forrest_m

ski - iirc, the last couple of days, the forecast has called for high freezing levels but with the comment "freezing level at the surface at the passes", which would explain your temp. number. i think that this is a very localized phenomenon caused by the big air masses spilling over from one side to the other. it's very visible, for example when you ski at alpental on a day like today. from the upper lift, you can often see the lowland fog flowing like water out of a fountain across the pass below you, very fast, even though you are skiing in a t-shirt less than 1000 feet above I-90.

check the national weather service, we're in an inversion right now, so though it's chilly in seattle, freezing levels in the mountains the last few days have been 9000-11000 feet.

matt, i'm thinking the missing element right now is the "freeze" part of your equation. (this is supposed to be a winking icon but it looks more like a drunk dude) for this weekend, i'm thinking about rock climbing, maybe even alpine rock climbing.

lambone, the road is generally plowed to ross dam, where the trail goes down to the lake at ross lake resort. this is at the top of the hill past (east of) the bridge at colonial creek campground and several miles beyond where you want to park your car. i think it is kept open to there so that maintenence workers can access the dam and its associated structures. ymmv, depending on snow conditions of course. (darn you matt, you beat me to the draw not once but twice!)

i wrote a pretty long and detailed TR at the time, which is undoubtedly more accurate than my memory after 3 years. a search in the n. cascades forum for "colonial" would surely bring it up. i think that ideal conditions for the route would be a storm cycle followed by week of clear weather with low freezing levels. this is more or less what we had, but it started snowing soon after we left the car. we had a lot of problems with spindrift and unconsolidated snow by the time we finished.

oh, and if you are worried about a long section of runout, and you are worried about getting a lot of stretch, you can always clip both ropes to the same piece (using separate draws).

ross - all ropes, whether single, double or twin - are capable of holding several falls all by themselves. the thinner they are, the fewer they can catch, but that's ok because it's a redundant system. your single rope has to be "overkill" because if it fails, that's it. most people choose to retire their ropes long before it has sustained the damage of 10 or 11 UIAA test falls. people choose the two-rope systems because they judge that the other benefits (greater total diameter, redundancy which reduced the chance of being cut by edges and rockfall, full length rappels, two followers, reduced rope drag, etc.) will outweigh the added danger of greater elongation. having taken numerous leader falls on double ropes, i can't say that i've really noticed a huge difference in fall distance because the shorter slings and more numerous pieces seem to even out, i.e. if you take a long fall, you're likely to have tension in both strands when you are caught.

fc9 -I appreciate the ideas, and I agree that for alpine climbing a mix of strength and aerobic training is important. I think I have a pretty good idea of the importance of resting and injury prevention. But none of that relates to what I'm curious about right now, which I'll rephrase as follows: for a given number of hours of exercise, is it better (in training for alpine climbing) to stack strength training and aerobic workouts on the same day, or to separate them onto separate days? For example, here is the workout schedule I am contemplating for the next 3 months. I am planning a major trip in june, so my idea is to spend the next three months focusing on "core strength", then to ramp up various specific areas over the following three, aiming to peak in early june. Tuesdays: weight training, possibly with some gym climbing concentrating on endurance ~2 hours Wednesday: 1.5 hour yoga class, muscular endurance + flexibility/injury prevention Thursday: aerobic stacked with weight training, i.e. 1 hour hill-climb workout on bike on the way to gym, then 1 hour weights or climbing wall Saturday or Sunday: something outside, skiing or climbing or if I'm stuck in the city, long aerobic workout, (~2 hours) With this program, I get 5 workout sessions a week, but at least 3 rest days - about as much as I can do and keep my job, not get sick, stay motivated, etc. What I'm wondering is if I'd be better off making all the workouts "stacked" or trying to separate them, i.e. alternate weeks of aerobic vs. weights, etc.

