Alpine_Tom

They used to have this cool backpacking espresso machine. You should probably have one of those before you go spending money on the chopsticks. Or, those heart-shaped Valentine biners. Are they in the outlet website yet?

I actually know someone who went on an RMI climb with his adult son. They didn’t make it past Muir, but he didn’t complain about it, or at least about the money.It's my guess that when Joe and Bob show up at the bunkhouse, having just flown in from Delaware, if the RMI guide says "it doesn't look good, so we're not going. Here's your rain check" they'd be pretty irate. I'd expect a lot of these type A personalities who've read "Into Thin Air" and watched "Vertical Limit" would opt to give it a shot, since they're already in it for $1000, plus a week of vacation time from work, plane tickets, etc. And, I'd bet that for a lot of folks without much climbing experience, watching the sunrise from Ingraham flats would be just about as dramatic and memorable as summiting. Certainly my first (failed) attempt on Rainier was pretty memorable.

The math that appalled me (I was curious one quiet day at work) is what it would cost you to climb with RMI if you didn’t have any gear. Say you were a marathon runner who wanted to add this to your list of accomplishments. If you had to rent all the gear, it would come to $401 for the three day rental. The rental $$ is due up front, with no refunds within 30 days of the climb. (That includes sleeping bag, parka, ice axe, boots, fleece, sunglasses, thermarest, etc. No bunkhouse coffee cup, though.) The summit climb is $728. First (reasonably, I think) you have to pass their “Climbing School.” If you don’t, they refund you the $728, minus the cost of the climbing school, which is $154. (No refunds on the equipment rental, of course.) Their website goes on to say: 'If adverse weather or route conditions prevent the entire party from reaching Camp Muir on day two, you will receive a $287.00 credit for another Summit Climb. Individuals who are unable to reach Camp Muir or complete their program will not receive a refund.' In other words, if you sign up in September for a climb next July and that weekend happens to be poor weather, but part of the group presses on to Muir, well, you’re out of luck. But if the weather is so bad that no one reaches Muir, you’re only out $441, plus the rental fees. If you’re willing to try again later in the season. Plus, there are charges for changing your scheduled climb, no changes within 20 days, etc etc. I understand they’ve got a pretty full schedule, so they’re charging what the market will bear. But it’s remarkable (to me) that there are that many people out there who are willing to shell out that much $$ on an adventure with so much uncertainty, especially one that involves predicting conditions several months in advance.

quote: Originally posted by mountainguy01: Also, in a capitalistic society we act in a free market economy. So let the highest bidder take the land. The problem with this is that the highest bidder will almost ALWAYS be the bidder who's going to extract and consume the resources, rather than the bidder who wants to protect them. (The occasional exceptions to this rule get plenty of press, but they remain statistically insignificant.) As we've seen in our happy little on-line community here, people are loathe to pay to use the outdoors. So, a timber company who's going to clearcut a forest and sell the logs is nearly always going to be in a more powerful financial position than a conservation group who wants to preserve the forest for deer and butterflies and tree-huggers. I certainly appreciate that people like Paul Allen are willing to pony up some part of their fortunes to preserve bits of natural environment, but that relying on the kindness of billionairs seems like a skewed way to make public policy. And (to pull on the flame-attracting eco-extremist cloak for just a moment) in a free market economy the taxpayers wouldn't be subsidizing the extraction of trees from the public forests, or subisizing grazing on the public rangelands for that matter. It would bother me a bit less if that wood was used domestically, to provide jobs in local mills, but much of the timber that comes from public forests, in particular Tsongas in S. Alaska, which is the most heavily subisidized logging operation in the country, gets shipped overseas to provide jobs in Japan.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/59409_mtbaker22ww.shtmlThe highway is closed at Maple Falls due to a mud slide. This is before the road up to Mt. Baker. So if you're planning on going to, oh, Goat Mountain, as well as Church Mountain, Shuksan, etc, you should check with the highway department, since the article doesn't say when it'll be open again. [ 02-22-2002: Message edited by: Alpine Tom ]

I’m planning a Gib Ledges climb for some time in the next few weeks, and I’m trying to decide whether to haul up a tent or stay in the hut. I’ve been at Muir in December and January in years past, and the hut felt to me like a walk-in freezer. It’s my guess that you’d be substantially warmer in a tent than in the hut, since there’s so much less space to warm. Am I full of shit, or does this make sense?I like the idea of saving the five pounds or so of a tent, but I don’t want to be miserable either, especially in the event of bad weather forcing an extra day up there.The tent in question is a Sierra Designs "Tiros"

Or, you could go to your neighborhood grocery store, and use the scales in the produce department. I expect they're pretty accurate, and they probably wouldn't mind.

