GerritD

Above are the HMG 4 person pyramid tent and the BD 4 person pyramid tent. I considered both and eventually bought the BD version. They both have a very similar design and nearly the same floor space. A climbing partner of mine has two HMG packs and they are great, very light and somewhat durable. They are very durable when it comes to stretching and heavy loads but not durable against abrasion and piercing damage. This HMG shelter is the same cuben fiber material. The BD version is silnylon and costs much less and weights about 2.5 lbs instead of the 1.25 lbs of the HMG shelter. I think either are fine but if you are willing to spend more you can save 1.25 lbs. I would trust the cuben fiber one just fine in 4 season conditions but it is still never going to be as good as a real 4 season mountaineering tent if you are caught in a storm. I always collapse my pyramid tent during the day so it doesn't blow away and I would not be stoked to ride out a storm in one.

If you knew with 100% certainty that a million Iraqi children were going to be murdered tomorrow you would not lose any sleep tonight. If you knew you were going to lose your pinky finger in a climbing accident tomorrow you would reconsider your plans immediately. I am sure you can disable the amber alerts on any model of phone you have.

Hey Will, I was actually going to post on your strava segment with the new info I got but I might as well post here for anyone else who is curious. I did the might Mount Si last Saturday and on the way down SAR was called out to help someone descend after being rendered non-ambulatory by calf cramps. I talked to the SAR guys who seemed pretty bored in the parking lot and they said that the Chair peak rescue was not any of the climbers who summited that day. It was a solo hiker with some rock climbing experience from Eastern Washington who was hiking/climbing low on Chair peak and who took a fall. They said his face looked messy from sliding on the rocks but was not in too bad of shape. He was rescued by the helicopter just fine as you can see in the video. I know SAR organizations often have a newsletter to discuss rescues so maybe more details will emerge but this one seems pretty mundane.

http://geotripper.blogspot.com/2014/09/ongoing-exfoliation-event-at-twain.html There is an interesting video at the bottom showing the granite snap and crack. Pretty cool to see the birth of a splittar.

The market is being flooded with ultralight boots that still have a welt in the front or back. Scarpa Rebel, Mammut Mamook, Salewa Pro, La Sportiva Trango EXT EVO Light GTX (wordy), and a few others are extremely light but still work for "real" climbing. Those are not a big weight savings over the Trango S so it sounds like what you really want is a high top approach shoe.

I didn't know him but I am sorry for everyone else's loss. I am curious to find out the details of the eventual accident report. As noted in another thread and documented on supertopo there was rockfall on this route just days before and I saw pictures of severely damaged anchors. Also the report said that a number of bolts were damaged beyond use. Does anyone know if the anchors on this route are safe at the moment?

The Cilogear 30:30 weights 1,230g fully loaded and 680g fully stripped down to the tube. The Arcteryx Alpha FL 45 weights 650g full loaded. It is a bit unfair to compare the weight of a pack with a rolltop closure to a pack with a lid. Both are actually 30 liter packs that extend past 30 liters to get a bit unwieldy. I own the Alpha FL and love it. My recommendation is to at least try it. It carries fine but don't expect to carry a 50 lb pack with weight extending above your shoulders. But you weren't going to carry that much weight anyway right?

1/10 got me to post

You can't register outside of the open hours. You could do it last year, I know because I did it. You can't do it this year, I know because I tried a few days ago. The place where the self registry box used to be now has a sign saying no registration when they are closed. To confirm I asked a Ranger who said he did not know of an alternative way to register outside of normal hours. Also I am pretty certain there is nowhere to buy either white gas or butane canisters in the middle of the night. Whittaker mountaineering just a few miles outside of the park entrance opens at 7am. I don't know if they sell fuel but I can't see why they wouldn't.

Thanks for the TR. I always like to read about real world crevasse rescue as it seems a lot of what I have read about hasn't even worked out very well just practicing on snow slopes somewhere. I am curious how you would think the rescue would have gone with just 2 people on the rope team and nobody else. It sounds like just a 2 person team would be in a really bad spot in the same fall scenario. Would it be have been at all possible to dig out of the snow roof if that was truly the only option?

I feel like I am going to have a panic attack every time I climb and I have never had an accident! I guess you are better off than me. Seriously though, go talk to a psychologist. I have had panic attacks in my life and for me, climbing helps. One of the places I feel the furthest away from a panic attack is when I am climbing. The professionals can help you more than any random advice on the internet ever could.

