TheNumberNine

I kid, I kid.

I wonder how much respect a puma track-suit and a pair of nike hightops wrapped in plastic safeway bags would gain? Possibly unwavering faith and a willingness to follow you up into the worst storm of the century...Yeah... I like that idea...

A lot of great insight here... I'm really digging the I-tent just because of the compromise between tough materials and packability/lightness. Seems to be the way to go if I was thinking of getting the firstlight and I want to bring the tent to Aconcagua. For now the scarpas wil have to do as my budget doesn't allow for me to blow tons of money on new stuff.. New boots will probably come in the form of nepal evos though (for summer cascade climbs) As for the whole cheap gear thing... I have tendency to naturally gravitate towards nice gear. I feel like wearing cheap gear as a guide makes you look pretty noobish and essentially nullifies any gear advice you might give clients. Besides, isn't climbing mostly about looking good anyway?

Genepires, thanks for the solid advice. Shasta will consist of 3 day long summit climbs on Avy gulch, west face, hotlum bolam, etc. I doubt I'll be working any expedition seminars that go longer than 4 days. I 'assistant guided' my first trip on Casaval Ridge last weekend and had an absolutely superb climb. Great clients, conditions, and weather. I'm leaning towards leathers because I know that later into the season the approaches to base camps are going to be a lot of trail hiking and probably a lot of scrambling up loose scree trails.. I'd rather not be clunking around in plastic boots all summer. I'm planning on rocking my scarpa invernos with 40 below overboots on aconcagua. We're thinking of doing the polish direct which looks like it will be a nice dose of steepish snow and ice climbing. I used that boot setup on Denali last June/July and had toasty feet 84% of the time. As for the firstlight... I feel like it will be the perfect tent for cascade climbs i.e. shasta, rainier, hood and for any alpine climbs that require a fast and light approach. I met up and schemed with my climbing partner last night and he said he would shell out for a beefy tent for aconcagua so that might not be a huge concern... What do you think of the black diamond I-tent? It's supposed to be pretty bomber...

I seem to get mixed reviews on the boots... Though it seems that the nepal evos are a pretty standard choice. Other recommendations have been the scarpa phantom guide, la sportiva batura evo, and of course the olympus mons for those frigid days at horse camp :-p

Hi Folks, I'll be guiding on Mt. Shasta this summer with Shasta Mountain Guides.. Pretty stoked and having a hard time focusing on my last month of college...(I'm sitting in my python programming class right now) Anyway... I worked my first trip this last weekend and guided on Casaval Ridge. It was a great climb but I found myself pondering a few items in my arsenal. Right now I'm rocking scarpa invernos. They are quite heavy but I do like the fact that they are absolute tanks. What do ya'll think about me throwing down some cash on some la sportiva nepal evos? Will my dogs be thanking me enough to make up for the dent in the wallet? Will they last long enough for me to use them for a few seasons assuming I get in 20-30 summits this season? Also, does anyone have any experience with the Black Diamond Firstlight tent? I'm in the market for a super lightweight 4 season tent that I can use on Aconcagua this winter. Please commence spraying now.

Dude, Whammey Bar!! Let's just camp out all summer and save our precious income..

Thanks. It took me way too long to finish it but it feels damn good to have it done and posted.

Check it out here: Let me know what you think!

A buddy and I have been throwing the idea of an Aconcagua trip around for this December/January.. We've both been above 20,000 and are pretty dialed in as a team. We're looking at doing this non-guided and as cheap as possible. Anyone on here ever put together their own Aconcagua trip? What problems did you encounter? What was easy? What would you do differently? Is this a trip that we could do by basically flying ourselves/gear down to South America and figuring it out when we get there? Any advice/info would be greatly appreciated.

What's having AS like? Does it have a huge affect on what you can do or is it manageable? Hope mine is just injury related...

I was originally thinking anything over 10k.... I don't really have much of a desire to hike to the top of a small scree pile because it is technically a cascade volcano.. I'll update when the list is more solidified.

