pac man

I have used the Corsa Nanotech ice axe, and if I were going to plunge the shaft often on a route I would take a different axe. The Corsa Nanotech has a narrow head that becomes quite sharp on the palm of your hand after many plunges. Also I have noticed multiple Corsa Nanotech ice axes that have a small crack forming in the rivets attaching the steel point to the pick that doesn't inspire confidence in me. I doubt it would cause any issues, but who knows?

Good to hear that it's useful for others. As time permits, other products will be added to the database. At this time, most of the nylon Cilogear packs have been added. The others should be added in the near future.

I had a chance to try the new MH Direkt2, albeit only in my living room. It is much MORE sturdy than my 7yr old Lighthouse (I think it was updated to the new HiLight tent). The narrow strips of X-Pac fabric on the Direkt2 running adjacent to the poles tensions the poles more than the HiLight seams without adding significant weight (the strips are probably at a max 2 inches wide). However it isn't as sturdy as my old (and much heavier) Bibler I-Tent. I would have purchased one if it wasn't so short. At 6' - 6' 1", my head and feet significantly touched the ends without a sleeping bag. It does have much more length than the Brookes Range Rocket Tent.

More products for the other categories will be added in the near future. After that, the plan is to update once or twice a year when new products are released. Other products not listed can always be added by members in the future.

Light'n'Fast Over the past year I’ve been working off and on developing a website that helps you select products that can reduce your overall pack weight. It works by determining appropriate products to replace your current items and then selects the products that will reduce your overall pack weight the most for your chosen dollar amount; the product selection is done intelligently so that it does NOT suggest replacing your -40F bag with a +35F bag, but it may suggest replacing it with a similar bag close to the -40F range. For example it may determine that replacing oval biners for lighter weight wire gate biners may be the best way to reduce your overall pack weight if you have $80 to spend. If you are currently in the market for buying a new item not to replace an old item, it has a list feature that can be used to order products with user chosen criteria by weight ( Products List Tool ) The website uses a Facebook Style login with Facebook authentication, so you do not have to remember another username and password. It only collects public Facebook info (i.e. your username and user image) and any products that you save to your packs. Other features found on the website: Save packs to your account (requires you to be logged on) Print a checklist of the entered packs Print a checklist for saved packs (requires you to be logged on) Enter new items into the database Enter items not in the database for saving in your backpack Calculate your overall pack weight where it determines the percentage of different categories (the numbers might be shocking) The plan is to continue to expand our database and feature set. I hope you enjoy it

Funny, we almost crossed paths both days; we ended up trying Denman's middle line on Friday. How was the third pitch? Unfortunately I wasted way too much time trying to exit pitch 2 too far to the right in an attempt to get a bush/tree anchor. We ended up bailing after that.

Headed to Rainier National Park yesterday and climbed a portion of one of the many lines on Denman Peak's north face. Overview Left low angle curtain Main flow We climbed the first 2 pitches of the main flow. Once on the ice we found they were definitely steeper than they appeared going at: WI3+ for 30m pitch, WI3 for ~40m pitch, the top pitch looked more tiered.

We didn't climb W Ridge, but here are some photos from 7/27-7/29 that show some a good portion of the route. Stuart from Ingalls Pass: Stuart from Ingalls Lake:

We climbed the upper N Ridge 7/28. 4th class approach gully is filled with snow (with kicked steps) with what I'm guessing is the chockstone and some other rocks sticking out. Above the gendarme, we might have gotten off route trying to avoid some small remaining snow patches near the crest. The gendarme bypass looks like it has a decent amount of snow. Cascadian has ~400ft of snow immediately below the false summit (I don't recall much snow from the summit to the false summit), then ~400ft of scree, and then a long section of snow, probably close to 800 vt. ft. Hope that helps.

Here is a conditions update for ice in Rainier National Park from a snowshoeing trip on Jan 1st. Unfortunately we did not get to climb. Narada Falls (there was flowing water behind a thin layer of ice on the left, right side looked decent but had some spouts of water) Mikey Likes It area (I believe Mikey Likes It is the center climb and Mikey's Gully is the right climb) I believe Mikey Likes It Hopefully someone gets on one of these climbs.

