GerritD

I recently moved to Issaquah I am looking for a partner to go climb at the Issaquah Dry-Tooling crag. I am preferably looking to get out on a week night after working a regular 8-5 job which means climbing by headlamp in the winter. There are 3 sets of chains and 2 sets of lead bolts. There is also a few routes that can be led on trad pro and top out to the bolts or a slung tree. I heard the routes range from M3 to M5. There are some opportunities to choose your own adventure when picking your line. I am looking to mostly climb on top rope but after some more practice I would like to lead the bolts or possibly on gear. I have my own rack, rope and tools so all you need is your personal gear. I am fairly new to mixed/dry climbing myself but I have climbed at this crag before. If you are an experienced climber who wants a belay while you run laps that works great. If you are newer like me I am happy to belay slower climbers as well. This crag has easier access and a shorter approach than even Exit 38. http://www.summitpost.org/cougar-mountain-drytooling-crag/826088

I also highly recommend Mid July or later. August is better than June. People avoid August because the route becomes less direct as crevasses open up so the climb becomes more physically strenuous. As someone from the East coast you can plan to train for more fitness. You can't out train the June weather. Also your original itinerary seemed to include going to Muir during daylight hours. I have summited doing it this was and it was needlessly hot and miserable to hike with the heaviest pack load you will bring up to Muir. If you arrive at Paradise all ready to go in the afternoon or evening you might want to consider going for Muir right then and there. I tried this once for a summit bid and it worked well. I spent the entire next day and night at Muir which allowed more sleep and moving (not sweating) in the cold part of the day and sleeping in the warm part of the day. Our summit day was a fairly standard midnight start. Just remember that as someone from out of state you need to maximize your time spent at camp Muir waiting for conditions. Don't plan on showing up and going for it. Plan on showing up ready to camp for three days and going for it when conditions allow.

Has anyone ever heard of climbs on snoqualmie falls? As is noted in the older post it seems to be illegal or just against the local rules to climb there. Would anyone admit to a bandit climb that has been done? Has anyone ever received permission to climb? http://seattletimes.com/html/picturethis/2022426967_snoqualmiefallsmakeiceylandscape.html Snoqualmie Falls 2013: Snoqualmie falls 1950: From http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/982444/Snoqualmie_Falls_80_m_WI_5

I don't have the book in front of me but I don't think Shangri-La is in there. http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1024371/TR_Shangri_La_X38_Various_6_17

[img:right]http://www.millet.fr/resize/media/declinaisons/905/image/f488x520/MIS1787_0335.jpg[/img] I use the Millet Expedition 65+ and love it for multi day. It does an A-Frame Carry with skis pretty well with one important caveat. When the pack is loaded up for a multi day trip it carries skis fine but when you take all the stuff out it squishes down and the skis wobble around. You can rig up a diagonal carry in that case but it is not ideal. With that one issue pointed out I could not recommend the pack any higher. It is LIGHTER than the CiloGear 45L Work Sack at 1560 grams total (Cilo 45L is 1800g). It also has a single zipper to access the bottom and the straps are comfy. I carried a 90+ lb load for a multi-day trip (embarrassingly ignorant of "light is right") and it worked fine. My pack has been chewed up by rodents, thrown around, dragged over rocks and is still holding up fine. The design seems perfect other than carrying skis unloaded can be a pain as the skis will wobble and potentially bonk the back of your head. I saw Feathered Friends has the pack in stock a few months ago. Other than that it appears a bit hard to track down online.

I raced bicycles for a couple of years and I can assure you that there is nothing to worry about. You won't accidentally get huge legs. A lot of women don't lift weights because they think they will turn into the hulk. Look at the top pro climber women. They are not very yoked despite many of them spending a lot of time lifting weights. Below is a picture of the top sprinter year after year in the Tour de France. He lifts a lot of weights and rides his bike and still his legs are pretty reasonably small.

I have climbed the DC guided as well as unguided. Even when climbing guided I found that the guides were a bunch of abrasive assholes. Then again I find most people who try to spend every possible moment outside of society in the mountains to be like that, my own friends and self included. Let's at least be honest with ourselves that there is a certain no bullshit attitude you cultivate when taking risks on a regular basis. I was roped to Jake during the climb he mentioned above. I was in the rear of our rope team and I was the one who talked to the guide. We were descending from the crater rim when the female guide started immediately talking trash about how much rope we had out between us. I did not say a single thing to her before this started. She just started complaining how we didn't know what we were doing and it was obvious because of how much rope we had out. We had about 40 feet I would guess which is longer than most parties. For us it is faster to descend with a bit of slack and a longer rope than short roping the entire mountain like the guides do. I tried to ask her for advice and offered that I am still relatively new and I am always open for advice, especially from a professional mountain guide! She was unwilling to work constructively with me and she demanded to be let by. I would offer to let her by and she would say something obtuse like "you guys are just going soooo slow." It was very awkward to offer to let her pass and to have her just talk trash instead of accepting. We let them by when after declining our offers to pass she demanded to be let through. I felt really cheated how she had insisted that I was going slow, had no idea what I was doing, and should move out of the way for a faster party. As it turns out even in the flat open areas our team was able to move MUCH faster. I can only imagine it gets worse when dealing with belay and rap stations.

In the end I think I should mention I own 0 degree and 40 degree bags but I would be happier with a single 20 or 30 degree bag. I suppose the 0 will be nice someday for other climbs but I feel for spring and summer it is not needed for myself.

I also used the same Marmot Plasma 40 degree bag Jake uses on the same climbs with him. I found it to be not warm enough to be comfortable at all. I often wake up at night somewhat cold but it is warm enough to sleep through most of the night. I did bring the same 40 degree bag to Rainier in the dead of winter in 0 degree temps. I shivered my ass off and hardly slept but I was able to get some rest and climb the next day. I recommend you do something similar where you try out some bags in way colder temps than you expect to find. Obviously do this somewhere very safe where not sleeping and then retreating is not a concern. I found that knowing what a truly cold night is like took a lot of the fear out of light shivering. Before I had the confidence builder of a really cold night I would often worry about hypothermia and frostbite and those worries interrupted my sleep as much as the real cold. I also have a Marmot 0 degree down bag that I basically never use anymore now that I have gotten used to shivering in a 40 degree bag.