DPS above gives good advice, he has climbed Liberty Ridge and I have not. I have however made many brews on Mt Rainier and there are a few tricks to temperature management. The key is that as you use the fuel the canister gets much colder than the ambient temperature of the air around it. If the canister is too cold the water will heat up more slowly which means you burn more fuel per pot of water. As DPS said you can put the canister in warm water to heat it back up. Don't heat it up too much of course or it can explode. If you can actually keep the canister above freezing your brew times will be cut in half. Personally I heat the water to boiling and then every other liter of water I brew I leave half an inch of hot water in the pan and dip the canister in there. As I mentioned I have not climbed Liberty Ridge and it seems most people there don't boil their water. It probably is not necessary off the more popular paths I have gathered snow from to drink.

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/06/free-climber-who-fell-near-mt-baker-dies-after-head-injury/ My friend on Facebook said his dad died climbing on Thursday and this appears to be the incident. I didn't even know his dad was a climber. As usual the media does not give very good info so I am curious if anyone knows more. When I read about accidents I spring into analysis to try and rationalize why it won't happen to me. Beyond that we can always learn from someone else's mistakes.

Those crampon front points look nicely worn in the last picture. Intimidating and inspiring.

Trip: Ingalls Peaks - Ingalls Peaks Traverse Date: 6/15/2014 Trip Report: Me and DPS climbed the traverse between Ingalls East and Ingalls North and Dan impressed as usual with more long run outs on wet rock. The approach conditions were not efficient as there was a lot of unconsolidated snow. This was my first time on Ingalls and the rock was as described in the beta I read online. It was either nice and gripy making for amazing climbing or absolutely terrible shiny polished glass. You can avoid climbing on the glass like stuff which I am grateful for because in the sprinkling rain I don't think you can climb that stuff. We used a 70 meter rope which was annoying for the climbing but linked the rappel stations better than a 60. My knee is recovering from an injury and I wrecked it again slipping around in the loose snow. 12 hours car to car. The route starts on the right side and heads left. Simulclimbing 4th class and low 5th class terrain. On top of Ingalls East. On top of Ingalls East. The ridge behind is the start of the traverse to Ingalls North. Mount Stuart. You can barely see the outline of the summit ridge in the clouds. The crust (crux) of the route. It was pretty windy with poor visibility and temperatures right at 32 degrees. I just want to be off the mountain. A goat followed me on the way out for a long time. Gear Notes: We brought set of nuts, Camalot C4 0.4 - 3 The BD C3 #2 (yellow) was the possibly the most useful and clutch piece, we brought only one but having two would be more useful than many of the larger sizes. An almost completely tipped out BD C4 #3 "protected" the crux, bring a #4 if you want to make the move safely. Approach Notes: No traction devices needed. Ice axe was useful for the steep snow in the gully.

If you are just top roping easy routes there isn't a lot to learn when you already know how to setup and clean anchors. However if you try anything more complex than simply top rope from bolts you might want to have some idea of how to deal with emergencies such as escaping the belay. If you are going to be responsible for the safety of someone else you should be completely sure you know what you are doing. +1 for hiring a guide as mentioned above

It sounds like you are describing is a guide service, it is not that bad. What you are asking someone to do is take a huge risk of an unsuccessful climb or worse a dangerous situation. I am not trying to be a jerk but I want to recommend you do exactly what I did. I paid a guide service to get me up and down the first time. Then I went unguided with some friends and then I looked on this website for partners for other climbs. If you can find someone to show you the way that is fantastic but if this is going to happen I recommend you learn everything you can from a book. I taught myself how to do all of the glacier travel skills. A partner is not needed for practice, perhaps just a wife standing around ready to call for help if you end up stuck upside down while trying to practice self rescue.

http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2014/02/sapwood-acts-water-filter Looks like my sub-alpine bivy kit will be changing. All you need is some epoxy, plastic tubing, and a clamp!

Even if they "just didn't see you" it sounds like they didn't stop either. Pretty crappy.

I never took a course to learn crevasse rescue but I have practiced all of the skills many times in different scenarios. I can guarantee you I would perform the task better than any person who took the class once and never did a refresher. Also on my 5th and 6th times and so on I kept learning new tricks and pitfalls to avoid. I went to where I would setup a top rope on bolts that is overhanging and practiced jugging, rapping, jugging, rapping, and tying many times. The mountaineers headquarters has overhanging anchors on their rock wall that work great for this, there are not a ton of overhanging crags you can easily setup top ropes on. EDIT: I think the Marymoor climbing area has a section you can practice jugging an overhanging rope. I don't know how easy it is to lead up to the anchors but I can vouch that the Mountaineers headquarters has a what is essentially 5.0 leading up one side. Also be sure to practice over a real snow lip as this will totally mess everything up more than you would think. Taking a class is great, go for it, but just remember that the practice you do after is more important.