Thanks Jon for the Welcome. We are introducing our new Delta Pack, a lightweight nearly frameless alpine rucksack. As a kickoff for this new pack, we are hosting a photo contest where the photo with the most votes wins a Delta Pack. Visitors to the website vote for their favorite photos and choose the winner! For more info, check out our Contest Page.

Did you end up traversing to climber's left after exiting Dike Chimney? I would imagine lower Dike Chimney would be an awful funnel for the crap from above, or at least the left side. Scary!

Trip: Ingalls Peak - E Ridge Date: 8/14/2010 Trip Report: Long trip report can be found here We headed up to Ingalls to give the full E Ridge a try. Our path (Blue: partial E Ridge of E Peak, Green: Descent down Dike Chimney, Red: E Ridge of N Peak, Orange: Descent down S Ridge of N Peak) To make a long story short, we tried to climb the entire E Ridge of Ingalls E Peak and N Peak, but rappeled Dike Chimney after trying to scope a path for the remainder of the E Ridge of E Peak. Not sure if it was the angle from being slightly north of the ridge line, but what we saw was a steep "ridge"/face with little protection that could potentially take a long time to scout a path and due to its reportedly slightly loose nature, we bailed in favor of at least climbing the E Ridge of N Peak. Upon further inspection, we probably needed to make an easy southwardly traverse to easier ground on the E Ridge of E Peak (all photos of the ridge line looked easy, but what we saw did not look the same). Out of 3 cameras we got no pictures of this, probably being distracted by "John Tesh", apparently a shy alpine creature last spotted on the E Ridge of E Peak. Keep a lookout. After an interesting descent of Dike Chimney's left side (climber's left), we made our way over to E Ridge of N Peak, having a great time on easy rock with a nice position. I'm not sure I would call it exposed as that usually brings visions of 500+ ft shear drops below me, but there was a nice sense of easy technical alpine ridge climbing with little apprehension. Our route on E Ridge of N Peak to the best of my knowledge Crux (Green: probably best path to follow, Red: crack I originally chose, Orange: Branch I took after bailing on Red route) The only concerning section was the crux, where confused by some beta of staying center, I'm not sure we climbed the correct crack, and if we did, a #3 was a scary piece to protect this awkward section, though the route we climbed required a fairly large step onto a protectable but eery sounding block. With a #3.5 or #4 our original route (red route) would have been preferable, but I should not have ignored the green route. A quick jaunt over the summit and rappel down the S Ridge brought us back to the ground where we made a quick descent back to the car. Gear Notes: *Light rack for E Ridge of N Peak *1 60m rope (since we didn't simul-climb turned out to increase the length of the E Ridge of N Peak to 4 hours with ~9ish <100ft leads). I would imagine pitching it out and being able to climb >100ft leads would result in a 2 hour climb time, and a 1.25 hour climb time simul-climbing. Approach Notes: Usual for Ingalls Lake

Trip: Goat Wall - Sisyphus - 5.11a or 5.10b/c A0 Date: 7/3/2010 Trip Report: A more detailed trip report can be found HERE, with individual pitch details. Over the extended weekend, my wife and I headed up to Washington Pass area to climb some multi-pitch routes, however the looming clouds made us settle for Goat Wall's Sisyphus (10 pitches) and Prime Rib (11 pitches, 5.8ish) the next day, both near Mazama. For the slab-challenged climber, a category which both of us are trying to escape, the route lives up to its mythological name, but is protected well enough to limit the stressfulness. The leader must still climb ~10ft past bolts at a 5.10b level which gave me the perfect level of excitement. The leader can also French-free past the 5-8 ft crux section of 11a climbing on cool-looking, somewhat polished rock with small pockets. We found that pitch 2 is very remniscent of pitches 5-7, which includes the crux pitch and a 5.10a/b pitch of slabish climbing. Much of the climbing was on somewhat rounded holds with the exception of pitches 3 and 9, which I found to be superb steep climbing on positive holds, a style of climbing I am more comfortable with. If you decide this route is not for you after pitch 2, I would still recommend climbing pitch 3, which leads you to a cool position with some exposure. Pitch 3, my favorite Pitch 6, the crux pitch Stellar views along the whole climb After our 12 rap descent we debated on what to climb the next day, and decided on Prime Rib, hoping that we wouldn't have to bail due to rain, but we did encounter some nice, strong winds up high. I though Prime Rib was much more dangerous than Sisyphus, due to both the number of parties and the relative position of the rappel line to the climb, especially at pitch 8, where the pitch heads directly below 2-3 rappels. We luckily avoided a close call with rock fall here. The rappel descent for this climb was much longer than Sisyphus, but the climb was much more relaxed (aside from the falling rocks) mainly on very positive holds. Gear Notes: Quickdraws, 60 m rope, wind shirt, and helmets Approach Notes: Drive 2.7 miles past the Mazama store and park at the large pullout, heading up the steep, loose trail

