forrest_m

you can sign the online petition here i know online petitions aren't the best way to get the attention of government officials, but the end of the comment period is this friday, sept 30

i think it was called the "alpine shovel" or something equally obvious. No longer in their catalog, so probably no longer manufactured - you'll have to troll the used equipment stores or ebay to find one. SMC and Grivel also used to make basically the same design, alson no longer available at retail. Two problems with this design is that it is very small, so doesn't move that much snow and more importantly, doesn't fit over most modern ice tool shafts, only old skool non-shaped types. I could get it only my CM Axar shafts, but not with a very positive attachment, so it was ok for moving loose snow but kind of useless for chopping at avy. debris or hard snow. The advantage is, of course, that it is very small and you can also use it as a stove board.

i have used the stratos doubles a bunch. they are very durable. they do get stiffer with age, but with thin ropes, this is much less of a problem than with single ropes. even brand new, they were stiffer and had a less smooth hand than many ropes.there are lighter half ropes out there, but the stratos are pretty confidence inspiring.

yeah, the snoq. valley trail is nice. i like how it just cuts through the farmland instead of following right next to the road like so many bike trails. the only thing i don't like about it for the big day is that it is too flat (old railroad grade), the route i outlined above actually has a lot of hills both coming and going - less boring, less (for me) knee fatigue because of varied pace.

i've done this once a year for the last couple of years. the first time, my time was similar to yours but I've gotten it under 12 hours, mostly by figuring out the most efficient bike route. i think the fastest way is on a bike is actually to go south, cross i-90, get off at newport way and follow that to issaquah, then take the gravel bike road (issaquah-preston trail) from the new overpass at the east end of 'quah. that ends a few miles short of preston, but there's good shoulders most of the way. then hop on the deceptively named preston-snoqualmie trail (deceptive because it dead-ends before snoqualmie). leave the trail where it crosses the preston-fall city road and coast down to cross the river at fall city, then turn right and follow the highway past snoq. falls, snoq. and into downtown north bend. i park the bike at the little si trailhead and take the old trail to the summit as it is more direct.

in general, the copyright on a photo belongs to the owner of the camera, not the person who pushed the button. while erik and mike may feel like they are "co-owners" of the photos, i'm not certain that a publisher's legal department would necessarily agree. in this case, i'm guessing that erik submitted photos from mike's camera to the paper. they put in "courtesy" to cover their butts, it's their way of saying "erik gave us the photos; he may or may not be the holder of the copyright, but we don't care because he is taking responsibility for having permission from whoever actually holds the copyright" sorry for thread drift.

more discussion of the two face options with a picture!

let me add my voice to the chorus saying holy jesus and baby jesus! that was an intense read. sounds like a true partnership, both climbers totally relying on each other.

sorry, i thought this was a "what will the weather be like in ______ (insert climbing area) in ______ (insert time frame far in the future)" thread

what about jan. 25, 2006? can you tell me if it will be clear or cloudy? what will the daytime high temperature be?

i'm planning a trip to lillooet on dec. 4-7, what do you think the weather will be like?

cost comparison for effervescent "active hydration": nuun - one tube at recommended concentration = 4 liters, with quantity discount, $6.50/tube so that's $1.63/liter. for 1 liter of water sodium 700 mg potassium 200 mg calcium 50 mg magnesium 50 mg vit. C 150 mg vit. B2 2,000 mcg 2,580 mcg emergen-c (lemon-lime flavor) web page, at recommended concentration (1 packet for 6 oz. water) = approx. 6 packets per liter. box of 36 packets costs $8.69 = $1.45/liter for 1 liter of water sodium 360 mg potassium 1,200 mg calcium 300 mg magnesium 360 mg vit. C 6,000 mg vit. B2 2,580 mcg so, if you're into this sort of thing, looks to me like emergen-c is a better deal? less sodium, but way more potassium. available at almost any grocery store. though, 6 packs per bottle is a lot more concentrated than i ever mix it. dru's probably right that you can make your own for pennies, but any ideas on getting the effervescence? seems to make it mix better and my tummy likes it on nervous alpine mornings.

