You can call me Crazy

I've been called that as well as many other things in the past! This time, it is well-deserved. And if you've been wondering why there haven't been any posts here on Kinexxions since the first of June, read on...



If you recall, back in December of last year, I began "cleaning up" my Legacy database. By the time I left on my travels at the end of January, some progress had been made but not much was done on it again until I returned to Indiana five weeks ago.



In the process of moving information from notes into events and sourcing it, I came to the disturbing realization that my sources were an absolute mess! There was no consistency in how the citations were entered and none are even close to "the standard" or any standard for that matter. I could come up with several excuses for this sad state of affairs, but what good would that do?



I have so many documents from my several visits in the last two years to Salt Lake City that need to be reviewed, analyzed and entered... but I made the difficult decision to not enter any new data until the "old" source citations were reviewed and standardized. All of them. So, yes, I must be crazy. Especially after I found out how many sources I have entered and how many individuals use those sources. Rather mind-boggling actually.



The other "big" decision made on the first of June was to begin using Legacy's SourceWriter. I understand there may be some issues with transferring sources via GedCom but using that feature would (hopefully) force me into a standardized format. That and I finally purchased the digital version of Evidence Explained. I figured it might help me to understand why a source had to be cited in a certain way ;-)



As might be expected, I had a few questions. I had recently joined the Legacy Virtual User's Group Community (LVUG) on Google+ (G+) so posted a question there. You can find it as well as the responses by clicking on the "Sources" link on the left hand side of the G+ LVUG Community landing page.



Some good ideas and information was offered by JL Beeken, Tessa Keogh, Monique Riley, Marla Larson, Richard Hallford, Melanie Armstrong, and Linda McCauley, all of whom I would like to thank for their ideas, suggestions, and input. It really helped me make a few decisions as to how I wanted to do the sources.



With over 7200 people and more than 700 sources in the database this is a monumental undertaking. But it really needs to be done. The number of individuals using a source varies considerably. Quite a few (probably more than half of the sources) are used by under 10 people while about 35 are used by more than 200. The source used by the most people is the Social Security Death Index with close to 1500 people - and each of those individuals has 2-3 citations for the SSDI (birth, death, and the event). Thank goodness for the source clipboard and Legacy's tagging feature! It would be an impossible task without those features.



On June 1st I started working with the source citations from Ancestry.com and FamilySearch databases and have gotten about 2/3 of the way through that list, eliminating about 15 duplicate sources. I've been working on the SSDI source citations for most of two days and am about half-way through with it.



I will be holding off on updating sources for census records until the Legacy team releases version 8 sometime later this year. It seems they may be implementing a feature for "shared" events such as census records that sounds rather intriguing. I sure am looking forward to the new version of Legacy!



Blog posts will be few and far between for the next month or two, as if they haven't been already this year! Most of my time for the next month will be devoted to this project. I will be attending G.R.I.P. the week of July 21st and (very optimistically) hope to have much of it completed by then. And, sometime the end of July or first part of August I'll be moving into my new apartment! And then there is the FGS Conference in August, which I am also looking forward to attending.



I hope that when this project is completed (or as complete as it can be) that I will still have a few faithful readers left. Thanks in advance for sticking around... and wish me luck!






At the end of the day, what's done is done.

Once More with Feeling: the Return of the Winter Tire Dilemma

After last year's mild winter, this holiday season caught us off guard with a bountiful snowfall. My two ridable transport bikes at the moment are a Brompton and a 650B prototype mixte (more on that soon). The mixte sports 42mm Grand Bois Hetre tires, and so I thought it would be a great idea to ride it in the snow. After all, the Hetres ride so nicely over unpaved, uneven terrain. Crusty snow feels kind of similar. I took to the streets.




Here I will pause to admit, that despite 3 previous winters of cycling behind my belt, I had never before ridden on roads that look quite like what's pictured here. There was never a need to, since our neighbourhood usually gets plowed and salted pretty thoroughly. Typically the streets look morelike this-with snowbanks piled high on the sides, but the travel lanes mostly cleared. This time around, maybe on account of the holidays, they had not cleared the snow all that well. I got to experience the real deal.






