Clearing Above the Mist

Washington locals already know, but for those of you "out-of-towners" the month of July has been unusually stormy. Right now there is 100' visibility in Paradise (elev. 5400'). This has hampered many climbers on approaches and backcountry skiers with navigating. Luckily, even with all the poor forecasts, the upper mountain has stayed clear and relatively calm.

Climbers have been out gettin' it done. The storms below offered amazing sunrises and sunsets. Both standard routes (Emmons/Winthrop and Disappointment Cleaver) are still in great shape - as well as most non-standard routes. Climbers utilizing both the public shelter and the bathrooms at high camps should remember that these facilities are for them; please keep them clean. Do not leave trash, any food (even unopened food), or equipment behind - "leave no trace."

The photo above and right is from the shoulder of the Emmons Glacier earlier this week. These great conditions won't last for long! Hope to see you on the mountain.

Christmas Décor Downsized

Denise Olson at Moultrie Creek has invited the Genea-Bloggers to participate in a Christmas tour to help celebrate the season!

Although I don't put up a lot of decorations (actually, almost none) for the holidays, I do have a small table-top tree. When we moved from our house in .. the Christmas decorations went with my mother, except for a couple of items. My apartment isn't very big and since I'm trying to downsize "stuff" I haven't purchased any decorations other than that little tree along with the ornaments, lights, etc. that adorn it. The tree sits on my dining room table (which is seldom used for actually dining!) and brightens up that corner of the room.

The Angel on top of the tree and the Santa stocking on the wall are two of the decorations I brought with me from the house. I also have a small collection of snowmen that adorn a few spots on end tables and some of them hang on the branches of the Christmas tree. It's not much, but it satisfies my needs.



As far as Christmases past, well, turns out we didn't take pictures of the house after decorating it. There are a few pictures that show the decorations in the background, but they don't show it very well. Mom always went a bit overboard with the lights and tinsel and stuff. Now, her apartment is smaller than mine and she has covered every available space with some kind of ornamentation! Perhaps the sparseness of my decorations are a reaction to her exuberance.

Mystery Photo #8

This is the seventh post (and 8th photo) in a series of unidentified photographs from the Charles Wiseman Family Bible. See this post for background information. Click on the "Mystery Photo" label at the bottom of the post to see all of the photographs in this series. As always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Paper photograph on card stock. 2 3/8 x 4 1/16. Printed on back: Frank A. Place, Photographer, Warsaw, Ind. Also, perhaps, another of those "hidden mother" photos? Looks to me like the background has been retouched.

Okay, even though we all know what can happen when you assume something, an assumption is going to be made that this is a photograph of one of the grandchildren of Charles and Susanna Bray Wiseman. In the previous post I suggested that the baby in that picture was Nathaniel Howard Wiseman, born July 18, 1884. He was the 2nd grandchild of Charles and Susanna. The first was Ethol Walter Scott, born April 7, 1884 in Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana and the son of Susanna Wiseman and James Scott. I don't think the previous picture was of Ethol because they lived in Vevay, in the southeastern part of Indiana. It's my opinion that the above photograph is of the 3rd grandchild who was Charles Wilson Wiseman, born September 20, 1886 and the son of Amanda Alexander and Samuel Bray Wiseman though it could be Smith Wiseman, born February 27, 1888 and also the son of Sam and Amanda.

The pictures below are from my father and were identified (from left to right) as Ethol Scott, Howard Wiseman, Smith and Charles Wiseman.

Some thoughts on gear..ski specific?

Two pairs of Praxis GPO!




Good gear is a collaboration of the builder, the design team and the end users.



Studying weapons, and climbing gear, which are all just tools really, I've come to one solid conclusion.



The more the end user is involved the better the product. Seems simple but it only takes a few minutes of looking around at any one piece of gear you use to play with or defend yourself with to see just how connected the end user has been to the design team. Doesn't matter if that 'tool" is a season old or a several millennium.



The best designs are built to be used with a LOT of influence by the peoples using them!



The closer your requirements are to the designer's/end user'soriginal applications are the better those tools will likely work for you.



I can think of a half dozen designs just off the top of my head that have stood well over the test of time.



New technology can be a really fun thing and make ushumans much better with less effort at what we do.



In this case skis are on my mind. I've been skiing a long time.The Volant Spatula,DPS 112RP, the Dynafit Broad Peakall come to mind as game changers for me. But there are lots of skis out there I never got on. And lots of skis that likely changed your own skiing. My original fiberglass ski, the K2 Holiday, changed skiing for me :)



The newestCho Oyu, the RPC and the Huascaran are current choices that make me wiggle in anticipation for the first snows of winter while I am out enjoying myselfon sun warmed alpine rock in mid July.



