philfort

Alex, your last sentence makes no sense whatsoever. Did you have a seizure while typing?

The book's photographs, especially, are excellent.

Has anyone been up on the north side of Vesper peak lately? What is the glacier looking like? Still skiable? Sun-cupped?

The Purcells, Selkirks are all subranges of the Columbia Mtns I believe (along with the Cariboos, Bugaboos, etc...).

Has anyone done the 2000ft 'ice face' just to the left of the NE butt? Does it look any good?

Kyle, please post your findings to this thread when you return.... I'd be interested to know how bad/good it is. thanks Phil

Quote from the second article: "A Blackhawk helicopter floated several hundred feet off the top of the Central Oregon peak, rescuing 40-year-old Matt Gorman from slopes so steep, they seemingly stabbed at the sky. " Looks like some journalist is a novelist-wannabe.

Do the approach hike from the Indian reservation instead of Cold Springs. It's very scenic and uncrowded - and should make up for the hassle of going through the reservation (there's a fee, and they look at you like they don't want you there).

That guy in vertical limit had a nice system - his big SLR just attached, with a satisfying click, right onto his harness.

I often take a medium format camera climbing, which is even larger than most 35mm SLRs. I generally keep it in a top-loading "wedge-shaped" camera bag on my chest, so I can access it in an instant (no point in carrying it if it stays in the pack). I attached some webbing for a neck strap (goes around my neck and one shoulder, so the camera bag is slightly off center), and then a thin strap that goes around the waist and connects to itself with a fastex buckle. So basically I wear it like an avalanche beacon. It put it on under my pack. I seen others with similar systems that attach to their pack shoulder straps, so it comes on and off with the pack. Might be better, don't know. This of course only works for glacier walking or moderate climbing, etc... Any kind of extensive vertical rock or ice, and the big blob or your chest kind of gets in the way. Phil

Explained: He dreamt all day about getting back to a life of climbing. And then he retired very recently (after he wrote that blurb), and, apparently, made his dream come true.

We climbed the North Ridge last weekend. Crossing the Coleman glacier was very straightforward - it was not very broken up. The headwall looked in reasonable shape I think. The only thing I definitely recall seeing was that the top few hundred feet of the headwall was already bare ice (darker colour) and there was some rock exposed. Don't really recall how the lower portion looked, so I guess it's not especially bad, although I doubt it's as smooth as normal for this time of year. Snow was firm nearly the whole way on the N ridge, but really sloppy descending the Coleman in the afternoon. I don't think the headwall gets any morning sun, so it'll probably be firm as long as you get a good overnight freeze. We didn't notice any activity on it (no people, no avalanches, no icefall). Phil

hmmm - reminds me of something I was thinking about a while ago - getting payed for providing recent beta! Kind of like some people have posted here wanting to pay someone to hump their gear up to Camp Muir. Some rich guy could pay someone to go check out , say, how consolidated the snow is leading up to Liberty Bell Beckey route, will they need snowshoes tomorrow, and how much snow is left on the route? Checking the condition of hte Lib Ridge bergschrund would obviously be more expensive, though for a lower rate, you could just hike up to lower Curtis Ridge and take some telephoto shots of the bergscrhund to give to your 'employer'. Probably not a huge market for this though :-)

Again, depends on the airline. I've travelled with stoves on planes before without a problem, but the reason dbb asked, is because Continental, which is a really really *lame* airline, explicitly forbids any kind of camping stove or bottle, even if it's been purged of fuel, even if it's brand new. Says so on their website, and that's what they told me in person. But can you get away with it? What happens if you get caught? It's definitely *not* a violation of FAA regulations (since other airlines do allow purged stoves/bottles), so probably just lose your stove, no fine... Has anyone flown on Continental, or any of the other stupid airlines that prohibit stoves, and what did you do?

Looks like everyone got picked off by the chopper in the nice weather this evening. Perhaps one of them will post the whole story on this site??

Speaking of the bombpack - did they change the size of that or something? I'm currently looking to buy a pack in the 60L range for multiday trips, and I've noticed that 50L packs are a LOT bigger than my bombpack, which is specced at 52L. And I've got a large. I bought it about 6 or 7 years ago - did they change the size??? It's freaking me out. Anyway, any suggestions for a lightweight alpine pack for multiday trips (say 2-4 days)? I'm headed to the St Elias range in a few weeks, and I definitely need something bigger than the Bombpack for multiday "sojourns" out of basecamp. My other pack, a Terraplane, is certainly big enough, but it weighs more than 7 pounds by itself. I've been looking at stuff like the Wild Things Andinista, and the Arcteryx Khamsin 62. Is the Nozone big enough for something like this? Who sells Nozone's in Seattle? phil

Hard to imagine how an avalanche could "wipe out" part of the route - I'm not really sure what that means. What I assumed that to mean is they saw/experienced an avalanche, realized the snow was extremely unstable, and thus couldn't continue safely. Of course, this is all speculation, so I'd better stop! As for "return route" - perhaps they had started to bail?

...yikes - just the thought of being up on Liberty Ridge in yesterday's weather is pretty scary. Luckily the weather is good today - hopefully they'll get them out unscathed... How was Ptarmigan Ridge? TR?

!!MY GUESS IS THEY HEADED IN FROM MOWICH LAKE OR IPSUT CREEK, CONSIDERING THEY APPROACHED THE RIDGE FROM THE WEST !?!!

mmm... booty. Last time I did the Tooth there were two brand new cams stuck in cracks along the way. We decided to try to get them out on the descent, but a thunderstorm made us concentrate on descending instead of the booty :-)

Hmm.... we did it last year on a semi-weekday schedule. Thursday-Friday-Saturday. It was crowded - 14 other people (in 6 parties) on route (8 of us converged at the crux of the route, just below Liberty Cap - much pelting of ice ensued). We got the last available "reservations" for Thumb Rock when we arrived at White River Thursday morning. So going mid-week may not be a guarantee of uncrowdedness. Most people seemed to be from out-of-state anyway, on extended vacations.

No one has mentioned that the White River Road is still closed. Scheduled to open only next Monday, according to http://www.nps.gov/mora/current/current.htm#roadopen If this is true, that adds a lot of miles.

Agreed - the standing glissade is the way to go. I always get my butt and feet soaked when doing regular glissades (my gaitors suck). Unfortunately the standing glissade is a little more conditions dependant.

Hmm - I've got a friend coming to climb Rainier in early August, and we were thinking of doing Ptarmigan Ridge - I wonder if that's going to be a little late this year. I guess I'm mainly worried about rockfall on the snow slope leading from the glacier up to the technical pitches. Does that snow slope ever melt out? I get the feeling from stuff I've read that Ptarmigan Ridge has one of the longest seasons of the more technical routes - but maybe that's just because there isn't any nasty glacier to navigate through on the approach. Phil

<sigh> here we go again...