AllYouCanEat

I agree. Imagine being 'neath the guillotine; the battle is lost; you know that it is over; you wait for the cord to be pulled. Your destiny is out of your hands. Drowning is like that. Once you breathe in, it's over. After that nearly happened to me, I wrote this: I swim with all my might Into the sun as bright as bright Blinding me That BRIGHT! My arms sooo weak Defeated I slide into the night My fight all fought Goodnight…

When my best friend died a climber’s death (of sorts), I thought about my relationship with life and how my day to day existence would potentially lead me towards a similar fate. I concluded my only definite answer is, “You’ll die one day. You just don’t know when.” In that sense, I only have how I live my life left to me. Five days of the week spent at work are the cost of my kosher life, but this doesn’t make me happiest. On the other side of the spectrum are my passions, which include many outdoor activities scattered among the more mundane ones like reading. While I am not happy just working, neither am I happy just climbing, though I could imagine a life spent doing as much. It has the taste and color of being something that I would want, but it isn’t. I need something more. I know most people do. I need work of some sort to keep me sane and I need some sort of danger to help me see the balance of things. It brings me back to a medium; a normalcy. So I don’t want to die a climber’s death, but I could accept it if it allows me to stay near a medium and not constantly dancing on the outer fringes of insanity and depression. In all of the years of reading this board, I think that this is one of the best threads. As such, a contribution of my own seemed appropriate.

Thanks Josh. I did mention the same thing here: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/s...true#Post272813 It would be a good place for youngens like us to be humbled and for friends and family to remember. Jason...

When I was a kid, I’d hear about these guys, “The Skoogs.” I’d hear about their exploits and about how they’ve “…been all around these parts.” When I was older I had the opportunity to ski with them. This summer we skied Sinister Peak in the Dome Peak region, an area that they had frequented. I felt like I was crawling over their fence into their backyard. Carl was behind and so I hung back. I found that here is a person like me; passionate about the mountains! We’d tell jokes to make the hike up Downey creek as painless as possible. For those of you who have climbed up there, you can only imagine. He made it enjoyable. Further up, I asked him if he wanted to bivy because it was getting late, but he pressed on. I respected his drive, his overwhelming joy to be in the mountains, and his love of family and friends who equally savored the crisp air, the spring snow, the misbegotten valleys, the summits, the streams, the challenges, and the friendships. There is so much! It pains me to know that these colors won't shine again. That we are losing someone that so many other people could have gotten to know - that I could've gotten to know better. Keep crossing those creeks Carl. We'll meet again. Keep traveling up those valleys and climbing those mountains. You'll meet all your friends and family again. Jason Hummel...

Gawd, 5 yrs? I can't imagine how I will feel when the 50th anniversary comes up. Maybe they'll be flame wars about elderly folk who are using prosthetic and robotic limbs to climb. Old man - "You're a young punk and couldn't climb out of your mammas lap." Young punk - "Well you couldn't climb the tooth in 2001 old man." Further quoting from old TR's that you posted a fifty years ago as proof. Ha. Ha......ahhhh. I can't wait. (AllYouCanEat, #260)

Everyone challenges themselves in different ways. That's great! Hearing someone climbed to the summit of rainier in a few hours is interesting; the same goes for long hikes. Saying that you are better than everyone else by not saying anything is your choice, but that doesn't make you better. If I went and hiked 72 miles in 24hrs, I may be interested to know who else did it faster. I think that those of you who post one sentence TR's are worse, but hey it's still nice to hear about them. I don't go on to those threads and say that this is the stupidest thread ever! Or that rock climbing is a worthless sport. At some level everything we do is vain. What does rock climbing mean to a guy in china living on molded rice; a man who works the fields 7 days a week to put rice on our tables? Stepping off my stage now.

That's a great balanced article, probably the best that I've read in a newspaper about climbing. Thanks for the link...

Awesome!!! I tried to do this in a single push and it broke me. We went too fast I think, averging 5mph. 3 or less is the way to go. Right now I have tendon issues but I would love to try this again and finish it off. The feeling of topping a ridge just before dusk, knowing that you have that much country to cross is intoxicating. Again, right on guys. I know what you mean about cold. When I didn't make it, I spent the night with my shirt off because of the sweat and only had a backback to sleep in and tree branches for warmth. Next time I'm bringing a sleeping bag...

Sounds exciting. It seems like this mtn is out to get you. I actually saw you when you were climbing out of the cascade pass area earlier this year (march?).

Right now, it shouldn't be bad. The rivers are low and the cool water feels nice. Here it is in early June - 2003. Brrr.