The snow on the roads created terrain of three distinct categories. There was the even, packed snow. Riding on it felt similar to riding on post-rain dirt roads, nicely packed and kind of softish. The Hetres handled well there. There was the crusted-over snow, uneven and slippery at times, though not outright icy. This too felt manageable. And then there were the occasional stretches of deeper, slushier snow. I expected it to feel similar to mud, but it was way more slidey and my front wheel kept fishtailing. Still, overall I thought that the tires did fine. There were only a few stretches where I felt uneasy, and I attributed that to a lack of confidence.




So I got home and uploaded some pictures of my snow ride, planning to comment on how decently the Grand Bois Hetres handled. But promptly the pictures received feedback from others to the opposite effect, warning that these tires ride poorly in the snow. The fact that I happily rode them and felt they were fine strikes me as funny - in a concerning sort of way. Ideally, I'd like to be able to tell the difference between lack of traction and lack of confidence.






And so, once more the Winter Tire Dilemma is upon me. Naturally, everyone is suggesting studded tires. This is my 4th winter commuting by bike and I have yet to try them. Partly this is because they are expensive and I cannot seem to commit to a wheel size. I am riding 650B now, but in winters past I've ridden 26", 28" and 700C, and who knows what I'll be riding next winter. I am also convinced that getting studded tires and mounting them on my bike will activate the Umbrella Carrying Principle, ensuring that I will not need them.






Finally, the very fact of having gotten through 3 winters without them makes me question whether I really need studs. Winters here aren't really that bad, and tires with some tread seem to do pretty well. The Schwalbe Marathon Plus are the husband's favourite for city slush and snowy paths alike, and they are even available for the Brompton's wheel size. The performance-oriented Continental Top Winter IIs also come highly recommended. Knobby mountain bike tires are another popular choice. One issue, as I understand it, is that no tire is equally good for both snow and ice. Studded tires help with ice, but not snow. Tires with heavy tread help with snow, but not ice.This winter, my commutes cover longer distances and more remote areas than previously, so a good winter tire is worth considering ...though with all the choices and factors involved, I suspect spring might come by the time I decide.

Local Birds

some of the quail that stop by everyday for a drink of water and then go on their way. You can see the one quail going through the slightly larger space in the fence that we cut for them so they don't have to squish through the smaller spaces.















A raven that stopped by to chat with my mare the other day.

Montana Bale Trail :: What the Hay?

Sunday, September 18th - - It began 22 years ago as a good-natured spoof between two neighboring ranchers but, according to the Montana Bale Trail website, it has become a nationally recognized celebration and in .. was named as Montana's Tourist Event of the Year. I heard about it on the radio one day but as it was more than a two hour drive, I decided not to go. Then, looking at the map to determine my route to Glacier National Park, I realized I'd be going through the area.



A one-day “festival” of sorts held on the first Sunday after Labor Day, the two towns in the area (Hobson and Windham) have “special” events that day. There were reportedly 50 or so “am-hayzing” displays of hay bale sculptures, most created by local farmers and ranchers, along the trail (a 21 mile long loop on state highways 239 and 541 just south of U.S. Highway 87). Many of the hay bale sculptures remain for days and weeks afterward – lucky for me!





Most of the sculptures were named and generally included the word “hay” or “bale” in one form or another. The detail on many of them was rather incredible and ingenious.





I'm just Smurf'Hay.



Rise of the Planet of the 'Hay'pes.



Some were even more simplistic than this Toots 'hay' Roll.



But a lot of work went into this one. The sign in front of it said “Mudhay Days - May June”





It was one of the more elaborate sculptures.



Wild Bale Hickok was quite impressive though.



From his head...



To his toes boots.



But the one I thought was most impressive was “Hay-wo-Jima”



Proud to say Made in the U.S. Hay.



The wind had taken its toll on the soldiers, with the one on the right being almost blown over, but you get the idea...



It was a fun and interesting way to spend an extra hour or so on the long drive to St. Mary on the north-eastern side of Glacier National Park.