Cant' leave out Mt. Shasta!

I graduate from UC Santa Cruz in mid June. I'm hoping to be climbing by the end of June/beginning of July. I don't think it would be too difficult to plan nor would it be that expensive. Drive a few hours, climb for a few days, drive a few hours, climb, etc. I'm not looking to do a speed record or anything. I think it would be a lot of fun!

Anyone have any beta on some sweet routes out there? I went backpacking with a few guys last summer and was blown away by all the sweet granite everywhere. I scrambled up some 4th class domes after we set up camp at the end of every day and it was absolutely sublime. I really think there are a lot of opportunities to do some great climbing out here. There's not many people that head out there to climb (it's a long hike) and I think there is some potential to put up some first ascents on some of these fabulous granite domes. Anyone been out here/climbed/looked around and saw something you wanted to climb?

Either this or Foraker. Dammit I'm hungry!

I'm considering climbing every major volcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc in a single push North. Maybe do it to raise some money for California State Parks, maybe just do it for the hell of it. I need a partner who is down to just bum it for the length of the "expedition". Cmon! Who wants to climb their nuts off this summer?

How bad was your SI joint issue? Terrible? Moderate? Mild? Mine seems to be pretty mild.. I hurt it back in Oct and it went away totally but it comes back to haunt every once in a while. A few weeks ago at the climbing gym I was stretching and did a weird twist and it popped. Been giving me some trouble since...

Any one ever had issues with their SI joint? What helped?

Hi Folks, Me and some mates are headed down to Joshua Tree for a few days of climbing next week. We have two pretty experienced trad climbers, one intermediate (me), and a noob. I was down in J tree over winter break and did some fun climbs in real hidden valley, headstone rock, and saddle rock. Anyone have any good recommendations for some good 5.7/5.8/5.9 (J-tree sandbagged) rated climbs? Some multi pitch would be great but we're just looking to have a fun and relaxed climbing trip. Spray me with your knowledge juice!

Alright, this is going to make my original post sound really stupid.. I took a closer look at the slings and noticed that one is a Blue Water sling and one is a Wild Country. Their color and weave is practically identical, it's insane! I think when I went climbing in Joshua Tree back in January I might have accidentally swapped a sling for one of my climbing partner's slings without noticing that it wasn't the same length. Things can get a bit messy when you're doing a multi pitch rappel in the windy dark epicness that Joshua Tree can be. Guess I'll have to pick up an extra sling and I'll use the odd size as my permanent umbilical.

I have two 12mm red wild country dyneema slings that I've had for about a year. I've used them to set up top rope anchors <10 times and have used them for various crevasse rescue practice situations. Neither of them has been exposed to a big fall or anything of that matter. I noticed tonight while daisy chaining my slings that one is a bit longer than the other... Maybe by half an inch or so. I've inspected both the slings visually and they both seem pretty intact. I'm wondering if somehow one of the slings became stretched out when it possibly endured the brute of a top rope setup in a non self-equalizing anchor system. If it is a bit 'stretched' should I be concerned about its strength given that a visual inspection showed no fraying or cuts? Thanks.

I'm in an intermediate GIS course at UC Santa Cruz right now and I thought it would be fun to create a data model for avalanche forecasting on Mt Rainier for my senior exit project... I'm writing up my proposal right now. My plan is to create a index of the mountain based off of an elevation and land cover datasets and input "scenarios" of weather patterns to see if I can predict where avalanche danger might be highest given that scenario and pre existing conditions. It's not exactly modeling real time avy danger but I think it will be a fun project. Deets will be shared as I continue to work on it... Midterms suck...

Sounds like you made your decision before the post.... The M10 is a great shell! Enjoy it!

What are you going to be doing with it? Expeditions? Days at the local crag? Big walls? Christmas shopping? If you're going to be taking it into places where staying dry is the difference between hypothermic butt-rape and survival, I'd go with the burlier jacket.