dbb

wow, too eerie. exactly one year ago (5/5/2000) I had a simmilar day on the same route. I was taking a few friends up the route in cold, early season conditions. The entire second pitch was covered in ice and made for cool, but difficult climbing. We froze our butts off all day, and got the rope stuck on the rap (from regular bolted station). One last tug saved my new 8 mm rope from the serrated teeth of my knife!

I have a pair of the "newmatic" Grivel G10s for alpine climbing and I love em. They are a full strap on (no lever in the back) and use two plastic cuffs to hook around the heel and the toe. They are super easy to get on--only one loop to do up, and they have "pointed" horizontal frontpoints instead of "flat" (like SMCs) I like the fully strap on idea because I can put these crampons on anything. I've stuck them on tennis shoes, sticky weekends, and giant plastic boots. They probably do water ice as well as any other simmilar crampon, but then again, that doesn't seem like what you want em for. whatever you get, go light.

Dru- hey I remember that guy from Josh. Isn't he an old UW type?

My vote is for the Katuz. When I did it on a super sunny sun/mon trip, there was one other party of three on the route. The chute is not much to worry about, even in August. Maybe a 100 feet or so of 50 degree glacier. You will certainly have a good experience on this route with no guides or clients in sight (except for the mule train up muir). From my experience on the kautz, it is best to go sharply right after the chute towards the Wapotoey (sp) cleaver. This avoids broken crevasse fields that run all the way up to ~13K. Have fun and get ready to puke!

I've heard that the high altitude afliction only applies to the older-technology process that is not done anymore. However, I know someone who did have the eyes done a long time ago, and says she can't see above 17,000. It may also depend on your eye. Some people are not even fit enough to recieve the surgery due to thin corneas. It could be that if you were pushing the limits that you still could have problems at altitude. Also, from talking to my optometrist, it seems that it is not a good idea to get them done when you're "young" (under 40 or so), because the eye can relapse quite a bit. From what I hear, it usually make it difficult to drive at night. Doesn't bode well for all those sleepy after climb miles!

Wow, I was descending the same gully right of Bathtub on Saturday. My feet were slipping all over the place in my rock shoes and I had this terrible feeling with all the loose rock and sand that it was only a matter of time before I went for a ride. We opted to climb out of the gully and farther right where there is a big bomber tree with two very nice new slings.(can see these from top of dome) You can make a single rap down to a ledge and traverse back to the base of the upper tier of bathtub. Glad you wern't seriously hurt!

Anyone want to go climb in the Icicle tomorrow? I was thinking about heading up to Bathtub dome and also check out that much hyped about route on condor buttress. prefer lead in the .8-10 range, but not nesissary. email me: dbb@u.washington.edu Dave

motion to move this topic to "spray"

On that note, last time I checked Barrabes had the Degrees for like $115. tack on 10-20 bucks shipping and there's a deal!

I SUFFER FROM A RARE DISEASE CALLED VOICE IMMODULATION!!! [This message has been edited by dbb (edited 04-17-2001).]

Tom you troller... All you guys flaming him can remember that when you clip in to the solid belay bolts on town crier--he put em there.

What is the deal with people getting all up in arms, ready to go out and chop bolts? If the thing is there, LEAVE IT. you scar the climb more by chopping bolts off (and perhaps eventually the cycle will repeat later). I in no way support adding bolts to existing routes w/o the First's permission for a nasty runout or such, but going to chop on someone's project just because you don't like their style? That's wayyyy lamer than the boch-wielding bolter. As for the sport-in-the-mountaineering-area debate: get over it. If you don't like the style of a total clip up, don't climb it. Don't go to exit 38, don't climb all bolt lines, and don't bitch at the people who do. We're all having fun in the mountains, and I doubt that those bolts are degrading your experience when you're not even on the route! If mad-bolters want to "murder the impossible", that's their perogative. What are you going to do? Pick em off the wall with a .22? Exactly... we have to find a middle ground where the two equally valid groups can co-exits, and this does not include chopping!

go teach someone to climb?? Can migrants do this or only locals? Your thesis seems to imply that you want less people in the mountains, not more. true? <yikes, I'm posting in spray>

Rock Empire is made by HUDY Sport, the same people who make trango's cams. I have a set of the "microflex" cams, and they are good pieces. The trigger is actually aluminum (though it looks like chinchy plastic), and the action of it is pretty smooth. The only draw back to these is that their range is nearly 1/2 that of aliens or metolious 4-cams. They say that the microflexes cover roughly 4-5 mm, where as most cams are 7-8 mm. The larger "robot" cams look solid too, total metolious ripoffs with one key difference: They have a 1 fingered bar-trigger instead of 3. If you try to use the outside "nubins", you'll grate your fingers on the cables. overall, I think they're solid gear, but not my first choice for a primary setup. dave

