dberdinka

Exactly. Their claim that "there might be cases where moving a wilderness boundary is approriate" is completely disingenous. Find me one example where these organizations supported any sort of change to a boundary or road/trail repair that would maintain or improve access to a wilderness area? You won't be able too! The leadership of these organizations are interested in "protecting" not "experiencing" our wild lands. Your presence out there is not appreciated by these folks. They'd much rather you stayed in the city like them. Watch out their goals are opposed to our interests as hikers and climbers.

A fine line. Something tells me Wayne's going to be jealous.

I once failed miserably on the north ridge of Chaval as well. It only got worse the higher we went. That trip was a total sufferfest.

Jesus loves you too Shapp! But everyone else thinks you're an asshole.

I once knew a guy who made his own non releasable bindings out of the front and rear bails of an old pair of crampons and some wood blocks. Looked a lot like the bindings in Lowell's first pic. They seemed to work fine. Better yet with an old pair of semi-automatic AL crampons a hacksaw a grinding wheel and a decent drill bit I bet you could whip up a very light lowprofile binding in no time.

Wow! I can only imagine the logistics and work it must have taken to get those upper pitches in. Looks like an absolutely incredible climb, I can't wait to get on it. Thanks Dave and company.

This should meet your weight requirements. Add a little duct tape and good to go.

I want some of that Slab Daddy!!! Mmmmm,mmm looks delicious....

I'm of the impression that the NWMJ has caught almost all of those. To better document climbing activity the NWMJ editors might have the best luck by reaching out to active climbers who don't report their work on the internet (i.e. P Doorish and L Windham, many others) While Blake's list is cool, considering that it is a list of hyperlinks, maybe it should be renamed "New Routes in the Northwest (that have been reported on the internet)". The point being that there are in fact climbs going up that aren't being sprayed about. I'd like to know more about those! Examples The slugtrack route on S Early Winter Spire (climbers right of Passenger) The new Burdoe Route on the same face (Hitchhiker?) The supposed hundreds of routes Doorish has put up in the Nightmare and Knitting Needles I'm sure there are many more I'm clueless too. Just sitting down with Doorish and getting him to talk (Lowell?) would probably produce enough material for a 4th volume of the Beckey Guide (White, Green, Red and Doorish) Ultimately as nice as Blakes list is a personal blog is probably not the best place to maintain new route beta (unless Blake wants to be the next Fred Beckey). Maybe we should all hold our breathe for the CC.com Wiki.

This really seems like a project where the potential $$$$$$$ of fucking up far outweighs the $ of getting it done right. Best of luck!

Jesus..... Rough morning on Prodigal Sun

Maybe if a certain crowd hadn't shown so much enthusiasm to publicly disparage his efforts he wouldn't have been so inclined to give the route a new name. Though of course thats totally speculative on my part.

I did that climb back when the Internet was nothing more than a few computers in Al Gore's basement. I've always wanted to go to it again. The chimney var. Looks fun.

OMG! I found someone who's company I actually enjoy!

No partner. So sad.

Of course! 5.7 A1 tell us how it went.

The crazy guy (Chris Chistianson?) who use to run around around out there made reference to attempting it multiple times on his website. For what it's worth I've been right up next to the thing (climbed the snow gulley that crosses it) and thought that the rock looked much better than rumor had it. In fact there were some long vertical systems that looked quite good. The east buttress of the middle peak looked like a sick mini-bigwall. IMHO The future of Cascades mixed climbing lies on that face. Catching it in good condition will require years of fortitude and a big dose of luck. Bottom of East Face of Middle Peak towers above our heads

I considered buying one last night but the reviews on the REI website were universally horrible. Sounds like a waste of money.

Their disclaimer definitely says don't clip into the eyelets as your belay point as they might fail. However that sounds ridiculous. I'd guess their concern was someone might clip one end to their harness and the other end to a a belay or piece of protection and then take a static fall on it which could generate some pretty high forces. But for what you want to do you will be absolutely fine. I'm so sure of that I'll promise to even cover the costs of your funeral if it fails.

Here's Alfords original epic www.alpinefever.com/guest/nooky.htm Exciting details are included such as.. and finally lest I forget

Welcome to the club.

after a public slagging like that I was going to say that "buddy" probably won't be asking you to go on anymore big alpine climbs...but I guess I was wrong.

www.tjoos.com Check it out. This site seems to do a pretty thorough job of collecting all the different coupon codes one can enter on checkout to obtain some sizeable discounts. You can even have them e-mail you when they get new codes for particular retailers. For example they currently list a code for backcountryoutlet.com that gets you 40% off retail on one item. Not bad.

An article on the ASCA website makes the following reference "At least one bolt vendor sells stainless steel "clad" bolts and nuts. These have a thin outer cladding of stainless steel surrounding a core of mild steel. This type of bolt seems to be worse then others, since once SCC cracks the cladding,oxidation (rust) finishes the job in short order." Might be worth forwarding this info onto those guys Article is on SCC which probably? isn't the mechanism here... http://www.safeclimbing.org/education/deepbluesea.htm

I took the liberty of loading two of those photos onto the CC photo gallery and posting them here so everyone doesn't have to download the whole file. If you want them removed let me know. Is that, what is it called?, stress-corrosion cracking? that results from the use of two different alloys like a non-stainless bolt and a stainless hanger?? Edit: Galvanic Corrosion is the term for corrosion due to contact between two different types of metal. Stress Corrosion Cracking is due to chlorine ions from dissolved slats in sea water.