HattrickSwayze

13 month later bump. Mammut's and Mont Blanc's are still available.

If you see anything you like, make me an offer. I need funds to buy even more boots.

Selling three separate pairs of mountaineering boots that just don't work for my feet. My left foot is about a full size bigger than my right, which makes sizing boots really hard. Especially when I have a Haglund's bump on my larger foot. I take good care of my equipment so these are not beat to hell. Can ship out of state if need be, but would prefer local shipping and/or pickup. I'm not sure how much it would cost to ship; last time I used UPS they were crazy expensive. Maybe USPS flat rate boxes would work? Scarpa Mont Blanc Pro GTX - Size 46 (US size 12) - $300 OBO + shipping Bought these in 2017 when I was prepping for Rainier. The majority of the mileage was on training hikes; they only went to the mountains once on a Boston Basin trip. Cleaned after almost every use with Nikwax suede cleaner. No stink, no problems, lots of life left. Just too small for my left foot and more boot than I need for summer trips. Scarpa Ribelle Tech OD - Size 46 (US size 12) - $250 OBO + shipping Got these a couple years ago and never used them in the mountains; only on a handful of winter hikes. Cool boot, nice and light, fairly warm. Just don't like how they fit/perform. The sole is stiff like a light mountaineering boot, but there is a lot of ankle flex with the style of gaiter it has. I prefer my Trango Techs over these honestly. Mammut Taiss Pro High - Size 46 (US size 12) - $350 OBO + shipping Really, really cool boots. Super light and pretty warm. The dual Boa system makes them easy to put on and adjust with gloves. Would love to keep these but for some reason they irritate my left heel a lot. Took these up Adams and Baker and they performed great. I wore them car-to-car for Adams and apart from hurting my left heel, they were super comfy. The toe box isn't as tall as other boots, so for a size 12 they "feel" kinda small. There is a small piece of gear tape on the inside of the left boot from a crampon puncture.

Anyone been up Coleman Deming lately? Thinking about maybe doing a Sunday/Monday trip. Curious if the route is in good shape or if it's falling apart quickly like last year.

Anyone else have Baker on their list for this weekend or been up it lately? Forecast is looking a bit cold and drizzly right now. Curious what the route is looking like.

Thanks for some feedback guys. I've just checked the weather again and now the weekend is looking to be wet and snowy as well. Earlier today it was showing Saturday afternoon and Sunday to be dry. Now the slush is forecast into Sunday as well. I think we'll monitor it up until Thursday and then pull the plug if need be. Kind of a bummer, this was the only permit we got for Eldo! At least it's not going anywhere anytime soon.... Jason, you are right about being a weather weenie! I'm not against the cold (I actually prefer it to heat), but those above freezing rain/snow days can be miserable. We made an attempt on Shuksan in similar conditions last year and ended up in the tent for two days, woke up to 6 inches of fresh snow on the third, and then bailed. It's a bummer to take time off work and spend it miserable in a tent, even if it does build character... Haha. Doing some cragging in the sun and then drinking beer by the river might end up on this weekend's itinerary instead.

Hello all, Just wondering if I could get some second thoughts here. I'm still a liyyle new to climbing, particularly in the Alpine. I have a permit for Friday - Monday for Eldorado, but the weather this week is giving me a little pause. I'm seeing a lot of above freezing rain and snow, with a possible 2-4 inches of snow accumulating Wednesday/Thursday. I was originally going to go up Friday and come down Saturday, but I'm thinking about just bagging it this weekend. To me (in my limited knowledge from AIARE 1) I'm seeing a recipe for potential wet snow slides, although I'm not sure the potential level of snow accumulating pushes it into avalanche territory. At the very least it looks wet and miserable and slushy. I did that last year on a Shuksan attempt and it wasn't super pleasant. Basically just trying to bounce some thoughts off folks and see if my head is in the right spot. I don't have any mentors or anything to ask, so here I am. The other potential plan is to go up Sunday if things stabilize. Any thoughts?

Thank you for the suggestions all. Contrary to what I said earlier, I've backtracked on our earlier plans. Girlfriend and I are looking to do Forbidden Peak with RMI. After looking at the climb we felt it was a good situation to get more comfortable on rock so that we can set our sights on Shuksan and other routes with rock involved. Not quite a 180 on the earlier viewpoint, but close enough. This also gives us a shot at potentially bagging another peak, as RMIs itinerary mentions possibly hitting one other as a training peak. Ideally, we can knock off Sahale or something as well. Long story short, we feel this trip/learning opportunity will make us a bit more well rounded in our quest to be weekend alpinists. Rainier wetted our feet on glacier/rope travel, crevasse rescue, etc. Forbidden will wet our feet on the basics of alpine rock travel we hope. After this trip, we'll see what the weather and season holds. We're not big fans of hot weather summer trips, so maybe the other peaks get held off until late winter or early spring next year.