I'm sure sombody on this board has done Snake Dike on Half Dome. So, any tips on what style to do it in? A long day? Where to camp? When's the best time to "beat the crowds", as it is.

check out MEC, they have a nice set of g-tex bibs, as well as pants I think, that are quite cheap. I bet they would still mail they're own stuff to the US!

oops.. thought we were talking about dmm cams here. Haven't had any experience w/ the trangos though I don't think that they fall in the same league as the camalots. [This message has been edited by dbb (edited 04-05-2001).]

is regular ol rope or 1" webbing preferable?

Also not mentioned about the Tikka vs. the P-T is that the Tikka is way lower profile. It easily fits *under* the helmet, as well as into your pants pocket. The low profile lamp is the way to go. In terms of bulb replacement, the Tikka costs the same as a replacement LED bulb from P-T, so just buy a new Tikka when it craps out. Also, I don't buy this "not as bright as a regular bulb". Sure a LED is dimmer than a halogen, but who the hell uses a halogen while alpine climbing?? You get all of two hours battery life?? The Tikka is plenty bright to climb with, and is far brighter than a Zoom with a regular bulb. People will also tell you that the Tikka is a "secondary" kind of headlamp, a backup to your larger models. I say it can do it all, and my getting-dusty Zoom acounts for it! The other nice thing about a tikka is you'll never think twice about carrying it tiny weight. my .02$

After having a fun time this weekend with the little buggars we all call ticks, I was wanting to hear some other people's stories of hair raiseing discoveries on your body. Here are a few of mine to get you going! A few years ago at Smith I was climbing the West Face varriation on the monkey face. After missing the obvious rap-bolt anchor startion (damn natural colored hangers!) I ended up setting an anchor on a comfy grassy ledge. My partner started following, and about 5 minutes later I looked down from the scenery to see that I had tons of "little spiders" crawling all over me! Freaking out with my left hand and belaying with my right, I managed to knock them off. Unfortunetly one sneaked around behind me, and I pulled it out of my scalp that night in the tent. We burned it proper! This last weekend after climbing over in the Royal Columns area, I had brushed a few buggars off during the day, but felt pretty safe for I hadn't been sitting in any grass. About the time Phil and I rolled into Yakima I was looking around a turn and Phil spied a tick on my head above my ear. We proceeded to pull over and jump out of the car, looking like monkeys searching for tasty treats. And we thought the drunken locals looked wierd! The found tick was also sacrificed on a funeral pyre. anyone ever had one crawl into your pack? I'm a bit worried about unpacking now.

yep, jon pretty much has it there. Like when wacked out family members was to "go git 'em". My advice is if you want to go search, by all means go and do it, just don't let the sherif know. SAR can be pretty frustrating with all the varying experience (more often than not, the lack of), and this causes sherifs who don't climb to be conservative. Maybe too conservative. This leads to a lot of sitting around and half-assed searches that hope to "get lucky". If you actually sent a fast and strong team of 2-4 climbers in who know the area, I bet you'd have better luck. For some reason most searches never go into overnighters. My guess is that these climbers are a little farther away than a day's hike! Obviously what the sar people are doing is important, and often does yield good results, but don't think that because you don't wear the blue hat that you can't go out and look yourself.

yep, I was skiing on hood during the warm period last week and there was an amazing amount of ice falling down. Everybody was turned around on the South side except some gruff determined guys (without helmets!). We ran into a group who had broken an arm when a basketball-sized chunk made contact. however, the snow was super solid ice crust, which would be great for climbing if it cooled down. Though I wouldn't push my luck with all this new snow on top of crust in a terrain trap like that.

well, to toss my two pennies in... I had a 1/2 resole from Dave that delammed slowly for 6 months, and then gloriously ripped to the ball one day at leavenworth. Lucky for me Dave is a nice guy and resoled them nearly a year after the first job (it was shoddy to begin with, but I was lazy too). One thing for sure, if you get a bad job done by dave, he'll redo it for free.

put in an order a couple of weeks ago to them and the stuff came in 5 days. Very reliable, very fast, very cheap! Did get hit with a duty from DHL but it was only 2.9% I plan on ordering again soon!

anyone know how the conditions on hood have been lately? thinking about a ski climb/descent.