I've got the MSR Denali classic, and have rented other, more "standard" snowshoes (Atlas?) from REI in years past. The only thing about the MSR I don't like is they make a loud plastic sound in the snow; they sound kind of cheap. But so what: they're compact and strap easily to the outside of a pack, they are easy to put on, and since they're narrow, they are easier to walk in for a slight klutz like me. And the price is certainly right. I've got the long tails (I weigh about 190 lbs) but haven't needed to use them yet.

The trailhead for Fischer Chimneys on Shuksan is basically the ski area parking lot, so access isn't much of a problem.The road to the Sulphide glacier trailhead will probably be blocked with snow and fallen trees.Nelson (vol 1) recommends Ruby Mtn in winter, but I've never done it.Hood and Rainier aren't close to you, but they've got about the easiest trailhead access in winter.Snow Gulch on Whitehorse is good in winter, I've done it. And, of course, plenty of routes in Snoqualmie - Granite Mtn, Snoqualmie, Red, Guy, Silver, [ 02-22-2002: Message edited by: Alpine Tom ]

Cool! I'm curious why the other two elected not to go up. Wind, or iffy conditions at Muir?

quote: Originally posted by AlpineK: how about your bathroom scale. Weigh yourself, weigh yourself with your pack, do some math. I think it's called subtractionMost bathroom scales are not particularly accurate. Or repeatable. I can gain or loose five pounds on mine, depending on how I stand. So, if you're trying to find out how much your weekend pack weighs, for bragging rights, it's probably okay, but if you're trying to compare the weight of, say, two different tents, or sleeping bags, it probably won't work. But the downtown post office is a great place to hang out after hours!

quote: Originally posted by AlpineK: rather talk about what a morron George W is and what a bunch of loadies his daughters are. "Loadies" Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Maybe we need to become mineral prospectors rather than climbers. Then we won't have to pay for the parking passes, since it'll be work and not play. And of course, where are you gonna prospect besides in the mountains. The Cascades are covered with mining claims; I bet half the mountains are named for claims or miners (Johannesburg, Ruby, Eldorado, Monte Cristo come to mind.) The beauty of this is that almost no prospectors make money prospecting, so they wouldn't expect you to actually have an income from the "job." Plus, you'd be able to write off your climbing gear from your taxes! For a few years, anyhow. This wouldn't work in the North Cascades or Rainer National Parks, probably, but it'd work in NF land. I've e-mailed my brother, who's a geologist for a gold mining company in Nevada, to find out whether this scam would work.

In my experience it’s the bosses who take lots of time off who expect their employees to work extra to pick up the slack.

quote: Originally posted by Mike Gauthier: (btw, many rangers agree that climbers are about the smartest of all park visitors. They can also be the most cussedly independent and cynical, but that's ok too) Mike -- climbers are cynical? You must mean OTHER climbers, not the ones that frequent this site.

I'd go to hear Tom Hornbein, but it's hard to know what he could say about the movie besides “it’s all ludicrous – every scene.” It’s like those “The Science of Star Trek” specials they used to do.

quote: Originally posted by payaso: I've seen some people with a kind of funky "chest harness" for their SLR and am interested in trying something like this. When strapped on, it is a real camera bag (PROTECTION!) more or less right under your chin. If I have to take off the pack to get the shot, the shot too often doesn't get taken. I personally use a Canon A2. Anyone out there use a harness-like camera bag, and if so what kind? I got a "wedge-shaped" camera bag last summer based on the recommendation of someone on this site. He said to clip it directly to the straps of my pack with mini-biners. I tried that but it bounced annoyingly every step. So now I just wear it with the strap diagonally, underneath the pack, and it's right there. It's pretty secure, dry, and readily accessible.Mine is from Lowe, and they have an optional strap that goes around your chest to hold the bag in place, but the pack does just fine for that.

