Jason4

I haven't climbed MHC and probably won't before it snows but it's on my short list. Thank you for all of your hard work!

I was on the Coleman Glacier yesterday with my fiancé and a friend of ours and found fun ice to get on very close to the climber's trail that gets onto the glacier below the hikers overlook.

The best that I've seen is either the Seattle REI or Feathered Friends just a block away but I'll admit that I avoid the city as much as possible so there are probably other places to look too.

There are a couple of things from the splitboarding world that might help you out. You can get splitboard bindings to fit modern double boots pretty well (Spantiks or Baruntses) but you might need to do a little fiddling to optimize the fit. If you don't care much for the performance I'd suggest an older pair of Spark bindings with the pins (carry an extra pin!). You could also go with the voile mountain plates and mount the touring pivot piece on any ski you want for the approach. It's a much clunkier answer than Silvrettas but parts are easy to come by and still in production. The mountain plates would fit onto a mountain boot that's fully welted but without a highback the skiing/riding performance would be really bad. There are also a few options for ways to lock down the heels for a quick way to tear up your knees in case you fall but that's easier with the current split bindings. There's also the option of retrofitting a Dynafit socket piece into your boot. Look around a bit, it's been done but again, the skiing is terrible but it would be more interesting than snow shoes.

My fiance and I have talked about volcano "walk ups" and how we'd like to get on more challenging routes but the truth of things for me is that I could use more experience on all types of terrain so I try not to turn my nose up at the walk ups. She joined some friends in May who climbed/splitboarded 25 of the Cascade volcanoes (skipped Rainier but got Garibaldi as a bonus) and came out of the trip with a new appreciation for the volcanoes. She had already climbed Hood a half dozen times or more. Her favorite of the trip was Glacier Peak but the stories about the approach on Garibaldi make it sound like the crux was tackled in the truck. If you don't get out to a distant location push yourself to put up solid vert several days in a row. I think the ladies on the volcano tour were regularly putting in 5000' days back to back to back.

It won't be long before Google has the entire surface of the Earth scanned and modeled. The scary part that it won't be for our entertainment, it'll be for commercial purposes, think autonomous cars followed by autonomous drones. It'll be skynet before long.

I'm so sorry to hear this Lowell. My condolences to you and your family.

Send me a PM with your email address, I might have a picture of the NF of Shuksan taken from the Winchester lookout that will give you an idea of current conditions. I agree that I would not recommend that as the first climb in the Cascades.

To be clear, I have no problem with the law of booty but it's all in the presentation. Knowing that it's a female from Vancouver means that yoga pants are probably involved. You should rescind your offer of a trade for beer and make it a straight booty-for-booty trade.

I think you come across as a D-bag simply because of this: If you had left out the reason you don't care to keep it you would have sounded like a good Samaritan instead.

I'll just leave this here... http://www.mountainproject.com/v/is-climbing-booty-theft-by-finding/110710527

Here's a link with a little more info: http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/2651396/Half-Dome-Rockfall

Nice one!

I read in another thread that this could be a good way to protect against (solo) AID.

I recently picked up a Mammut Trion Pro to replace my Cilo 45l Worksack and have been happy with the limited chances I've had to use it. It's heavier than the Cilo pack for about the same volume but has features that I really appreciate. The biggest improvement for me is the brain straps that keep the brain tight and off the back of my head even when the pack is less than full, the Cilo just wouldn't cooperate with me there. Some of the other features that I like and will really appreciate for a ski touring pack are the dedicated avy tool pocket on the outside of the pack and the zippered access through the back panel. I carried ~40lbs about 3 hours from car to camp last weekend including some light bushwacking. I had a very light rack, a light rope, and my share of the group gear for 2 nights out. I climbed ~1500' of 4th/low 5th class scrambling with a pitch or two of 5.6 climbing with my mountain boots, crampons, and an axe in the pack. The pack was larger than I'd want but considering that it had to cary in the camp supplies too I was happy with how it pulled double duty. The previous weekend I was out on the west ridge of N. Twin with it just as a test run and was happy with how it moved but the brain hit my helmet on the bicycle ride down.