Yeah, can't complain about the view even getting shut down, that's for sure. The couloir is still continuous. The only 2 tight spots can be seen in the last photo, but I would guess the rock bands are still covered with a path of snow 5-10 ft wide. These rock bands were just shy of where we bailed and were between 1/4 and a 1/3 of the way up.

Trip: Colchuck Peak - North Buttress Couloir Date: 6/12/2010 Trip Report: Longer trip report HERE Overview of Colchuck's North Buttress Couloir with our route in green and the where we think the remainder of the route goes shown in red We woke up bright and early for a one day trip to Colchuck's North Buttress Couloir. After hiking the trail to the lake, we realized we did not get an early enough start for the temps and our speed. Nearly all of the North Buttress Couloir was already getting sun by 6am. Moraine with entrance of North Buttress Couloir in center of photo (~6:15 am) After tying our approach shoes up in a tree and climbing the moraine, we were making our way across the ridge crest of the moraine (~7:15 am), staying right to avoid the softening sun exposed snow on the left of the crest. This took us climber's right of a rock band where we traversed steep snow slopes above the rock band to enter the couloir approximately 1/4 of the way up by our best guess. Traversing steep snow slopes above rock band towards North Buttress Couloir proper At about this time (8ish) the bottom of the couloir had been sun exposed for ~2 hours, the top of the couloir probably exposed for an extra hour, the temps felt around 65F, there were signs of previous snow sluffing from steep couloirs, and the steep slopes had approximately 6-8 inches of corn snow, so we decided to bail. We down-climbed ~50ft climber's right of the North Buttress Couloir and intersected the couloir. Down-climbing 50 ft climber's right of the North Buttress Couloir Looking up the North Buttress Couloir We continued down-climbing the North Buttress Couloir to easier ground and glissaded back to the lake and the ever-increasing hordes of people coming up to the lake on the trail (we probably passed 50+ people on the way down). If/when we try this route again, we'll probably stay at the lake to make sure we hit the couloir early enough. Gear Notes: Brought small alpine rack and pickets, used a 1" cam Approach Notes: Wore tennis shoes to 100 vertical feet below Colchuck Lake where we encountered 100% snow coverage

Shhh... Kenny. It was with a different climber.

