daler

Hey all, Have been in the Canmore area since thursday. Here is a report of what we saw and what we climbed. First of all Avy conditions are very reasonable at the moment but make sure you check for yourself!!!! Lots of warm temps and sun so low elevation climbs in the sun are on the way out but anything in the shade or up high is in brilliant condition. Thursday- We warmed up on Borgeau Left. Great climb still in shape although the sun is starting to work her love on it. Snow conditions on approach are great with a cow trail the whole way. 30 minutes to base of climb and two hours on route. Very possible to take a 5- line in the current conditions. Friday- Aquarious to Rainbow Serpent. Some would call it a hard WI5 but I'll still give it a 6- as it was wild climbing on large mushrooms. Not very strenuous but very technical. Should be in for a awhile but aquarious gets more sun and is starting to feel the pain. bring a #2 camalot for the very top of aquarious to take to the sting out of the rock section. Rainbow Serpent is a must do. Saturday. Pilsner Pillar and Rich and Abby's new M8 to the right called "one for the road" Super nice route with a nice job of bolting. Soft for the grade. Sunday- Rest day Monday- Went up to the Stanley headwall to climb French Reality or Nightmare on Wolf Street but both are a little thin. They will still go but we were looking for good conditions. Decided on Nemesis instead and skiied the rest of the way up and climbed it. She is in fat shape and a 5+ line can be had if you wander a bit. We just climbed up the middle at 6-. Had a water release to the left of me as I was bringing up my wife at the top. Probably 1000 gallons of water pouring over the lip. Missed us by 10 feet. Almost had a heart attack!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fucking wild. All climbs were climbed leashless except the last pitch of Nemesis as I was feeling the pain!!!!!!!!! Hope this helps. Giver!!!!!!!!!!! Dale

Alex, I'm in Banff so you have to be jealous for one more day!!! Climbed Bourgeau Left today. it is in great shape with nice sunbaked sticky ice on the survace. Avy conditions are getting good!! "safe" dale

I have a program called PC relocator! It basically hooks up both computer via a printer cable and does all the networking setup for you. You can then pick and choose what files to relocate and send them all at once. You would have to temporarily put them on your work computer and then copy them. If you want to borrow it let me know. I'll send it down, or if you are coming close to boulder you can pick it up. dale

Come on. Leashless is the rage!!! everybody is doing it. Think about it, You are holding onto jugs the whole time and Ice rarely goes beyond vertical. This means it can never get harder then 5.9! right? Go leashless and you will never go back!!!!

Barry Blanchard is not a big guy. He is short and wiry. poor you. I still dont know how CBS thinks you can't back clip a Frog??? WTF? News flash the frog part goes on the bolt and the biner part goes on your rope. WTF!!!!! Backclipping has nothing to do with the proside carabiner it has all to do with the rope side. So, yes you can back clip anything.

Dan, As long as there has not been new snow you can make it to the top of the big hill in a rental car. From there you are an extra hour to Wicked Wanda or Malignant Mushroom. If you are heading to the north ghost add 2 hours of extra walking. Kristie and I have rented a 4x4 in banff for 80 canadian for a day, Not a bad way to go to sample the ghost. note- Rainbow Serpent is in fat shape and is a must tick as it has not formed well in many years. Give a call if you want more beta! later dale

newer bods do have a belay loop!!! Use it. Older bods without were made to be used in situations where "real" falls are not common i.e glacer travel, moderate alpine climbing etc.... Sure they work just fine for any kind of climbing but why not use the gear the for its intended use.

Ben is a bad mothafucka!!!!!!!

page top!! These are killer deals and I'm still willing to bargain.