January 3, 2003 U.S. Trying to Save Washington Forest by Cutting It Down By TIMOTHY EGAN LEAVENWORTH, Wash. — In a valley that has known both terrifying wildfire and deep-scarring logging, there is considerable skepticism whenever government officials show up and say they want to start taking out trees. But that is what happened a few weeks ago, when the Bush administration named the land around the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery here as one of 10 places nationwide where officials plan to test a new policy of trying to save forests by first cutting them down. "We had people calling us saying, `They aren't going to clearcut the valley are they?' " said Corky Broadeus, a spokeswoman for the hatchery, which was once the world's largest salmon nursery, and is on federal land in the Icicle Creek Valley, just outside the Bavarian-themed village of Leavenworth. The spectacle of big fish returning to a mountain town of Wiener schnitzel and year-round Christmas lights after swimming past five dams and up 500 miles of the Columbia River is one of the big draws to this valley on the east side of the Cascades. No matter how much maypole dancing is going on above ground, as long as the creek that runs through here is cold and clean, Leavenworth is an excellent place to spawn and die — for salmon. Without adequate forest cover, though, the creek could warm, harming salmon. But government officials say they have no plans to resume the kind of logging that ripped apart national forests and choked salmon streams in the 1970's and 80's. Still, even simple thinning of public forests has become too cumbrous and bureaucratic, Bush administration officials say, and they want to show how it can be done by speeding up environmental appeals. The goal is to prevent catastrophic fire in areas where fire has been suppressed for a century, allowing the forest to build up. Eventually, the administration wants to expand the policy of streamlining the environmental process to as many as 190 million acres of public land at high risk of fires. The project is part of President Bush's "Healthy Forests Initiative," announced in August. After Congress balked at approving the plan, the administration — with several announcements in the last month — has been trying to enact core aspects of the program by giving government land managers more leeway. By skirting a resistant Congress, the focus of the Bush administration's management of public lands moves out of Washington and into communities such as Leavenworth. The people who live in this valley are somewhat surprised to be on the initial project list of forests to be thinned. What they want from the federal government is money to enhance the salmon hatchery, opening up the creek to natural spawning. "They don't have funds to restore the river, but now there's this money to start cutting trees," said Harriett Bullitt, who owns the Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat, which borders land along the hatchery in Icicle Creek where the government wants to thin trees. "It sounds suspicious." Bush administration officials say fire prevention is the top priority. "We're trying to expedite our processes in order to prevent catastrophic damage to our forests and rangelands," said Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton. A team will soon start surveying trees to be cut in the small island of green surrounded by steep mountain walls that burned in two epic fires, in 1994 and 2000. The earlier fire burned for three weeks, destroyed 19 homes, and eventually joined two other fires in consuming 181,000 acres. Typically, before the government may cut a stand of trees, it must solicit public comment and write a report on what impact the logging would have on fish and wildlife. The administration plan would suspend these reports in some cases, and would streamline them in others. Critics of the plan say President Bush is using fire prevention as a way to resume large-scale logging and get around environmental laws. "It all looks like arcane regulation, but what it adds up to is maximum discretion with minimum public accountability," said Jay Watson, a West Coast official with the Wilderness Society. "This administration believes the pendulum has swung too far for conservation. But they are fighting majority sentiment trying to go back the other way." Mr. Watson pointed to a Forest Service survey of 7,069 people, published in September, which showed majority support for wilderness, and little support for logging and snowmobile access to public land, which the administration also favors. Some Fish and Wildlife Service biologists here are concerned that the thinning plan might strip the valley of some of its remaining tree cover. "I told them I don't see any need here to take out trees close to the river, which is great wildlife habitat," said Julie Collins, a federal biologist. But federal officials say they plan to take out only small trees, and will do so judiciously. The intent is to prevent more fire in a sliver of land surrounded by high mountain walls. "You've got slopes in there that are just steeper than a cow's face," said Pam Ensley, a regional fire director with Fish and Wildlife. "By streamlining the environmental assessment process, we can do this fire prevention work more quickly." Ms. Bullitt, whose family is a major contributor to environmental causes, says she doubts the government is interested only in fire prevention. "They want to get a little foot in the door, and then go much bigger," Ms. Bullitt said. Leavenworth used to be a railroad and logging town, then went nearly bust before resurrecting itself as a year-round tourist center. Signs are printed in German and English, a testament to the old country visitors who want to see what the new country knockoff looks like. The hatchery dates to 1939, when completion of Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River blocked off 1,200 miles of spawning habitat for one of the world's great salmon runs. To make up for the lost fish, the government created a series of hatcheries on the eastern slope of the Cascades. The idea was to hatch fish from eggs in cement ponds on Icicle Creek, which flows into a part of the Columbia that was not blocked by Grand Coulee. Some years, the salmon returns have been anemic. But in recent years, large numbers of chinook, or king salmon, have made their way to the Icicle, providing fish for this community and for Indians who still net the fish from platforms, in the traditional way. By removing some of the barriers to more water just above the hatchery, biologists say they can reopen the creek to natural spawning of salmon, steelhead and bull trout. But now that the money to open the channel appears uncertain, community leaders have stepped in, offering to raise $300,000 and do it themselves. They say the government is welcome to thin some trees around the river, so long as it does not harm the creek that nourishes a run of fish that may be better known in Germany than it is in the United States. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Permissions | Privacy Policy

