J_Fisher

That was us on Loose Lady on Sunday. It actually wasn't all that wet--only a little dribble on the right side of the upper pillar which was easy to avoid. The mushroom stuff on P1 of the pillar was more scary than hard. The shrums are pretty rotten and the thin ice to the right side was pretty detached from the rock. The upper pillar was more straightforward, if strenous. Steep, sustained and pretty featureless chandeliers. On Saturday we thrashed up Copper Creek looking for Red Wall Wanderer. After 3 hours of grovelling the canyon levelled out and we seemed to be above all the cliffs, so we turned around. Figured we either missed it or it fell down. We did see some discontinuous drips high on cliffs on the south side of the canyon about 1 and a half or 2 hours into the grovel. Maybe that was it (or what was left of it)

I think 70s make the most sense if you're trying to go fast on really long routes, you're comfortable placing very little gear and you're fit enough for the route that you can comfortably link the pitches in question. There are routes where 70s would be VERY nice (pitches 5/6 on Polar Circus come to mind). People like to say that rope drag is not an issue on ice, but on rambly routes, especially if you're dragging the rope over snow ledges and stuff, or if the ropes are soaking wet, drag can be an issue. It's all a compromise, just pick what makes sense for you. Personally, the cluster quotient with anything over 60 seems too high to me. [whoops, I meant P 4/5 above]

Where is Deep Throat?

Expedia has almost zero connection with MSFT anymore. MSFT sold it's interest to InterActiveCorp (then USA Networks) a few years ago. Not that I see that should matter in the 1st place . . .

I posted a few pics of Champagne taken this Saturday in the Gallery. It's in pretty good shape but WET. The right side is vertical slush, but the left was pretty solid. Fortunately the full on garden hose effect eases off about half way up. I would not want to be on that route if it was any warmer than it was when we were on it (~34 degrees). A few years ago I checked it out on a warmish day and decided against it. The next day we drove by and the whole thing had fallen down. The Cable looked hard. Hats off to whomever lead it.

I think most mfrs recommend somewhere in the 11-15 foot/lbs range. That translates to snug, or even slightly less than snug. A damaged cylinder head would cost mega $$ to repair.

I don't think it's just semantics. There's a big difference between a uniformed combatant who's just following orders and ordering the slaughter of kurdish civilians while you hide behind a "human shield" of women and children.

He's not just a POW, he's also a war criminal. I would guess a different set of rules would apply from those that protect ordinary uniformed soldiers.

Ramsay and Figger-Eight are right. I mis-read Friday's forecast in my original post. Though in my defense, there was nearly an identical statement to F-E's quote in Saturday's forecast. And "avalanche danger high above ___ feet/considerable below ___ feet" is pretty much the default forecast around here. Even if my reading comprehension leaves something to be desired, I still don't think it was necessarily irresponsible to head into the B/C on Saturday before the storm started dumping in earnest. Sorry for ruffling anyone's feathers.

F-E, the forecast you quote was from 2:30 Saturday afternoon, well after the accident happened. The relevant forecast for arnchair quarterbacking was the previous forecast.

I was up at Alpental/Snoqualmie Saturday PM right after this avalanche happened. When we left the house the Wx forecast was for 3-6 inches and the avie forecast was "high" above 4000'/"considerable" below 4000 feet. It was glaringly apparent when we were in the parking lot that the forecast was optimistic, but 2 hours earlier, before the dumping started, based on the forecast a party could justifiably have headed into the backcountry. To find some vast conspiracy of gear manufacturers or blame MMI is absurd. This was simply a tragic accident. I agree that skiers are generally more avy savvy than climbers. I think this is partly cultural, but also rational b/c skiers, pretty much by definition, purposefully place themselves in the middle of the most dangerous slopes and good skiing conditions coincide very closely with the worst avie conditions. Climbers's exposure is more limited and can often be avoided by climbing somewhere else, so you can get away with knowing a lot less. I don't really know any snowshoers (other than climbers who use snowshoes to access climbs), though I would guess that this is a more newbie/infrequent user demographic so a certain amount of ignorance would be expected.

Anyone know what it's like? Gated below Walking the Dog? Gated further down? Snow & ice on the road? Just curious...

Neri: http://www.avalanche.ca/index.html Have fun

I'm taking 2000-2500 mg a day for about 6 months for a bad finger and disk degeneration in my neck. I have no way to assess whether it helps or not, but there seems to be little downside (other than expense).

Re avie control on Polar Circus: there's a sign at the base that talks about this. I think the wardens try to "close" the route when danger is high and they haven't bombed it yet. My impression, though, was that the control was on the slopes above the route and not on the route itself. Maybe I'm wrong. Retro's suggestions are great routes but Carlsberg and Kitty Hawk don't meet the low avie danger requirement. Kitty Hawk is a giant funnel. I've got 1st hand knowledge that it's not a fun place to be when the slopes above release. Of course Matt's probably on his way home by now anyway...

Matt, I don't think there's any way you could assess the slopes on the pencil bypass on PC. When I was there last year, we left the car thinking avie danger would be zip b/c there was only a bit of old crusty consolidated snow at the base. We were definitely surprised to traverse off the 3d pitch to find thigh deep windslab that had been deposited that night. That whole bit was pretty spooky.

If mixed master was in, I'd nix either weeping wall or murchisons and do it instead. In my last 3 trips up there in the last three years it was bone dry. weeping wall and murchisons are cool and all, but they'll always be there on your next trip.

Ascension clipfix skins on sale at mountain gear too: http://www.mgear.com/pages/product/product.asp?item=140108&level3_id=0&level1_id=0&level2_id=0

No. The only real out is the hardship exemption, and that bar is set pretty high, but sufficinet whining about your 3 jobs and night school and blah blah blah may do the trick. If you're in King County, you're looking at 2 days max, probably less than that, unless you get empaneled. If you want to be sure to not get selected in voir dire, just express a strong opinion and an inability to act impartially w/r/t whatever the case at hand is and you'll be sent home real quick like.

Newbie AT question here: this will be my 1st year doing any real AT skiing. Do people regularly use ski crampons? Are they a necessity, or a sometimes used nice to have? I'm expecting to be doing a mix of ski mountaineering and yo yo stuff. I've got Tua Big Easy skis mounted with Fritschi Diamirs, if that makes a difference

North Cascades from Newhalem Link

Low 20s. I'll see if I can find my notes from the last time I checked it for a more exact #. Not sure why I can't ge the picture thingie to work...

That's funny, that's what the dealer offered for trade in. 45% of blue book seemed a tad low . . .

Great climbing rig. 4x4, nice canopy, 4 cylinder, 5 speed, A/C, CD player. Regular cab. Good condition, very reliable, 105k miles. $7,500. PM me or call 328-4834

... AMGA "Advanced Guide Certification Coursebook" and log with a seasons worth notes/journal entries re same. PM me if you want it back.