Marko

The Butt was great ice where it was steep, but thin crust over a foot of loose snow elsewhere. Under the loose snow you'd either find rock or two more layers of rain crust. A little spooky kicking steps into it! (Full disclosure: I self-belayed the last two ropelengths.)

Anyone want to give it a whack tomorrow? 206-465-1432

Maybe girth hitch the long corner loops around the stakes? I rarely use it on dirt so I'm usually using skis, ice tools, buried stuff sacks, or some such.

Cheers to Brad and Barbara.

They're fabulous tents! I'm on my 4th MK Lite in 19 years. The first one went to Alaska a couple times but then blew away on Rainier when the guy I lent it to left it up in a storm, the corners ripped out. The second tent replaced the lost one FREE OF CHARGE by Integral Designs, with redesigned corners. That went to Alaska 6 or 7 times and finally delaminated completely on Foraker in 2000 when we didn't dig in at all and got hit by an unexpected scary windstorm. I bought the third one and then replaced that a year later with the eVent model when that came out. The tent's just long enough for me (5'11"), it's wide enough for 2 with gear, and sort of wide enough for 3. There's enough ventilation with the door cracked to cook in it. It's definitely cramped but I think it's just about the ideal bivy tent. Everything's a compromise, right? It's probably the lightest, most stable bivy tent there is. (Except maybe for the Stephenson tents but that's kind of different animal...) Not so great in very wet conditions.

A fairly easy way to do it is to cut a vee shaped piece of light fabric and sew a separating zipper to it so that it zips into your full zip mummy bag. (I believe Senor House has mentioned this idea.) So you unzip the mummy bag completely and zip in the vee to create the bottom of a 2 person bag. I've used this a bunch of times and it's light, warm, and cramped as hell. 2 1/4 lbs for a full on winter 2 person bag. It helps if the bag is a little long so you can bunch it around your shoulders. I also bought a synthetic quilt thing made by Golite and sewed on a windproof bottom and hood. It's about 3 1/2 lbs and fits 2 pretty comfortably. 3 of us used it in a bivy tent for a few nights up in Alaska. Worked out OK. Obviously a route with tiny or no ledges pretty much kill the double bag idea.

Is that the access for the north side or to Slesse Mtn Trail?

Ahh, crap.

No Moffat? No kidding! (How'd that final go?)

The mighty Triad(s) but of course!

Damn right, been eyein' that one for a while.

Right on Scott, way to sneak one in before the rains. Musta been nice interesting climbing.

You might want to check out the Hilleberg tents. They're roomy, light for their size, and very stout in a blow. I spent a few weeks in a Keron up in the north land and noticed that every detail about it was simple and well thought out. Definitely worth a look. -M

Nice work up there in them Pickets, lads. Way cool.

Congratulations on yet another fucking impressive adventure amigo!

Looks cool, congratulations!

Green means go. Blue means back the hell up and go up green, it's way fun. I no talk more.

Shit colin; Very, very, very friggin' cool! My first thought was mega-Eiger for sure. Second thought was North Twin! Looks like some interesting route-finding involved. Damn good job! Slide show?

It's an old address.

Another...

Attachments... 581349-Garfield.doc

I thought Blitz invented it and Twight popularized it, thanks for the clarification. Matt, So it might be that the middle 1/3 or maybe 1/2 of the 2 routes are common, eh? The FA done 2 decades ago is probably the real truth...

OW, I'll see if I can dig a couple route photos up. John, Yep, I figured all that, and I absolutely agree with the intent. But it seems a bit odd that someone as meticulous and conscious of details as Twight would publicize a comment that falls apart when you take a second look at it. Of course I don't have any better ideas so I suppose this is an example of talk without action... -M

Digression: Note that Infinite Bliss is really a variation of a route put up in 1999 by Mike Preiss onsight, solo (some self-belaying) and with no bolts. Even more digression: The solution of Johnny Blitz' equation has alway kinda bugged me: Talk - Action = Zilch... So what then, Talk = Action?