Ade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks

I think they stopped making it. Which is a shame because it totally rocked. I don't think I've seen one for a few years now.

I have DAS for ice climbing - great jacket, but quite large. For alpine I have a Puffball Jacket. Very similar to a DAS but smaller and lighter. Both have a hood which is pretty important. FWIW: I wouldn't trust a gear reviewer to choose toilet paper for me.

Marmot Mountain Works' Telemark and Randonee ski demo day on Wednesday January 4th 2006 has been approved by The Summit at Snoqualmie. The demo will be held at Summit West from 4pm until 9pm. This will most likely be the only event of this kind in our region this season. Many of the manufacturer's representatives will be in attendance with their fleets of demo gear for you to try out.... including K2, Atomic, Black Diamond, Scarpa, G3, and Garmont. Marmot Mountain Works will also make available the majority of their store's demo gear. Bring your own telemark, randonee, or alpine downhill ski boots and poles if you have them in order to maximize your options and enjoyment. The use of the demo gear will be free of charge, but you will be required to purchase your own lift ticket. This demo is open to adult skiers, no kid's size equipment will be available.

Well I can't comment on his big wall book but from the extracts of his physics stuff on chongonation I'd suggest reading something else.

I've been climbing leashless with a pair of Quarks this year. I wear my clipper leashes and just wedge the clips under then back of my gloves to keep them out the way. If things get waay pumped I can dig them out and clip in. This is a bit more confidence inspiring when leading harder stuff.

Well there's several things you could be talking about here... Which one do you mean?

That was me and my buddy The Nugent. We'd just arrived and could see as much as you could from the road.

There have been a couple of threads on this, you'll have to search for them. As always it depends where you're going to use it and what for. If the temps are going to be well below freezing and/or you know it's not going to get wet then go with down; e.g. Denali. If things are going to be damp; the Cascades or ice climbing, then go with synthetic. As far as I'm aware down still has better warmth for weight than any synthetic. For climbing in the Cascades I have a Pattagucci Puff Ball Jacket (the hooded one). It's great although the durability of the outer shell fabric is suspect - I've returned one, this year's model is supposedly better. I think I took a brief look at the REI jacket and it seemed pretty similar to the Pattagucci, but about $20 cheaper. Ade

Yes. I have a set. I bought them for my trip to the Yukon this spring. Marmot Mountain in Bellevue sells them and can thermofit the liners. In short "They rock!". Previously I've used Koflach Ultras (old white/gray ones - no ankle flexibility, hard to lace tight), Asolo 101s (flat sole, hard to walk in, too narrow for me), Scarpa Invernos (hard to lace tight, very big & klunky - climb like crap). Out of the box: At one point Vasque was making big claims about the weight of these boots. They are no lighter than a traditional plastic boot retrofitted with a thermofit liner. My Invernos weigh about 3.7lbs (each) with the stock liner and 3.4lbs with an Intuition liner, this is about the same as the Ice 9000. The sizing is however way off. I usually take around a 13.5 US. My La Sportiva Nepal Extrems are a 47.5. The Ice 9000's give me roughly the same fit in a 12 US, about a size and a half difference. They are a much lower profile boot than I would expect for a double. The liners are about half as thick as most other boots making the overall boot not much bigger than my single, but insulated Nepals! The liners are thermofit, Marmot did this for me but to be honest I didn't notice much difference before and after. I replaced the stock footbeds with my custom ones. Climbing: I climbed the 7000' S Spur of Good Neighbor Peak in these boots. This involved about 4000' of rock climbing both with and without crampons and a further 2500' of mixed and snow/ice climbing. For a double boot the feel was pretty precise. My Invernos were horrible on rock whereas these felt similar to my Nepals. The inner boot has additional padding to lock your heel in place which seems to make a big difference when front pointing. On the summit day I made the mistake of not lacing my boots tight and what looked like an easy snow slope turned out to be very icy requiring a lot of time on my toes. In my old boots this would have been hellish but the Vasque's heel shape reduced heel lift so that it was hardly noticable. They're warm. I wore only a single pair of socks with them the whole trip and never really got cold feet. I slept with the inners. The only real issue here is that the design puts more of the insulation and mass of the boot in the outer, which you don't generally sleep with. This means that there's more cold boot to put on in the morning. If the outer did start to get damp and iced up then you'd have problems as it would be hard to warm/dry - a conventional plastic doesn't have this potential issue. I never had problems with the outer getting damp but was using full overgaiters the whole time (anyone who doesn't do this on this sort of trip is crazy IMO anyway). The boot also seems to stay pretty flexibly when cold. Traditional plastics are pretty much impossible to lace up on a cold morning because the shell has stiffened. I didn't have this problem and it was well below freezing most mornings on the route. I suspect that this is partly due to the shell material and partly because the tongue has fabric sections that flex regardless of the temperature. The Mk1 version people complained about the sole balling up badly. I had no problems with this. On the final part of the descent we took our crampons off because things were balling up so badly (we both had anti-bots) even in that sort of snow the boot soles presented no problems. I'd like to say something about durability but on the basis of two weeks climbing I really can't say much. I was wearing supergaiters the whole time and after several thousand feet of rock these are beat to hell. The soles on the boots show some wear but really not that much. I would say that the uppers are not like the Invernos. Invernos have a reputation for being bomb proof - but IMO they suck for climbing. Here I suspect you've traded a better climbing boot for durability. I suspect these are more like a leather boot, e.g. you could put a crampon point through them if you tried. The only minor criticisms I had were: The top two lace hooks had burrs on them which caused the laces the shred quite quickly. The inner boot seems to be sized incorrectly at the top of the ankle. When laced up there's no play in the lacing at all, the two sides meet in the middle. I think they need to give you more play here. I don't think I have very slim ankles or anything. Cheers, Ade