pentavirate doesn't make it into dictionary.com either... but i like the fact that it's top suggestion was: "paint a picture"

I have a question about my winter workout routine. I'm training for technical alpine climbing, not "mountaineering" or "rock climbing"; (although obviously it's all related). I'been doing some research and have found that there are two conflicting philosophies about this kind of training. On one hand, some people recommend "stacking" strength workouts on top of aerobic workouts, as this more closely simulates the conditions you encounter on a long climb. Your muscles become accustomed to performing when they've already been somewhat depleted. Other sources, however, claim that your training will be much more efficient if any particular area is fully recovered before your workout, i.e. you would get better effect for the same total workout time if you did a long, hard aerobic workout one day and strength training to failure another. What do you think?

Pencilpusher - I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that anyone who expresses interest in the mental aspects of climbing is whining? That you have never had the experience of fear affecting your performance? That Real Men don't talk about this sort of thing? Please elucidate.

chris wrote: chris, i think the point others are trying to make is that ALL terrain with snow on it is "avalanche terrain" under the right conditions. the risk can never be reduced to zero. i think as bc skiers and climbers, our goal should be to understand the level of risk we are taking and to be sure that we are ok with accepting that level of risk. knowingly taking risks is not (necessarily) foolish, what is foolish is to be unaware of the risk we are exposing ourselves to. we make a deliberate decision to tolerate a certain degree of risk in order to achieve something we desire: powder turns, winter solitude, whatever. we would be fooling ourselves to believe that we can ever, through knowledge or experience, completely eliminate danger in the mountains.

i lost a poster of jack sikma from the '79 championship season when we moved to a new house when i was 10. if you found it when you moved into our house, please send me a PM.

i don't know the whole story, but my understanding is that for many years, all park concessions (not just here but all over the country) were monopolies, the park service only wanted to deal with one concessionaire for any given business. concessionaires have the right to match the highest bid because in a lot of businesses, they will have invested a lot of money in facilities (think ahwanee hotel). as for why rmi has it, i imagine it has something to do with the fact that the whittakers were national heroes for planting old glory on top of the big-E and had good connections in washington. actually, when rmi got started, was there anyone else who wanted the concession?

just got around to reading this, thought it was a pretty balanced article, on the whole. i think it says that the group size is being reduced to 12 from 24, which sounds like an improvement to me unless that just means two groups of twelve instead of a single group of 24. i have really mixed feelings about the whole future of guiding on rainier. on the one hand, with the growing popularity of climbing, people need somewhere to go and part of me thinks we should just be prepared to "sacrifice" one area (in this case rainier) to keep people from spreading out evenly over the whole range. on the other hand, part of me wants to try to preserve as much as possible free from commercialism. i can also see both sides of the guide vs. guide issue. on one hand, rmi's monopoly is not at all fair, and it's obvious that the other guide services have a very strong case. on the other hand, i think that it's cool when an organization of historical significance continues to operate. the article mentions the exum guiding service on the grand teton, with exclusive rights to guide the exum ridge. i think that's pretty neat. for what it's worth, the written comments i submitted at one of the public meetings on the new management plan were along the lines of "no increase in the total number of paying clients on the mountain, but distribute the days more fairly"

