AlpineK

I'll never drive through downtown Van again.

From the area I've skied Three Way peak a number of times. Also with a season pass it's quite reasonable cost wise to head into Crystal Lakes basin for the day. I suppose all of that will get you in trouble with the snow ranger

Up GW's nose dude.

I don't have too much issue with CM putting in a tram, and if they have to put in a new lift I guess the area they've selected is the least objectionable to me. The only thing that really bugs me is trying to close the backcountry to lift access skiing. I've always loved that feature of Crystal, and I don't look forward to trying to dodge some nazi patrol guy while trying to get into the backcountry.

I figure that being a republican is kind of like being autistic. Some republicans can do some funny tricks that impress a lot of people, but none of them can be cured of their disease. I like to put effort into TRs, but I couldn't be bothered to try and change somebodys poorly designed brain.

Actually Faiweather the style you just replied in is going to get most folks to hit the scroll button. If you want people to read what you say in a political thread or some other argument try and keep it to 2 paragraphs at a maximum.

I'd like to see Bush and Cheney gang raped by the Borax 20 Mule team.

Foreign monitors I don't think having some foreigners watch the election and then write a report is anything to get worked up over.

I think anyone who talks tough about using the military but had to get their dad to pull strings so they could get into the Texas National Gaurd durring a major war is a big ol wimp.

If you were to come up the Dais couloir you would avoid the seracs because you would be on the ridge. The upper Angel glacier is pretty straightforward. Colin could give you some better advice.

Nice We heard you were in the area and saw your tracks headed towards the N-NW ridge on Combatant.

There are more pictures in the photo gallery under my name.

You're going to have to work extra hard to find avys on the south spur in September.

Funny, I wish we could have climbed Waddington. You can only do so much.

Yes it was.

I'd recommend doing it if you're up at the col. Too bad we had to rush off from Lauri's place for the helicopter. It sounds like you guys had a fun trip.

