dbb

sounds like this guy's axe. http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=30;t=000005

True! I'm amazed no one has brought up the simuclimbing fall that Dan Alyward caught on the SW buttress of Eldorado last fall. He was leading, with one pice in for 3 people, the last guy falls, pulls the middle off, and Dan catches them with a good ledge and a "solid crimper"! Thus all you need is a solid crimper and a rope! (oh yeah, and Dan's finger strength) The way I see it, when simulclimbing exposed terrain, putting in periodic pieces turns a death fall into a fine/bad fall. The belay technique that Jason mentioned also works really well when descending. While downclimbing, rush ahead while the lower climber is in a good spot, and slap a munter hitch onto the biner of the piece you're at. When the rope comes taught, move to the next piece.

I have recently converted the old 1972 buildering guide to the UW campus into a web page. There you will find route description for major "Peaks" of the range, pictures of selected routes, new construction updates, and maps to Peak locations. There is also a crag/bouldering section. Check it out under "special features": http://www.alpinedave.com -Dave

word Dru. What is it with everyone loving aliens for free climbing?? When they get old the stems get all flopy. Metolious all the way for little cams!

Hey TTT, how were conditions on the Coleman-D for a ski descent? Those 'schrunds at 8K opening up much? how about that corridor leading up to the saddle, is it still pretty smooth?

It may be nit picking, but just because you can follow the trough up the DC 5 times in a summer, doesn't mean you have the sense to climb a route like liberty ridge. In fact, climbing a route like the DC over and over probably just instills a false sense of security about your own judgement on the mountain. btw, the survivor descended the winthrop glacier. Epic.

I think eric is creating a girlfriend for himself. Instead of Amber, let's call a spade a spade and use "Lefty." btw "Lefty", visit am I hot or not .com often? http://image.amihot.com/hostedphotos/3EDDB299AB1641609B4FF2C6E99EAC83.jpg ...I'm such a

$15 for toilet paper? Don't be so narrow minded. It does pay for the blue bag/toilet program, but I personaly like to be able to melt snow and drink it. What you're really paying for is to have world class rangers like gator and his staff there 24/7 to haul your broken ass of any spot on that mountain.

no kidding dan, I was parked there all day too and was positive we'd get a ticket. Too bad Larry didn't show up, I think super-Bob could have thrown him in the river! ...more about bob [ 05-17-2002, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: dbb ]

I had a spring break (shear) in one of my metolious cams this weekend. Has anyone had this problem fixed with the company before? Home remedies?

My vote would be for heading down the Emmonds and cutting back across the Winthrop for two reasons: 1) if you go to the real summit, you'll have to climb all the way back to liberty cap to descend LR. 2) The descent down Emmonds is trivial in May, and the walk across the Winthrop goes really quickly. Then again, if you run up, tag liberty cap, and then come back down the upper part of the route in the warmer part of the day, it could be a good option. Also, no need for two axes on this route if you're comfy on steep snow. maybe bring one in the party for leading the ice step(s) at the top. Good luck!

quote: Saturday Climbed OuterSpace. Only 3 other rope teams. But we ended up waiting about 2.5 hours for the team ahead of us. I saw that guy hanging on the traverse pitch. They (and you too?) must have gotten a freaking early start. We left seattle at 6:30 and had Orbit all to ourselves (well, some arachnids). Great route, great weather. Finished up the day by climbing Ski Track Cracks at Sam hill as the sun set. Sweet!

quote: I like to climb. Only weekends unless I get fired soon I hope too Keep posting like you have and you may just get your wish!

The Ascender/gri-gri setup works well if you need to do a lot of stopping and is easy to setup. however you do bounce around a lot on a dynamic rope. As per which ascender, don't bash the petzl because it spooks you out a bit. maybe the cam is loose, maybe you were'nt using it right. If you're dead set against it's cam action, check out the Ushba Ti ascenders. I believe they work with an entirely different cam system (where as Jumars etc are simmilar to petzel). I think Pro mountain sports has 'em. And 2,3 or 4 probably boils down to what works best for you. try them all. I have liked using 4 and dropping the other set when not in use. However the daisies do get wrapped up eventually. I would guess that 2 would be faster if you get used to it. As Mr. Big wall middendorf says, if you can't do one piece per minute, you're taking too long.

Spent the day at l-worth and peshastin today w/ phil. There were reasonable conditions most of the day. Climbed on marginally-wet-but-drying sandstone for a few routes, and then headed back to the icicle for the afternoon. Most things were dry with wet spots and drips. Climbed some sometimes-wet cracks down right of icicle buttress, and then traversed over and finished on the last two pitches of R&D. The chimney on the 2nd p of r&d was pretty wet, but still ok. Looked like a few parties were on snow creek wall. conditions anyone?