Trip: Rabbit Ears - Standard Date: 5/19/2010 Trip Report: Sorry guys, I couldn't figure out how to post a TR in the Gorge section, so I guess I'll put it here. More info including approach note can be found HERE Rabbit Ears was a perfect dichotomy of blaring-balmy temperatures on the hike in and a cool downpour on the way out, easy climbing that somehow grabbed our full attention, and an adventure climb that really only required clipping bolts and fixed pro. It was interesting to have so many unique combinations in one climb. After wallowing our way through the slop on the trail to the Pig Ears... I mean… Rabbit Ears, and sweating our asses off, we reached welcomed wind gusts on the ridge between the larger rock outcropping above Rabbit Ears and Rabbit Ears. After wrestling through a tree, I led the first pitch up the chossy moss fest. A tree on the left can be slung near the top, but by that time I should have just gone to the anchor. Following the path of least resistance is the only way I found the anchor, which was hidden on the other side of the ridge. Looking down pitch 1 My partner came up and quickly swung leads, traversing right of a rock outcropping and quickly clipped a bolt on the other side. Traverse around rock outcropping on pitch 2 After he went up a “steep” section of moss he slung a tree before a steep section of crumbly rock. He clipped into an intermediary anchor at the saddle between the two Rabbit Ears. Pitch 2 As I followed the pitch, he quickly realized that he gave up the only rock climbing (sucker… I mean that sucks) of the whole adventure by missing the last piece of pro approximately 8 ft from where he was. I headed up the last bit, being forced to the left due ¼ inch layer of crumbly rock covering the right side. While taking a short break on the top and having a couple swigs, we quickly realized why the wind was picking up: a storm was making its way through the Gorge rather quickly where the river was hazy from rain. We booked it down with a 30 m rappel/traverse back to the first anchor, a 25 m rappel to the saddle above the approach gully, and a 30 m rappel down the loose gully. With perfect timing it began sprinkling once we finished rappelling. We bush wacked our way back to the trail and wallowed a little more in the slop back to the car, while enjoying the rain, and possibly a couple more swigs. All in all, it was an enjoyable trip that was much less adventurous than expected, but the conditions grabbed our attention. Gear Notes: Anchors Rope 3-4 long slings Possibly 2 cordelettes to be used as extremely long slings (instead of 2 of the long slings) Possibly small rack, if you can find placements (I found one just shy of the top) Approach Notes: See Website above

The NE Face is probably the standard. What is the McGown route?

Trip: Stein's Pillar - NE Face Date: 5/2/2010 Trip Report: For more info, my partners trip report can be found HERE. We decided to climb the NE Face of Stein's Pillar and get apparently hightly needed practice at aid climbing. We had initially thought the route would be a nice blend of aid and free climbing. We were wrong! Overview photo of the section we climbed The trail is easy to find and follow, and after a nice 1.5 mile easy hike, it brought us directly to the beginning of the climb. We prepped our non-aid climber's improvised aid gear, "gh-etriers" and a ghetto "wall hammer": A good description of the pitches can be found on summitpost.org. We found that previous trip reports are definitely right, the crux probably is getting up the first pitch. It is claimed to be 5.9, but I found it much harder. Maybe I didn't get it. Anyway, I ended up aiding the first 8 feet off of a hangerless bolt and a #3 TCU shoved into a pocket. You would need a ~7 inch piece to protect the bottom of this pitch in the crack. The pitch drastically eases after 10-15 feet to very easy climbing. Pitch 1 after rappelling the route Pitch 1' is just a walk across a huge ledge/cave that would make an excellent bivy spot. Pitch 2 has ~15 ft of free climbing at the beginning and ~15 ft of free climbing at the end off of a flexing piton hammered into a bolt sleeve. Though Pitch 2 doesn't gain much vertical ground, the 45 degree traverse made it long and tiring, especially since we found out we aren't efficient aid climbers. P2 from below and above Pitch 3 starts on the far left edge of the ledge and is a vertical and fun pitch that, at least with probably improperly spaced gh-etriers, requires a decent amount of top stepping. Due to the wind picking up, temps dropping, and since we weren't as quick and efficient as we hoped, we bailed from near the top of pitch 3 at 1 new rap bolt, a manky bolt, and a metal post driven into the rock. P3 We ended up rappelling from where we ended on pitch 3 (it looked like the rap station minus a 2nd rap bolt, but I'm not positive) to the top of pitch 1 with 1 rope. One more rappel got us to our gear and the nice hike out. Overall from what I saw of pitches 1-3, there is some questionable fixed gear, but decent bolts are evenly spaced and really ease any worries. I thought the route is better protected than I had pictured, however there were homemade hangers, SMC hangers, and bolt sleeves that protruded 1 in out of the rock. We'll head back sometime and finish the route, but not yet. Gear Notes: For pitches 1-3 only; P4-5??: -Did not use any pitons or ghetto hammer -Gear to 1", including a lot of small nuts and Ball Nutz -Etriers or "gh-etriers" Approach Notes: Easy 1.5 mile hike