The most rockfall I've ever had or been involved in on any route in the cascades was on the Lava HW. But like sobo said, Ivan, there are some classic climbs on the north and east side of adams. Take a look at the Lyman and Wilson Glaciers or even Stormy Monday and the NFNWR. Heck there are even classic volcanic piles (umm headwalls) further east. RIP Bill Fryberger

You can't believe how much crap you used to carry! I brought 90lbs of gear into the pickets. I still tend to carry heavy crap (like skis ), though this time around I'm going lighter when I buy gear, especially since I can now afford more expensive stuff. Back in college I bought whatever was on sale. Cheap crap. What I am learning now is that I need to buy what is good. Nothing less! Spend the money and get what works the first time. For instance, buy the best light sleeping bag and the the best winter bag, not one in between that you use for everything (and is cheap and heavy to boot). Light and fast is just a method of travel. It feels good to schuss across lots of terrain. My favorite is to go somewhere I haven't been and overcome the obstacles; correct turns, route decisions, and timing with weather, daylight and conditions. Anyhow, this weekend warrior likes to have a day to sit and do nothing before he goes back to work.

We just call him the mountain peacock, but the devil is close enough. Seeing all of these rad trips going down from the saftey of my armchair demands death defying acts of standing up and walking. Only a devil would set me on that god aweful course. Instead of raising arizona, the mountain peacock is raising the desk jockey. The copy machine traverse is truly exposed. And the fax machine crack offers no protection? Yet, I managed to survive another day. Whew. ...Nice work guys.

God damn Sky! We're climbing on saturday eh? I'd better get everything in order then ...sweet adventure man...

Thanks for the photos. Wow. Thanks for feeding my addiction

...like a fly to the flame; on the one hand so attractive while on the other, so petulant. At least when fate or bad luck swats you, its pretty much a done deal. I figure when I get older, I'm gonna take up a sport like hang gliding or sky diving, something nice and dangerous with a pretty remote chance of my screwing up putting me in the hospital. Now that I think about it, I'm not doing anything very different right now. Hmm, maybe I'll take it up sooner .

When my brother and I were six we climbed up to 12500-ft. I have good memories of the trip, even though we didn't make it that time. Here is us at muir. My mom liked long hair. What can I say, it was the 80's. Oh sorry, we didn't own gortex and those are american airlines socks :

A lot of unfortunate events have occurred this year in the mountains. I thought that it would be appropriate for some climbers here to share some happy stories about friends that have passed; anything to lighten the mood and remind us of why we continue to seek the outdoors.

The traverse through imperfect impasse wasn't bad. We tried to go high, but with our heavy packs and skis, decided to go low. We crossed at the obvious place below the cliffs to some trees. We hiked up those, along easy scrambling and traversed snow to get above the cliffs again. Here is a bad photo, but it shows the trees we went up. This is above the the cliffs BTW.

Mount Daniel on Fathers Day. Sinister Peak earlier in the month.

Everything looks great up there. No snow up to nice bivy spots in the basin, patchy snow from there. I climbed the west face couloir of maude and saw others doing fernow, 7fj and the standard route on maude. The North Face of Maude looked primo also. Go get it!

That's a lot of questions! I will answer a few. If I had one car, I would go to Fury via access creek and spend all five days their tagging everything in sight. The NE Face of Fury, Luna, challenger, maybe prophet on the way out. If I had two cars, I would do the standard traverse across the n picket's. In Hannigan and through one of the two approaches over challenger and out access creek. If I were to go in the southern picket's, I would go in terror creek and spend all five days climbing everything in sight. The difficulties are part of the fun and anyhow there are too many to go over. Go luck, I'm headed out for 5 days right now ...

Hiking snow always scares me more than skiing. Maybe it is because I am used to it. As a kid, I went to Muir dozens of times a year. Many times there were very bad whiteouts, high winds, and lots of snow and we would be the only ones at Muir. It became a challenge of ours; us against the mountain. Once I forgot my ski boots. I hiked instead and found myself lost. My point is, even on something as mundane as Muir, it can leave you in a precarious position by simply not taking it as serious as it could be. Hypothermia sets in fast, as mentioned. They could have laid down for a quick nap after hiking in the fog for hours. I've nearly done it myself. The other week I was biking at 5500-ft, 13 miles from my car in a tee shirt and bike pants. After my tire blew and I spent several minutes between the snow patches, and deluges of rain, I began to think of the consequences of a wreck. I'm sorry to see Rainier take more lives.

Gawd, go get the Boulder-Park on Baker. It's not a long and sick approach except for those who live further south . If the weather is decent, as it looks saturday, some skiing up there is always a good place to be. Otherwise traversing the goat rocks is fun. Go in conrad meadows (gilbert approach) and out tieton (old snowy approach). You can tag 3 or 4 peaks...

Sky had an obsession with Logan for sure. And he seems to always be putting my obsessions in perspective. That line is sure schweet. This winter a look at the ne butt sounds like a plan, eh?