Zenolith

another vote for ecrin roc

re: simond. I dig their stuff. i have simond scorpion crampons and really like them. re: axe. i have a 60 cm cassin dragonfly (got it for $50 from climb max in ptld) it is about the same weight as the air tech -maybe a tiny bit heavier. has a nice sliding ring leash and swings well enough due to the steel head. I hate the spike on the air tech.

compare: Edelweiss Laser9.6X60m dry for $190falls=6 kN=8.2 Lanex Viper9.7X60m dry for $90falls+6 daN+750 Lanex ropes are sold by acmeclimbing.com, the people who brought you rock empire. Lanex ropes are european and only CE certified. Who has an opinion? Don't come back with stupid quips like, "What's your life worth, man?" Give me real pros and cons with actual information to back it up. Your opinion is welcome as long as it isn't stupid. [ 03-12-2002: Message edited by: Zenolith ]

once you can get to devil's lake you can climb from there without having to walk at all except to cross the highway. the slopes are mellow enough that you can ski to the summit from the TH. its not even a full day.

i tried to link them in but angelfire won't allow it. grrrrr.

If you go to this page you can see two photos of Yocum (at the bottom) that were emailed to me. http://www.angelfire.com/mn3/zenolith/Some_Trip_Photos.html [ 03-05-2002: Message edited by: Zenolith ]

DO NOT teach something you love (unless its sex) to someone you're married or otherwise permanently hitched to. If you teach her to climb, BC ski, etc, YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE TO TAKE THEM WITH YOU!! This WILL become a hateful idea at some point (even if you are in love). This is the best peice of advice I have for a climber, mountaineer...

yeah, see it gives him an excuse to build up the military, and arm postal workers, and run commercials that say, "if you smoke in the muir hut you are killing police officers and assasinating people's fathers" _no kidding_ they really have been doing that recently!

tex, are you bitter about being in texas? maybe you can find some of that good blow that georgie down there has. you better git back here. we have a date with JPG.

looky down there, that little rat wants something to hump!

what do condoms and bolts have in common? they both protect a bunch of pricks. just made that up -don't get your spandex in a bunch tex- i don't really mean it.

as i recall some fellah (what's his name?) skied it to check on that couple that fett to theor deaths a couple summers ago... in fact, someone has skied the n face couloir too!

if you have good photos of yocum email them to me and i'll post them(and credit you, of course) -i'd like to have some anyway (or email them to jon or tim -i think they'd like to have some). Pictures have to be on the web somewhere in order to link them here. i have never heard of paradise park -although i have no doubt that there is such a place.

was it just the wind that made it bad or was there something else?

re: brittney. is it just me or did her boobs get bigger again? talk about being in the bullring...that girl is sitting on a dock with her bra falling off and she wants us to think she is a virgin?

wy'east and southside are the most skiable lines from near the summit, but leutholds and cooper spur are doable in the right conditions if you are good enough. in my opinion sunshine is skiable from the summit ridge but it is continuously exposed on the upper pitches. if that route is skied it is rare. does anyone know if it has been?

photos are now fixed. thx bballer for pointing out my blunder.

craig, you had trouble locating the scene in the photo b/c you went to the wrong mountain. yocum is on mt hood.

here is a link to the web page TR. http://www.angelfire.com/mn3/zenolith/Broken_Top_2002.html

you the shit man.

if you've done the south side route you can think of the whole sunshine as the s. side route from the hogs back up. in late august it was dry glacier and easy routefinding and then we went up the far right of the elliott glacier headwall to the left of the real difficulties. this is a more interesting option. we had two tools and climbed unroped up some long 45-50* ice gullies with a few vertical steps of rotten water ice. i think it is more fun in late season (never done it earlier) since it is icy rather than snowy. i would do it again.

i can't recomend any route on that mountain after it warms up from experience. we were there for three days last weekend and it was really nice weather, climbing and the skiing was some of the best i've done. we did not summit. I think it is possible to get to the summit right now but only if you don't use a crater route. the 9,11 and high noon routes would go but there was windslab and cornice danger (read; tunnel or climb over it) and we were not willing to risk it. We did reach the crater rim by the easy route (via a notch at climber's 2:00), but when we looked over I saw that the whole side was corniced and that we would have to rap over (freehanging for ~100 feet onto steep, hard snow) to even see the rest of the route. the part of the route i could see looked like a very steep and exposed traverse to an all-snow and ice climb reaching over 60* and exposed to cornices as well. from the crater high noon would be the best option in my opinion b/c i would rather climb steep snow and ice (and then traverse a mini yokum!!) than slog thru windslab under a cornice. i took a lot of photos and will email them to anyone who asks as soon as i get them scanned.

