Ade

Humm... Yes not exactly something for melting a lot of snow in. Pity. If they made the same base but for a larger pot it might be really good. Doh... So it looks like they do. 1.5l is still a bit on the small side for melting dry snow. I usually use a 2l just to get more snow in it.

For the stuff further N this is a great idea. Further south you're duplicating a lot of effort already done by bivouac.com.

Trust me... It's EXACTLY like Scotland except the beer at Alpental is a lot worse than the beer in Aviemore.

Nice job... If you're winter climbing and having fun then something is clearly amiss.

Climb: Abiel Peak-North Face Direct (First Ascent) Date of Climb: 3/19/2006 Trip Report: So Kurt (wazzumountaineer) and I decided to check out Abiel Peak this weekend. This seemed like a good idea given the snow conditions and good reports from another TR a few weeks back. Fantastic weather, good times all around! Route Description: This route is easily identified by large hanging icicles just left of the North Face Couloir (topo to follow). Pitch 1: From a small rock outcrop, climb left up 45 degree snow to the base of the waterfall. Screw belay. 50M Pitch 2: Climb the waterfall (WI3) to a belay under the overhang on the left. Rock belay (use the crack up and right of overhang with small cams). 35m Pitch 3: From the overhang, traverse right onto the pillar. Continue up good WI4 that eases to AI3 after 30m. Tree belay on the right at 60m. Pitches 4-6: Climb up the gully on snow to 60 degrees (near top), trending left when it splits. Tree belays. Once on the ridgecrest, unrope and walk easy slopes to the summit (~2 ropelengths) Grade: III, WI4 Descent: Rappel the route from trees. From the head of the gully, do 2 60m rappels down the gully. On the 3rd rappel, traverse towards climber’s right, descending into the North Face Couloir. One more 60m rap and downclimbing brings you to the bottom. (2 60m ropes recommended/required). Retrace ski tracks back to the car. Gear Notes: 8-10 screws & screamers, KBs, LAs, green - orange aliens, double length slings, 2x 60m ropes. Approach Notes: From the Annette Lake TH (exit 47), hike up the summer trail until it intercepts the railroad grade. Turn right (west) and ski a few hundred yards to the valley bottom. Turn left (south) and ski up the valley bottom to its end. Abiel’s North Face will be visible to the southeast. Ski to the base of the route. 4 hours. (We actually skied/hiked the summer trail on the approach and descended as described above. On balance skiing the valley bottom is much easier)

Telling lies.

Or you can strap them under the side compression straps toes down. Make sure that the laces are tied to something in either case so you can't loose a boot.

Or touching your chest at the top of each one - like clapping only harder.

Errata: This is simply a list of notable items than might catch those new to the range base in part of first hand knowledge of routes or other research I've done: Barry Blanchard and Mark Wilford climbed the left side of the west face of Alverstone in 1998. http://www.alpinist.com/climbing-notes/note/10217/ Paul Knott and Ade Miller climbed Queen Mary from the South in 1995. http://ademiller.com/climbing/reports/king_george_report.doc Paul Knott and Erik Monasterio climbed the East Ridge of the North Peak of Foresta in 2003. http://www.mef.org.uk/NewFiles/03e39.html Jack Tackle and Charlie Sassara's attempt on the north face of Augusta. http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-os-...ines-technology p16: From my memory the distances given for the East Ridge are off. Most notably the top of the route is not 91m from the north summit. http://www.ademiller.com/climbing/reports/hubbard_report.doc p56: The route description of the South Rib/Spur of Good Neighbor is very confusing, if not simply incorrect. The time given is 2-4 days for an alpine style ascent, to my knowledge is has not been climbed in less than four. The Michael Wood & Colby Combs guidebook has a much clearer description. p131: The label "West Ridge" is applied to the N ridge. The west ridge is the right hand skyline. The list of pilots has some notable names missing: Paul Swanstrom from Haines. http://flyglacierbay.com/ Paul Claus flies from the Northern end of the range. http://www.ultimathulelodge.com/ In 2005 I was looking for pilots and Gulf Air were not flying onto glaciers any more but this may have changed. There may, or may not, be someone else flying out of Yakutat these days. The list of resources doesn't include Bivouac.com which is probably the best single source for Canadian climbing activity, although far from comprehensive when it comes to the Elias area. New routes in '05 Simon Yates and Paul Schweizer climbed a new line on Alverstone's West face. http://www.alpinist.com/climbing-notes/note/10217/ The Artic Discipline Wall was climbed alpine style in three days in 2005 by Rich Cross and Jon Bracey. http://climbing.com/news/hotflashes/kennedynwf/ Mount Cook was climbed from the N side in 2005 (I don't have details).

I have to say as another Yukon addict (trip five begins in another six weeks) I too wasn't very happy when my copy arrived and I started reading it. I'm not writing a guide - although I have thought about it - but I do I'd agree with much of what JoJo says and could go on at great length - but'll spare you. Although I really have a problem with writing up unclimbed lines as routes and the continual references to fixed ropes even on routes established alpine style. Maybe I'll blog about it at some point... Other than the above the thing that really struck me was, for the most part, the book is devoid of historical perspective. Elias and Logan are notable exceptions, both having histoical introductions. With its wordy style - route descriptions running for well over a page - you would have thought there would be space to mention the names of some of the first ascentionists and the historical context of each climbs. Where this is most noticable is when reading about some of the routes with major historical significance. The two that spring to mind are the Arctic Discipline Wall on Kennedy (Tackle-Roberts 1996) and Call of the Wild (House-Josephson 1998), but there are others including some of the pioneering ascents on Logan and the like. No real reference is made to the nature of these climbs and their significance to climbing. An annoying side effect of not including the names of the first ascentionists is that the reader must tie geographical features to routes without being able to rely on the normally unique names of the first ascentionists*. I'm also not sure I would agree that the literature review was comprehensive I came across a couple more notable ommisions in addition to the ones mentioned above. On the plus side the CD is an interesting addition to guidebooks. Its been a pretty obvious value add for a mountaineering guidebook and to my knowledge this is the first guide to have one. Ade * In the name of full disclosure I've done a couple routes here, none of which fall into the historically significant category.

