I borrowed a pair of Lowa Mountain Expert GTX boots from a friend a while ago. They felt pretty comfortable, so I bought some last week and used them right away on a 9ish mile snow climb this weekend. The bottom of my right foot was a bit sore but overall, not bad at all for brand new boots.

Luciano136 wrote:I borrowed a pair of Lowa Mountain Expert GTX boots from a friend a while ago. They felt pretty comfortable, so I bought some last week and used them right away on a 9ish mile snow climb this weekend. The bottom of my right foot was a bit sore but overall, not bad at all for brand new boots.

There couldn't be a greater disparity between a 9 mile snow slog and soloing hard mixed lines.

brandon wrote:Well, if you're regularly soloing M6 and M7, your barking up the wrong tree. Toot your horn in the right places and you're on the road to all the free boots you want. Let's see the photos!

If you really want a dedicated hard mixed boot, you most definitely want a fruit boot.

Brandon,

Come'on. It seems like everyone and their dog leads M6 nowadays so I wouldn't call it hard. Now in my book real M7 is getting hard, and soloing is a different story.

I recommend -

CClaude wrote:

brandon wrote:Well, if you're regularly soloing M6 and M7, your barking up the wrong tree. Toot your horn in the right places and you're on the road to all the free boots you want. Let's see the photos!

If you really want a dedicated hard mixed boot, you most definitely want a fruit boot.

Brandon,

Come'on. It seems like everyone and their dog leads M6 nowadays so I wouldn't call it hard. Now in my book real M7 is getting hard, and soloing is a different story.

Really?

Have to agree with Brandon... let's see some pic's to back that up!!!!

M5/M6 can be some wicked hard stuff in my neck of the woods. Of course that is because it isn't all bolted up every two feet. It is completely void of any bolts, is all TRAD, committing and very spicey!!!!

MSCHOLES... I do remember that your neck of the Ice World has some awesome short Mixed stuff. Thus, I have to agree with the Fruit Boot recommendation. I do not own any as the lack of Sport Mixed stuff around here, does not warrant any.

As Cheif said, there's some awesome stuff in these parts. Many abandoned open iron mines and adjacent quarries that were blasted out provide most, as do some of the walls they had to blast out of the rock for the rail lines to pass through.

The rock is absolutely rotten in places, very hard to find good holds even when drytooling and the ice that does form this season anyway, has been very thin if it forms at all in some places. Extremely heavy snowfalls earlier in the season have provided at least some sort of cushion to which I fall onto if need be.

There's absolutely no way that I would grade more then 3 or 4 sections of the walls (that I've found) at such a grade, but I am on them regularly as much as I can. There's one ridiculous mine, quite a ways out of town that I'm sure may offer more difficult rock. I only went out that far once or twice back in the fall - by far the deepest of the mines and it hasn't aged well, the majority of the higher parts of the walls are overhung by a substantial amount and a good 200 feet off the deck.

As for pictures, when I do head back out to the rougher rock, in probably 2 weeks since my leg needs to heal, I'll bring the camera along.

The only pictures that I do have are of the easier sections as they're closer to town and a friend comes on occasion for the walk. The second one in particular actually, the part that I am trying to climb, goes straight up above my head rather then following the slabs to the left.

[img]URL=http://img218.imageshack.us/i/img0877r.jpg/][img]http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/8827/img0877r.jpg[/img][/URL][/img]

[img][img]http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/7083/img0963v.jpg[/img][/img]

hmmm, didn't embed those properly I suppose but you get the idea.

brokesomeribs wrote:

Luciano136 wrote:I borrowed a pair of Lowa Mountain Expert GTX boots from a friend a while ago. They felt pretty comfortable, so I bought some last week and used them right away on a 9ish mile snow climb this weekend. The bottom of my right foot was a bit sore but overall, not bad at all for brand new boots.

There couldn't be a greater disparity between a 9 mile snow slog and soloing hard mixed lines.

Did I ever say it's the same?? The only point I was trying to make is that these boots are comfortable right out of the box.

The Chief wrote:

CClaude wrote:

brandon wrote:Well, if you're regularly soloing M6 and M7, your barking up the wrong tree. Toot your horn in the right places and you're on the road to all the free boots you want. Let's see the photos!

If you really want a dedicated hard mixed boot, you most definitely want a fruit boot.

Brandon,

Come'on. It seems like everyone and their dog leads M6 nowadays so I wouldn't call it hard. Now in my book real M7 is getting hard, and soloing is a different story.

Really?

Have to agree with Brandon... let's see some pic's to back that up!!!!

M5/M6 can be some wicked hard stuff in my neck of the woods. Of course that is because it isn't all bolted up every two feet. It is completely void of any bolts, is all TRAD, committing and very spicey!!!!

MSCHOLES... I do remember that your neck of the Ice World has some awesome short Mixed stuff. Thus, I have to agree with the Fruit Boot recommendation. I do not own any as the lack of Sport Mixed stuff around here, does not warrant any.

Full disclosure: For me M7/M8 is hard but I am a self-proclaiming gumbie, and unfortunately I don't get to ice/mixed climb nowadays as much as I rock climb so my mixed/ice climbing has REALLY stagnated and hasn't improved. I'd love to be pushing ice/mixed like I can rock nowadays, but all my partners (hey, I'm living in Northern Arizona, 5 hours from the San Juans) are dedicated rock climbers.

I've been on that stuff around your parts (had lived in the Bay Area for nearly 8 yrs). I'll find a video clip of doing a C.Anker route that ....having a brain burp (damn this getting old stuff), who was on the FA group of Set Your Hearts Control on the Sun and was a good friend of Dan Osman,.... what ever; he told me of the route. Left foot on granite, right foot on 1/2-3/4" detached ice (which broke apart anyways). Know the stuff you are talking about.

Hard is a relative term, (which I hate as a term anyways), and we have to re-adjust what we think is "hard" as M7 and M8 is now getting routinely done in the bigger ranges. And just because someone at Ouray flails on M6, doesn't mean anything, since I can show you people flailing on 5.10 and for some people it is hard but in the grand scheme of things its really quite moderate (and I hope this doesn't offend anyone).

dps wrote: I just don't see many people leading that grade, so I think it a poor justification for not calling M6 "hard". Many it's just the sheer number of ice climbers that Colorado draws in?

I think that the rising technical standards on the bigger ranges combined with lots more climbers (especially talented rock climbers) trying out bolted mixed climbing has rapidly pushed the M grades, including what people consider "hard".

So I think we are saying the same thing.... aren't we?

As in rock climbing, the sheer number of people doing it has caused the standard for what is "hard" to increase, that and the natural progression of standards by the modern day individual "standing on the shoulders of giants".

And as you said the large number of individuals who are talented rock climbers who then go to bolted mixed climbs and then traditional mixed climbs. Ines Papert is a good example. As a large number of individuals who come to Colorado to ice climb, actually makes for a good pool to consider the "norm". I wouldn't look to the pool of Florida ice climbers (no offense to those ice climbers in Florida).

dps wrote:Yeah, we are.

I'm just confused how the dogs get tools and crampon to stay in their paws???

I just don't file my dogs toenails down, so it has 4 point crampons year round.