A month of records: Liam O'Sullivan claims new speed record

Less than a month after Justin Merle broke the speed summit record of Mount Rainier from Paradise to Columbia Crest and back, Liam O'Sullivan, a mountain guide employed by International Mountain Guides (IMG), raised the bar once again, beating Merle's time by 3 minutes with a new record of 4 hours, 46 minutes and 29 seconds (FYI: Both Merle and O'Sullivan had small amounts of supplies cached at Camp Muir and dropped crampons on the descent). O'Sullivan left the upper Paradise parking lot at 4:20:08 a.m. and arrived at Camp Muir 1 hr 24 minutes later, putting him well on the way to a new record. O'Sullivan then beat his own personal time to Columbia Crest by 5 minutes, with a one way time of 3:11:22. On a previous attempt this month, O'Sullivan had been on pace to beat the record, but then faced fierce cramps on the descent which prevented him from setting a new record. This was almost the case again, but he was able to pull through this time.

"Any long or awkward step (which the Cleaver has plenty of by now) would cause me to cramp, so I descended cautiously to Muir, by which time I had lost all but 1 minute of the lead I had gained on Justin Merle's pace. I descended the (unfortunately) still firm Muir Snowfield, reaching Pebble neck-and-neck with Justin's time. Then battling the rocky, stepped trail, I commenced. Below Glacier Vista I kicked, breaking away from the pace, opted for the more direct east side of Alta Vista (complete with skin-shredding steep asphalt descent), and reached the trailhead in 4:46:29!"

Climbing conditions on Disappoinment Cleaver (DC) are some of the best conditions seen in years, which could account for the recent trend of speed ascents this month, including record attempts by O'Sullivan and Alpine Ascents International (AAI) Guide Michael Horst, and an amazing combination bicycle ride and speed ascent by Randall Nordfors. Despite the phenomenal conditions on the DC all summer, the season is moving along and things are beginning to break up, so future speed ascent attempts may be more difficult due to less direct route and slower climbing conditions. However, this may not stop would-be record breakers like Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa, a guide with Alpine Ascents International (AAI) and previous Everest record holder. Check out a recent article by The Seattle Times, covering this new competition for the "Rainier Speed Summit".

In addition to his record breaking climb, O'Sullivan has had a pretty good month - he made his 100th summit of Rainier on a tough Kautz route in less than ideal conditions, he guided Nordfors' Puget Sound to Summit trip and now begins a new path: medical school. After 10 years of mountain guiding on Mount Rainier and around the globe, we wish Liam the best and look forward to hearing more great things from him in the future.

Busy Busy

Like the previous post stated, it's fully summer. Still. The sun has been out consistently during normal daylight hours and the stars have been seen most of the other time. The cloudy marine layer that covered the Puget Sound area most mornings never even made it close to the park boundary. Summertime and the living is easy!

Saturday Morning, Camp Schurman

The scene up here on Rainier the past couple of weeks has been really busy with climbers making many successful ascents of many routes. The Emmons and the DC are still both in great shape. The Emmons is currently the more direct route of the two, offering stellar glacier climbing from Schurman to the summit. Many people have also been climbing the Kautz, encountering moderate and fun conditions in the ice chutes and moderate glacier travel above. We've even gotten a few reports in from climbers who have made recent ascents of the Tahoma, Sunset Ridge, Ptarmigan Ridge and Mowich Face. The approaches on these more remote west side routes are a bit long and involve more encounters with scree and talus this time of year, but the climbing conditions above 9,000' remain great.

Sunset Ridge, photo by Paul Cook

The past couple of weeks we have seen what appears to be an increase in the number of climbing parties having mishaps and/or full on accidents. We as the climbing rangers just want to remind everyone to stay vigilant, know and respect their abilities, stay aware of current conditions, and be ready and prepared to deal with whatever emergency may arise on your own. Help is definitely out there for people if it is needed, but that help might be a long way off which means self rescue is always required to some level.



Stay Safe. Climb Hard.