Climb: Ashlu-S Face Date of Climb: 8/14/2005 Trip Report: Robert and I climbed this at the weekend. A few notes for future wouldbe ascentionists. The McLane guidebook description of the drive is a bit vague and several of the maps are also out of date. From the bridge turn off on the Squamish River Road drive the road, crossing a couple of bridges. This puts you on the wrong side of the river, keep going. After a few miles the road crosses back onto the right side of the river. From there keep on the lower main road. There are a couple of places where the road forks. In most cases the wrong fork is pretty obviously a worse road, in one case a good road goes up hill but deadends after about a mile. The best place to quit driving is just after the 39km sign. You can go right to the bridge washout at Shortcut Creek but the road gets a lot worse and it doesn't really save you a lot of time. There is a flagged trail up the S side of the creek which continues all the way to the upper valley below the glacier. The river doesn't have many easy options for crossing so we continued past where the McLane guide suggests that you head up to Rugged Lake. We went to the end of the valley and headed up the slabs and then N to the basin below the S face where we camped by a small glacial lake at 6400', directly below the bottom of the W Ridge. Good campsite but buggy. While this approach may be slightly longer it only took us three hours and seems to involve less crappy terrain than heading up to Rugged Lake (no trail) and then traversing into the basin (lots of side hilling, no trail). The following morning we climbed up the slope on the W side of the basin and then traversed E to the glacier below the S face. The 'schrund is easily passable at the moment. I had Al crampons and running shoes and was fine. We did the route in six or seven pitches with some simulclimbing and moving together. The steeper 5.8 sections are fairly short, two half rope lengths at most, but quite loose and need to be treated with care. The 10a crux is a single move just below the summit with OK gear. Excellent summit, fantastic views! Instead of descending the W Ridge we opted for the E Ridge as there were a couple of guys on the summit who'd just hiked up it. This is very straightforward. We made the mistake of traversing back W below the S face and then descending the very lower part of the W Ridge. This involves a lot more walking on bad ground and doesn't save any time (we'd hoped to cut down one of the gullies below the S face but they all have a lot of water in them). It would in fact be easier to descend the W Ridge all the way the basin at 6400' and walk back to the bivi site there. Gear Notes: Pins (when will I learn) Approach Notes: See main description.

Nice job. I seem to remember looking along the traverse ridge and thinking it looked well worth passing on though.

My report was a bit time constrained. I wouldn't say it was the finest route I've done but I think Bob is overstating his case. I thought that the hard to protect sections were far more "memorable" than the loose ones. The rock isn't that loose. To put it another way I'd climb it again but it wouldn't be my first choice of routes to repeat. We descended the SE face and didn't need to rap at all. You can walk lots of it and downclimb a few sections. There's one very short section to get around one of the blocks at the very top of the descent. There's a rap anchor on the N side but you only need to get to a ledge ten feet down. We just downclimbed and clipped the anchor as a belay.

Climb: Joffre-Flavelle-Lane Date of Climb: 7/24/2005 Trip Report: Climbed the Flavelle-Lane on Joffre yesterday (Sunday). Soft snow on the glacier made going slow on the approach. The lower step in the glacier is still passable on the left but requires a bit of route finding. The schrund below the Central Couloir can be crossed by heading climbers right. The route itself is six or so pitches of rock and then some mixed ground and snow slopes above where the route joins the Central Pillar. The upper rock pitches are still wet, we avoided the final one, opting for snow instead. At least two of the pitches feature very compact rock which is hard to protect. Descent via the SE face route. You can avoid descending snow all the way to the glacier by sticking to the spur on the (skier's) left hand side of the final descent couloir. Gear Notes: Standard alpine rack, KBs might have been helpful.

I've tried this. Before I went to Denali we did a bunch of crevasse rescue practice on a small cliff. Trying to lift the dead weight of your partner and a sizable pack (no sled) is no joke. This didn't even take into account the additional friction caused by the rope knifing into the edge of the crevasse etc. For travel on large glaciers as a part of two you definitely want two pullies.

Annabelle! Like I said... People who actually climb.

Chocolate covered espresso beans.

You're assuming that this is for people who actually climb.

