pete_a

congrats guys!

skins don't come in different lengths...only different widths take whatever your ski tip width is, subtract 10mm, and thats the size that would probably work just fine for ya without paying for (and then trimming away) too much excess BD skins tend to have a better more durable glue, but I think their various tail attachment systems kinda suck. G3 skins have crappy glue, but I like their tail attachment systems much better...and you can always reglue when the start to crap out on ya. good luck!

both are good programs and the clubs do a tremendous job teaching basic skills to get climbers on the right track. I've helped out with the mountaineers and the wac, both classes are going to cover the same topics...rock climbing, snow climbing, glacier travel, basic navigation, snowcamping, etc etc. I think the Mountaineers class format (beyond the regular classroom sessions and field trips) has a certain number of required 'basic' climbs that students must go on. They offer a rather extensive schedule of formal Mountaineers climbs over the year...students sign up for which climbs they want to do as it fits their schedule in order to graduate. The WAC incorporates several basic rock and snow climbs into the springtime class schedule and then after the students have 'graduated' (class wraps up in early June), the students and instructors have a graduation party and organize their own climbing schedule for the remainder of the summer...wac students are free to particpate in as many or as few as they like and if they've got a particular climb they want to do (and its a reasonable climb for new climbers), odds are a group can get thrown together to go there during the summer. The WAC is certainly a smaller club, so I think you're more likely to see the same faces over and over again and get to know your instructors better but the Mountaineers is a larger club that has a more formal schedule of events and climbs and offers more programs beyond just climbing and skiing. I really enjoy how closely knit the WAC is thats why I continue to help out, but both programs are great, it just kind of depends on what club will fit your personality best. (disclaimer....i'm NOT bashing the Mounties, they are obviously a good organization or they wouldn't be such a huge club)

toughest ever for me was a descent. forecast looked good when a buddy of mine and I left for a climb of Liberty Ridge...two days later, bivied at Thumb Rock the weather went to hell...got about 18" of snow overnight, next morning the visibility was awful, could hear avalanches all around us, wind was nasty, new snow balling up on crampons. took nine hours to get from thumb rock back down to the carbon glacier...then another four hours or so of stumbling around following compass bearings and our altimeter to get back across the carbon and winthrop glaciers to glacier basin..we each fell in twice into different crevasses that were freshly bridged with snow in the process. it sucked...yet somehow the following weekend we found ourselves climbing the kautz (and forunately had better weather).

ditto what everyone else said.... assuming that are you going to denali (and likely the west buttress) you don't have to worry about if your footwear is bulky, there aren't a whole lot of finess moves on that route as long as you can plod one foot in front of the other for hours on end in relative comfort, then don't worry about your boots being clunkers. I was Ryland's partner that used the AT boots. I wanted to use a dynafit binding mounted ski on the lower mountain to save weight, and my Dynafit TLT boots with thermofit liners were only a few ounces heavier than my Koflachs, so I used my Dyna boots. I bought them a little big, and then above 14k I removed my arch supports to give my toes some extra wiggle room. If you are thinking about using skis (and more specifically dynafit bindings) on denali, you should consider a lightweight Dynafit boot...it worked really well up there for me, though the size you end up with may prove to be too roomy to work as a good ski boot around here. I haven't used mine much since but am hanging on to them for future trips up north. I managed to find those two year old TLT4 boots with thermofit liners for about $200, they'd been used a few times, then returned to the shop, so I got them for less than a pair of new Koflachs...check second ascent, ebay, craigslist, you can probably put together a pair of thermofit linered boots for a lot less than you'd expect.

also keep in mind that if we start getting a decent amount of snow early, its possible the park service will gate the road for the winter already at the turn off to White River Rd, which will add six miles of road walking/skinning to get to the summer trailhead to access the Emmons route. Early November you'll have much better luck opting to do something on the paradise/camp muir side of the mountain. I'd be very suprised if the upper mountain is safely skiable in early Nov...I imagine there would be a ton of barely covered crevasses and the waist-high neve penitentes might not even be covered up yet.

maybe now... whistler's looking a little snowy this afternoon

i was wondering when someone would post a thread about the upcoming weather.... i hope this storm delivers...waiting to see what shows up on baker's and rainier's telemetry stations, but if theres any decent amount of precip thurs and friday, i'll be wandering around on rainier saturday hoping theres something other than horribly suncupped dirty neve to slide around on.

