Jason4

I'm not too familiar with the LTD Fury but with a size 45 you'll definitely want to be riding a wide board, especially with a mountaineering boot. If you have 2 inches of toe drag and no heel drag then your bindings aren't centered, you should move them further towards your heel. Maybe you were thinking that I asked if your stance is centered? I'm actually kind of curious to see how the Spantiks ride but I think I'd be more apt to spend the money trying to convince a good cobbler to modify a good pair of snowboard boots before I'd try to snowboard in a good pair of climbing boots. If you're fairly new to snowboarding and really want to do a lot of mountaineering with your split then you should should probably just sack up to hard boots. I put some time in riding on a pair of Koflach Superpipes when I was 12 (before I knew they were cool!) and don't think I can give up the soft boots at this point but AT boots would almost be able to do what your Spantiks do for you but also allow you to ride plate bindings. I don't think you'll get enough response on the heel side to do that with your boots now but I could be wrong.

What board, what size boots, and whats the binding setup? From your posts I'm guessing that it's a DIY with the Voile DIY plates and some other bindings mounted on there. I think you'll be able to get a big improvement from centering your bindings as a first step.

It's kind of like a bivy sack for those unexpected nights in the wild. Three pack for climbing with multiple partners or longer adventures?

It's a great shop and business that's about a mile from my house. If I didn't already have the job that I do I'd be tempted. Just don't tell any more people about Bellingham.

Summer is the nicest day of the year in the PNW. I was in Squamish over the weekend and found dry rock in the 5.8-5.14 range, most of the routes were hard 5.11s or easy 5.12s. There was a tall, high quality 5.10 that stayed dry until the wind picked up a bit. This was in a steady drizzle on Saturday and it was the only dry rock I saw on Sunday. You should be able to find info in the Squamish guide book.

I've driven from Bellingham to Yellowknife in a Kenworth and one of my coworkers went all the way to Taktyuktuk (sp?) on the Arctic coast. The roads really aren't bad but wait until you see the cost of a gallon of milk! And I made my trip in February and I think he went in March.

Haha, good timing. This has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm just finishing up an 8 month assignment in Europe and have managed to save a good chunk of money and pay off all of my debt. I miss the mountains more than anything right now. I'll be between projects when I go back to the division that I normally work for in the PNW and it would be a good time to take a break before I get buried in more work. I need to figure it out quick and come up with some fun plans though.

I came here to say "Ninja Slipper" or "Camel Toe". Sorry to hear about the industry in-fighting.

I just flew from Seattle to Amsterdam this morning with a chalk bag in my checked suitcase with no problems. I hadn't opened the package yet but I tore off the header to pack it easier and made sure the header with the product info was packed next to the chalk ball that was tucked into a chalk bag. I'm a little more apprehensive about flying home with my well used bouldering chalk bucket. Even if I get all the loose chalk out there will be powder everywhere. I figure that's what trained dogs are for and if they light up on my climbing chalk then I probably paid too much for it...

I never had the privelage to enjoy time in the mountains with Dallas Kloke but I spent 9 months learning math from him in high school and was very shocked to hear about him passing away in a climbing accident. The one thing that really stuck with me from high school in the 13 years since is a single caution that I learned from Dallas: "There are bold mountaineers and there are old mountaineers but there are no old and bold mountaineers." It sounds like I have missed out on a lot of other wisdom from him outside of the classroom. He will be missed by all.