colonial n. face in feb. 2000 btw, i hope anyone contemplating going up there already knows this, but the basin below colonial is one of the most dangerous places in the cascades when avy. danger is high. this is just one of many criss-crossing avy. tracks we crossed:

i know that all the cool kids aid climb in approach shoes, but i've had a lot of luck using an extra big pair of rock shoes. i have an old pair of boreal ballets, after abour 5 resoles, i can comfortably wear wool socks in them. i trimmed down some insoles to fit, and i find them very comfortable to stand in all day... and when i have to step out of the aiders, i am often glad to be wearing a real rock shoe and not souped-up tennis shoes. they are also good for alpine stuff, i can walk reasonable distances in them fairly comfortably. final benefit, the narrow toe makes it easier to get them into your aider steps in those awkward situations where the darn things keep folding closed.

slothrop wrote: as if there is such a thing...

when i was a kid, my friends and i went to the james bond film festival at the neptune, they showed all the movies in order back to back. we went in with a big bag of snacks and stumbled out, 16 hours later, completely destroyed. It would probably take a lot longer now, but i think the last flick was for your eyes only. i think that's still my fav. 007 movie, mostly because he kill some dude with a piton while prussiking a rope with his shoelaces

that boulder was on my paper route when i was 13, when i was just getting into climbing. i would do the easy route in my tennis shoes a couple of times every day. when you're a goofy kid, people expect you to do stuff like that and i never got any hassle. or maybe they knew that if they called the cops, they'd never get a newspaper again. i don't ever remember seeing graffiti back then, but i did once see some people set up a top rope on it.

how sad is this: i got $150 worth of gift certificates - from three different family members - to Home Depot. Not that they won't come in handy, but I guess everyone figures I'm a full-time homeowner. hey, i'm a mini-disc enthusiast too. got mine in singapore a few years ago. i think it's very cool, but i fear the technology is soon to be supplanted by some variation of solid state, mp3 or whatever, because they're even lighter and with no mechanical parts, even more battery efficient.

the upshot of the shell sizing thing is that because they are less bulky than a typical liner, your shell needs to be a bit (like a half size) smaller than you would usually buy. this means that if you already own boots, they you may not be able to put intuition liners in them. (well, you can put them in, but they may fit very sloppy). I deliberately bought mine a half size small, but i can't wear them with the regular liners. on the other hand, because they are closed cell foam, i understand that they will swell somewhat at altitude. i seem to remember that a few years ago, a woman with alveolite liners got frostbite on her feet on denali when they swelled up and cut off circulation to her feet. so you can't fit them super-sensitive-M10 heel hooking tight, either. anyway, they are great, very warm and incredibly light. i got mine fit at marmot, they did a great job, but remember that wherever you go, there's probably only one person in the shop who is really good at fitting, so you should call and make an appointment instead of just showing up. final note, if the place you are buying is mostly a ski shop, they may only have the "ski" liners, which will stick up about 6 inches above your plastic boot shell. i ended up with these, because marmot was out of the climbing liners, but it wasn't a big deal to cut them down by hand and sew the top up to make a nice clean edge. PM me if you want more details about this.

feathered friends does a good job on washing, but it can take quite a while. on the plus side, if the gore-tex delaminates in the wash, you might just get a new jacket... for the DYI, i second the recommendation about putting the bag/jacket/whatever through the washer a second time without soap so that it rinses really well and gets all the soap out of the down. soap residue is a major cause of clumps! also, if it's a gore-tex/dryloft/whatever bag, turn it inside out so that the water can escape through the non-waterproof fabric more easily in the spin cycle.

fc9 - a) in fact, I do find that most radicals (rush limbaugh, john sellers, whoever) are pretty tiresome unless you are a true believer, because they see things as either black or white, with little recognition of subtlety. HOWEVER: b) it is extremely disingenuous to suggest that patagonia is the kind of multi-national corporate interest that sellers is referring to. yes, it's large for an outdoor clothing company, but it's hardly shell oil c) fifteen thousand whole dollars? wow, that's like enough money to pay for 1 half-time employee. yup, I see it now, ruckus has totally sold out, beholden to the corporate mega-interests of yvon chouinard. d) my ice9 bibs fit really, really well