forrest_m

i posted this once before, on this thread, where a bunch of people recounted their experiences.

i agree that in the field, it is important to be safe, but i strongly disagree with the "pretend there are crevasses in your living room" theory. ISTM that difficulty in learning crevasse rescue often comes in because the diagrams in the book are usually step-by-step from ice axe arrest to completed rescue. i think this is very confusing to beginners; i've found that if i teach the z-pulley system as an abstracted concept, it sticks better and people are much more able to remember it later and adapt it to the specific situation in the field. i've found that for crevasse rescue technique to sink in with beginners, it is very helpful to separate the basic system of pulleys from all the trappings of the climbing environment. we start in the backyard with only the absolute minimum of equipment - the rope, 2 pulleys, 2 prussik slings, a few biners. only after people are really clear on the concept do i start to introduce "how dow i get here starting in ice axe arrest." once people realize that the basic 3:1 system isn't that complicated, it reduces the intimidation factor that makes it hard for people to learn. it depends on your audience, but i've often found that doing more complicated 6:1 and 9:1 systems on the first day - again, abstractly, ignoring the "climbing" part - is actually a very good way to get people to clearly understand how the system works. remember, many people haven't played with mechanical advantage systems since high school physics.

correct me if i'm wrong, but arent the nozzles on diesel pumps shaped differently to avoid this very issue? i always assumed a regular nozzle just wouldn't fit into a diesel tank and vice versa

ptarmigan was my first thought, too, but they said no crevasse danger. hey, wouldn't this be cool: take a course *first* somewhere in the boston basin area, then have them leave you in the cascade pass parking lot at the end. then use your newfound glacier skills to do the ptarmigan north to south. the only thing missing is a ride from downey creek back to civilization...

given what you describe, a good itinerary might be to do the wonderland trail that circumnavigates mount rainier starting and ending at longmire; then go directly to a mountaineering course offered by one of the guide services on the mountain. there's even a shuttle from the airport to longmire in the summer, so you probably could do this without renting a car. wonderland trail is ~90 miles and about 20,000 total feet of elevation gain, IIRC, so would be a good challenge. it can certainly be done in 5 days, though most people take longer. this does require some advance planning for permits etc.

hey, that's cool, i hadn't seen that before. unfortunately, the topo for spont. arete is the one that has a messed up link - so is unreadable. maybe someone at ncmg will fix this soon.

yet another nice line... any chance of posting some photos of the climbing here for those of us who don't have bivouac memberships?

the east pillar is almost entirely diorite (or whatever the non-granite on slesse is), though the lower buttress toe (to the top of the first pitch per mclane) is granite. my impression is that nav. wall. is similar. northeast butt. is strange, mostly granite down low and on the right (north) side, but the joint with the diorite is right on the crest on the upper half of the route. despite not being granite, the diorite is not pure choss, either; on the e. pillar, it was pretty solid, with lots of edges, but without long continuous crack systems. we did a lot of face climbing to connect small corners, flakes and whatnot. we placed a lot of smaller cams and were happy for the fixed pro. again, nav. wall appears to be similar.

heat some olive oil in your pan. add gnocci and fry until golden brown. squeeze in a tube of that salmon pate in a toothpaste tube you can get at euro import delis. stir until it melts into salmon creme sauce. garnish with fresh cilantro.

all my regular partners have plans for the whole w/e but i have to be in town sat & sun i'd be up for alpine or crag, heck i'd even go bouldering. shoot me a pm

look here

CBS wrote No, this is trench foot: from what i can glean from the net, the mechanism of trench foot is more related to frostbite than to the bacterial infection that makes your shoes stink. according to this web site, Pitted keratolysis is related to hot climates and unsanitary feet, rather than cold & wet climates like immersion foot (trench foot) the site goes on to report:

we climbed the NEB over memorial day weekend. the moat was already visible but well bridged at that time.

actually, IIRC the reason they had to go to the third-party fabric mfr. is because PTFE materials with the wicking inner layer that were/are the standard material for single wall tents and bivy sacks don't meet US flammability standards so gore stopped selling the material to US tent makers. for a while, i remember, you could still get gore tex tents from integral designs because they were in canada and didn't have the same issues. the rest of your story matches my memory, that todd-tex emerged as a bibler re-branding of third-party PTFE fabric made after the original patent ran out.

anyone know where the chiwawa river road is gated in the winter?

