dbb

lots of houses in Field have basements that they will rent out nightly. several seemed to be "walk in" kind of deals.

interesting photos. The "Y" actually looks like it is an anchor slung around that rock in the right part of the photo. a big loop of rope around it. Maybe that was their anchor while in the snow cave? Even more interesting is that the picture of foot steps seems to show that there were three people ascending together. Take a close look at the picture, in some places you will see 3 distinct ice axe holes. Most climbers put the ice axe in with each step or every other step. almost never, and certainly not repeatedly, would you reset your own ice axe three times in the same step. Seems like they made those steps as a team.

Chinook helicopters have a 3ft square hole in the bottom of them that they are able to lower and raise a winch cable out of. If the person medically does not need to be immobilized, they can simply be loaded onto a 1-2 person carrier/seat called a "jungle penetrator". They clip into the ring at the end of the cable and are winched up into the aircraft. The hole is also large enough to accomidate a "litter", what rescuers use to transport people with broken legs, backs, etc. kind of a backboard with handles and rails around it. these can be hooked to the winch cable and guided into the helicopter from below. The latter is more difficult and time consuming, but still fairly standard practice. I would say that winching them into the bird on the jungle penetrator is the most likely scenario. Another option is to do a "hot" landing on the summit, where flat enough ground allows for the helicopter to set down. They keep the engines running at full speed so there is no danger getting stuck. If the winds are high, they may very well use this option. They can also hover/land with only part of the aircraft on the mountain (like the back, where the door is). Just for scale, chinook helicopters are about as big as a school bus.

+++++++ energy.

seems to me that this should change in the future.

this thing looks like it would work (this is the piece NYC mentioned). it wouldn't have any annoying bolts or clamps to interfere with ergonomics:

Jens- it doesn't work. the Quark shaft is too big for the metal thing included with the "viper Strike". I opened one up and tried. I did talk to the Petzl rep at "rep night" and he said they are coming out with a simmilar thing for the quark next year.

Good luck you guys. Sending positive energy your way. Hang in there. To the searchers: work hard and stay safe. you guys rock

you can walk off up and right, but we just made one 200ft rap from a small tree. Quick and easy way back to the base.

wet Champagne a thin Trotsky's

just a reminder, temps are supposed to go above freezing starting tomorrow. Climbing the devil's punchbowl in these conditions is extraordinarily dangerous. Do what you want, but nearly every time I've been in the area (about 5) I've seen people narrowly avoid injury/being killed by small to massive releases from above. Not really worth the risk IMHO for a single pitch 2+.

great show Mark!

nice man, looks spicy

very nice Chris. I think a lot of us were wondering if banks had come in. thx

It is a good point that Dale makes. You could get way more hours of burn on with light, preset ropes, and short (for most) commute to a gym. I think if there was a persistant enough crowd a gym would probably at least consider it. I wouldn't even mind getting a set of drytool holds for the gym if we could put 'em up.

is the video on the internet? in the tieing off, how far out of the ice did they have the hangar? taking 20+ falls on the same rope is going to seriously change his results, i.e. the rope impact force is going to increase with more falls. But people will always bag on an experimental design. It's cool to see some folks out there actually giving these things a test outside of a lab. bonath- The mammut screamers work just as well I'm sure. They are made out of the skinny spectra/dyneema/etc webbing and are probably better suited for remote ice/alpinists/walls where weight matters. For ice cragging, the Yates (made from 1" tubular nylon) will likely have greater longevity. Cheaper is nice too. Personally, I can't stand using the "ice screamers". They are so long that they will catch in your crampons if you let them hang. You can easily clip the biners together for more compact racking, but it is yet another step to do.

sounds a lot like my experience there from several years ago. We had to tunnel though waist/chest deep powder to get to the base (bonehead ice climbers, we should have been skiing!). Found simmilar snowy slab slush, so I sunk in one of my trusty snargs as a bail piece and downclimbed from the base of the curtain. A nice solid yank of the rope retrieved my screw once I was down maybe that's why they call us 'yanks' up north? wish I could join you guys next w/e. D

that poor abused little sapling..

It seemed pretty clear when this was loudly annouced over a month ago that there would be no signage: but it sounds like they took the notice down from the SRD kiosk? I'd say it's not about being "scared" of a ticket, it's about respecting the land managers so that we continue to have access in the future.

is that the stuff right off the road, kinda by the dorms kurt?

no problem. it only took me a second to pull off the TPS report cover. another nice thing about BD's constant head design is that you can put viper components on the reactors or (I'm pretty sure) fusions. voila, leashless hammers.

I got the memo, and it says that all BD picks fit on all BD tools (except the venom, but that's not a tool!)

I think we should test one of alpinfox's 16 year old screamers. though it would be a shame to watch true 80's lycra be destroyed

need to put in a link to the actual image, not just the gallery page:

what did it sound like Al?