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oh yeah. duh

And what about no cell-phones in hospitals? Is that all just a fear-mongering thing also? Is it just to force people to use the hospital phones . The whole no electronics on airplanes is crazy and scary. It's either one thing or the other, both scary. Either 1) They really have no idea why the planes malfunction and crash and kill everyone, so they just make some wild-ass guess and prohibit something to give the illusion that they are actually in control 2) Planes actually are so fragile that Gameboys could send them plummeting into the tarmac!! That is the most scary . Maybe the next terroristas can just bring about 10 gameboys and a couple of calculator watches onto the plane (not prohibited) and then threaten to turn them ALL ON AT ONCE .

What about those heroes that brought down the 9/11 flight in PA? The standard lore is that they called their SO's on cell-phones and found out what was happening and thus sacrificed themselves for the good of whomever those terrorists were planning on flying them into. How were they able to have those conversations? Or is it all a myth like the Jessica Lynch thing?

He's been busy!

Me too. I have to work.

I liked it You guys are a bunch of pathetic whiners.

What's with this gun tangent anyway? It's not like gun politics are essentially Rep vs Dem is it? Plenty of republicans (police for example) do not like guns and then there are probably dems who like guns. I think?

There are routes

I asked about Midway Direct Direct, while back. You may find the responses somewhat helpful. Back then when I climbed it the first (crappy) bolt was there and that was it. Now there's that new shiny one a few feet above it, but sounds like there's still no replacement for the original bolt (hole above). The climb was scary but doable. I actually might have sat there scared until I got so tired I pitched off, but it started to rain and that lit a fire under my ass. I'll bet it's still scary with the new bolt, but at least there's some comfort that the bolt might hold a fall (and the fall would be about 2-3 feet less). I think the climb would be somewhat casual if the bolt hole above still sported a bolt.

I think this is really a non-issue. If you calm down at each belay/gear exchange and carefully hand off each piece one at a time you just won't lose that much time. Getting too hyper about saving 2 minutes at the belay is much more likely to end in left/dropped gear than it is to be the difference between getting home in time for dinner. As an aside some of you might find amusing at my expense... I prefer the gear clipped onto the rack from the inside out (gate opening up), while most of my partners prefer it the other way (from the outside in). With some of my more careful partners, this ends up in us taking all biners off the sling at every exhange just to turn them around . And, well....I am quite frequently late for dinner.

ALL guidebooks should have the Victor Kramar death heads. They !!!

dude you're sounding soo much like a minor league tweaker

"An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech."

Yeah I sure wouldn't want to take a leader fall on those jumars!!!!

That's why if you really want a trail park pass to avoid being hassled by the man, you should get one by doing trailwork with the WTA. You get a pass and you know your "payment" goes to the trails. The only downside is that the improvements you make are probably counted as fruits of the NW Forest Pass program.

Was an evil scumbag yuppy lawyer producing "bum fight" films on "Boomtown" last year.

Here's a good story I heard that hits on your point. Well, it was a good story when it was told to me anyway. This buddy of mine was on a big alpine climb in Alaska or the Canadian Rockies or somewhere, anyway, something big and snowy. My buddy is a regular Joe and there was one other regular Joe and then a rich trust-fund guy on the climb. So they make the summit and then on their descent the rich guy decides to abandon some of his equipment, (ice tool I think) to make his load lighter. Seeing this, one of the normal guys, thinks "Hey that's a nice axe" and picks it up to take with him. Seeing this, the rich guy gets all bent out of shape and demands the axe back and carries it down after all.

You are so out of it MattP! Didn't you learn on your trips to Little Si this year that in the sport climbing lexicon, "slab climbing" simply denotes "not overhanging".

Not enough car chases or gunplay for the vegetablobotomy?

Not when it's in emergency space blanket form!

I was responding to your implication that if a leader is in danger of hitting a ledge then either the belay or the protection is improper. It sounds like that's what you were saying, and if so, it shows that you haven't climbed very many pitches in the real world.

You live in a simple world Coopah. How many times have you been climbing outside of the gym?

It was probably killed by all those damn party balloons.