Alpine_Tom

I assumed that the color markings were intended more as "user education" than precise technical specs.

So where's the picture?

When Dee Moulenar was in the Harvard Mountaineering Club, they went to climb Mt. St. Elias in the Fairweathers. This was, I think, the second ascent of St. Elias, and they did some cosmic ray research on the climb. Anyhow, my wife's grandparents ran a native school up there in Yakitat at the time, and the climbing club stayed at their house, while they were getting ready to head out, and after they got back. Dee developed his photos of the climb in their bathroom, and he's kept up with them ever since. She has a painting of his of Yakitat bay that he did for them, and a whole bunch of hand-drawn Christmas cards, etc, in her big old scrapbooks. She still gets his Christmas letter. Seems like a really nice guy.

I climbed Rainier with Dan Larson once.

I got a pair of aluminum Stubai crampons for my size 12's, and had to cut about a foot off the straps because they were so damn long. Take your boots into PMS and try the crampons on them.

Or golf.

This came up a while ago, and someone said, in effect: "I just sulk around until my wife just tells me to get out of the house and climb something" which is an approach my wife might claim that I use. The first couple of years after our son was born, my free weekends plummeted enormously. He's five now (nearly six) and a lot less work, and I have been able to get out a lot more. ymmv, of course. And, like Norman_Clyde says, there's a LOT you gain by having a little human around the house, more than you can possibly realize before it happens. Peter still wants me to lay with him in bed for while when I put him to bed. No doubt that'll be a memory before long "geez dad, can you just stop bugging me?" so I'll enjoy it while I can. You can make up the lost climbing time in the future, you don't get another chance to see your kid take his first steps, or read his first words.

And Green Bay leads the league! Woo!

I lost a bet once while traveling in Europe. A very large German named Helmut bet me he could open a bottle of wine without using a corkscrew, breaking the bottle or pushing the cork into the bottle. I accepted and he proceeded to smack the butt of the bottle repeatedly with a very large and powerful hand. The cork slowly inched it's way out until it protruded enough for Helmut to grab it and pull it out. Later, while skiing on a glacier we had the same dilemma. With gloved hands we tried to repeat Helmut's stunt, but it hurt too much. I think we used a sneaker and smacked it with that until the cork came out enough for us to grab it. My climbing partner tried the hold & smack method a few years ago, about a week before we were suppose to climb Stuart. Bottle shattered - sliced finger tendon - end of climbing season. Thump it against the wall, people! Not your hand, the wall! And you can hold it in a towel, to be safe. Sheesh.

I lost a bet once while traveling in Europe. A very large German named Helmut bet me he could open a bottle of wine without using a corkscrew, breaking the bottle or pushing the cork into the bottle. I accepted and he proceeded to smack the butt of the bottle repeatedly with a very large and powerful hand. The cork slowly inched it's way out until it protruded enough for Helmut to grab it and pull it out. Later, while skiing on a glacier we had the same dilemma. With gloved hands we tried to repeat Helmut's stunt, but it hurt too much. I think we used a sneaker and smacked it with that until the cork came out enough for us to grab it. I guess it's a European technique, where they don't have drywall screws or cordless drills. The guy who showed me learned it as an exchange student in Russia. But it's a very useful technique to use when you're moving (in or out) and all the kitchen stuff is packed.

Inspired by this thread, I went out and bought a bottle of Woolite (on sale at Bartells) and scrubbed my old Kelty Glacier Peak pack, which I've been using for well over a decade, and which has as long as I can remember has been redolent of that macho fragrance of old sweat, bug juice, and sunscreen. I scrubbed it pretty well with a brush, squeezed the soapy water in the padded shoulder straps and waist belt, rinsed the whole thing off (boy did the water get dirty!) and hung it upside down to dry under cover on the deck. Now we wait. No problems with seams coming loose, that I could see. If you used bleach, I think that might cause some sorts of thread to dissolve?

You can hold it on its side and gently, repeatedly, bang the base of the bottle against the wall. The cork will gradually work its way out. It takes a while (ten minutes or more) and you do need to be careful not to break the bottle and cut yourself (and loose the wine!) I don't know if it'd affect the quality of a "good" wine, but that's not usually an issue for me.

Another hardcore epic: in 1893, Fridtjof Nansen deliberately embedded a specially-built ship into the Arctic icepack, anticipating that the motion of the icepack would take it over the north pole. Eventually he figured out they were going to miss it, so he took off with a few dogsleds and one other guy, and headed off to the north pole. After a few weeks, had to turn around and make for solid ground (fed the dogs with the "dog eat dog" method) then when they reached the end of the icepack, shot the two remaining dogs and took off with two kayaks. Ended up on an uninhabited island, where they had to spend an entire winter, before taking off in spring, and arriving home the same week as their ship. It's told in a book called "Farthest North" written by Nansen and recently republished as part of the Modern Library Exploration series.

