dennyt

We can rebuild her. But seriously - what a horrific experience that must have been. I'm glad you got out safely, and you still have both feet! Rest up, and if you haven't yet, read Kelly Cordes' blog, starting here: http://kellycordes.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/bad-breaks/

After watching that video a while ago, I switched from a spectra/nylon sling with a knot in it, to the Mammut belay sling. It's fat nylon, with two full-strength clipping points, and it's way less bulky than a PAS. It's also cheap, and 2nd ascent has them. http://www.backcountry.com/mammut-belay-sling-polyamid-sewn-runner-19mm (polyamide = nylon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon)

It's good first aid practice. Don't remove impaled items in the field.

Great photos!

Wow, that last photo is amazing!

What did they have to say about that approach?

East side if you like dry weather & having republicans for neighbors; Wet side if you don't mind driving to the mountains.

Litterbug.

Let those find fault whose wit's so very small, They've need to show that they can think at all; Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below. --John Dryden

Yup, I stashed a picket & nylon sling overnight, came back the next morning and the sling was chewed most of the way through.

This is my new favorite - the Aero Press. Not quite espresso, but way better than any press or filter. A little big, but light & easy to clean. Love it. This review got me started.

7/21, the flat part of the Inspiration glacer you have to cross. No sagging, but cracks are opening up. (this one's prettier)

I've heard one story of a second falling there & being hauled up with a z-pulley. Happened 1-2 summers ago. PG rating and call it good?

Lee was one of the best climbers I knew. You'll never meet a more humble, kind, funny person. He was a great storyteller, too. I'll never forget his account of a recent climbing trip with Beckey. RIP buddy - you will be missed.

Claimed, thanks!

Colin's Blog Says: I'm guessing he tied into both ends of the rope, clipped a bottom anchor into the middle point of the rope, and clipped the anchored strands of rope to himself with an autolocking belay device. Then fed out enough slack to get a few moves, and climbed, and fed out more slack. At the end of a pitch, he untied one end of the rope, pulled it through (rope goes down, through bottom anchor, back up to him), leaving the gear to clean later.

Wow, that's a lot of snow! The North side was snow-free when we did it last year 7/4. Sorry to hear about the rappells & losing a rope. We had similar trouble. Downclimbing the couloir is a better option if people are comfortable with it. Also, going left of the rock at the base of the couloir avoids those crevasses. But what fun is that?

I've got ~98% range of motion in my left shoulder after getting it fixed in 2008. Really good PT is key, it was about 30% range of motion after 6 weeks in a sling. I've got 120% range of motion in my right shoulder...

SuperTopo - photos of bad fixed gear

Awesome, I saw your tracks from Prusik and wondered who was taking the scenic route

I did this route Saturday, and did the rappells straight down the North face onto the steep snow. Thankfully it had all slid 1-2 days prior... but the axe & boots were necessary to traverse back to the balanced rock. If I had it to do again, I'd do the rappells & traverses further West. [video:youtube]

Yeah the arthrogram made my shoulder feel crappy for a day or two. It gets better. I had a bankart repair and was back on easy toproping in the gym after ~12 weeks. Full strength took a while but 4 months is pretty doable with good PT's.

Well done! I'm heading that way tomorrow...

Send me a PM with your address and I'll email you the spreadsheet. Testing with the canisters in an ice water bath would be a fun variation, too.

I agree with Noah, you should boil pot after pot until the canister dies. The Reactor is supposed to have a regulator, so it should perform close to your prediction. The Jet Boil doesn't, so its performance should go down as the canister empties & the pressure goes down. For interpreting the data, I would use a spreadsheet & make a graph. The horizontal axis would be liters of water to boil, the vertical axis would be total weight. Each stove starts out as [stove + pot + first fuel canister], then stays there until you get to however many liters it will boil with one canister. Then it bumps up by one canister. You should get different stair-step curves for each stove. Melting snow is the more useful, but harder to control, experiment. Because canister temperature affects performance, try to do the tests in a controlled environment. Thanks for doing this! I love testing.