Tahoma Ski

During our recent spell of high pressure a group of local climbers made a rare winter ascent of the Tahoma Glacier and ski descent from the summit. Thanks to Doug Daniell for the report and photos.



I climbed and skied the Tahoma Glacier with a group of four from Seattle
on January 19-21. I wanted to share some conditions information and
beta for a winter approach from the west side of the mountain. We began
our ascent on the 19th from the Westside Road closure near the park
entrance. We were able to skin from the car (~2150') although coverage
was a few inches at best. We eventually joined Tahoma Creek and except
for a few creek crossings found easy travel. Camped to the west of
Glacier Island on a calm, mild night. On the 20th we skinned up on firm
snow to the glacier, passed a few icefalls on the right, and then
traversed left at 9K to a smooth ramp that led to camp at 10K. Enjoyed a
beautiful sunset and alpenglow on the slopes above.





Sometime before 5am on the 21st we roped up, dropped down to the
north to avoid some looming seracs, and then navigated crevasses and ice
debris to the base of Sickle. We decided on this variation to avoid
what looked like large swaths of glare ice on the main Tahoma. In the
Sickle we found good travel on shallow wind-packed powder and firmer
styrofoam, with patches of ice globs especially higher on the route.
Beautiful Rainier shadow at sunrise though we remained in the cold
ourselves. Brought pickets/screws but none were used. Definitely not a
route to tackle with much avy danger - saw lots of evidence of sluffs
and maybe a well-weathered crown or two. The rest of the way to the
summit was a slog as usual. Great views from Jefferson to Baker, though
the Puget Sound was covered in fog and clouds.



The ski down was a hodgepodge of snow conditions - terrible off the
summit, some nice smooth patches below Liberty saddle, fun steep skiing
through the Sickle, thousands of feet of wind-effect down the glacier,
and then occasionally breakable crust down to the creek. Three of us
completed the full descent and one had a major binding failure high on
the route that entailed lots of walking and some improvised ski-strap
solutions to get out by 10pm.





FYI,
snowmobiles are allowed from the road closure on 410 to White River
Campground, Remember to self-register before your climb or overnight
stay whatever your route may be.

Wordless Wednesday - Not the Yellow Brick Road

Wordless Wednesday - Not the Yellow Brick Road
Terre Haute, Indiana. Summer of 1980. Digitized ...Copyright © 1980/.. by Rebeckah R. Wiseman.

Heatwave Climbing

Longmire may still be a snowy icebox (3-4 feet of snow in some places and cool down-valley...katabatic... winds) but the upper mountain hasn't been. On Thursday and Friday nights, the low at Camp Muir "dipped" (!) to a balmy 50 degrees. Former climbing ranger and famed speed climber Chad Kellogg found a sea of slush on his way to Camp Muir. Chad left Paradise around midnight (60 degrees) using (needing) snowshoes to plow through snow on the Muir Snowfield. I've posted a photo and an upated description of the Disappointment Cleaver on the Updated Route Conditions page.

Under bright sunny skies, the newly remodeled Paradise Inn reopened without a hitch (TNT) last Friday. The only complaint that I heard was that somehow, they forgot to reinstall the historically significant "Glacier Lounge". What, no bar?! Other than that, the new floors look pretty darn good and everyone was happy.

Mailbox Glories

I had these morning glories growing up my mailbox a few years ago.

Dachstein Wool

Don't hate me because I still have an original ;-) They made two versions, a "standard" as shown and a Lwt version. Significant price difference back in the day between the two. I first bought the Lwt version telling myself it was "thinner" and more useful.Both were stout versions of a "sweater". But not moth proof which was my sweater's demise. I now think I made a mistake on the thin version as being more useful.







Funny thing about the Dachstein's. I first saw the mitts in the local climbing shop and the early '70s GPIW catalog. Likely the only way to keep your hand warm in really cold weather back then. I went through half a dozenpairs over the years. And I later used them in combination with other mitts (generally Helly Hanson pile lined shells) up till the early'80s.









Dachstein mitts and the luxurious gloves (not the GPIW Walker wool gloves mind you) were the bomb back in the day. Still are if you have a use for them. Fun to see Andy Turner climb with Dave MacLeod whileusingDachstein mitts and Nomics..