Climb: Combatant Col-Mt Combatant via Kashtrya and Skywalk Date of Climb: 7/23/2004 Trip Report: Short Version CJZ and I climbed Kashtrya and Skywalk from Combatant Col. We tried Waddington but got into an argument. The weather got bad and we had to descend to Sunny Knob from the col so we could get a helicopter pickup before we ran out of fuel and food. flying in Long Version CrazyJZ and I thought it would be fun to take a trip to the Waddington area this summer. CJZ was excited about climbing out of Combatant Col, and after I took a look at the guide I thought the col would be a good place for a climbing trip. Being fairly slack on planning, I didn’t bother to call Mike at Whitesaddle until a week before our trip. When I called he told me that if we wanted to fly in we needed to show up on Friday instead of Saturday due to his booked schedule. I talked it over with CJZ and then I cranked out a bunch of long work days. In the end I got most everything I needed to do done, and we headed north on Thursday evening. We got to Bluff Lake on Friday afternoon and decided to have diner at Julie King’s place. About ¾ of the way through our meal we got a call from Mike to get over to the airfield and get onboard the helicopter. We ran out the door and changed into our cold weather gear as fast as we could then hopped in the helicopter and we were off. The flight in was great, and we landed near sunset at Combatant Col under perfect conditions. A party had been up there the week before and had 90 mph winds shred there tent. They had abandoned a bunch of stuff, so obviously the first thing we did at the col was to pillage and hi-grade there stuff. After that we set up our tents and went to bed. Alpinglow on Waddington CJZ higrading The next day RobertM and a friend flew in with Mike in the morning. We sent out a load of garbage from the previous party and then spent the day digging fortifications for our tents and trying to adapt to 10,000’. In the evening I was in my tent when I heard the heli land yet again. I didn’t bother to get out of my tent until I heard Ade’s voice. We were both surprised to see each other and also surprised at the little city that the col was turning into. The next day CJZ was still feeling the effects of altitude, so we blew off climbing and did some reconnaissance hiking to figure out descents off of the various peaks. The next day the wind was blowing fairly well and so we decided to not climb. I was starting to get restless and bummed that we had blown one good day of climbing. We spent the day reading and avoiding the wind. Finally on the following day we got up early and went climbing. Kashtrya Combatant; Kashtrya is the righthand butress The first route we did was on the SW buttress of Combatant. The route is about 5.8 at the hardest and it’s fairly broken so that there’s not too much sustained climbing; on the other hand the route goes directly to the summit. The night before we left the smoke from forest fires was so thick that we could barely see the bergschrund; fortunately the smoke eased off the next day so we had decent views. The route starts at the schrund. CJZ’s snow skills leave something lacking, so I was surprised to see him lead the way over the schrund. Past that we climbed an easy ice face to a boulder field and then back to ice. I put on crampons at the next section of ice and after scaring himself CJZ did likewise. We climbed around the base of the rock buttress and then up a bit to a point where it seemed like the route started. CJZ took the first lead up a set of cracks to the ridge crest. The route continues up the crest with mixed and scenic climbing; CJZ ended up with all the 5.8 climbing. We reached the summit about 1 PM and ate lunch. CJZ climbing on Kashtrya Looking down at the col and camp Instead of descending the route we chose to do a traverse and descend the N-NW ridge. From the summit we did running belays down the low fifth class ridge and the put crampons on for the final descent into the notch between the NW summit and the main. At the saddle we climbed up some 45 degree ice to the NW summit. Some down climbing and one rappel brought us to the top of a 2000’ 45 degree ice face. We ended up downclimbing the ice doing running belays with rock gear. The ice had been baking in the sun and it had a texture like large rock salt; the going wasn’t hard, but it was tedious. Eventually we got down to the slushy snow of the glacier. CJZ only broke through a couple crevasses on the way down to camp which we got to about 9 PM. The next day we hung out and watched Ade and his partner climb Skywalk while two guys who hiked up from Sunny Knob climbed the Flavelle-Lane route on the north face of Waddington. RobertM and his partner didn’t like plunge stepping on the Angel glacier, so they came back to camp and called for a helicopter out. After another day of rest we were ready for another climb. Skywalk . Skywalk buttress The base of the buttress The obviously most impressive feature on Mt. Combatant is the SW buttress of a subsummit of the mountain. The route is at least 5.7 with a number of 8s and 9s. The start of a route is in an icy gully. Once you’re a couple pitches over the schrund you turn to the left and climb a chimney system onto the buttress. CJZ led the first chimney pitch, which was an ice coated mess, but after that the route settled into some fine alpine rock climbing. I lead up on the buttress, and then simul climbed a ramp system that avoids a set of overhangs. Past that there is a beautiful dihedral laced with cracks that leads back to the buttress; from there on out you stay near the prow of the buttress. We climbed to a cool rock tower with a huge ledge on it. After a couple more leads we were on the summit. As with the previous route the party wasn’t over on the summit; we rappelled into an icy couloir and kept rapping. I don’t remember the total number of raps we did, but it got dark and we put on headlamps and kept rapping. Eventually around 2 AM we rapped over the schrund and hiked back to camp. We didn’t do anything for a couple days after that. Climbing towards the summit CJZ coming down from the summit Freeing the stuck ropes Waddington We hung out at camp in perfect weather and decided that the next thing on the hit list was Waddington. Ade and his partner after a lot of talk decided to head out, so they called for a heli and Mike showed up in the late afternoon. After they left we were alone at the col. We decided to try Waddington in 2 days, so we got up early packed up and headed out. The weather was beautiful as we hike over to the western edge of the col. We rounded the corner and headed up towards the broken icefall of the Angle glacier. I was amped and trying to move as quickly as possible through the dangerous area of the glacier, however CJZ took a different view of the icefall. All of a sudden he decided that he didn’t want to continue. Our divergent views soon landed us in a yelling match in the early morning light. After a while when we calmed down it became obvious to me that I would have to climb the mountain by myself. I wasn’t prepared for that, so we hiked back to camp. I got on the radio and called Mike for a ride out. When I got through to him He told me that due to the fires we couldn’t get a pick up flight till Wednesday (it was Monday). We stopped packing and went to separate sides of the camp and fumed about each other. Eventually I noticed a small stream of clouds coming off the summit of Waddington on the otherwise perfect day. The small stream of clouds got bigger and bigger as time went on and by late afternoon it was raining and then snowing at the col with gusty winds. Waddington Escape The storm kept up the next day but when we talked to Whitesaddle they still thought they could get us on Wednesday, but when Wednesday rolled around the weather was still really nasty. We had run through all of our reading material on Tuesday and so we spent Wednesday in as close to a vegetative state as we could. In the afternoon on Wednesday I got in touch with Whitesaddle and got the new forecast which was for crappy weather continuing through Friday and then improving on Saturday. After some talk we figured we would run out of fuel on or before Saturday and our food wouldn’t last more than a couple days past that. With no proof that the weather would really be better on Saturday we decided we needed to abandon the col for some more helicopter friendly place. Early the next morning we packed up. We decided to try and head to Sunny Knob as we new there were people there so if worst came to worst we could beg for fuel and food. When we started packing the clouds were above us, but as we packed the clouds dropped down causing a white out. We managed to get all our gear down to 2 large packs and a haul bag that I drug behind me. Unfortunately we had to leave all the crap that the folks who had been blown out left and some of our garbage. We got lost just trying to find the rocky point that separates the left from the right fork of the Tiedemann glacier at the col. After some backtracking we got to the top of the left hand fork, but all signs of foot tracks through the icefall were under snow. After looking around for a while we chose to descend this ice face next to some of the seracs on the glacier; I downclimbed and set screws. The hard part was dealing with the haul bag. I ended up tying a spare rope to the pig and kicking it off. The pig would slide down for a ways and then I would climb down to it and kick it off again. We eventually got to a point where we set a rap and ended up in a moat on the edge of the glacier. CJZ had a really hard time rapping as his pack kept flipping him upside down; this was tough to watch as I was hanging out in an area with lots of freshly avalanched chunks of ice. From the moat I found a ledge which led to the smooth central part of the glacier. We hike down for a ways staying near the side of Mt. Tiedemann until we reached some crevasse that we couldn’t cross. This forced us to hike back uphill and traverse to the far side of the glacier where we found a route that was only blocked by a 20’ deep crevasse. I rapped into the crevasse and climbed out the other side, and then we ferried packs over the gap; passed that a little weaving through crevasses brought us out of the icefall. Looking back at Combatant Col. We descended the righthand side of the glacier From there it was just a matter of hiking and dragging the pig. We got down to a point about ¼ of a mile from Sunny knob and set up camp. I got on the radio and Mike told us he could pick us up the next afternoon. We woke up late and while CJZ was boiling water I saw the Whitesaddle helicopter. The pilot radioed us and asked if we were ready to go. I ask for 15 minutes and we ripped down the tent shoved everything into bags and crammed everything into the helicopter. From there it was just a twenty minute flight back to the land of plenty. AK setting up camp after the descent to the lower Tiedemann Gear Notes: We had a fairly standard rack of rock gear, ice screws, a couple pickets and some pins Approach Notes: The col is a bad place to get stuck. Helicoptor flights out are impossible when the weather is bad. I recommend packing light and having an escape plan.

