J_Fisher

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

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

We did the West Ridge via the rock bypass left of the couloir this past Saturday (10/4). What Highlander described is exactly what we found--a couple loose mid-5th moves in the gully just left of the couloir, then rather dirty 3d/4th to the ridge. Very straightforward. We did the east ledges descent, also pretty straightforward, though I downclimbed the last 3 of the 5 rappels. I thought the scree and sandy slabs from east ridge back to the basin was pretty unpleasant. If I were to go back in late season I think I'd just go back down the west ridge. All this beta may be academic though. There was a message at the trailhead signpost that Cascade River Road was closing at the park boundary today for repairs . It did not say anything about when it would reopen. I'm hoping it's not closed for the season as there's some stuff up there I'd like to look at a little later, but I may be SOL. BTW, if you lost an AMGA certification course book and log on the W ridge a few days ago, PM me if you would like it back.

I've had what you describe and Flexeril was the only thing that worked for me. Massage, mega doses of vitamin I, etc. barely took the edge off the pain, whereas flexeril allowed me to function more or less normally (if in a somewhat altered mental state...) Good luck, I know what you're going through and it sucks

Thanks for the feed back. I read the same articles and that's why I haven't gone to a doctor yet. But at this point, it's been so long I figure it can't hurt, and a good specialist who's seen these before may have some insights other than what's in the books. I may as well get something out of those insurance premiums I've been paying all those years...

I've got Camalots, flexible friends and rigid friends on my rack(in various quantities and mixes, depending on what I'm doing). To be honest, I often grab the camalots first b/c of the range thing and the nice action, but the friends work just fine, and are much lighter and more durable. For easier alpine stuff I usually take the rigid friends b/c they are much lighter than either the camalots of the flex friends. Even taking into account the fact that the camalots get used slightly more, I have replaced trigger wires on camalots 3 times for every time on the friends. The flip side is that you can replace the BD wires very easily and cheaply yourself, while the WC need to be repaired by someone with a swager. I've talked to BD about the fragility of their wires, and they say it's a conscious choice b/c they think the skinny little wires let the lobes float more for placements in weird irregular cracks. That's all fine and good, but in my experience the wires often break at inopportune times.

I hurt my left ring finger bouldering back in April--pulled on a shallow pocket undercling, heard loud pop, felt extreme pain. My self diagnosis was a partially ruptured A2 pulley. I've completely laid off all rock climbing except very easy all footwork type stuff hoping it will heal. Well, I notice from the calendar that nearly 6 months have passed and the thing still hurts and I can't climb anything other than 5.easy. I probably should have gone to a doctor a long time ago, but I'm now looking for a referral for a hand specialist that has specific experience with climbing injuries of this type. Thanks in advance

East Face of Teewinot is really nice. More aesthetic than the walk up on the Middle Teton for sure. Middle Teton Glacier is a good route too that sort of walks the line b/t scramble and easy solo.

Rodchester, I don't remember there being bivies in the "bowl" below the molar. Not saying there are not...I just don't recall. I do remember that after you go through the window and scramble down, the moat b/t the molar and the top of the Tepee glacier/snowfield was fairly level and sheltered and would be an OK place to bivy in a pinch. Plus you could melt snow for water. The only other snow/water after that would be west of the 2d tower. Since our bivy was unplanned, we were thankful for meltwater off the upper snowfield during our night up there. When I did the route we tried to go super light and had neither stove nor sleeping bag, but we had very warm stable weather and sort of lucked out on the water thing. I've never done the Petzoldt, but would imagine it's of similar character to the Direct Exum, which I've done. The east ridge is a totally different sort of route. The lower exum and the Petzoltd, I'd imagine, are basically nice crag routes that go to a summit (and technically probably more interesting and aesthetic). The east ridge is more of a mountaineering objective--cruising huge amounts of moderate terrain, with a bunch of really steep, exposed snow. I thought the upper snowfield was pretty wild (at least as wild as snowfield could be...) Have fun!