wetslide

Now that DREP has been put in his places I'll put down my (modest) goals. Liberty Ridge on Rainier. North Face of Hood. North Face of Dragontail. Something hard in the alpine of the Enchantments. Some hard ski descents. Begin thinking about Alaska. Lead WI 4/5 solidly. Establish at least one more mixed route. Continue leading 5.11's on gear. Send more 5.12's on TR. Get more people into climbing including my gf. Have fun!

Police have to have some super-ordinate level of authority over citizens. If they don't- we are basically talking about anarchy on the streets. This does not usurp the rights that we have, but it can infringe on the privileges we enjoy if we violate the law.

holy crap this is nuts. Rob, I didn't know you climbed!

I've used both as well. I have the metal "pro" model that was mentioned. As has been said, it works, but not too well in icy conditions. If it is between nothing and this, bring it. But you'll sometimes wish you had a full-function shovel.

well put.

Aren't you married Ivan?

Back to climbing 5.11 (in the gym ) 22 days post-injury. Only Top rope to keep the bone safe. Walked 2 miles today as well. All is well that ends (hopefully) well. Thanks for the good vibes.

Mark. Still healing but I'll be down for something soon. I'll let you know.

I liked you better as a sociopath, Rob.

100$ is too much to pay for a Bc glove. That's why steep and cheap (gauntlet was on there yesterday) and prodeals (for us lucky enough to have them) are one's best friend.

It was indeed from editing. Just experimenting and I appreciate the feedback on the photos. Cheers

Tyson- Not sure what your saying about the photos although there is some vignetting involved. Those photos were taken on my unfortunate trip.

Ya. Good guess.

John- You make some good points thanks man. Think I'm going to listen to your advice.

So as some of you know I broke my leg glissading off of Chair Peak after soloing the North Face. I've been recovering well, weaning myself off of ibuprofen. I've also been experimenting walking with and without the walking cast they gave me. That has been mostly successful. To get to the point- Anyone have any information about recovering from fibular fractures? How long did you wait to climb/ski (I was told one month). I feel that I could maybe ski earlier- but what are the ramifications of this?

Yes good point. Caveat Emptor. They happen to fit my feet quite well (hence my opinion). Just out of curiosity, how do they not fit? Width? Height? Just curious as many boots are uncomfortable to me because they are too narrow. But the Evo's fit out of the box- guess I lucked out because I didn't try them on before buying.

If you have the cash the La Sportive Nepal Evo's are never a bad idea. They are a very warm, technical boot that climbs ice as well as it walks (in my humble opinion). And yes, check out Dane's blog- an indispensable source of NW climbing and gear beta. Nepal Evo's.

The Stoic Gauntlet glove is a great glove for both mixed/ice and skiing. It is definitely a warm-up glove. And supple enough to climb consistently. Stoic Gauntlet glove.

I'll humor you Gene and give you the kinda-short version. So I solo the N face. It was thin. Stand on the summit for a few minutes. Then I downclimb to the normal rap station. From here I decide to play it by ear and downclimb as much as possible. The climbing was easy so I just kept going. At the point where the rap usually stops I decided to glissade. I know you aren't supposed to do so with crampons on but I was being lazy or complacent I guess. So I would glissade until I got going too fast and would self-arrest and dig my feet in (the snow was soft mostly). Then I hit a patch of icy snow and caught my crampon, pulling my leg back and right (it's my right leg so it pulled away from my body). I knew something was wrong. I felt pain in my ankle all the way up to my right outside calf. I sat for a few minutes composing myself. Then I took off my crampons. I tried to walk and that worked a little bit. Then I tried crawling. That worked a little bit. It wasn't steep enough to glissade really ( I was most the way down to my skis at this point). After a big effort I made it to my skis. I took my skins off and secured my tools and crampons to my bag. Then I prepared for pain. I started off skiing and quickly realized that going right was good, and going left was no good. This is because going left puts more pressure on my right leg. Now, I've skied my whole life practically but this was a lot of work. I found a steep gully that I had to get down. At this point I just took off the skis and walked down it. From here I slid down sideways for a while until I made it to the gully that goes up to flow reversal (I believe). Here I realized that I could ride fakie and thereby traverse the slope back and forth. This actually worked really well but still took a really long time. Part of the problem was that any undulation in the slope bumped my ski which then caused pain. But riding backwards hurt a lot less. At this point it was started to get pretty damn dark. But I made it to Source Lake. At this point I pulled out my headlamp only to find that the batteries were dead. I hadn't eaten since breakfast (fairly typical of my as of late in the mountains- don't know how I do it, and as a triathlete, marathoner, ect, I know it isn't ideal). I had food just wasn't hungry. I set off down the icy trail back. At first it is quite difficult, involving many little ascents. Then, it opens up and I'm able to maintain speed. All the while I'm listening to some economic guru blabber on about becoming a millionaire from my iphone. Finally I hit the cat track and blast out of there. I was so happy to see the car. The time from the injury to getting to the car was approximately 2-3 hours. I did the normal post-climb routine (eating, drinking a beer, taking tylenol) and drove home. After getting home I realized I was in quite a bit of pain so I had someone take me to the ED. There, after taking a few x-rays, they discovered I had fractured my Fibula.

ya well time to fess up. I did something stupid. I glissaded with crampons on. Incredibly stupid I don't need you to tell me.

No seriously it just happened to me too. Sucks. Ironic though.

And seriously, if I wanted to chest beat about anything I'd tell you I broke my leg on the descent and then skied the whole way out. But then again, that would just be chestbeating.

? Which is exactly what I said ? What is wrong with saying you soloed something? Isn't that being specific? Pardon my specificity! And since you are condemning me I assume you've soloed it, no?

ACTUALLY, i downclimbed the descent route dude. Read it again. I soloed UP the North face. I can see why you would think that though.

note: the rap stations are optional right now. You can easily down-climb it. I soloed the route today and it is indeed thinner than last year at the prime. Still worth the outing.