As a side note I'm just about to walk down to the post office and send the state and federal government about $4,800. I love it. You republicans are too wimpy to pay taxes.

I've been busy doing real world shit and trying to get ready for vacation. Foulweather you need to stay current. I've owned an Isuzu dump truck for 1.5 years now and that runs on biodiesel; I bought it so I could burn biodiesel. I spend 3.25/gal on fuel for my company rig and chipper. So you see I do put my money where my mouth is, any you know what my company turns a profit. As for your last sentence. Making a living is much different from personal recreation choices. Everybody has to eat and pay rent, but not everybody has to play soccer, or at least they could ride their bike to practice like I did when I was a kid. PS have fun trying to win pointless internet battles while I'm on vacation.

I just want to say that every time I see Fairweather post I shed a little tear for the obvious brain damage he's suffered due to the high lead and arsenic left behind by the Asarco smelter.

Man I got a shit load of firewood. I wish I could find that bug. I'm running out of room in my backyard.

Hi Don

With an Austrailian DVD herder dipshit.

So what you're saying is that we should teach creationism in school because all those scientists must be biased. Acording to GW it's ok for kids to drink a lot of lead and mercury. Lets not forget that hatchery salmon should be counted just like real salmon even though hatchery salmon are unsubstainable. I think you'd be happier if you moved to some repressed third world backwater Fairweather. You know some place where the government told you what to think and do.

As a small business owner I don't think GW has done anything for small business. All GW has done is make his fat cat friends richer at our expense.