Something for your camping supplies?

Here's a quick link to something free. Personally, I like coffee mate for my camping supplies as it helps with coffee in the morning and you can actually add this stuff to Lipton noodles to thicken (and sweeten) it up. Plus on a side note, it's suppose to have a shelf life of two years.


"If you're looking to spruce up your coffee routine a little bit, head over to CoffeeMate.ca and sign up for a coupon that will be good for a free bottle of Coffee-Mate. After you enter your information, you will be able to choose from original or flavored Coffee-Mate in liquid or powder form. This offer is only good while supplies last. Thanks to maidennomore for this freebie!"

If your unsure about the stuff, this lady has a glowing review.

Experts Choice

Played hookey at work today and climbed the middle route on Experts with Jason Wilcox and Dow Williams. It's in excellent condition right now. The first pitch was pretty chandilered which it usually is, but Jason seemed to be able to put in some pretty decent pro in spite of it. There were some features to stand on to give the forearms a slight break but it's still damned steep. The cave behind the ice curtain at the top of the first pitch was large enough for the three of us to throw a party. It's an excellent belay spot because it got us out of the wind and provided good protection from falling ice. The crux was the first half of the second pitch. First you have to step out of the cave and swing around onto the ice and it's steep and sustained for a good 30-35meters. One very short pitch (WI2) got us to the top belay station. Two raps down gets you to the bottom if you use the right rap stations. Gotta' love the huge ice features on top of the left side from the wind. Kind of reminds me of witch's hair. Anyways, its an awesome climb and kudo's to Jason for leading both pitchs. It was tough seconding it. Seeing as how Jay and Dow are climbing for the rest of the week, it will probably be next week before he puts anything up on his website but here's a link to both of their sites:
http://community.webshots.com/user/jayewilcox
http://dowclimbing.com/
Blair

Ice opener

I have to say that i think that this year's ice opener was one of the best. An excellent turnout and good burgers!! Nothing like stopping for lunch while ice climbing to have a fresh barbequed hamburger. The weather was great and i think everyone enjoyed themselves.
One thing i wish we would have done yesterday though was to promote this chat line more. I would sure like to see it used more and by more people as well. Do you think it would be worth putting something up at the climbing wall??

Climbing Wall

If anyone is interested in hitting the climbing wall this Wednesday, Anne and I are going to be there at about 7:00 or a bit before. We were there last week. Things were busy, but it was nice to get out for a spell.

My goal for the season is to be able to climb each panel on the wall in a single evening alternating between every second panel. Since I hate taped routes, I find this quite fun.

Weekend ice

Climbed Quick & Dirty Saturday morning. It was probably some of the best ice conditions I've seen so far this winter. The ice was solid without being brittle and not to much water flowing off of it. In the afternoon we ran up Forum Ridge and skiied a conservative line down to Cameron Lake. The skiing was fantastic in this new powder snow the park has finally been blessed with.
On Sunday we went into Drywood. The ice wasn't great. The Gasser was quite brittle although it was all in. Land of Sandbaggers is not in and by the looks of it might not come in at all. Rainbow Caravan is in and Fluffy Saves the Day is in but very chandilered..... It looks tough.
Last year Brett and i put a couple of bolts in at the ramp just to the climbers right of where Land of Sandbaggers usually forms to rappel from. I discovered Sunday as we were trying to pull our ropes that i should have move them further to the climbers right. If you stand at the bolts and look down, about 10' or 15' below is a huge boulder. From where i unwittingly placed the hangers the natural tendancy when rappelling is to rap down on the skiers left of the boulder. The problem is, there is a horizontal slot in that side of the boulder that just nicely fits both ropes and won't allow the knot in the rope to pass over the edge of the ramp never mind passing through the slot in the boulder. So when you rap off make sure you keep your ropes on top of the boulder (which is very easy to do) otherwise you'll be soloing back up to free your ropes.