wrap 3 - pull 2 is rescue-speak for wrapping a sling around an anchor in such a way that the knot is subjected to the least possible strain*. you're correct that it is not, in itself, redundant. as i said before i don't believe that people just learning to TR should be discouraged from adding additional redundancy to their system. optimization can come with experience. * i.e. if you simply tie a sling around a tree, the weak point of your anchor is the knot in the sling. if instead the sling passes around the tree several times, you can get the full strength of the sling material. like this: wrap 3 pull 2 = three times around the tree, pull the two strands furthest from the knot towards the load and put the carabiner through both. adjust the knot until it is flat against the tree (on the side facing the load). that way, the load on the knot is reduced by all the friction of the sling passing against the anchor - around a medium sized tree, the knot will actually remain almost slack even under rescue loads. the same principle can be applied to any number of wraps if your anchor is smaller diameter, i.e. wrap 4-pull 3, etc. edited to add description of wrap 3

well, without having seen the setup, i would agree that one 10" dia. tree - if it's healthy and well rooted - is likely more than sufficient. i mean, think about how much force a decent wind puts on the top of the tree, with the whole tree as a lever arm. the extra weight of a climber is pretty insignificant. however, if you are a beginner, creating a second redundant anchor that separately connects to the rope isn't a BAD thing. it's not so much that you are worried that the first tree will fail, more that it protects you in case you did something dumb with the first anchor (screwed up the knot, carabiner gate over an edge, etc). while doubling up the anchors isn't the most efficient thing in the world, it's also unlikely to cause any harm.

james, to answer your specific question, from your description it sounds like you were somewhere in the valley below perfect pass. i've never dropped anywhere near that far down, so i don't know what's down there, but i suspect that with good visibility, you would have been able to get past the cliff band that stumped you and eventually been able to climb up the basin to perfect pass. there are a number of ways to get past the imperfect impasse without losing so much altitue. there is a good discussion of the options on this thread. since this was posted, i have been in there one more time and i can confirm the 400' above the toe traverse as a good option, though quite exposed.

that looks sweet! <looks up topo maps online> so is silver horn the 8,252' summit due east of silver star? or one of those things further east towards 7,332? (if you have it, feel free to post gps data for camp and/or summit to help orient those of us following along at home) in any case, that approach up cedar creek doesn't look too bad, a few miles of trail then some east-side bushwacking...

FWIW, i have been using CM tools for over 15 years and have never broken a pick or had a pick come loose while on a climb. i've bent them by torquing in cracks, smooshed the nose by repeatedly bashing them into rocks, shortened them into unusability by repeated sharpening, upgraded to newer tooth designs, etc. but never actually snapped one. to CM pick design engineers!

9/16 & 1/2 inch rap sling weighs less, is less bulky and is more flexible when it comes to rapping off of jammed knots and similar trickery. it's certainly plenty strong enough for the forces that rapelling puts on it. i imagine that 1" webbing is more durable on routes that see a lot of traffic, but to be honest, when i'm setting raps, i'm usually not too worried about subsequent parties. it's always a judgement call whether you are going to trust in situ rap slings, no different with thinner slings.

it seems to me that the issue with the aztars isn not that they "suck" at anything, but just that they're not different enough from the quarks to justify their existence. my opintion is that the quark is still the best "full featured" tool on the market, and as don says, it really doesn't weight much more. if i owned both, i'd be hard pressed to think of a situation where i'd take the regular aztars instead of my quarks. i solved my consumption dilemma by buying a pair of aztarEX tools for alpine climbing, the stripped-down version of the aztar. the EX tools are far enough removed that they clearly serve a different niche and are much lighter than the quarks. ridgeline, I loved my axars (they were my only tools from 2000-2004), but finally got tired of all the bumps on the head when using as an axe. the final straw for me was down-frontpointing 2,500' of 45 deg. neve on the descent from joffre, i couldn't ride by bike for a week because of the bruises on my palms. (i know, don solves this problem by grinding down the top of the pick, but i seems like a pain to me every time i want to change picks).

ania - obviously, the correct way to take your picnic basket is to have your butler carry it. or perhaps one of those sherpa fellows, they're so friendly and an absolute whiz at whipping out a pot of tea in a tight spot. sincerely, forrest wooster

I think Carlos is a little over the top, in the sense that I think it is pretty well accepted that routes can end at points that are not the geographic summit – but only if it’s clear that what the first ascent party has in mind from the outset. Beyond that, I think he’s right on. I mean, this whole climbing game is made up rules anyway, right? So the measure of success and failure should be “did you achieve your objective?” If the honest answer is, “yes, we wanted to climb this cool ice line to the ridge,” well, that’s a new route. If the answer is “well, we wanted to continue to the summit but the weather crapped out,” well, I’m sorry my friend, but that is called an “attempt.” If you say “yes, we flew all the way to Alaska/Pakistan/Patagonia with the specific objective of climbing halfway up an established route and then climbing some new pitches to end in the middle of a wall before traversing over to descend the standard route - in a single push - and that’s our new route called megaclassic VII 5.11 M9,” then I guess you should get busy writing the next press release for your sponsors.

your honor, i object. the prosecution is leading the witness.