Ade

Yeah, I suck... But I obviously irritate Trask so my life isn't a total waste of time.

"Always with the negative waves..." Donald Sutherland, as "8 Ball", in Kelly's Heroes GREAT MOVIE!!! Pssst...Dru overcompensates for his small penis. But he's right... looks like choss.

The Brit system has an adjectival grade (eg E1), covering how strenuous/sustained the route is as well as how well protected and exposed. In addition the technical grade (eg 5c) denotes how hard the hardest move is on the route. Typically for multi pitch routes each pitch gets a technical grade and the whole climb would get an adjectival grade (eg for a four pitch route E2 5c, 5a, 4c, 5b) Some Brit guides (Yorkshire) have a three part system with a P-grade for the likely result of a fall. UK Climbing Grades World Climbing Grade Comparison Table Bolted sport climbs in the UK use the French grading system.

Sounds like you're something of an expert yourself there Trask.

Isn't the road to the trailhead supposed to close this week?

Yes. The Hummingbird in the review is not made by FF, it's someone else's. I couldn't find a good review of the FF Hummingbird online.

Seconded. Getting a bit repetitive.

You might find the following Lightweight sleeping bag review of interest. It covers several of the bags discussed here.

I agree. If you look at the down fill weight vs. the overall weight for a bag the down is roughly half the weight so the down is only 50% of the story. It also depends on the bag having a good design. You could easily make a bag with 800 fill down that felt colder than a 650 fill bag of the same weight if it was poorly designed. JoshK - What's your feeling on the likely durability of your your HighLite? The outer fabric is very light.

As of Sunday there is a short patch of hard steep snow, about a hundred feet wide, at the base of the route. Certainly best crossed with crampons although you could probably kick steps if you were wearing heavy boots. The slope on the descent from the summit to Asgard Pass is much larger and is also steep but likely to be softer late in the day. I wore soft approach shoes and was glad of a pair of Al crampons and a light axe. You may be able to skirt around this but there's more snow up there than when we did this last year so you may be walking a bit further. The descent from Asgard Pass is snow free.

Hoping to get on this soon but have heard the trail can be hard to find/follow. Has anyone done this recently? If so do you have any beta on the approach? Thx Ade

Yes. While working at NASA I spent six months and $10million developing a device like this that would work in zero-G and a perfect vacuum. I got given a version of the tool as a leaving present. It now occupies one half of my garage but is very useful for the odd occasion when I cut rope, say once a month. Seriously now... Waaay too much thought being expended on this one. Just use a knife and cigarette lighter as described.

Right... And those Japanese responsible were prosecuted as war criminals. If the cause of death of some detainees are proven to be homicide then I hope those responsible will be similarly brought to account. "In March, Amnesty wrote to President Bush to complain about the treatment of detainees after US military officials reportedly confirmed that post-mortem reports in the cases of the two men who died at Bagram gave cause of death as 'homicide' and 'blunt force injuries'. " No. If there had POW status this wouldn't be a problem, as they would have some legal status, rights and recourse, but they don't. The classification of "enemy noncombatant" has no legal standing, largely because it was invented after 9/11 and is not recognised internationally.

Not so. He's on TV right now and still in the Tour. The BBC has good Tour coverage

You will have to descend about a thousand feet of snow to the base of the ridge. The snow level is still at around 5400' on the North side of Stuart. If after climbing the ridge you plan to return to the TH by the Cascadian/Longs Pass then the Cascadian is still snow from the false summit for a long way (we did not use this descent so I don't know how far down the snow goes). The ridge itself looked to be pretty much snow free as of last weekend.

I've used the MEC Penguin overbag as a lightweight bag on several trips, like Slesse and Goode. It's rated to +15C on its own and weighs 0.5-0.6kg (depending opn size). This isn't as warm as any of the down bags mentioned for the same weight but at around $100 Canadian is a lot cheaper.

Take a couple of shopping bags to put over your sneakers before you put your crampons on. This will 1) make you look silly, 2) keep your shoes dry so that you don't have to do the hike out with wet feet.

Kirkpatrick's articles are worth a read,and are available online, including a review of down bags. You may not agree with them but they're certainly full of ideas. He may not be "one of the UK's best Alpinists" but a winter ascent of No Siesta is a good start. As explained to me by a friend in the outdoor industry who's opinion I value: "Most manufacturers have a long lead time from prototype to final product and have to get specs out to distributors and dealers usually before the final product has been shipped. This means that the published weight is sometimes a best guess. In addition suppliers change during production meaning weights can change. Changing the published specs is costly because they are reused/republished by catalogs etc. The last thing the marketing department wants is lots of different numbers out there for the same product. " I'm not saying this is right, but it seems like that's the way it is. In addition the current fashion for everyday climbers to count the onces is relatively new. Ten years ago very few would have complained about a few ounces either way on a bit of gear weighing a couple of pounds. In short, if you want a bag who's weight the manufacturer will guarentee to a 90+% certainty then you're going to have to pay big bucks for it. Try going into Feathered Friends and telling them your bag must weight exactly what the spec sheet says. Or you can use a set of scales and figure it out for yourself at no charge. You can spend the time obsessing over gear or you can train harder. Which is going to get you up the mountain?

Now I've heard everything. Either "you're for us or against us" or smoking crack. Either way if you don't like it then you should go live somewhere else.

Overland approach along the PCT from Rainy Pass is fine. Very good trail until you leave the PCT and pretty flat. Only ugly bit is the river crossing and thrash up to the base of the buttress. Watch out for bears. We saw two or three on the hike out last year.

"mixed" in this case may mean climbing a wet rock wall below the remains of an overhanging and collapsing bergshrund.

I did the route this past w/e with lightweight boots and Aluminium crampons, although my partners both had heavier gear. There are a few sections where you have to climb hard glacier ice and a second tool is useful. Climbing with lighter gear also requires better technique as you can't just kick your feet anywhere which may slow you down somewhat. If I were going to climb the ICG I would take bigger boots and steel crampons as it would be a more fun. Front pointing in a lighter boot with strap-on crampons gets pretty uncomfortable after a while. You're not carrying them so weight isn't an issue. If you want to do one of the rock routes that start from the upper ICG then you could go light but you might want one of your party to have heavier gear so that they can lead any technical sections. NOTE This is all going to change in the next few weeks. There are some key snow bridges on the route that aren't going to be there for much longer. This will mean that the route will involve more hard ice and possibly some mixed climbing.

Alas not... Marmot, grey mid-weight. Plus some other odds and ends by the looks of it. I'm bummed

The top was still there when I looked down it last weekend. Steep with a bit of cornicing but nothing major

Feathered Friends has already sold out.