Thank you, it was definitely special. I was lucky enough to be behind my girlfriend on our rope team. Getting to follow her up and watch her make the last push over the summit crater was unbelievable. Something I'll never forget. We got the full meal deal for our first big mountain experience. Good weather, bad weather, watched a rescue happen, everyone came down safe, and got to meet/hang out with some awesome guides and people. I would say we're definitely open to something steeper. The issue (if you want to call it that) is that we're still pretty inexperienced. The Rainier seminar is more or less the only mountain on our resumes. From what I've seen, some of the guide services want you to have previous ice climbing or rock climbing experience for some of the more technical routes. At some point we won't rule out rock climbing. In fact we almost signed up for a 4-day class next month. Right now we want to do some easier, less technical solo peaks to build our confidence and skill set before we go for the gusto. Rockier stuff would be more of a next year kind of deal I think. For what it's worth I watched Colin Haley's video of the Infinite Spur and would love to do something like that eventually. Dream big, start small I guess?? Right now my only concern with doing some of the "bigger" routes by ourselves is route finding. I guess it's a fine line between it being sparsely populated and having a boot path to follow, so beggars can't be choosers. Is that an issue I'm overthinking too much?

Just wanted to bump this up to provide an update and ask a couple more questions. My girlfriend and I ended up going on a 6-day seminar with RMI late last month. We trained hard for 6 months, amassed all our gear, and successfully summited Mt. Rainier via the DC route on May 31st. Without a doubt, it was the coolest thing I've ever done and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't say enough good things about RMI; they were absolutely fantastic. With that being said, we are looking forward to our next adventure. We have been scoping out peaks like Eldorado, Shuksan, Baker, and Sahale. In terms of experience and comfort, we feel that Sahale is do-able on our own. We were looking to hire a guide for a 3-day, 2:1 outing on something a little more "advanced" like Shuksan to provide more knowledge and mentoring. Unfortunately RMI is booked until September, which we feel might be a little late in the season to learn a lot of snow skills, route finding, etc. I am wondering if anyone has experience with guide services other than RMI and can recommend one that would be great for a small trip. Obviously I'm not sure if any would still have open time slots, but we were looking at mid to late-July. Secondly, what do you feel is a natural progression from here? We feel pretty confident in our crevasse rescue skills, rope travel, knots, ice axe use, etc, but don't want to get in over our heads on our next trip or two. Especially if we go unguided. What would you recommend for the next mountain? Neither of us have much interest (and zero experience) in rock climbing, so 5th class rock isn't a good idea (unless we have a guide to help us). Preferably it would be somewhere a little less crowded (Hood looks terrible for crowds) but with a solid alpine experience. Thanks for all the help.

Thanks so much for the help guys. This is exactly what I was hoping for. I purchased the Washington Scrambles book this afternoon. It looks like a really useful bit of kit for beginners like us. I will look into the I90 corridor again. We enjoyed Mount Si and Mount Defiance. We didn't necessarily enjoy the crowded trails and views of I90 from the top though. Maybe I'm just being snobby but looking down and seeing the freeway kind of puts a damper on the sense of adventure... haha. Sid Vicious (long live the Pistols BTW), thanks for the route suggestions. We would love to do some overnighters like that, where we get a bit of an intro to the Alpine environment without having to get in way over our heads. I will also look into some of the Mountaineers training classes. Some of the training classes I looked into previously don't work with our schedules unfortunately. We work the night shift. Right now we are thinking about doing the 6 day seminar with RMI next year. We want the extra knowledge and skills so we can hopefully do some other summits as well. I'd like to do the Kautz route but I'm not sure if my girlfriend is as keen on that one. Thanks again everyone.

Hi, My girlfriend and I have recently (last 6-12 months) gotten into hiking/backpacking. In the course of doing so, we ended up doing the old trail at Mount Si and then doing Mount Defiance shortly thereafter. The challenge of both was great, and the satisfaction of getting to the summit is addicting to both of us. After watching a bunch of Everest TV shows, my girlfriend and I have set sights on doing Mount Rainier with RMI (hopefully) next summer. I just picked up Freedom of the Hills and have started reading it too. I am looking for some help in identifying some summits that we can conquer to build up our confidence and endurance. We've recently done our first overnighter up in the North Cascades and we love that area. I've been looking through Summit Post but I'm wondering if anyone has some personal insight they can lend. We have all of our backpacking/hiking gear and lots of layers/clothing. We are still relatively new to hiking and are completely green when it comes to mountaineering and summitting. We don't have ice axes or crampons or anything yet, and neither of us know how to read avalanche or snow conditions. With that being said, where should we go or look? Defiance was a challenge for us, but we have been training to get into better shape. We are in good shape but we are not seasoned hikers/climbers yet; we know our limits. I recently looked at White Chuck Mountain but I'm not sure we're quite to that level yet. Unless the pictures make it look more intimidating than it really is. I think we'd just love to do something that has that Alpine feel without completely destroying us on our first go. Hopefully that makes sense! Thanks in advance for any help you can give. I'm looking forward to picking people's brains and learning more about this stuff. It's addicting.