Mil Spec version above.

Mitts "shrink to fit with use".



My size Euro sized 52 Dachstein weighs in at 3# 4 oz. So it is no light weight. A jacket of comparable performance (well sort of comparable anyway) is the Arcteryx Atom Lt @ ajust over 14.4 oz. Well less than a 1/3 in weight.



But it isn't just the numbers that tell the story here. The Dachstein sweater can be a decent rain jacket, an amazingly good wind shell,a stretchable and extremely breathable layer all in one. Someof the weight just gets ignored. But no question you notice you have something on! Stuck out side for an unplanned over night? The Dachsteinis the garment I'd choose. May be not for all the time use but it is fun once in a while in the right conditions. Cold, dryand windy?



Herman Buhl used one.







Michael Kennedy did as well. Here after thenight out, on the 1st ascent of the Ames Ice Hose.





Photo courtesy of the "Lou Dawson, Steve Shea, and Michael Kennedy" collection found online.











I dumped mine for the first Patagonia red pile. Now I have all sorts of climbing sweaters I really like. The SherpaAGear, Mantra is one, the E. Bauer Hooded Down Pullover another along with the Arcteryx Atom Lt. All different weights and materials but all useable.



But none of the "sweaters" named besides the Dachsteinwill I throw over a synthetic t shirt (don't believe anyone who tells you boiled wool doesn't itch. It does.) and wearsidehill skiing in marginal NW spring weatheras my only piece of clothing onmy upper body.



And be happy doing it!



Well happy till it is totally full of water anyway ;-) Not sure I could pack the 50# around of a totally soaked Dachstein.. Better used where it won't rain all day on you I suspect. But this sweateris the"original soft shell". It will still do most of what we required and do it better than even the best of the new versions of "climbing sweater". Not everywhere mind you. But not the worn out old war horse to be abandoned either.

Mountain 33 (March 1974.) No photo credit given.More here on that story:http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?tn=20&topic_id=395619









The retro kool factor can not be denied. Like how many guys do you know that have actually even seen a Dachstein sweater let alone worn one? EBs in Bard's "hopeful" hands BITD in case you wondered.



All is not lost. The Austrian Armycontracted to havemanufacturedboth pull over and zip front Dachstein sweaters for years. Also known as the "GUIDE" version. Those can be had on the after market for reasonable prices these days. ORTOVOX now sells the gloves and mitts of boiled wool. And they are nice. But they aren't of the same quality as the originals imo. But they are close!









Places to find the "Dachstein" versions still available? Often times a Google search for "Austrian Military wool sweater" will bring surplus military sweaters up as well.. These things rock as the ultimatewool sweater. $40 plus shipping seems to be the going price as I write this on Ebay and online for the surplus version, used and new. Last made in the early '80s I believe. Likely the best $40 you'll ever spend for usable but somewhat funky climbing clothing

Current sources for Dachstein style wool items:



http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280657136079



http://www.ortovox.com/classic-wool



http://www.bradleyalpinist.com/dachstein.html





MEN'S sizing conversions off the Internet which seems to fit my 52 Dachstein / 42 US conversion



Suits and overcoats



European 46 48 50 52 54 56 58



UK 36 38 40 42 44 46 48



USA 36 38 40 42 44 46 48



size 52 is:

63" wrist to wrist

24" arm pit to arm pit

19" at the waist



The military surplus siz largeI just bought but haven't seen yet is:

62"

22.5"

19"



Close enough to a size 42 to work for me.



A Dachstein sweater won't replace anything I own or get very used oftenbut they are a fun bit of quality kit that isn't easy available today.



A short history of the Dachstein area:



http://www.ramsau.com/en/information/history.html





More on the modern sweater versions here:



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//12/climbing-sweater.html



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//04/patagonia-nano-puff-pull-over.html



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//02/arcteryx-atom-lt-hoodyjust-how-good-is.html

Finishing What You Started

"The hardest part of this for beginners is usually the cleanup," Mike said at the start. "It's a lot of filing. That's what breaks people."