That was a pretty inspiring book. (author is Slavomir Rawicz.) This year I read someplace (Newsweek, or Time, maybe?) that some of the details of the story had been exagerated. Even so, if it was only half as arduous as he portrayed it, it was FAR worse than I expect I could endure. On long tedious hikes out from climbs, I think about the story to remind myself that things could be much, much worse.

I looked at them when they came out with the Lance Armstrong version, but the altimeter only went to 10,000 feet. I don't know if that's changed, I just looked at the nike website to try and figure it out, but had no luck. (You can search for "watch" but not "altimeter", and none of the 25 watches that showed up in the "watch" search had an altimeter function.) They were much smaller than my Casio altimeter watch (which is about the size of a baseball.)

What'd you wash it with, concrete driveway cleaner? If washing the pack caused the stitching to fall apart, then it was probably (prolly?) pretty worn out already. I'd use something like woolite, or the stuff they sell for washing sleeping bags, and let it hang dry in the open air for a couple of days.

Years ago, I worked for a winch and hoist manufacturer in Seattle, and learned there that horses were susceptible to this sort of thing (I guess in the old days they used slings to lift horses onto and off of ships, so used to be a regular concern.)

I come down on the side of encouraging more trip reports. If nothing else, it would reduce the number of threads that start out "anyone know if N F Chair Peak is in?" followed by a dozen more riffing on "go look for yourself" and "it wasn't this time last year" and "I was up there three weeks ago and it didn't look good." If you think a TR is lame, or not worth reading, maybe the thing to do is just ignore it. I would like to see more TRs on here, partly because they give good beta of where to go, what's in and what's not, what conditions the approach is in, etc. I know that some (like Dru) climb more in a month than others (like me) do in a year, and climb harder stuff when they're down with the flu than we do at our best. Does that mean that no one who can't climb 5.11 or solo the Beckey Route or do a traverse of the southern pickets should be entitled to post a trip report without getting pounced on? I certainly didn't think cc.com is intended to be an on-line version of AAJ, and only grade VI climbs should be reported. Last year I posted a really long rambling TR about soloing NE buttress of Chair Peak and spraining my ankle on the way down, and in retrospect I'm surprise no one jumped on me about it. I suppose it was a pretty modest achievement, but I was pretty proud of myself at the time. Maybe the problem is that people aren't clear on how to post a TR in such a way as to make it clear that they're not chestbeating.

My gut reaction is that the US (citizens, media and gov't) has spent the last 4 decades or so developing a deep distrust of the military, military service, and political use of the military, and so to turn around and pay respect to those who wore the uniform, whether they fought and died, fought, or just worked in a PX, is rampantly un-cool. Canadians, by contrast, have a lot less to feel guilty/cynical/resentful about.

We were up in Vancouver this weekend, and I was surprised by how many people were wearing poppies. Seems like they take remembrance more seriously up there. And when my wife mentioned it to the friend we were visiting, she started reciting "In Flanders Fields" too. Hell, I couldn't recite a word of it. It's nice to see a little lack of cynicism for a change.

Where's your GaperGear?

There was an article in the NY Times a couple of weeks back about how colleges are spending more and more on amenities like climbing walls and expensive gyms. WSU was mentioned in particular, as well as other schools back east and in Texas. It was portrayed as another aspect of the "academic arms race" to get desirable students, but the extra cost of these amenities that few will actually use raises the cost of the education for everyone. I for one don't see a problem with them charging a few $$ for use of the facility. If nothing else, it'd keep the place from being overrun with people just screwing around.

Umbrella's blow. If it's raining enough that I want rain protection - an umbrella doesn't do jack for me (it'll keep me dry to maybe my midtorso), unless it's one of those monster PGA specials that don't fit on trails. Of all the dumb Jardine pitched ideas that one's tops. The one time I tried hiking with a small collapsable umbrella (the sunrise mine trail) I thought it worked really well. It wouldn't be such a hot idea if you need an ice axe or poles, or if it was really windy, of course, but I think Jardin was talking mostly about hiking on places like the PCT.

Touching the Void was the first climbing book I ever read, and thinking about it still gives me the creeps. I really liked In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods about the '75 K2 expedition. Cascade Voices by Malcomb Bates ought to be required reading if you climb around here.

I took the mountain Westie up north today, hoping to bag Tomihoi Peak. Man was I out of my depth with hiking tennies and ski poles -- it looks like a Mark Twight route up there now, water ice on rock all over the place.