EISPIRATEN

Finally a reason to checkout all the stuff in my REI online cart I've been accumulating the past couple weeks..thanks for the heads up!

This is why I haven't been to Malibu Creek in a while. Last time I went, we had a nice chat with some sheriffs doing SAR training farther up the creek, and they strongly suggested we rotate people watching our daypacks while the rest swim. As soon as the temps come up, out come the stereos, floating...

I'm sure there's a whole litany of contaminants present in Chinese groundwater that portable filters can't handle. If it comes down to it, I'll just treat for particulates and biologicals, and hope that anything else will be in small enough quantities not to have any real effect. It's all cumulative...

Oh, boy. Well, Miox won't work on heavy metals and pollutants. I won't pretend to be an expert on such things, but I'd think you'd be hard pressed to find something portable to deal with heavy metals and pollutants. Your best bet may be bottled water. Sounds like a heck of a lot of fun, though. I'v...

I usually pack a MIOX. It works great, though I'll admit I chose it mostly for the gadget factor. If the water has some bits in it, I'll pull out a coffee filter. I'm heading to China for the Olympics and I'm hoping to get some hiking in, so by then I'm going to need something a little more robust t...

I remember the arclite fireball while Bert was cleaning/priming or whatever he was doing to his MSR white-gas stove on top of Harwood, December 15th. Momentary flashburn. Almost melted his vestibule, hehe .. Not particularly impressed with white-gas stoves for applications is SoCal. :lol: Haha, tha...

Bivy, bivi, bivouac, whatever you call them. Anyone use these with any regularity? I picked up an REI Minimalist bivy in the last round of dividend impulse buying, and I was thinking about using it this weekend somewhere around Norf Baldy. Anyone have any experience using these in the snow? I figure...

I at the BPA scare.

Whoops. Gotta flake on this one...stars just didn't align. I'll probably end up doing something during the week to make up, though.

Actually I think blue and purple are not too shabby for no-gear. The trail is pretty well pounded all the way up blue (from what I saw before I cut across the bowl and went up what Ryan's put in yellow), and the ridge on purple is actually snowless where it gets lots of sun. But yeah, crampons are a...

Sun-Mon good for me.

I'm only free sunday-monday, so if you're doing one of those two-dayers on those days i'll meet up with you.

Where's your loose leaf Li-shan oolong?



Traitor.

Getting to the top of the bowl is probably doable especially if you take the beaten path, but that's as far as I'd go gearless.

Just remembered I had a photo set on a friend's Flickr from my 2-nighter there in January. It's a friggin' beautiful place..enjoy..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78577190@N ... 803992573/

The trail is good all the way to the ski hut with just boots. There are a few very short snow crossings, but they're well beaten and easy to cross.

There's plenty snow in the west bowl for that, and there are continuous strips of snow running all the way up that are still borderline suitable for skiing/boarding. Not for long, though.

Pfft..excuses, Ryan..I went up solo. And got lost. Twice.

4-04-08: https://eispiraten.com/images-archived/photobucket/img/albums/v253/bertfivesix/Misc/baldybowl040408.jpg https://eispiraten.com/images-archived/photobucket/img/albums/v253/bertfivesix/Misc/baldybowlpano040408.jpg Plenty of coverage on the West bowl that the pictures don't show. Well trod tra...

Went up through rIcehouse on Saturday to do 3Ts. Snow starts partway up the switchbacks up to the saddle, and farther up streaks of icy hard pack chop the trail up so much it's unusable. Everyone we met there resorted to just tearing off-trail straight up the mountain - something Dustin and I felt s...

What, this? https://eispiraten.com/images-archived/photobucket/img/albums/v253/bertfivesix/Misc/IMG_4890.jpg Haha, yeah, a big group of middle eastern folk were at the notch, and they set up a turkey sangwich assembly line right there on the tables. They also brought their own hot chocolate dispense...

Here's Dustin's:

Some pics: https://eispiraten.com/images-archived/photobucket/img/albums/v253/bertfivesix/Misc/IMG_0631.jpg Home sweet home - dipped into the teens during the night, with no wind. https://eispiraten.com/images-archived/photobucket/img/albums/v253/bertfivesix/Misc/IMG_0629.jpg Current Bowl condition....

Video of the Sheriff's helicopter taking off from atop Harwood down to the stranded hiker. Didn't get a shot of the actual rescue, as we were trying to hustle over to the saddle with enough daylight to make camp. EDIT: Fritz - yeah, that's the same one. The guy slid a couple hundred yards down, to t...

Got an nice late start to this overnighter to Harwood/Baldy (set out from the lifts ~ 1PM) along with Dustin. The snow was hard and crusty thanks to recent weather, and the going was easy. The only sketchy part was where the trail traverses that little "minibowl" before you get to Harwood ...

Yo, I think Dustin's down for this weekend. Let's do it.

I can attest to my piezo Colibri jet butane lighter being no-go for lighting my Whisperlite ~ 8000'. I think Taco can bear witness to my string of profanities. Had to borrow Fritz's Bic lighter which worked just fine.