"Oh," I said. "Well, that shouldn't be a problem. I've done filing."




Going into this, I was worried about many things. The measuring, the cutting, the alignment, the brazing. But filing I could handle. I thought back to my days of intaglio printmaking (etching on metal plates). The person who taught me insisted that everything had to be done from scratch and manually - from cutting sheets of metal to preparing the plates. The latter involved beveling the edges at just the right angle, then endlessly filing, sanding and buffing them until the bevels were perfectly even and smooth, polished to a mirror finish. His insistence on this level of prep work had more than a few students in tears before we even touched ink or got anywhere near the press. But for some reason I stuck with it, eventually got the hang of it, and continued to use this method after I began to work independently. It just didn't feel right to do it any other way. Now whenever I see an etching, I can't help but look at the edges in search for file marks. All of this is to say, the prospect of filing for hours did not frighten me.






So how do I explain what happened a week ago? I don't want to exaggerate it into some dramatic melt down, but it was certainly a low point. A very long day, throughout the course of which I grew increasingly quieter and less bouncy than I had been up to that point. This was supposed to be the last day. So maybe it was the discrepancy between having believed I was almost done, and discovering more and more little things needing to be finished. All these little things added up, and taken together amounted to a lot of work. Bridges, bottle cage mounts, eyelets, braze-ons for cable routing.I had been awake since 5:30am. By 5:30pm, I was so tired that I had a hard time focusing. By the time we mocked the whole thing up to make sure the wheels, tires, rack and brakes all worked together,I was no longer fully present. At this stage we decided that the frame was finished - "good enough." But the feeling of satisfaction or at least catharsis that I had expected at the end did not come.




At home later that evening I did nothing and thought of nothing, feeling utterly dejected. It wasn't until the following day that I could even get myself to look at my pictures of the finished frame. And then I finally felt something: panic. "Good Lord, how could I leave it like this? This is notfinished!" I could see smears of brass and silver. If I zoomed in closely enough, I could make out uneven surfaces. I had filed away at these areas, but apparently not enough. Mike had been right: like most first timers, I had flaked out on the cleanup. With horror, I imagined him powdercoating the frame as it was, uneven shorelines and all. Or, worse yet, putting the finishing touches on it himself, whilst chuckling "I knew the finishing would get her!" So I phoned him, trying to stay calm. He had not powdercoated the frame yet. And yes, fine, I could come over to continue working on cleanup. This put me in a fine mood.I showed up bright and early on a Friday morning full of energy.



Somehow I maintained that energy for an entire day of using nothing but some files and emory cloth strips. All I did from 9:30am until 5:30pm, with a break for lunch, was file and sand, and it was tremendously satisfying. I guess having reached that low point my previous time at the shop, there was nowhere to go but up.




Mike had to go out for much of the day, and I was mostly on my own working on this. Not being able to seek feedback (Does this part look even? Did I file too much in this spot?) added a new layer of excitement to the process. When he returned, I think he was pretty amused by how cheerful I was after being at this for hours.






One of the trickiest parts to clean up was the area around the Grand Bois fork crown. Those curly-cues make it difficult to get the file into that little space and chisel away at the extra filler material without gouging the crown or blades in the process. It took me longer to get it to this state from this state, than it did to do the initial post-brazing cleanup. The trick is to dig into the shoreline build-up with the tip of a file, then angle the file just so to lightly and gingerly clean up the rest.






But the most challenging part of all was the seat cluster. My beautiful seat cluster! We made the seat stay caps from scratch to look exactly the way I wanted; it was the coolest thing ever. But during brazing I got a bunch of silver all over the caps, and was now terrified that in cleaning them up I would ruin their perfect concave surfaces. So ever so lightly, I dug into the tiny bulges with the tip of a file, using the most delicate micro-movements I was capable of to remove the filler material but not the steel underneath, then polished with an emory cloth until I got the stuff off. This took a while!




And so it went.The pictures here show the frame close to the point where I stopped, but not quite there.I didn't have the energy for pictures by the time I was done.