Grades the way I see them. I don't buy into all that just go climb it and have fun crap(sure I just go climb and have fun but sometimes you get in over your head and crap). Water ice is dangerous and folks should have a good idea of how hard a climb is before they try it. I think strong climbers have a trend of sandbagging ice. It is true that once you reach a certain level all ice feels about the same, but for those with less experience the difference between grade 3 and 4+ is hard to tell from the ground and can be lethal if not understood. Grade 5 is serious but with the right amount of training and patience working the grades it can be climbed with little effort. Sure grade 6 is no problem but only after you have tons of mileage on grade 5 and become an expert on farreting out reasonable gear. I have always been able to get gear on grade 6 so I don't believe the whole grade 6 is always r or x philosophy. grades the way I see them!!!!! WI 3 WI 4 WI5 WI6+ Drink beer, climb within your abilities, and don't sandbag!!! dale

Goats beard in a good year!

Hi Don, Good to see you out gettin after it. I climbed "side street" with my wife(girl friend at the time)kristie.Can't remember the year. we just tooled across the break- very easy hooks. M5 or 6. Can't remember the gear. Also had to place rock gear at the start as body shop was not touching down. Definately climbed body shop before Bart and Miles because I remember seeing that write up in the mags and having a chuckle. Tom climbed the route with Cliff Palmer(long belay for cliff as tom hand drilled the bolts. I climbed it with John Ramuta(ask him the year) the day after tom put in the bolts and Bart and miles a week or so later. As I stated it was in similar conditions to the above picture I posted. Maybe a bit thinner. At the time it was solid grade 5+ but could easily be given a 6 by many. The route left of the dihedral I lead sometime in the late 90s -can't remember, with Kristie and my friends craig and Phoebe. I placed a couple of blades in the overlap which I thought were Ok, but have since been removed because they were loose(freeze thaw???) As far as grades I think Lilloet has plenty of grade 6 lines. Shriek of the sheep in early season is a grade 6. When I climbed the Syncrotron, Derik Andreoli and I took a grade 6- line. Mossy balls is grade 6 in thin conditions. Its all relative. if you call Carls berg a 5 then mossy is a 6. If you call mossy a 5 then Carls berg is a 4 and ICBC is a 3( not) and the Dihedral a 2( not ) I wish I was in Lilloett as we speak. In my opinion it is a great Ice climbing destination if you are willing to get after it. later, dale

John, I have not climbed it. Tried it once but the 1st pitch fell down on us. I do have some good pictures if anybody is interested. I believe Tom Kimbrell who now lives close to me in boulder has the only ascent. Steve H. probably would know better as he lives right below it. Man I looked that thing as a kid and always wondered if it would go. The house that I grew(sp)up in is only 5 miles from it. go get it!!! dale

Dru, who knows? I just always figured such obvious ice had already been climbed. There were no scratch marks on the rock, but in thick years a v-thread at the top would not be out of the question. But most likely the traverse into ICBC had not been done. It is a great moderate mixed varition and is a great pitch if done all the way from the bottom of "body shop?/side street" to the top of ICBC. The full mixed variation I will dubb "side street". I have also TRd the rock all the way to the top strait above the ice but never had the time or energy to bolt it. cheers and happy climbing dale

Here is a photo of ICBC with body shop in the conditions the day Tom Bridge put the anchors in(1996 i think). I'm not sure if this was the 1st ascent or not. I had led it earlier in similar conditions but just traversed left through the weakness to ICBC(I called it Side Street at the time). There is Ok gear on the traverse. No matter what, the climb is not sustained enough to carry a grade 6 rating and one can tie off the tree for pro so the spice factor is not there. WI 5 Dale

The woman that wore these is my wife and she is fine. She has some clothing sponsors and is just cleaning out the closet. cheers

Priced the Cloudveil to high. New price is 145 bucks

Women's size medium Cloudveil Serendipity Jacket - brand new. Light Blue $200 W's medium Arc'Teryx Theta Light several years old - good condition with lots of life left - $50 W's medium Moonstone Fall Line Jacket - Last Years Model - excellent condition - Fern Green - $100 send a pm if interested...

I did not want to argue with dru as I know he is the master of all climbing info. I have seen this many times and have started using alternative methods when they are useful. I have been back to several climbs that I had climbed years prior and still found the cord I had left perfectly intact. I don't think the snaffles chew the stuff very often although they do go after your pack and clothing because of the salt. Anyway- I was just sharing a alternative technique!!! cheers to all and happy holidays Dale

thats why they call em fruit boots eh!!!!

