Jason4

I haven't been into the new American Alpine Institute gear shop but they recently relocated to the north side of Bellingham and expanded into more space. They haven't always had the biggest selection of gear but they have always had the right gear.

My favorite started as a grade II, BW4 and is seasonally a WA2 to WA4 with potential for more but I've avoided it at higher flow. I think it was downgraded by parties that followed. I tried it once with snow throughout the approach and it wasn't easier. I fell through more traps which were comical in the trees, annoying with buried small stream crossings, and scary in the lightly bridged talus.

I don't think this is current information. There is no date on that page, one of my colleagues called the USFS and they didn't know anything about it, and I haven't heard about it via snowmobile access channels either.

I'd suggest that what Dan has done from Concrete to Sherman Summit and back is the best modern comparison possible to the race from Glacier to the summit proper and back. Dan had to use the southside route to take advantage of the NRA to avoid any wilderness. It's not really a revival of the original race but it's possibly more impressive with less hoopla and fanfare.

If you drop a straight line between the Methow Valley Airport and the Langley, BC there's a lot of good terrain in there. It crosses directly over Silver Star, Colonial Creek Campground, the Sulphide and Upper Curtis glaciers on Shuksan and close to Lake Ann, a lot of very good ski terrain (Swift Creek, Bagley Bowl, Iceberg Lake). It'll be interesting when bricks of coke start showing up somewhere in the woods.

I'm kind of interested in how well the 40 Below Vest works as part of a clothing system. As a very sweaty person it makes a lot of sense to me.

It seems like you're looking for the Ascendant jacket from Outdoor Research. It has soft Polartec Alpha pile facing the body with air gaps and is covered by a pertex shell. Since getting one it's become one of my favorite cozy jackets both in the mountains and around town.

You can see a hint of pink in these two photos but it was darkest in the snow just below the camp as you climb the last pitch up from the Inspiration Glacier to the camp, it would be just out of frame in the lower left of the second picture. I don’t have any better pictures of that are but I remember noticing how dark it was while I was looking around for running water.

There are some dark pink/red patches near the climbers camp on Eldorado as of yesterday.

As per usual you did a far better job of capturing the scenery than I did. Beautiful photos!

Based on previous experiences it's probably in our best interest if someone from the climbing community enters a comment and gets listed as "Party of Record". From other government dealings I've learned that often once the public comment period is closed the government agencies will only talk to people that are acknowledged as a "party of record" and it's too late for anyone else to file comments even if the plan has changed considerably from the initial proposal. I don't have time to follow up.

Flaming wasn't my intention, just trying to make sure newer climbers are aware of current best practices. I climb with a lot of people who are of the mindset that whatever they learned when they started is the last thing they needed to learn and there have been unfortunate outcomes as a result. I'm always of the opinion that changing something up that takes less than a minute to do but eliminates a possible single point failure with high consequences is worth taking the time to change. Extending a rappel and putting the autoblock on the belay loop doesn't eliminate all single point failures but prerigging the second can at least reduce the risk for the first person rapping in the case of a single strand failure in the rope and they can also keep an eye on the rap anchor. Climbing will never be safe but we should always reduce the risk if it doesn't cost us anything in terms of time or energy.

Hey Gene, thanks for reinforcing what I mentioned about the third hand on the leg loop not being full strength and only being useful for applying force to the braking strand. It is not redundant in case another part of your rappel system fails. AMGA How to set up a rappel extension Here's the best practice for rappelling as taught by the AMGA, I'm surprised that you've seen guides recently rigging a third hand to their leg loops as that's not what's considered to be current best practice. It's better to rig it to the the belay loop for a full-strength back up to add redundancy in case you have a single point failure in your rappel device, your extension (but even that can be set up to be redundant), or your rappel carabiner.

I appreciate your preference for the older style harness buckle but I've never really gotten along well with them and even recently retired a BD couliour harness specifically because it has that style buckle. There's an interesting rant from Will Gadd about replacing harnesses just to update to the newer style. https://gripped.com/gear/will-gadds-harness-tip-save-lives/ For the other comment about harnesses with a loop just for an autoblock on the leg loop, I'd be surprised if you find one. Petzl puts a loop on the leg loops of their alpine harnesses to rack a single ice screw for crevasse rescue but I don't think it's load rated for an autoblock. At best, putting your autoblock on your leg loop is good for a third hand but is not a redundant back up for your rappel device/belay loop/main rappel carabiner. Current best practice is to extend your rappel device away from your belay loop and then use your belay loop for your autoblock in order to have a redundant full strength back up in case you have a failure somewhere else in your rappel system. You probably know all this and have preferences based on lots of experience but I thought it would be helpful to have this information here just in case someone with less experience finds this thread.

If the berm had a sign on it that says something to the effect of "no wheeled vehicles beyond this point" then you broke the law. If caught driving beyond the sign I've been told that the fine is $5000. I've read a lot of posts on various climbing groups suggesting that it's a good idea to ignore the sign and drive all the way to the trail head, don't do. If you stopped when you reached the sign then thank you and it looks like you had a great day out in the mountains.