidation, kicking steps was cake and we were below the summit block at 7:00am. Sunrise from Snow Dome's flank Final 1000' direct line to summit in center Final pitch Summit Block We waited the obligatory 30 minutes to allow the snow to soften. It couldn't have been better. Perfect corn on wide-open pitches. All smiles With the Moraine in sight, open up the super-G Back to camp and into the old growth around 9am. Rumble, fumble, stumble our way back to the car at 4:30. All that for a 20 minute ski? Sure beats walking off. Gear Notes: Tennis shoes. Approach Notes: See above. In addition, the last avy chute before Glacier Meadows is pretty treacherous. We bushwhacked straight up about 100' from the trail before traversing it. Park rangers told us they'll be installing fixed lines soon.

check PM

I've got 2 brand new Metolius TCU cams I'd like unload, size #3 (orange) and #4 (red), for $30 each ($50 MSRP). I have these because I bought the #00-4 set (Metolius TCU Pack) but only need #00-2. FREE Cam Lube! I'm on Capitol Hill in Seattle.