I usually bring an old Olympus OM-PC with two lenses: a 50mm and a 28-200 zoom. Typically I start the day (in the dark or near dark) with the 50mm because of the better F-stop, and then switch to the zoom at the summit and for the descent. For years I've left it set at -1 exposure, based what Galan Rowell says, for getting richer colors.I also have an Olympus stylus P&S, and it's more compact, but sort of frustrating to shoot with. My compliments to anyone who can get reliable results out of a disposable camera -- I buy one each year for RAMROD, and out of 18 or so shots, I get about three worth keeping. (Got an okay one of Dwayner as his CAMROD avatar last summer!) [ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: Alpine Tom ]

I've heard the same thing, that nylon looses its stretchiness over time, even when the rope isn't used. Duane Raleigh says something about that in his knot book. (Subsequently, a guy at the downtown REI gear counter told me that wasn't true, so you choose which experts you trust.) On the other hand, I asked a few months ago on this website if anyone had ever heard of a rope breaking, and no one responded that they had. 'course, nylon is different than perlon, spectra or the other miracle fabrics that PB mentioned.

There's a place called Devil's Rock Garden, it's a hike in one of the Footsore books. There's a few acres of rock lying around, from house-sized on down. Probably a dedicated boulderer could start a career there.

quote: Originally posted by JayB: I’m with you on the whole property rights thing, Erik, but I thought that I’d go ahead and add some more information about the property in question. I'm certainly not advocating trespassing or otherwise violating property rights, but established precedents can and should be taken into account in situations like these. Sometimes there’s a longstanding agreement between landowners and climbers, and when it changes abruptly and without notice climbers can be caught off-guard. Well, there's a legal principle called an easement, which can NOT be changed by a simple change of understanding. <practicing law without a license> If the use of property, e.g., driving across your property to get to mine, is allowed to continue for seven years (in Washington) and it's open, notorious, and hostile (i.e., everyone is aware it's happening) then an easement is created. In that case, the gun club would loose the right to prevent crossing over their land. They couldn't, for instance, put up fences to prevent access. The easement stays with the land, so if the gun club sold the land, the easement would continue.Of course, if they had "no trespassing" signs up, and people from the gun club yelled at climbers whenever they saw them, the easement would not be established.This happens most frequently with driveways, and with fences built "on" property lines.(And, BTW, this doesn't apply to publicly owned land.)</practicing law without a license>So, a lot rides on how long this has been going on. And, of course, finding an attorney to represent you who doesn't mind getting shot at.

If you get good weather and site your high camp correctly, you can do the whole thing in one push from base camp. You need to spend some time acclimatizing first.

Certainly I don’t like having hordes of Mounties out there any more than anyone else does – I’m entirely comfortable with the idea of locking the door to the outdoors, now that I’m here. Okay, no one who has an REI number over six digits can use any route that appears in Beckey or the first volume of Nelson and Potterfield. Sounds fair to me. But it's not like they go recruiting people to take their classes; in fact, a few years back I got the idea of joining the Mounties and taking the Basic climbing course, but gave it up because next year's class was already full. They're a big organization with big classes because there's a huge demand -- there are lots of folks looking for the freedom of the hills . I'm guessing that part of their rigidity (you can only tie in with a bowline on a bight, not a butterfly knot) is due to a desire for consistency in training, as well as a fear of liability. After all, if someone climbing with me gets injured, their attorney probably won't come after me (after all, I'm basically judgement-proof!), but if I'm representing the Mountaineers, it's probably a different story. I wonder how often they've gotten sued because some moron wasn't paying attention, fell and got hurt, and went crying to mama. I agree it's kind of irresponsible to make a new Basic grad a Basic teacher, but that's what they do in college. How many freshman or sophomore level classes at UW aren't taught by grad students? The best way to learn is to teach, y'know. (Of course, a bad Econ TA isn't going to get you killed... ) There's no excuse, of course, for mounties to act so self-righteous and critical of others; I guess that's an unfortunate consequence of making novices into leaders, making them think they know more than they do. But the basic issue is that the crowded routes are crowded because there's lots of people who want to get out and climb. (Does anyone REALLY expect solitude on The Tooth?) The mouties are just the easiest target because they're big and clumped together. Even if they restricted their basic class to a dozen people a year, and required years of experience to be an instructor, that wouldn't reduce the number of people you'd run into in the hills. [ 01-16-2002: Message edited by: Alpine Tom ]

It seems like, the last few weeks bicycling in to work, I've noticed the Cascades socked in by couds in the morning, and the Olympics in view. Anyone know whether the Olympics close to the sound (Constance, Warrier Peak, da bruddas, etc) tend to be clearer? Someone told me years ago that Mt. Olympus was the 3rd most glaciated peak in the state because of the huge amount of snow it gets. I like the theory that Olympus and the other mountains in the interior of the peninsula cause a sort of rain shadow.

Guess you told him.