Hey all, Just thought I would share a couple pictures of the New Mega Ice boot with you. It is built very well and climbs like you have feathers on your feet. cheers and Happy Holidays dale

No i don't have a file of random trees around the world that have been killed by slings. But I have seen a couple of times slings cutting into the bark and have cut them off. It does not hurt your setup if you rig it this way so why not? Sure if its on a popular route who cares as someone will take care of it down the road. But for such a Master climber as yourself Dru, always putting up cutting edge remote routes this might be something that you consider. Peace- out

This post is not for all you master climbers as I'm sure you all know this already. But for those that are interested here is a technique that I use.(no I'm not claiming I invented it) But would just like to pass it along as I have been doing this for awhile on raps. I don't do it all the time but on rare routes or raps I don't think somebody will do again for a long time I use this technique. Rather then tie your anchor around the tree, tie knots in the ends of your material(perlon works best) and then just drape it around the tree. Then just thread your rap ropes throught the two loops. This will prevent the tree from growing and the cord becoming a death cord. I know this is very senstive of me but actually I just want the tree to be there the next time I climb the route. The picture below is of the little tree at the top of Aerial Bounderies. The orange cord is my cordalette, the yellow cord is the tree friendly anchor and the black rope is the rap lines. I cut off the previous cord as it did not leave much room for the tree to grow. cheers, dale

Warning- I do not promise that these are the conditions you will find. Climbing is Dangerous! Avy conditions always change, check them for yourself!!! Other than that conditions are super fat and Avy conditions were fair with warm temps settling the snow. We saw no natural releases. If you are not on the way yet get in the car and drive north, there are so MANY climbs in. What we found- Dec 13th- Climbed Carlsberg and Pilsner- Berg is fat and probably only 4+ or very easy grade 5. Pilsner can be climbed as a grade 5 but there are plenty of grade 6 lines to be had. We took ice behind the central pillar and pulled onto it about at the lip. Probably 6- or so. 14th- Oh Le Tabernac and Mercy Buckets. In and still getting bigger. The upper bowl climbs are also in but there was some wind slab so we did not make the trek up there. Mercy Buckets was mostly ice with a couple of rock moves at the start, 6- with bolts to the right. We also climbed the central line on Tabernac at solid grade 5. 15th- Ah- The Ghost. What a place. Driving into the south ghost is no problem with a good rig. We also checked out the north ghost- this was a little spicier with drifts up to 2 feet deep. My Toyota with 3” lift had little problems but don’t try it with a Subaru yet. We climbed wicked wanda in great conditions. 17th- Hydrophobia via Waiporous creek. Once again the road was “ok” until the second crossing but at the next cutline we almost got stuck. Backed up and went back across the second crossing and parked. 2 hours and 18 minutes of mostly ok walking put at us the base of the super fat Hydro. A steal in 5- conditions. We used a 70 meter rope and did it in 1.5 pitches. On top at 11 am. We were going to do the Hydro- Sorcerer linkup but the wind was at Hurricane force and we bailed. 18th- Aerial Bounderies. This is a must do as it almost never formes. It is dry now and probably won’t last all winter. Lots of hooking and fun technical climbing. Used the 70 meter again and did it in 3 pitches. 19th- Warmed down on polar circus to see if the pencil was a go. Damm still 3 feet from touching, it was hard to tell from the road. Polar was so fat and plastic we did not place a screw the hole way. Definitely the year to tag this one!!! Watch the traverses slopes, we used some terrain belays. The last pitch can be climbed in 4+ conditions on the left, we took a nice 5- dihedral right of center. Back at the car by 1pm Hope this gives some help. Below is few photos. There are beta photos of pilsner and Oh le tabernac in the gallery. dale Aerial Bounderies The Pencil Wicked Wanda

iain, If you are refering to the Mega ice, it is the new LS Lightweight mixed/ice boot. It has permanent grivel crampons bolted to it. dale