While working on the
Norrøna jacket review I really wanted to use two of Colin Haley's photos from his and
Bjørn-
Eivind Årtun climbs on Hunter. We had never met in person but our face book connection in the climbing community made access easy. So I sent Colin an email asking permission to use his pictures for that blog piece.
Take a look there for links to Colin's blog.
Turns out Colin was in town and doing a presentation for the Mountaineers last night. Colin and the Mountaineers were gracious enough to allow me to invite myself.
Colin did a great presentation on winter climbing. Equally as good was he answered questions through out his presentation and stayed long afterwards taking questions from the audience.
I took written notes, learned a few things (no surprise) and hope that I am relaying what Colin said and not just what I heard...but as always, "caveat
emptor!"
Take a look at Colin's climbing resume' if you want more details on how he came up with his opinions.
In no particular order. What is listed below is just how it came out of the conversation last night. I intentionally duplicated my "short hand" notes here. Adding anything now is just going to be me adding my own commentary which I did not want to do. Call it, an hour of "Colin distilled" :)Here it is, hope you find something useful!
"The Cascades Can have some of the best "winter" climbing in the world...certainly better than Colorado :)
Always take a good foam pad...
Always take a tent even solo (
Bibler, ID or First Light from comments and his pictures)
Always cook inside your tent
Always use a cartridge stove
Warm weather use a Jet Boil
Cold weather use a
MSRNo need for a heat exchanger because he cooks inside his tent on a foam pad.
Don't be afraid of taking
jumars on winter routes, it might be faster overall.
Lots of rope options to choose from in winter. Use what is best for your project :
single
single and a tat
twins
a dbl and a tat
Skinny rap rings can be a good thing to carry and use on occasion.
April and May are the best alpine "ice" months in the Cascades.
Alaska climbing in winter is really cold Climbing in the "real" winter season is toughClimb at night, it is
character buildingLearn how to dig through cornices...it is
character buildingCarry 2 ice screws for winter routes in the Cascades...might as well take titanium, they are lighter and you'll never use them anyway
Cascade approaches that are complicated (aren't they all) might get snowshoes, a
mtn bike and feet
Simple approaches get skis
Alpinists need to know how to downhill ski...well.
Big advocate of approach skis...100cm to 160cm Water is carried in
MSR bladders, up to 3 litersHe
doesn't mind intentionally getting dehydrated if it will get him to a brew stop earlier
His hardest mixed line in the Cascades is "Intravenous" (unrepeated to date
btw... see the red line drawing in the John Scurlock's photo of the face above and Colin's suggested direct finish in green ;)
If you are plunging curved tools in snow for support always face the tool picks up hill
Climbing clothing on two, back to back, ascents of the north face of Hunter.
long john bottoms
pile lined soft shell pants..no zips
wool first layer on top
R1 layer
hard shell
belay jacket...a synthetic
Puff pants with zippers
Boots on Hunter were
Spantik, which Colin REALLY likes for various reasons. Laces and how they climb technical ground being the two he mentioned specifically.
(I tried to turn him on the the
Baruntse but he wasn't having any of it ;)
He is sponsored by Patagonia, Black Diamond and
Sportiva among others so easy enough to figure out what he is wearing.
Crampons...always dual points..the advantage of support and not working all the time to be stable as you would on a mono point.
Vertical front points for "hard" as in physically hard ice, like concrete hard, not technically hard like WI7.
Horizontal front points most every where else.
He likes the Euro death knot, raps a lot on mixed sized ropes and has seen the tests on them all.
Favorite glove at the moment is the
BD Punisher, doesn't generally remove his gloves for climbing, doesn't like to carry a spare set of gloves, but will carry one extra pair on occasion, doesn't use hard warmers
Down bags are good for a two
bivy climb... past that go synthetic
Belay jackets he suggests being "conservative", his word not mine, and uses synthetic... the
DAS of course.
Meals are freeze dried on long climbs for weight and nutrition.
Mtn House got the endorsement for easiest on your digestive system.
Gu and energy bars on the other climbs up to a 48 hrs push.
Sit up in the tent while cooking with a stove inside...limits the chance of carbon dioxide poisoning by being lower in the tent, like laying down would.
Snow pickets have a limited use in steep snow...and he has climbed a LOT of steep snow.
Pickets
probably are best used buried as a
deadman. Best belay on steep snow is a deep seated belay, set up directionally"
Well worth the effort if you get a chance to see one of Colin's presentations.
When setting up dynamo lighting on a bicycle with no provisions for it (i.e. no internal routing or special braze-ons), there is always the question of how to route the wiring so that it looks "clean." After all, no one likes to see black wires coiled around a frame's fork and tubes. When setting up the lights on my Rivendell some time ago, the Co-Habitant and I developed a nice method that is practically invisible, and I've been meaning to share it. So when we recently did the same to my Bella Ciao, I made sure to document it.
This method assumes that your bicycle is equipped with fenders, and that you are installing both a headlight and tail light. I will also assume that you already know how to connect the lights themselves; this is not meant to be an electrical tutorial.
The key to our method is using as little wiring as necessary - running it in a straight line parallel to existing stays and tubes, as opposed to coiling it, and securing it with colour-matched zipties. It's a simple idea, but colour-matched zipties really do blend in with the bicycle when all is said and done. You may be surprised to learn that they are available in all sorts of colours - from bright rainbow hues, to neutrals such as clear, white, cream, taupe and gray. We use small gray zipties to route the wire from the tail light along the non-drivetrain side fender chainstay.
In natural light, the result looks like this.
We then proceed along the non-drivetrain side chainstay, using a larger colour-matched ziptie. This frame is a sort of pale military green, and this beige ziptie blends in nicely.
Continuing the same underneath the bottom bracket.
In natural light, the wiring really does "disappear" when routed in this manner, staying close to the chainstay.
If your frame already has shifter cable braze-ons on the downtube as this one does, then you can simply attach the wiring to the shifter cable itself (small black zipties this time). Otherwise, use two large colour-matched zipties for the dwntube, like we did here.
For the headlight, you will need to leave enough wire so that your ability to turn the handlebars is not constricted. We prefer to achieve this by creating a coil here. To do this, simply wrap the wire tightly around a pen or a stick. 
And voila, there is your coil. Notice the additional ziptie along the shifter cable, just to keep everything neatly in place.
Finally, use the same colour-matched zipties along the fork as you did along the chainstays, routing the wire to the hub as tautly as possible.
Even frames with internal routing often lack provisions for the fork, and here I find it especially important to find zipties in a colour that blends in with the paint - otherwise it can look as if the fork is cut into pieces, its elegant curvature disturbed. I am using my camera flash to show the process, but in daylight this really looks quite unobtrusive.
In natural light up close.
And from further away. 
The Map: To be honest, I don't think there will be any genealogical treasures within, but it is labeled "Cards, Letters, Misc" and the lord only knows what is included in miscellaneous! So, I'll sort through everything to see what I have and determine whether it should be kept or if it should be discarded. I can only hope that it will contain something worthy of sharing!
Near Pensacola, Florida. March 1974.
Wiseman, Arkansas ~ September 1994
No relation, just thought it was neat that there was a town named Wiseman!Although, I think the town has seen better days...