Look into an enhanced driver's license for getting into Canada. It might work as a good stop gap that's quicker and cheaper to get than a passport. Not sure if that helps with the kids or whether they need passports at their age to get into Canada.

East side access.

I'd be concerned about letting kids that young loose at Erie. Most of the climbs require scrambles to get too, especially for someone that would have to mantle to get over a 3 foot rock. I'd recommend the Smoke Bluffs in Squamish. It doesn't get any easier than sitting the kids at the picnic bench at the bottom of Burger and Fries or going to the daycare/lunchbreak area that has kid friendly climbing and lots of flat space near a composting toilet.

I thought the Dorais brothers drove overnight from Utah, crushed the record and then drove home or some impressively tight schedule. Still not from sea level though.

Hi there... this is Jason4's lady friend just writing you a quick not with some beta...because my friends and I recently climbed Glacier Peak (on our second attempt after getting a thorough spanking the first time around). Basically our first attempt went only a touch better than yours. We started late with too much Oasis Bagel in our bellies, made it to White Mountain and camped on it, then didn't make it too far past when the heat of the second day started taking out cornices and causing big wet slides. We tucked our tails and ran, or quickly hobbled, our depressed way down those miserable switchbacks and back to the truck. Defeated, we drank too much Tecate and napped in the parking lot. Attempt #2 was 5 days later. We left the truck at 6am, successfully getting through the switchbacks before the sun decided to try to melt our faces off. From the intersection with the PCT we literally climbed directly upwards to the ridge, descended and traversed from that point towards (what I imagine to be a beautiful meadow without snow) at 5600 ft, NE of White Mt. The creeks here were almost wide open, and would make a good stop for filling water without melting snow. From there it was fairly easy moving and route finding. Be mindful of the slightly covered waterfalls and small creeks, though. Just for a time gauge, we had skis, but car to camp near the White Chuck Glacier took us 10 hours. Camp to summit back to car took us 12 hours of full on charging. Seriously. GPS tracked us on the trail out moving at 4.2mph.

We can all reduce our impact, that's a good goal. I get irritated at people who choose to climb and then tell others that climb in a different style that they're wrong. It's easy to say one style is better than another but to say that one is right and another is wrong is whimsical.

Google tells me this: ar·bi·trar·y ˈärbəˌtrerē/ adjective based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. I'll stick with my idea that climbing is based on personal whim. We no longer need to leave our communities to look for water/food/shelter on the other side of a mountain pass. Sorry to imply that you argue for or against bolts Buckaroo, that's just a common line that is drawn (based on personal whim).

The non-arbitrary place to draw a line would be no climbing. No sky diving. No BASE jumping. No snowboarding. No activities just for fun. Stop doing things that aren't for the benefit of the entire planet. Spend your free time carefully pulling weeds to ensure the maximum productivity of your organic garden and share some with your neighbor that is too old to kneel and pull weeds. Move to Portlandia, drink milk from certified happy cows. That's not realistic. Ok, we all agree we're going climbing (if not why are you on a climbing forum). Why are cams ok but bolts aren't? In the big picture they both take resources mined from the earth and shipped halfway around the world and to me that's a bigger impact than leaving a bolt halfway up a wall. They both have a limited lifespan and then they're garbage.

There's no reason you can't, at the same time, be as environmentally conscious as possible. Sure the modern first world existence has impact, but there's no reason it can't be minimized as much as practically possible. Minimizing impact as much as practically possible would eliminate climbing. There really is no practical requirement for any of us to climb anything. We can get everything we need to "live" without leaving a city. Once you determine that climbing is an acceptable activity and is justified then everything beyond that is very gray. People have an impact on the environment. Mutual respect would go a lot further than some arbitrary lines drawn over what is acceptable and what is damaging.

JasonG, I'll try to restrain myself. I have a hard time with shades of gray, black and white is easy. I too like TRs with pictures, I save a lot of them to my screensaver on my work computer so I can stare at mountains during the week. I also tend to post more TRs during the winter months when conditions are variable and make a difference to safety or satisfaction. I don't do anything worthy of note.