But I have a couple of new toys you'll be hearing about the next chance I get on some snow. (Mt Hood In July hopefully) I'm pretty stoked for the obvious reasons. When the real players are involved, magic happens. Think CCW packs, theNomic, Low tech racebindingsand the newest RebelUltra.



Drew Tabke:



"The story that Praxis Skis has played in my career as a skier cannot be underestimated. Since I started riding their Powder Boards in 2007, they’ve been a steadfast source of support and innovation for me as well as the core group of skiers who support their small brand. Praxis is a puzzle piece that doesn’t always fit in to the makeup of the ski industry. For example, as an athlete it has been difficult to secure sponsorship from binding or boot sponsors without committing to a particular manufacturer’s ski line as well. But I’ve always believed that having access to the innovation and quality that a small brand like Praxis offers is well worth giving up a the visibility and contracts that can come with the bigger brands."



More here:



http://praxisskis.com/custom-skis/drew-tabkes-notes-on-the-gpo/



and here:



http://www.powdermag.com/stories/small-brand-shout-out-praxis/#.Ucjgmy2ygLs.facebook



You can spend a lot of dollars, hire bright new engineers and designers to little avail. The guys that can make the stuff work? Really work for those of us actually using it? It is the guys/gals deep in the game are the ones that will really make a difference. Pity the fool who hasn't figured that one out yet. And trust me...more that haven't, than those that have.

Conditions

"Ratings can be all over the map on this one, WI 5R, M5, 3 to 5 pitches can be had, or it can be WI6-R and no M rating or if you are lucky casual WI4 and no rock. It is a water ice climb in an alpine environment so it is all about conditions. Today they were good."



A few years ago a buddy of mine was telling me how his ridiculously hard first ascent of a mixed alpine line, had now been down graded, without ever have been repeated. Part of it he blamed on the French. Part of the discussion, and his real point, I failed to fully understand at the time.

The French climbers who had recently repeated the route, did so in conditions the first ascent party only dreamed of. The Anglo/Saxon team had hard mixed, dry tooling, little pro and less ice. The French had neve' inches thick and yards wide, a tiny bit of mixed in comparison and climbed the majority of the same line as a pure ice climb with single swing, bomber sticks.

The two teams on the same stellar line obviously did not have the "same" experience.


So my friend was right. "His" climb has yet to be repeated. But that has always been the nature of alpine climbing and even more so with the most modern alpine mixed routes.

Before modern ice gear, the greatest alpine ice routes were generally only climbed when they were perfect snow or neve'. Anything that showed bare ice was considered too dry and out of condition. Now we search out those dry "real ice" conditions and quickly front point through easy alpine neve'.

Ice runnels that offer stellar M climbs are there and climbable one day and gone the next in the Cascades or Alps. Good example was a line I climbed last winter following a party from the previous day. Then two days later that runnel was bare rock and the ice gone. Subsequent parties that winter by passed the crux (because it simply was no longer there) of "our" route by climbing easy snow well right of our original line. Discussion of the route between a dozen of us who had been there left us wondering just what "climb" we were actually on?! M5 or easy snow? You wouldn't think that would be much a discussion. But it took pictures taken during "our" climbs actually showing "our" conditions to sort it all out.

What have learned from all this? Climb when you can, enjoy what the conditions are while you are there and then forget about it :-)




The two pictures are the same climb almost exactly a year to date ('09/'10) separated in time. The pitch you are looking up in both pictures is a over-hanging rock corner, and typically fills in with ice formed from melt water coming down from high on the peak. Enough ice generally to climb as a WI5 to WI6- with an R rating. How over-hanging the climbing is depends on how much ice has formed. It can build enough ice to be a WI4- route. The initial quote at the beginning of this blog and the photos are from the classic Cascade ice route on Snoqualmie Pass, "Flow Reversal".




My peference for any WI6R route? Wait till it is FAT!
Late spring WI4 condition.

And another photo of the same line a few years previous. Roger Strong photo

Blue Door

This little garden was behind a shop with lots of Native American gift items. They also had a coffee shop with outdoor tables to sit at. The walls were the traditional adobe tan color, and the door and window frames had been painted blue. I love the color combo.

Almost Wordless Wednesday :: The Three Musketeers

Becky – Babs – MayThank You, ladies, for making last week bearable – and even fun, at times.

Obituary for my friend - Lorene Joslin. She will be missed, big time!