got plans to do a little traverse up in the alpine lakes wilderness next weekend....trip could either be done setting up a car shuttle along Hwy 2 or leaving one car up as far up the middle fork snoqualmie road as possible. I've never driven up the middle fork and I've always heard horror stories (usually second hand) about how bad the road is. Anyone been up there recently? How far can a Subaru wagon make it up there without bottoming out on some monster potholes?

twin harbors state park is the closest state campground to westport, if you're planning to be there on a weekend, get in a reservation now or you may be outta luck. Although I've had decent service at The Surf Shop, I heard from a fella who got a lot of flak from the employees cause he went to rent a board, they were all rented out and they couldn't convince him to rent a boogie board instead. Steepwater has nice folks who work there. But if you're gonna be out there for a week, it may be best to rent gear in Seattle (of if thats not along your route to Westport, maybe theres a place in Tacoma?) I dont' think that The Surf Shop or Steepwater allow 24 hr rentals (but you may want to check), so your limited to surfing during kook prime time 9am-4pm...if you have the gear with you, then you can get in a early morning session, and hit it again in the evenings when the crowds are down. Weekdays crowds are rarely a problem...a few fridays ago there were more sealions in the water at the jetty than surfers when I got there. Don't listen to folks who are telling you you'll get beat up and that localism is a major issue at Westport...its not as long as you're not a total kook out there. Before you paddle out into a lineup just make sure you understand the basic rules about who has the right of way when paddling for a wave on the outside, and what direction to move to get out of someones way. I started surfing last summer and hit westport regularly (when I don't have time to make the drive to better spots like LaPush or anything in Oregon). I've never had problems with localism...but I also can tell when theres a pack of locals on the better peak near the jetty and I stay away. I use a hooded 4/3 suit even in summer, but I imagine a 3mm suit will be just fine. If you're just learning to surf, go to Westhaven State Park...theres ample room to spread out and you can goof around in the whitewater without getting in anyones way. Theres is often a rip along the jetty, which can be great for helping ya to get outside to the larger waves...never seen a rip elsewhere on the beach there, but there is usually a strong longshore current that will carry you south along the beach. Avoid the Cove....unless you're a good shortboarder you won't be able to handle the wave there...and odds are since its summertime the swell will be too small for it to be 'working' there anyways. The Groins can be fun, certainly a cleaner wave than the beachbreak you'll get at the Jetty/Westhaven...but theres a limited amount of space there, so if theres anyplace you'll receive shit for being a noobie and getting the way, its probably gonna be there if the waves are good and you're clogging up area. Have fun! most folks out at westport are non-locals too and plenty are just learning. Everyone I've talked with has always been very friendly, hopefully your experience will be just as positive. you may want check out oregonsurf.com or wannasurf.com for some info on surfing in the northwest...oregonsurf is rather similar to the silliness on this board, but theres a fair amount of good info to be had. oh, and one other thing...if you've got a week to surf, why go to westport? Drive an extra few hours and get to Oregon...camp at Nehalem Bay State Park and surf at Short Sands/Oswald West State Park....far more beautiful a spot to play in the ocean.

yeah, the good ol' days workin for peanuts at McKenzies with you and all the other Eugene screwballs (by the way, nice work on Gunsight!)