Those all sounds fine for spring or summer. Choose the boot that fits the best since all of those would have the features you need. Also warm legs = warm feet. Just because you are on the less warm end of the boot insulation range doesn't mean your feet will automatically get cold.

Looks like they did spend a night out but the rescue went off fine. The fact that they had a stove was interesting because we climbed the tooth in winter without a stove and I never would have thought people would commonly do that.

Trip: The Tooth - Northeast Slab Date: 1/26/2014 Trip Report: I climbed the Northeast Slab of the Tooth this Yesterday with DPS and Adam. As usual DPS impressed by leading in conditions I was scared out of my mind to follow. He said he has attempted unsuccessfully three times on route and has never seen it in such good condition. This being my first winter learning to climb ice I have no idea what really is fat or thin but I will say even as a complete beginner I felt very secure in the ice. There was a little bit of snow on the climb but it could generally be avoided by zig-zaging a small amount through thick thunker ice. We saw a party approaching the south face climb while on route, more on this later. Our route was climbers left of the corner that most descriptions describe. We found the ice to be a bit better although it was steeper. There was many trees to belay from and good screw placements. The rock climbing on top was mostly moderate with one section of steep 5th class rock. I climbed this section in mono-point crampons comfortably but the other two went with no crampons on their boots. It seemed reasonable to do it either way. The weather was amazing and the rock on the ridge-top was a bit warm to the touch. We climbed with bare hands over to the true summit and rappelled the South face's standard rappel route. Being so new to alpine climbing I was very hungry and thirsty and felt fairly sick to my stomach from the constant cycles of adrenaline from terrifying climbing and the sweet sweet relief of the belay. I was very anxious to get the hell off the mountain. While rappelling we heard very alarming sounds of shouting and moaning. It was unmistakable as an injured person. We saw headlamps below in the Great Scott bowl of a party gathered around. We rappelled as quickly as we could safely good as night fell. I reminded myself that the first mistake of a rescue is to not add another victim. We discovered a party of 5 climbers who had summited, but someone had taken a fall or a slide on the way down and was badly hurt. He had a broken leg and shoulder and his face had a smear of blood on his forehead. It looked like he has taken a hit on the head as well but he was conscious and in pain. His group asked if we had a tourniquet because they were having trouble stopping the bleeding in his leg. Thankfully the party was fairly well prepared and had a stove for warm fluids and some extra clothing. I added my parka to the clothing on top of the injured climber and DPS had a short sleeping bad he brought along to insulate under against the snow underneath. The party only had one cell phone which had low battery. Cell phone service was spotty and we were not sure if the instructions were relayed well to the rescuers on the phone. I left my cell phone with the injured party and the three in our team started off toward the trail-head quickly. We arrived at the trail-head to see no less than 30 search and rescue members getting ready to head up. We gave them a description of where the party was but there was no surprise that several of them knew exactly how to get to the tooth. I think with such a rapid response to the injured person he was likely able to get the quick medical attention he needed but as of right now I don't know the true nature of his injuries or how long the rescue took. The Snohomish County Mountain Rescue Facebook posted a picture mentioning a second helicopter dispatch in two days but this is wild speculation on my part to assume they were sent out to this incident (link below). Conditions were pretty icy so it would not surprise me if the rescuers were apprehensive to try and carry the person out on a litter and would prefer to opt for a helicopter hoist. Could anyone with SAR contacts make any comments? I won't be able to upload pics from the climb as they were on the phone I gave to the injured party. I will upload them when I get my phone back. Until then enjoy the good ice climbing in Alpental and let's all hope for a speedy recovery for a fellow climber. Gear Notes: Screws for ice and some slings for trees. We had rock pro and used it on the ridge. We used double 50m ropes for climbing and for the longer rappels but the south face rappel goes fine with a single 60m rope folded over. Approach Notes: The winter approach to source lake is passable in boots but is fairly bony compared to most years. Skiing is possibly the same speed or slower than boots.

This was my first time climbing real ice instead of consolidated snow but I have been doing a bit of dry tooling. I brought my mono point crampons along and they did shear a bit in the completely vertical ice if I didn't kick them in enough. Even without shearing I was pretty much scared out of my mind. DPS had some pretty massively run out leads where the snow was occasionally loose. As a beginning climber I am struggling to imagine myself ever remaining calm in such a situation. Thanks to DPS for the sweet lead and thanks to north facing aspects for being so full of fat ice.

You are right that there are two sets of bolts to lead on. I am editing the main post to show this. I went back to this crag today and saw them. I intend to lead at least one of them next time I head out there. Also I am generally getting more and more stoked with loose and wobbly crap from climbing at this crag. So if anyone else is a beginner and is unsure if this would be fun I am down to give a belay to try it out.