If you are wondering about the uneven looking surface from the sanding marks, they disappear after the frame gets sandblasted. The headlugs started out looking like this after brazing, then this, and eventually ended up as you see them above.




Don't get me wrong: The finishing on my frame still isn't "good" by real builders' standards. In fact I would not mind continuing to work on it, but unfortunately we are out of time. But at least now I can live with the state I left it in. And no matter how the bike turns out, I got the feeling of catharsis and closure I wanted out of the process. I learned how to build a bicycle frame (and fork!), from start to finish.

Baruntse Dbl boot Liners?

Over the last couple of years I have been looking hard at all the available double boots for fit and performance. In my opinion the best dbl boots don't generally come with the best inner boots. The most well known after market liner, the Intuition leaves a number of things to be desired in a climbing boot. No wonder as they are ski boot liners first and formost. It is however a great inner boot if you want to ski in your Spantiks. Production inner boots that are suppose to be easily heat fit like a good ski boot liner aren't. That can result in your feet suffering no matter what kind of foot you have.

The best of the current inner boots that I have seen is a foam inner that is nylon lined on both the inside and out and made by Palau in France.

www.palau-boutique.com

Lucky La Sportiva decided to use the Palau liners for the Baruntse. I've used the Palau/Baruntse liner in my Spantiks and now again in the Scarpa Phantom 6000s. I think the Baruntse liner is better/warmer that either boot's original liner. The Palau liner is warm, but not overly thick. It is very easy to dry out, as there isn't much nylon to absorb water. They are easy to heat form by any good ski boot fitter and even easier to lace up. They are the lightest inner boot I have weighted including the Intuition or 6000's liner. The nylon lining on the inside and outside of the Baruntse inner boot makes them easy on and off in the mountains and durable compared to an all foam inner boot. Purchased directly from La Sportiva NA they are $120 a pair plus shipping. A direct comparison to everything else easily available on the winter boot market shows no down side that I can see, including the retail price.

http://www.sportiva.com/products/cat/A


Pictured here with a pair of Spantiks.




>







Spare Baruntse liners were not available last season. In limited numbers and sizes they are available now. If they don't have your size you can also get a pair put on back order by calling Rebecca.

Oct. 6,
> Dane,
> Thank you for your email! We do have the Baruntse liners in size 45. We
> are in the process of updating our website and currently do have the
> Baruntse liners in stock. The cost is $120 plus shipping. I would be
> happy to place an email/phone order for the Baruntse liners. Let me know
> what you would like to do.
> Cheers!
> Rebecca Carroll
> Customer Service Representative
> La Sportiva N.A., Inc.
> 3850 Frontier Ave - Suite 100
> Boulder CO 80301
> 303.443.8710 ext 13
> www.sportiva.com

A Symbol of My Heritage

One of the prerequisites for participation in the Summer .. Genea-Blogger Group Games is to create a flag that represents your ancestry, heritage, or personal expression. These flags can be created at WeAreMulticolored.

This is my flag. Bold, simple, clean lines. It turned out rather nice, if I don't say so myself ;-0 (Can you tell, I kind of like it?)

• The colors Red, White and Blue signify the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States of America. The first two are the homelands of my earliest known ancestors. The latter is my homeland.
• The Red and White colors also represent Switzerland, as does the small White Cross in the center of the flag. Switzerland is the homeland of my Phend and Wiseman ancestors.
• The two large crosses symbolize my parents while the four stars stand for their four children.
• The four blue sections represent my four grandparents and the ocean their ancestors had to cross to reach this country.
• You'll notice that the four "arms" of the large white cross do not extend to the edges of the blue background. The eight "notches" created as a result, symbolize my eight great-grandparents whose paths crossed and merged at just the right moment in time.
• The tips of the red cross, which extend to the edges of the blue background, represent bridges that symbolically span the ocean as well as connect the generations.

In addition to Swiss, Dutch and English, my heritage also includes a considerable number of "Pennsylvania Dutch" ancestors, one or two Scots-Irish, and probably some other (as yet unknown) nationalities.