Becky and I hiked the Ptarmigan this past week. It was tough for me to leave skis behind as I always thought my first time doing the traverse would be on skis, but after the previous week of hot temperatures we figured the on again off again routine with skis would make walking the traverse a little more practical. And especially after seeing Bachelor Creek in all its slide-aldery glory, I was kinda happy to not have boards with me this time around. Anyways...current conditions on the traverse: Traverse to Cache Col is mostly snow and getting over cache col is an easy scramble on the left side of the cornice. Descent to Kool-aid lake is on rotten snow with plenty of hollows near rocks and the traverse towards the Red Ledges is alternating snow and heather. There is a hanging snow patch and a moat at the entrance to the ledges. Of the four parties we saw doing the traverse at the same time, only one successfully pulled off the scramble on the right side of the moat to gain the ledges (they also brought some nuts to protect it, none of us did). We opted to descend a bit and climb a straightforward snow gully that gained the ridge and although we hiked further, we topped out right around the same time the Red Ledges party topped out. Probably still in shape for a couple weeks or so. The traverse towards the Middle Cascade glacier is alternating gravel ribs and snow, and the walk up the glacier is fine, no nearby crevasses or saggy snowbridges. The snow tounge off the back side of Spider Col was an easy glissade. Among the parties also doing the traverse this week was a group of four with skis, and from Spider Col to Yang Yang lakes was one of the few times that Becky and I were truly jealous of their boards as the flew past us heading for camp. Only a couple short heather patches between Spider col and Yang Yang lakes, but the snow is very thin lower down and won't last long at all. About 5am Tuesday morning at the lakes it started to thunder and pour rain but it was short-lived and by noon we were all dried out and packed up. The goat path to pass through the cliffs just south of Yang Yang lakes is still covered in snow and was a steep, but straightforward climb to the ridge below Le Conte. The Le Conte glacier is well filled in and we didn't have any troubles getting up to the col towards the South Cascade glacier. The long descending traverse towards White Rocks Lakes was another spot where Becky and I were envious of the four skiers as the scooted past us and beat us to camp by about an hour. White Rocks Lakes has to be one of the most beautiful campsites I've ever been to....what a dramatic view of Dome and the Chickamin glacier! Wednesday morning we headed for campsite either on Itswoot Ridge or the Dana glacier so we'd be in position for a climb of Dome on Thursday, but upon reaching Spire Col we had a view to the south of the incoming storm...a large thunderhead and grey clouds marching up from Glacier Peak. Not wanting to be in the alpine when the thunderstorm hit we bagged our Dome Peak plans and headed for Cub Lake. A party up there a week and a half earlier reported continuous snow to Cub Lake, now its melted out significantly and we were off the snow after 1300ft of descending from Spire Col. Within about fifteen minutes of us setting up the tent at Cub Lake the thunder, rain, and hail started up and we were consumed by clouds. After a very dreary evening surrounded by slowly damper and damper gear in our little single-wall tent we packed up Thursday morning and headed for the car. From the ridge above Cub Lake the main trail appears to veer into the massive avy slide path. Taking the advice from a friend who'd been in to climb Dome the week before we headed down on the south side of the slide path through mature forest and quickly found the climbers path at around 4700ft without ever setting foot amongst the slide debris. Once we hit the trail we just put our heads down, tried to ignore our saturated rain gear, soaked-through boots, and just chug our way out to the car. Very happy to have finally seen all the terrain around the Ptarmigan, maybe one of these days I'll feel up for bringing skis along. pictures: snow coverage towards Red Ledges, and the snow finger on the right that we climbed to by-pass the ledges. view to the south from spider col Dome Peak from White Rocks Lakes Thunderhead and rain working up from Glacier Peak A very soggy night at Cub Lake

if you are going to take four days to do your climb, your schedule may be better if you skip the glacier basin camp and get a permit to camp on the inter glacier for your first night's camp. Hiking from the trailhead to glacier basin makes for a really short, easy day and your time may be better spent knocking off a little more distance and vertical by camping somewhere on the inter glacier and have the benefit of more acclimitization from the extra 2000ft or so of extra altitude. anyways, just a suggestion.

...it would be nice if they'd make up there mind before that May 15th summertime quota of 100 climbers goes into effect...the mother's day ski party there has always been a blast.

It is worth it to pack skis to the summit if skiing off the summit is something you want to do, but more often than not the skiing conditions you'd find are going to be not a heck of a lot of fun. if you monitor the weather very closely, you maybe able to time it so you may find either good wind-effected powder or corn (depending on the time of year you plan to go) most of the time you'll find hard snow, sastrugai, and assorted other nastiness at least above 13000ft. I've skied the Ingraham Direct route before, April'04 though we angled more towards the Gib.Rock side of the Ingraham instead of towards the DC side. At the time it was very well closed up and I don't think we had more than two obvious snow bridges that we had to ski across. We did opt to de-ski and re-crampon for a short steep secion above a crevasse near the top of Gib.Rock....but it could've easily been skied by more capable folk. The upper 1000ft of skiing from the top at the time involved side slips and careful jump turns on very low-angle but bulletproof snow. I think most people would consider the Emmons to be the more ski-worthy option vs. the Ingraham.

Fuhrer Finger can let loose all sorts of ice and rock, even in the middle of the night when its cold (although its less likely to then). Got buzz-bombed by a huge rock in the middle of the hourglass a few years ago (mid-June). Although this is probably not a popular way of climbing the route, when I've done it before, I've climbed it as a carry- over, packed really light bivy gear so I could just get up the route while it was cold, then enjoy a descent via the cattle path of Ingraham Direct (decending via the Kautz would be a less crowded option that may still provide less of an objective hazard than a midday descent through the FF. or you could always try to time your descent so that you can catch corn snow in the couloir and get down via skis.

