dberdinka

Looking for a handful of beaks, peckers, KB/Bugaboos or Rurps (in that order of preference). Somebody out there must have some they're willing to part with. PM me. Thanks! Darin

Ok, a lame question, but..... They were my favorite shoes ever, then I got lazy, yesterday my left big toe starting sticking through the rand. Not good. Now I can't remember how tight I bought the things. Really tight? Or painfully tight? Can't remember. How much do these things stretch. Any advice? Thanks Darin

Wind Rivers are amazing. The Deep Lake area is a worthy counterpart to the cirque and was nearly deserted when I was there. Consider the South Ridge of Haystack vs the North Face. If you and your partner are up for it definitely add the Minor Dihedral to your list (III-IV 5.9) One of the best climbs I've done anywhere. In the Cirque WatchTower and Warrior have reps for shitty rock (not that Ive done either) S Butt of Pingora is fully worthy. Consider doing Sharks Tooth by any route (great rock) and naybe Overhang Tower in the same day (1 pitch 5-low to awesome summit). I think my favorite climb in the area is the East Face-Left Side Cracks on Pingora, up to 12 pitches of flawless granite from 5.5 to 5.7. There is an intimidating steep dihedral around pitch 10 (looks hard) that is stellar 5.7 jams and stemming. Awesome! Have fun.

Thursday was T-shirt weather at the LTW. Only half a dozen folks, all from B'ham. Little drips here and there but everything is pretty much dry. Gonna be there tomorrow. Yea-hah! QUESTION: What is an honest rating for the third (guidebook 11a) pitch of Heart of the Country?

I heard a rumor that new logging roads on the south side of Slesse last summer reduced the approach to "30 minutes". Hard to believe, though no one knows how to cut logging roads to timberline like the Canucks do! Any truth to this? *** POST 420 ..... SWEET!! ***

Beautiful. Is that the backside of Chair Peak?

"Battered Sandwich" is a cool route name on Private Idaho at Index. Name didn't make much sense until I pulled myself onto the ledge at the top after an embarassing amount of thrashing in a hand-crack to offwidth to lieback to squeeze chimney. I was the Battered Sandwich for sure.

I've done the Narrow Arrow Route you're describing on aid to the next set of anchors and continued up and over the big roof for a second pitch. From the orange anchors I recall highstepping on a very tiny offset to a long reach right and more micronuts. I don't think there were more than two shitty placements in a row. Considering the clean fall and the bomber anchor C2 seems reasonable, though it's probably harder than a lot of C2/3 pitches at Index. If you had HBs, aliens and camhooks you were probably pretty well equiped. The roof pitch should be avoided. The roof is cool but above there it is filthy and not much fun.

I once flagged a path into Chamois Peak in the Anderson River Group. There was definitely a best path to take which we only figured out after our first attempt. I flagged it heavily when we went in a second time. I figured should the route ever become popular one well defined path was better than 20 vague ones. Years later I walked by the start of that approach on the way to Les Cornes. The alder had grown incredibly thick and took several minutes just to find the first (very Large) piece of flagging I had used to mark the start. The road is now closed, the route is rarely climbed and I imagine all that flagging is now buried in pine needles and dirt. Probably best to just leave everyone to there own bushwacking.

West Ridge of North Twin Sister is popular, great position and modest difficulties.

Weeks of intense planning coincided with the perfect weather window for a trip to........ the Zoo! Accompanied by my nephew and niece in-law, I saw monkeys, giraffes, some very bored gorillas, more small children then you could shake a stick at. I even noticed how nice the mountains were looking in the distance. Aaaaghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think this was thev original...???

So which one is it Max? Are you still studying the mathematics down there or have you swithced to politcal science? IMHO Outer Space seems just fine the way it is!

Our fine commander-in-chief, the leader of the free world, brought a beautiful plastic turkey to our brave troops in the middle of the night. Where's your patriotism mofo?

So Many good pitches but some random thoughts 5.8 Sphagetti Sauce Slab, layback, face, stem, crack, chimney all in 80' 5.9 Godzilla 5.10- p2 of Davis Holland 5.10 Exasperator 5.10+ last two pitches of NW Face of North Early linked 5.11d Clay. Oh wait.....I don't climb 5.11d

A few more entries There is no place more beautiful than the Wind Rivers Though the Colorado Plateau in Winter isn't all that bad Beautiful midwinter skiing in the north Bowl of Coleman Pinnacle Gettin StOOpid on the way to Black Velvet Canyon

Even better Dru. Things are going to be pretty damn settled from the get go. I think the avi reports said a mix of low and medium avi danger for tomorrow. (Hopefully Friday won't bring much precip). A mix of low and medium is very, very rarely written up on NWAC.

DRU says on Robbie Reid NF.... Sounds like it's gonna be next week. NWAC says..... Who's rearranging their work schedule?

I'm gonna sound whiney but.....the cover shot is lame Guy doing overhanging rappel in Tatoosh Range. Carrying no gear to speak of, maybe crampons? (don't have it in front of me) Maybe there really is some peak there that requires overhanging rappell to get off of. Maybe he left all his gear at the base and is now returning to it. The impression it leaves however is...staged photo shoot of sport rappeller. Lame. Might look good in REI catalog. There are plenty of good photographs and photographers out there. Use a shot of someone(s) actually climbing, preferrably on something a little grander, maybe even something in the book?!

I was drinking beer and plugging my ears. ANyone care to give a synophsis of the grand oratory of our commander-in-chief?

No mandatory free on the lower pitches of the Narrow Arrow Overhang routes. Bring a good select of little HB Offsets, camhooks and a regular hook. Darin

So when is B'ham pube clube in your living room?

Will you two please stay on topic here! We're talking about

Dru's Smart