I think we were there during the first weekend in June on a normal snow year. (Also, That would be the hourglass-couloir in the backround and the summit off to the right.)

Once you come up out of the camping area (there is a faint trail when snowfree) you come into a basin under a big slabby cliffy waterfall. This is Variation 2 (as in the book). Keep traversing left through a short but dense forest. 100 yards of forest and bam, you're right there at the base of the couloir. Up high you can pretty easily scramble from the col at the top of the hourglass-couloir to the top. Ditto on that glissade (esp. down the lower slope). It has to be about the most perfect angle for glissading: not too steep so that you get out of control, but plenty quick! Here's an old trip report from when we did the "variabtion 2" route, which is a pretty nice scramble up to the "lunch counter". http://students.washington.edu/dbb/olympics/brothers.html

When I first saw this I thought: University Peak inspiration? Higher, bigger, newer. Too bad these guys lost.

All I heard was Gore-Tex on ice,' survivor recallsMOUNT ST. ELIAS: John Griber relates the events that led to the likely deaths of two companions. By Dan Joling The Associated Press (Published: April 13, 2002) Carefully working his way down a 45-degree ice face on Mount St. Elias, aware of almost certain death if he fell, snowboarder John Griber turned at the sound of a swish above. Forty to 50 feet away, he saw companion Aaron Martin off his skis on his side and sliding. "All I heard was Gore-Tex on ice," Griber said Friday. "He was sliding on his right hip. I can't tell you why he was so calm." The Jackson Hole, Wyo., snowboarder watched for 30 seconds as Martin slid hundreds of feet and out of sight. Then the snowboarder yelled for the second skier in the party, Reid Sanders. There was only silence. Martin, 32, of Lake Tahoe, Calif., and Sanders, of West Yellowstone, Mont., are now presumed dead in falls on the 18,008-foot peak about 60 miles north of Yakutat. Pilot Paul Claus of Ultima Thule Outfitters in Chitina on Friday reported spotting a body about 3,000 feet below the peak, and a string of equipment tracing the route of a fall. Claus, a noted Alaska Bush pilot, planned to return to see if a body recovery was possible, said National Park Service spokeswoman Jane Tranel. Griber and a third climber, Greg Von Doersten, also of Jackson, were rescued by a National Guard helicopter Wednesday. Griber said Martin fell Monday, a day earlier than had been indicated in initial reports. Recovering Friday in Anchorage, Griber talked to The Associated Press by telephone. His voice at times cracking, Griber said the men intended to climb the second tallest peak in the United States, then become the first to ski or snowboard to sea level from such an elevation. Martin and another team had tried the same thing a year earlier only to be turned back by blizzards. This year the weather was sunny, calm and relatively warm in the days after Claus dropped the men off at Hayden Col, a pass just above 10,000 feet, on April 4. The next day the climbers tackled their first hurdle, a sheer 3,500-foot ice face. Climbing with 65-pound packs stuffed with food and gear for a higher camp, the four ran into a problem when Von Doersten lost a crampon on the last pitch, preventing him from climbing. By the time Martin pulled him up on a rope, Von Doersten had frostbitten his hand. The climbers dug a camp into the snow near 14,500 feet. Von Doersten decided to stay there while the others went on. Griber, Martin and Sanders set off the next day and by Sunday reached 16,000 feet. The next morning, they were ready to go for the summit, but faced another ice wall. It was not as steep as the first, Griber said, but the surface was "runneled" -- lined with channels a few inches to 15 inches deep caused by water melting, flowing and freezing. By late afternoon, though, the men were above that headwall and within 600 to 700 feet of the summit. Griber rested there while the others pushed forward. "I just felt really drained," he said. "I wanted to let them take advantage of not pulling me up." Griber estimates he paused 10 minutes, then followed the footprints of the two skiers. At about 6:15 p.m., 150 feet from the summit, he decided he could go no farther. He worried that it would take another 20 minutes to the top, and darkness was coming. Griber took off his crampons and neoprene overboots and locked into his snowboard. In severe conditions, Griber said, he often snowboarded with an ice ax in his hand. This time, he had one in each hand. "This wasn't snowboarding," he said. "This was absolutely survival technique." Still, he noted the conditions were the same or better than the three had encountered on previous trips. "This is what we were used to doing," he said. "We specialize in high angle, extreme terrain. We're not just a couple guys who went out and said, Let's go ski this thing.' " Griber started down. He paused occasionally, he said, to wait for Martin and Sanders. Within half an hour or less, he spotted his companions about 800 feet above. "That was a relief," he added. "I thought, Man, it's getting late.' " Griber slowly continued down the mountain for another 15 minutes, looking for good snow, occasionally able to make a turn. When a few ice balls rained down, he figured Martin and Sanders must be directly above. "I said, Man, this is a little dangerous', " Griber said. He traversed across the slope to be out of the way if anyone fell. A few minutes later, he heard the sliding sound, and over his right shoulder saw Martin. Martin had self-arrest grips on ski poles for braking to a stop on steep snow, but the skier could not stop. "It seemed like an eternity of a fall," Griber said. Griber yelled for Sanders, but heard nothing. Sanders had yet to clear an area of unstable ice columns and crevasses, Griber said. As darkness fell, Griber put on his headlamp and made his way into a band of talus and rock, where he jettisoned his snowboard. He tried climbing on the rocks, calling for Sanders, and looked for a flat place to bivouac. Eventually, concerned with his own safety, he put his crampons back on, located the footprints the climbers had made that afternoon, and walked on ice in the dark until he found a crevasse to provide shelter from the bone-chilling wind. "I was feeling cooked at this point," he said. "I was beyond tired." He woke at 5 a.m., searched again for Sanders, he said, then descended to the old snow shelter at 16,000 feet. He stayed long enough to warm up in a sleeping bag, then descended to 14,500 feet to tell Von Doersten of the tragedy. A day later, Claus flew over to check on the climbers. Griber and Von Doersten waved to him and Griber used his ice ax to carve out a message in 6-foot letters: "two dead." Claus dropped a weighted bag with a note saying rescue was possible, and for the climbers to raise both arms if they needed help. "I fell to my knees and raised both hands," Griber said. A HH-60 Pavehawk helicopter from the National Guard's 210th Mountain Air Rescue group in Anchorage came to get them. The crew had to lighten it to safely climb to 14,000 feet. Griber and Von Doersten abandoned their camp and equipment on the mountain to scramble aboard the flight to safety. Daily News reporter Craig Medred contributed to this report.