If you really cannot find any AT boots that are large enough for your feet, one option would be to buy some regular old alpine boots (quite a few models have a ski-walk mode so you can at least unlock the forward lean in the cuff). Alpine boots are compatible with Naxo's and Fritschi's and probably the Silvretta Pure bindings too. This set-up would be heavy and your boots wouldn't have a rubber sole for hiking, but it would at least get you into the backcountry. (probably also a good idea to double check that Fritschi, Naxo, and/or Silvretta even make their bindings large enough for whatever alpine boot length you need before you start buying any of the gear)

last year when G3 released their line of new skis it was rumored that they were the same as Movement skis but with different graphics. Not sure about this year's offerings, but last year you could find an exact twin (sidecut dim's and length) of all G3 skis offered under a different name on Movement's site. If you can't find reviews of Movement skis...might be worthwhile looking at whatever that skis G3 twin is.

haha, alright...maybe when I was a kid those orangy boulders back behind the store on Commercial St. would've seemed like a bouldering worthy destination...but those are actually gone now, theres a driveway 'round back of the store...the last of the salem boulders are gone...

I am assuming that you saw that line in the 'Rock and Road' atlas mentioning some obscure Salem boulders... I grew up in Salem and never saw any chunk of rock even close to being large enough to climb on in town. I think that info must've made its way into that book without any real research to find out if such a place exists. Your best bet for climbing in Salem will be to find a way to use the Willamette University's athletic center and their sad little rock wall (if they still have it...its been nine years since I've lived there).

took crazy carpet sleds on a two week trip around Waddington this spring...and of course, they sucked, but here's what I learned. We opted for the crazy carpets so we could roll them up and stow them on our packs when we had burned through enough food/fuel not to need them anymore. Had thought about using a Petzel Swivel (or similar) in the rigging, so that when the sled inevitably begins twisting and flipping on the downhills, that it will not tangle the rigging (as the rigging twists, it will slowly get closer and closer to your skis until its nipping at your heels)....ended up not using the swivel after reading a TR where someone did this and the swivel broke, and their sled rocketed away downslope... I used a long piece of 6mm cord and just clipped biners on the waistbelt of my backpack to connect it...didn't want to bother with an extra harness to attach the sled or attach it straight to my climbing harness...too bulky. I used a grommet tool (can get one at most sewing shops) to pound in grommets all around the perimeter of the crazy carpet...plenty of lash-on points to tie it all together. I packed all my sled gear in a huge waterproof stucksack (O.R. Hydroseal something or other) and then wrapped the crazy carpet around it....kept everything dry and compact. The critical thing is keep the center of gravity low and spread out otherwise the sled will constantly flip...some of the steeper terrain we were on, folks just carried their sleds like a big duffle bag and didn't even try to tow them. And make a rope brake...a zig zag of cordage under the sled that you can quickly get on or off...with a proper brake, your sled won't fly past you when going downhill (thought it will still probably flip...a lot).

Supposedly at some point in the near future, Grivel will be selling a longer Air Tech crampon bar so folks with big feet can use them. Depending on what you want to use the crampons for, the following solution might work for you. Grivel does make a longer bar, though it is made from their standard steel...they aren't flexy like the Air Tech's but they fit...and the weight difference is maybe an ounce. As long as you plan to use the Air Tech's on a rigid boot (I got mine for AT boots) then you can use the longer steel bar, but if you are wanting the Grivel's to wear on shoes with flexible soles, the steel bar could be too rigid and cause the crampon to fail.

I was up on the emmons this weekend, and despite the crowds I had a good time and everyone I came across was quite friendly. On the walk from Schurman to the Flats my buddy and I were the first to come across a fellow in the middle of trying to pull his ropemate from a hole about twenty feet down. He was kinda busy holding his buddy's weight, so we dropped our gear and got an anchor set up, I yarded his pack out while he started prussiking. A few minutes later another team walks by...first guy assumes we're practicing, but the second guy asks if this is 'for real', I ask if they wouldn't mind sticking around and they were happy to do so. We all got on the rope and yarded the climber out of the hole and all three of our teams camped near one another that night.

i know that a high freezing level and exposed ice on the route are completely independant of one another...it can be hot as hell but if there's ice instead of snow, you're still gonna be wanting crampons...or sharp ski edges

i just bought a pair of Air Tech aluminums and was planning to use them this weeekend on the Emmons route...i was figuring a walk-up route with no rock scrambling like the emmons would be the perfect for these things. Any recent reports on snow conditions on the upper mountain? Is it really that icy? With the high freezing level this weekend I was hoping to try skiing the Emmons...guess theres no way to know for sure without just going and taking a look.