Let's get things in perspective here... The important thing is that they come in loud colors, cost more than a small car - so the riff raff can't buy them - and will carry my rock shoes from my SUV to the gym comfortably.

Knowing the dead bird methinks this might be somewhat of an understatement.

Do you want to be comfortable or do you want to go light?

So it's that time of year again... I'm looking for pilots. Probably end up flying with Paul Swanstrom (http://www.flyglacierbay.com/) again unless theres someone flying out of Yakutat this year. If anyone's heard of other pilots going into (or out of) business then let me know. Thanks, Ade

Pictures! Including a Topo. Note: The topo is super foreshortened. The distance from the bivi to where the route continues upward is less then a rope length. The distance from there to the summit is about five rope lengths. The picture in Beckey is much better.

This has been discussed before recently. Worth searching the last couple of weeks worth of posts. Here are the major players... Bibler Eldorado - 4lb 8oz / 87" / PTFE Membrane http://www.bdel.com/gear/eldorado.php BD Firstlight - 2lb 11oz / 82" / Epic http://www.bdel.com/gear/firstlight.php Rab Summit Extreme - 3.6lbs / 82" (very low ceiling) / eVENT http://www.rab.uk.com/products_shelter_summitex.html Tenshi - 4.9lb / 86" / eVENT http://www.nemoequipment.com/products_tents_tenshi.asp Gemini - 5.6lb / 77" (low ceiling) / GTX http://www.terra-nova.co.uk/terra/highaltitude.shtml MK1 Lite - 3lb 11oz / 82" / PTFE Membrane http://www.integraldesigns.com/product.c...producttypeid=5 So the only ones that are actually significantly lighter than the Eldorado are the Rab and the BD (I'm 6'3" so length is an issue). The BD is made of Epic which according to Colin (who knows his stuff) doesn't cut it in winter conditions or bad weather. The RAB is VERY small as in 28" high! Sort of like a bivi bag for you and a very close friend. Colin's review - http://www.promountainsports.com/tents.shtml

I ended up buying some maps for the Canadian side of the border. http://www.etopo.ca/ The best free/shareware software for viewing them seems to be Memory-Map: http://www.memory-map.com/ This will also allow you to download USGS maps and load them too. You can stitch together multiple maps and add markers for peaks etc.

A Climber's Guide to the St. Elias Mountains by Richard Holmes http://www.icybaypress.com/ Amazon has it for $20. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0976398...5Fencoding=UTF8

I'm not trying to piss on your idea here but this is a really high risk way to go about putting together a group for Denali. When I was at the 14k camp a few years back it was full of groups with really poor dynamics who were busy failing, splitting up or going home because of it. Lots of them had met on the internat and spent very little time climbing before trying Denali. I realize that it's hard to find partners and the internet is a good place to go looking but you really need to start earlier so you can find people and climb with them on a couple of big-ish routes before going to Denali. Cheers, Ade

The boot will not stretch. The liner will pack out but probably not as much as you'd want it to and when it does the liners will start to loose their insulation qualities. In cold temps you want more room at the front of the boot to wiggle your toes and improve circulation - this isn't the time to by buying tight for "technical performance" unless you're planning on climbing a very hard route very fast (which from your post in the Alaska forum you're not). I was in the same boat as yourself and ended up with a pair of Ice 9000s. These come out very large for their size. I didn't think they would fit at all and ended up with a US 12 when normally I take a 12.5 or 13 shoe. You should give them a try. http://www.vasque.com/products/w-ice9000.cfm http://alpineclimbing.blogspot.com/2006/01/review-vasque-ice-9000-double-boot.html Cheers, Ade

Bibler Eldorado - 4lb 8oz / 87" / PTFE Membrane http://www.bdel.com/gear/eldorado.php BD Firstlight - 2lb 11oz / 82" / Epic http://www.bdel.com/gear/firstlight.php Rab Summit Extreme - 3.6lbs / 82" (very low ceiling) / eVENT http://www.rab.uk.com/products_shelter_summitex.html Tenshi - 4.9lb / 86" / eVENT http://www.nemoequipment.com/products_tents_tenshi.asp Gemini - 5.6lb / 77" (low ceiling) / GTX http://www.terra-nova.co.uk/terra/highaltitude.shtml MK1 Lite - 3lb 11oz / 82" / PTFE Membrane http://www.integraldesigns.com/product.cfm?id=7&CFID=7378347&CFTOKEN=43005992&ma inproducttypeid=5

Prototype of which tent. The Mk3?

Now I've finished physio for my back I'm starting the cross fit again. I'll let you know how I get on. Ade

Actually this has nothing to do with climbing. It's to ensure that the stupidity density on the West Butt route doesn't reach critical levels. Recent research (conducted in Washington, DC) has shown a real risk of the formation of a "stupidity black hole".

Typically this route gets done in the early spring when warmer temps have filled in the linking pitches with some ice and caused the snow the couloirs to consolidate.