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It’s a scientific process determined by the following factors: 1) Each year I start with a broad list of routes that I’m interested in. For example: I try to climb one of the top 25 (non volcanic) peaks each year, one peak that I can see from my front room window, one rockaneering route, one alpine ice route, one ridge route. 2) Then when I finally get that precious weekend of free time, I pick a route from the list that the conditions are most favorable for based on seasonal conditions, weather that weekend, the amount of daylight, and beta gleened from friends. 3) I make sure the Mountaineer’s haven’t scheduled a climb there and if it is a route in Nelson and Potterfield I usually wait for a weekday (especially if the approach is easy or if it one of the mega classics). 4) This last part is the trickiest. After I decide what I want to do, I call up one of my partner’s and present the idea to him. He tells me what he wants to do instead. We argue about it over email for 2 days and I usually wear down and do whatever he wants. Its even more fun when there are 3 of us. Luckily there are hundreds of routes I haven’t done yet, so picking is them is easy. Finding the time off to climb them, when it isn’t raining that’s a lot harder.

Does anybody out there no whatever happened to Helmy Becky? He did so much early on with Fred and then his name just disappears from the climbing scene. Is there a story there?

I currently have a mixture of screws on my rack that consists of smileys, BD express and one grivel 360. The grivel is faster and easier to place. You don't have to clear as much ice because of the floating handle. It starts as well as the smileys or BD express but the coffee grinder handle makes it quicker to finish off and easier to work with a glove on. As previously mentioned, the only disadvantage is that gettting it on and off the rack is slightly more cumbersome than the other 2.

Excellent thread. Based on the passionate posts this is obviously an important issue to all of us who value our time in the mountains and feel that the Mountaineer’s (and WACs to a lesser degree) are compromising our experiences there. In summary, what I’ve read in the above posts (and can verify from experience) is that although they provide some positive services in support of the climbers, they are negatively affecting the quality of our experiences in the mountains by a) overcrowding b) posing an unexceptable risk of accidents due to both overcrowding and the number inexperienced climbers involved. But here’s a news flash…. THE MOUNTAINEERS AREN”T GOING AWAY ! For better or worse they are part of the Cascades climbing community. All the complaining in the world, is not going to convince them to disband. The best we can hope for is that maybe they would be willing to clean up their act, so the rest of us can enjoy the Cascades right along with them. The obvious course of action is to put these problems in front of the Mountaineers and solicit their cooperation in dealing with them (how else will change occur?). If they hear from enough people maybe they’ll be convinced that some change is necessary. There seems to be enough critical mass here to start applying some pressure. I would suggest that you write them a letter, send them an email, or post on their website bulltein board. Let them know how you feel. Let them know how they are perceived by the rest of the climbing community. It’s a long shot, but it is probably the only shot at seeing some change.

Ade, I have a similar injury to yours and like you assumed it was tendonitis. Finally after 4 months of resting, icing, and working the opposing muscle groups I went to the doctor, where to my surprise I found out it was not tendonitis, instead it ends up that my c7 nerve is pinched, a condition that occurs often and has symptons almost identical to elbow tendonitis(on the inside as you described). Treatment included some muscle massage, in the upper back area, from a physical thearpist and some funky stretches. This improved the situation by probably 80% after only a couple of visits. Might be worth checking it out. Good luck. ps Hope I didn't post this twice, having problems posting.

Ade, I have a similar injury to yours and like you assumed it was tendonitis. Finally after 4 months of resting, icing, and working the opposing muscle groups I went to the doctor, where to my surprise I found out it was not tendonitis, instead it ends up that my c7 nerve is pinched, a condition that occurs often and has symptons almost identical to elbow tendonitis(on the inside as you described). Treatment included some muscle massage, in the upper back area, from a physical thearpist and some funky stretches. This improved the situation by probably 80% after only a couple of visits. Might be worth checking it out. Good luck.