Here's something actually related to Will's original post. Chewing Up a Fragile Land February 21, 2002 By TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS CASTLE VALLEY, Utah -- For many Americans, the Bushadministration energy plan, developed by Vice PresidentDick Cheney with the help of a task force whosedeliberations he will not reveal, is an abstraction atbest, and at worst a secret. Here in the redrock desert ofsouthern Utah, it is literally an earth-shaking reality. Oil and gas exploration is going on in the form of seismictests - conducted with what are called thumper trucks - insensitive wildlands adjacent to Arches and CanyonlandsNational Parks. Last Sunday, with a group of friends alldeeply concerned about the fate of this landscape, one ofAmerica's most treasured, I witnessed the destructive powerof the thumper trucks on the fragile desert. We had a Bureau of Land Management map showing theterritory leased by Eclipse Exploration of Denver - 23,000acres elevated in priority for exploration and drillingunder the Bush energy plan. We oriented ourselves from atopthe sandstone cliffs above the Colorado River that overlookthis pristine country of Entrada sandstone formations,pinyon and juniper forests, and fragile alkaline desert. Itis one of the proposed preserves in America's RedrockWilderness bill now before Congress - and with significantsupport. If this bill were law, it would protect theselands from new leases for oil drilling and exploration. Lines drawn on the map marked the physical corridors wherefour 50,000-pound trucks would crawl cross-country, tampingthe desert for clues as to where oil might be found. As weset out to look for the trucks, our task was simplified bya helicopter flying overhead with a long cable carryingwhat appeared to be an enormous doughnut. It was a tire. Wewatched where it was dropped and hiked to the work site. A thumper truck was stuck, tilted on its side, lodgedprecariously in the steep banks of a wash. Its rear lefttire, as tall as the man staring at it, was not only flatbut torn off its axle by an unseen boulder. Parked nearbywas a white truck - the "smart box" where WesternGeco, thecompany contracted to do this preliminary work, records andcompiles all the seismic information. Three other thumper trucks were at work about half a mileahead. Behind them was pulverized earth: a 15-foot swath ofbeaten down and broken junipers, blackbrush, rabbitbrush,squawbush and cliffrose. The delicate desert crust thatholds the red sand in place from wind and erosion, known ascryptobiotic soil, was obliterated. Replacing it, ineffect, was a newly crushed road. In January Jayne Belnap, a United States Geological Surveyexpert on soil damage, submitted an official comment letterto the Bureau of Land Management about the fragility ofdesert crusts, warning it could take from 50 to 300 yearsfor the dry soil to recover from the damage incurred byheavy equipment. Up close, the thumper trucks creeping across the desert,following a path of fluorescent pink ribbons, looked likegigantic insects, gnawing and clawing, articulating rightand left as they balanced themselves across the ruggedterrain. Fumes from hydraulic fluid stung our eyes, and thenoise threatened to blow out human eardrums. The men in thetrucks were reading newspapers as the operation proceeded,computerized and routine. At the designated stops, each truck in the convoy lowered asteel plate onto the desert, clamped tight, applied some64,000 pounds of pressure against the sand and then sent ajolt of seismic waves below to record density. The groundwent into a seizure. Sand flew and smoke obscured thehorizon where Skyline Arch and Sand Dune Arch - the Windowssection of Arches National Park - stand. We were only fourmiles from Delicate Arch, the redrock icon where a fewweeks ago a Ute elder uttered prayers and passed the WinterOlympics torch to his granddaughter in the name of goodwill and peace. When the steel plate lifted, the oncesupple red sand had turned to concrete. The trucks moved forward, post to post, now scrapingsandstone with the chains around their tires, headingstraight for a spring where 100-year-old cottonwood treesprovided a rare canopy of shade alongside a creek. We ranahead, not believing the trucks would force a road intothis fragile desert oasis, but they did, gunning the gas,breaking down stands of squawbush and willows and rippingright on through the cottonwood shoots. There was nothingwe could do but watch. This was our country's new energyplan, translated into action. A manager from the Bureau of Land Management suddenlyappeared, and I felt a flash of relief, thinking he hadcome to stop this sacrifice of wild country that might atbest yield a tiny fraction of the supply of fuel thisoil-hungry nation uses every year. He was perturbed, butnot by the trucks plowing through the cottonwood wash. Hehad come to monitor us - the public, walking on publiclands. The bureau had received a call, he told us, sayingthat we might be harassing the operation, putting theproject at risk. I should not have been surprised. I knew that a memorandumsent by the Bureau of Land Management to field offices onJan. 4 had said that when an oil and gas parcel is leasedfor exploration and drilling, or when an application forpermission to drill comes in the door, this work must bethe No. 1 priority. We asked the land manager as politely as possible if he hadthe jurisdiction to redirect the thumper trucks from thisriverbed to an already established seismic road to thesouth. "We've got the discretion to make them do that," hesaid. "But, in the end, it's all a trade-off. We've chosento just accept the project as they give it to us." Hepaused. "You can see the pink ribbons on the trees," hesaid. "They've had it all staked out since September."

i don't know. once the snow is that melted out there is no reason to climb that chosspile from todd lake.