Trip: Lane Peak - Lover's Lane Date: 4/25/2010 Trip Report: My climbing partner's trip report can be found HERE. Saturday's weather prediction looked wet so we postponed our trip for a beautiful Sunday. We started a little late, and walked up to the freshly plowed road towards Reflection Lake. We made our way to the bend, where we cut off and headed towards Lane Peak. The crux of Lane Peak in the next few weeks might very well be the creek crossing. We found some stable snow bridges, but I'm not sure how long they will last. We headed up Lover's Lane, initially sinking to mid-calf and occasionally to mid-thigh. We stayed in the trees where we could to remain on the only firm snow. After getting higher up, the snow conditions firmed up and about a third of the way up Lover's Lane we decided to rope up and simul-climb. My climbing partner was psyched about leading the climb, so she took the sharp end, protecting with a slung tree, some pickets, and some rock pro ranging from ~0.3" to ~1.25" (maybe 3-4 pieces). At one point she decided to make it a little more spicey and traversed onto the rock slabs on climber's right on an "interestingly" dirty looking line. After a little wrestling with a tree to get to a ledge, she decided to veer back to Lover's Lane proper to finish the top of the col. I led the last 10 ft from the tree belay to the top of the col and peered over briefly. A previous trip report we read stated that a double rope rap was necessary in 2010 to reach The Zipper, but other trip reports from previous years didn't mention a double rope rap and mentioned a way to traverse into The Zipper. From my vantage point, I decided that I didn't think our 60m and 30m rope would get us to the base, but I could not see the rappel route, and it may have reached. Instead we started up climbers left toward the left subpeak over shallow soft snow for a 30m pitch. My partner headed up another 15m to see if there was a doable route up higher. We decided to bail due to the deteriorating snow conditions up higher and not knowing exactly what it would entail. We finished off Lover's Lane anti-climatically with a couple raps and some downclimbing. In hindsight, we should have taken more time to scope out the rappel or traverse into The Zipper. Gear Notes: Pickets, tools or one ice axe, 3-4 cams ranging from #2 TCU to 1.25" (we used a link cam but a #1 might work) Approach Notes: Short and sweet

We didn't get a great view from the top of Lover's Lane and there could have been an easy traverse down, but I didn't see it. I saw the rap trees which looked OK to get to, but just peaking over the edge of Lover's Lane into The Zipper, it didn't appear to me that it was a short rappel, especially since a report from earlier this year said it required a double rope rap(Lover's Lane trip report). We ended up climbing left for another pitch on shallow soft snow over rock and just decided to bail by rapping/downclimbing.

We climbed Lover's Lane Apr. 25th (probably the snowshoe tracks mentioned above). It was a warm day and the snow was soft at the bottom, but firmer higher up. If you decide to do this couloir, bring 2 ropes if you want to rap into The Zipper. We thought we could get by with a 60m and a 30m for the rappel into The Zipper, but after a brief look at it (slightly obstructed view), didn't even give it a try and rappeled/downclimbed Lover's Lane, making it a very anti-climatic trip. All of the couloirs looked completely filled in, but we did find a very very small "schrund" forming on climber's right of a wider section of Lover's Lane on the way down. I would imagine it would remain easy to bypass and may not be noticeable on the way up (I completely missed it). I'll post a trip report soon.

I didn't see this post for a bit, but I have done the Zipper in May of '08. Unfortunately the webcam that points to the Tatoosh range has been moved slightly, but on the far right you can make out Lover's Lane and ~60% of the top of the Zipper. The Fly and the bottom of the Zipper are not visible. Tatoosh Webcam

I have a Silent Partner and like it on lead. However be careful with new ropes that have slick finishes. I nearly used the SP on a new rope but couldn't get it to catch at all just prior to starting the lead, no matter how fast I pulled the rope out (definitely set up properly). It may have caught during a fall, but I wasn't going to take that chance. Anyway, I would never use it in a situation where the rope could get icy. The manufacturer also says something about not using it in icy or muddy conditions due to possibly hindering the mechanism that locks the spinning drum.