yes, your photo is where i was talking about. i must have missed one of the fixed pins - was it lower down? i started in the right hand crack and traversed in below the roofs. 10b sounds about right. i thought the technical crux was actually traversing back right from the fin at the top of the corner - it might be a lot easier without the lichen! a friend of mine did the right hand variation (with the bolt) and claims that it was only 5.9 - he was doing the route with a relatively inexperienced leader and she led that pitch. sure looks harder from below.

holy photo assault!!! super cool job, mike, and inspiring pics. dan aylward and i did the silver star part of the traverse the weekend before your climb and were eyeing the continuation. i was going to post a TR and some photos, but it seems a bit superfluous now... FWIW, that in itself is a fabulous day out and i highly recommend it. BETA ALERT! the crux climbing for us was the last 200' to the summit of Silverhorn (up some aretes and then a chimney just left of the crest, up through a cannonhole from the back of the chimney onto the summit, 5.8?) we only made one rap the whole day, from the back of the first big tower beyond silverhorn. we downclimbed the rest of the descents, though we passed a number of fixed anchors. we didn't bring rock shoes - sticky rubber tennis shoes worked for us, though downclimbing the silverstar glacier was interesting, even with aluminum crampons. we brought a single 25 meter rope and a rack consisting of 4 stoppers and 4 cams. it took us almost exactly 15 hours CTC including the bike shuttle from silverstar creek back to cedar creek. there is no water between the trailhead and the summit this late in the season, although there were snowpatches here and there on a rained-out attempt back in july.

yes, quality vs. quantity, but there's more than one way to define quality. the quality of my experience is inversely proportional to the amount of stuff i'm hauling. CTC lets me carry a daypack instead of overnight gear. (with an 8-month old daughter, i'm also with stefan in the limited time category, so this is partly lemonade-out-of-lemons)

thanks for the suggestions. we ended up opting for yellow aster butte, which was lovely. gourmet meals were consumed. blueberries were picked. sunsets were watched. lakes were swum in. diapers were changed. in short, a good time was had by all.

planning a 3-day backpacking trip for me, my wife, our 7-month old baby and 3 friends from out of town who aren't very outdoorsy. would like to hike max. 2 hours (at a moderate pace) to a lake, camp two nights, come home. had thought perhaps lake annette near rainy pass? but something closer to seattle would be nice. TIA.

yes. there are fixed anchors for a single rope. even with a single rope, there are only 2 or 3 raps, assuming you downclimb after you traverse out of the first gully.

feathered friends makes a great down bag. they make a bunch of different couples bags, ground sheets, etc., you can go to the store and see them yourself. you can customize stuff like does the hood come off so it doesn't lie across your face in "comforter" mode. in general, you probably want a slightly warmer bag than you might think for this application. this is because the shape is not very efficient compared to a mummy bag. you can get it a bit warmer and still be miles ahead weight-wise over two sleeping bags. because each person has a zipper, you can vent your side if you're too hot.

cool trip report, joe! excellent photos!

as of saturday, there was a little bit of water flowing in the upper basin, but it was pretty green and slimy.

That sounds nice, except that i'm a boring married person.

Marie - hit Cntrl-shift-A to select everything in your document and then Text -> Convert to Paths. Immediately save as a different name, because this eliminates your ability to edit text - it turns all text into "shapes". Then export as a PDF. This should eliminate most font conversion problems.

try here, here and here too , in french and spanish but the language of topos is universal...

beta, like the now-defunct videotape format. while it can be purely verbal or written, true beta is a performance art, like air guitar. that being the case, getting good beta is like watching a video of someone doing the route. (back in the days when home videotaping was just getting going, there were two competing formats. just as your video store today often has things on VHS and DVD, back then it was Beta and VHS. as is usually the case in these affairs, getting a "good enough" product to market early enough to get dominant market share (i.e. VHS) was more important than getting a better product (i.e. Betamax) to market late. or something like that. IIRC, beta format survived in some specialized areas because it is higher quality.)