quit bouldering and go ice climbing:

Last time I checked there is a "summit" camping zone. you would have to get a spot just like you were camping at Muir or any other area.

It seems like if you know the route's crevasses well and you wand or mark gapers, you should be fine for most of the year. As I recall, last year around that time (well, memorial day) there were tons of skiers unroped and very few (one?) open crevasse on route. That said, the conditions play a huge factor in how safe it would be to ski. We came down in hot slushy conditions and poked through no less than 5 times (4 of us), one time up to the armpits. We were, of course, on foot, but it's something to think about even on skis. Be careful traversing too, esp. around 7,000 on the coleman-demming. There are big ones there just off the "track". Have fun

Some friends of mine did the west face aid route and ran out of time. They spent the night in the West cave (read: not "the mouth") and said it wasn't too bad. ... and yeah, camp at the grasslands. It's a short drive and it's free. Park your car by the bivi area and you'll get no overnight car hassles.

Don't be so judgemental of a company trying to save money in a compedative envorinment. If you don't like your stuff being made in an "ethically challenged" workplace, you'd better rip up and burn all of your goretex clothing. Not to mention your pack, sleeping bag... and so on. Look at where that stuff is made, and tell me those workers are living in better conditions and getting paid more than WA state inmates. As for people losing their jobs to inmates at OP, this is what they say: quote: What happened to the employees who were replaced by inmate labor? All Omega Pacific staff employees were offered the opportunity to move with the company and retain their positions. Omega Pacific worked very closely with other businesses and a local employment agency to minimize production worker displacement. The end result was very minimal production worker unemployment. ... companies will move people to save money. you don't like it, well too bad. (and become your own boss) I suggest before you spray and dis a good company's name, you should inform yourself. This is thier page concerning inmate labor: http://www.omegapac.com/prison.asp Personally, I really like OP's stuff. I've used their ice screws (which are Smilie's) for 3 years and they are still as sharp and easy to place as my BD's (1/2 the price too). The "shiny" coating doesn't flake off, assuming you're not using them as chocks in the off season. Also, I think that OP has you, the Alpinist, in mind when designing their gear. Look at their Ti headed ice tools. Look at that Doval biner. You can do a carabiner break rap on it, and it's the same weight as a neutrino (and one dollar cheaper)! Sweet!

how about "freshies" in your back yard?