In no particular order... The weights are irrevant. The manufacturers quoted weights for boots are for a size 8 or 9 and are invariably wrong, you take a much larger boot anyways. It also assumes that boots are sized the same between manufacturers and they're not. I take a size smaller in the Ice 9000 than in the Inverno. When I weighed my Ice 9000s they came out the same as a pair of Invernos with thermofit liners, which the stock liners they were significantly heavier. What really counts is fit and how they climb. The two are linked. Personally I think the Invernos should come in a waterproof box. That way you could throw away the boots and still have something that climbs better for your feet. But that's because for the most part they don't fit my feet that well. As far as I'm aware the Vega is just the name the Inverno is sold under in Europe. If you think that the Nuptse is overkill for the Cascades then the Ice 9000 and AFS 8000 will be too. These are all "Denali boots" and, unless you're going to do one of the big volcanoes in winter they'll be maybe TOO toasty. Personally I think it's a stretch to get a single pair of boots to do both these things. "Ugly" shouldn't matter. I'd wear Barbara Bush on my feet if I thought it would make the climbing better. The La Sportiva Nuptse only comes in a size upto 47 Eur, this is borderline 12/13. Try Pro Mountain Sports, Jim may have them in stock in larger sizes now - La Sportiva were having problems making enough and getting them out to dealers. I was looking for a 48 and finally figured this isn't going to happen. Depending on the boot's sizing you might get away with 47 etc. If you're worried about the durability of the Verticals then you should worry about the Ice 9000s too. I've had a pair and they've done fine so far but they're not like the Invernos - which are pretty much indestructable. How about the other Koflachs? How about the other Vasque boot, the Andinista? Or do you have to have a double boot? Remember for some plastics the whole and half sizes are identical.

There's a TAP Plastics on Northrup Way in Bellevue.

Because it was done entirely for the purposes of self-aggrandizement. Like all media whores if we all ignore him he'll go away. Hopefully before some dwarf gets torched in Rich's magazine coverage.

I have a pair of Quarks and have used them on alpine routes. I used pinky rests and clipper leashes. The steeper the route the better a Quark will perform. If you're doing relatively straightforward alpine routes in the PNW (Triple Couloirs etc) you probably aren't going to see of a much difference. In addition to comments above you might also want to consider the durability of the Quark and Adzar. The pinky rest and grip don't like a lot of abuse, C-M tell you specifically not to use the shaft to clear balled up crampons etc. I personally didn't like the feel of the Adzar. Its slightly shorter than the Quark and the pick angle is different which for me gave a weird swing. But that's a personal thing. Don't let anyone else's raves and rants about how a tool swings make any decisions for you.

Fairweather - Maybe you had your LS Extremes laced too tight or have poor circulation in your feet. I've used mine for most of last winter in the Cascades and only had warmth issues when over lacing them. FYI: LS's web site no longer advertisies them as high altitude boots. Like dberdinka said the quoted weight for the Extreme is 4lbs 13oz, for the Trango S GTX it's 2lbs 10oz. Sportiva may be good but they're not magicians. TWO POUNDS didn't just disappear without effecting performance in some way. I've never believed that GTX boots would work well but I've never found any published data on how well they do work or how durable they are. I believe that the membrane is too fragile and if the outer gets sodden then the membrane isn't going to breath that well anyway. As it is the GTX jacket relies on putting very little fabric around the membrane to maximise its breathability, with a boot you've added a lot more. Because the boot's design typically relies on the GTX for waterproofing the outer has more stitching making it inherently less waterproof, especially after the membrane states to degrade. Compare the number of stitches on the outside of the Nepal Extreme with that on the Trango S GTX, that's a lot of additional potential "holes" for water to work its way in through. GTX has its place but it's not a cure for all ills. Someone should tell LS's marketing department that too. Not that we should swallow the hype in the first place. If something seems too good to be true it probably is. As for EJohnson's test I'm not sure it is reasonable. I suspect that you could do this with a pair of Nepal Extremes and they'd eventually wet out and start to leak too. If you want a boot that you can stand in several inches of water for long periods then I'd suggest plastics or even wellingtons. Should they take his boots back? Yes, because they advertised them as something they're not. Should you be surprised that they fall apart and leak - no.

As has been noted before; warmth, durability, waterproofness, and light weight - you can have the former at the expense of the latter. I have a pair of Nepal Extremes that I've used a fair bit in the Cascades in winter. They climb very well and are pretty warm (just make sure you don't lace them too tight). They're also very waterproof and very well made. Look at some of the other threads here on lighterweight boots, they're not going to last like a pair of Extremes. If you want to go warmer then check out the Vasque Ice 9000. This is the only plastic double boot I've ever used tha climbs ever remotely as well as a single boot (I've owned Koflach, Asolo and Scarpa plastics in the past). The liner is very thin giving you a much lower volume boot than a traditional plastic. These would be overkill for the Cascades however. Other manufacturers are taking the same approach to double boot design as Vasque. Check out the Sportiva Nuptse for example. Like the Vasque the outer is thinner and softer than a traditional plastic giving you a much better fit. Worth reading: http://www.planetfear.com/article_detail.asp?a_id=273

You could and it would fall apart after about two days use and he'd have to sew it back together. Can anyone say "quality control"?