Ade

My Serratus Genie has just about died. Can anyone recommend something to replace it? Small very light no frills pack for one day alpine routes.

Pictures of a recent trip with covers some of the routes mentioned; Kain & Pigeon. http://www.ademiller.com/climbing/gallery/bc/bugaboos_2008/index.htm Of approach/rest days I'd look at routes on the Crescent Spires. Remember weather in the Bugs can turn very bad late afternoon, thunder storms etc so starting up the climbing late isn't that advisable. We did the McCarthy route on Snowpatch. It's fine, very low commitment as there are bolt anchors for raps.

What happened to your reactor exactly?!

I'm looking to put together a trip into the Waddington this summer but want to split the cost of the helicopter. We're flexible about exact destination within the range but would be going for the last couple of weeks of July. PM me of you're interested. Ade

Me too. I was in the tent you probably passed on the way out near the river crossing past the Colchuck trail junction. I stopped hiking at dark then I realized the weather was going to crap out. Fun times...

Sweet! Sounds like there's a good boot track in there for once. Ade

The NH ice route gets a hit on the first page. The boots don't I suspect because Google's search engine doesn't think that "Omega" has a plural.

The notch on the Nelson-Gerson gets the sun (in April at least). From memory that's the line Jim's party used for the first winter ascent.

So I put together a web search engine based on Google's custom search that should give better results for climbing related searches. For example if you search for "Omega" the first results returned will be fore the Omega Pacific climbing gear company not Omega watches. http://www.ademiller.com/search I already posted this to the Personal Climbing Web Pages forum and made some improvements since then. Ade

Pup, The way this works is that a Google custom search lets you specify a subset of the web and return hits from these pages preferentially to hits from all the other pages, I guess by artificially upping their ranking. So all I can do is improve Google's existing results. If you search on regular Google where does SummitPost's Mount David page rank? You can be sure summitpost is on the list of climbing sites though. I'm working on adding more buts of the web when I find holes in the search. Ade

So I put together a web search engine based on Google's custom search that should give better results for climbing related searches. For example if you search for "Omega" the first results returned will be fore the Omega Pacific climbing gear company not Omega watches. http://www.ademiller.com/search Let me know if you think it's working. I'm still testing it out. Ade

Of course you could have just settled for having "remind me to relay my neck" tatooed on your forehead.

Depends what you want them for. I've not used them but probably an OK walking or non-technical mountaineering crampon. Definitely not a crampon for ice climbing.

In the past I've experimented with a Marmot Helium (-1C) bag and an MEC Penguin overbag (which adds 5-10C). This seemed to work pretty well although for the Cascades in winter you might want a thicker inner bag - I was trying to save weight. The Penguin isn't waterproof but it does give you an outer snow shedding layer that's more tollerant of moisture. Andy Kirkpatrick uses a similar system http://www.psychovertical.com/?modularsleepingbag I've used vapor barrier socks before and really don't want to think what a whole body vapor barrier would be like. Similarly with a "breathable" bivi bag the key is to try and make sure as much moisture as possible doesn't get trapped inside the bag, i.e. keep your head outside if at all possible. I only ever take a bivi bag if a tent really isn't an option because there don't look like there are any ledges.

I use nylon self adhesive patches like you use for tent flysheets. Any sewing type store will sell them. Then I go over the edges with seam grip. Works really well.

Colin and I were there earlier in the season and there are good flat spots on the glacier but that was April/May, it may get icier later in the year.

Has anyone actually used one of these for real in the alpine and/or cold. While expensive they look promising if they work as advertized. I went and had a look at one and my initial reaction was that they're hardly any lighter than an XGK and you'd have to modify the stove to hang it (as opposed to the Jetboil where the stove and pot lock together). Anyone got any real world feedback? Cheers, Ade

Blue Moon on Rye - Not quite there. We got half way up the first pitch before the ice ran out. Soo Bluffs - Looked pretty in but a foot of new snow (more then forecast) made the approach very slow and possibly avie threatened, we bailed. Mystery Roach Hotel - In and fat but a bit wet.

You might also conside the Mello valley. Awesome granite. Ade

Got it REI... the R320. http://www.rei.com/product/768079 320g and the same weight as the BD Pheonix ($65). http://www.bdel.com/gear/phoenix.php

So no more info other than it's "really light" and costs nearly twice as much as (say) a Petzl Hirundos or three times the cost of the Camp XLH 95 - which according to Camp's head of product development weights "fuck all" (he says it with a funny Euro accent). The dead Bird marketing guggernaut will have to do better than that. I'm all for paying for lightweight just not about paying for someone to tell me it's lightweight (when it's probably not). Does anyone have a link to more info?

What's their marketing saying to warrent such a high price?

Damn! And there was me thinking someone had ticked it in winter this weekend. There's another picture of the ridge here. http://www.ademiller.com/climbing/gallery/cascades/nooksack_2004/slides/17_the_nooksack_ridge_and_shuksan.htm All I remember thinking was that it looked really loose and ugly. Here's some beta... http://www.scramble.org/robert/Nooksack.htm

http://aktoman.blogspot.com/2007/05/glenshee-190507.html Looks like this pole had the same failure mode as a lot of Al poles and cracked at the section end. And didn't blow apart as CF usually does.

Buy a lighter tent. Seriously though. I couldn't find anything on how these poles stand up to serious abuse and really bad weather. Most reports talk of light use. It's also worth remembering that aluminum poles tent to either bend or crack. Cracked poles can be repaired using a reinforcing sleve. CF tends to fail catastrophically leaving very little to repair. I think this is a cool idea but I think I want to see more info on how they stand up to rough treatment. Cheers, Ade