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Update! I weasled another hour or so, so I don't have to leave right at peak warmth. PM if you want a ride. Planning on leaving around 9:15 or so. Also, got one person showing, so far, so you may still have at least one climbing partner after I leave. (Of course, if you want a ride, you gotta leave when I leave )

GONE!! See U there

Paid for the COBRA (medical insurance) so he wouldn't have been diverted to the shitty welfare hospital. Oh, and BTW let me echo the, "FUCK OFF DRU!"

Excellent story Thanks Mike. The publishing feature is probably broke or hidden due to the board "upgrade". 500 words? You'd certainly have to cut out a lot (but at least you wouldn't have to cut off your arm ). I think if you focused more tightly and settled on a main point, you could get it into a tight 1000 word story. Regrettably you'd have to jettison a lot of the great anecdotes. I urge you to work on honing it down. Make some tough cuts and resubmit. Maybe turn it into two, stand-alone stories? Alpinist will be begging to publish it after you've become a well-known guide-book author!

Too bad GregW doesn't post here any more. I'd love to read his take on this.

First vote in 50 years!

Bring a big rack (that is, many pieces). The pitches are long. The Nat. Monument campsite seemed fine to me. I believe there is still a voluntary ban on climbing the Tower in the month of June.

My new theory of why we invaded Iraq is this: The powers that be thought Iraq was going to be real easy (ref: Pat Robertson's allegation that Bush stated to him that there would be zero American casualties). Once our glorious fighting force liberates Iraq, and Iraq becomes wonderful, then we really got all those other evil-doers in a bind, and quite intimidated. "What's next on the list Rummy?". That would have been real cool. postscript: Unfortunately, hindsight has pricked this lovely balloon. These dunderheads refused to listen to any negative information and their fantasy projections blew up in OUR face. [Not THEIR face btw, because they were able to keep the majority of Americans living in a fantasy world through the elections]. You guys hear about those disparate numbers of trained Iraqi police forces? Bushies are saying over 100k while other sources are talking 4-6k? More fantasy-world crap. "Rather be fighting over there than here"?? As empirical casualty count continues to grow, it gains weight over the hypothetical Saddam-still-in-power scenario. Weigh these wonderful (hindsight) alternatives: option 1: Saddam slowly but surely ditches sanctions. Probably supports international terrorists. Possible successful terrorist attacks on US soil. option 2 Known ~1500 American soldiers dead. Sure ~10,000 American casualties. Definite 400 billion $ drain on the US. Very likely 100,000 Iraqi dead. Possible successful terrorist attacks on US soil.

They are probbably looking for tiny climbers too, as that will help the illusion that the Matterhorn is really large! Go for it Rudy!

I checked that thing out. Matterhorn looks like some sweet granite!

What it all comes down to is its not what someone believes, but why they believe it, that determines whether or not they are actually an idiot.

If it's the tradeoff they are after, they have to be a little worried about Bush's schedule lately. He has been stumping vigorously the last month about his vague social security overhaul and even had a surprise press conference taking questions about it yesterday. While at a giant pro-life rally in Washington D.C. Bush made his appearance by telephone. It was pretty funny to see all those people staring intently and cheering, for a couple megawatt speakers.

From Crystal Mountain webpage CRYSTAL IS CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE As of Wednesday, January 26th, Crystal Mountain will be closed until further notice. This is the last thing we want to do in the middle of winter. At this time, the weather developments are not what we had been hoping for. We stand by providing the best skiing and snowboarding experience to our guests, and at this point we simply can no longer stand by what we have to offer. Hang in there, don't put your gear away just yet...we plan to re-open as soon as conditions allow!

Regardless of how you feel on global warming, the allegation that the Administration is muzzling scientists is extremely disturbing. In order to make any sound policy you have to have good information about the non-fantasy world. Look what happened in Iraq. Policy driven by fantasy-world assumptions....leads to big pile of steaming shit. Making decisions with your head in the group-think sand is sooner or later going to end in catastrophe.

Still costs the Postal service money.

Saturday, January 22, 2005 Rain, lack of snow keep park areas closed SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK -- Recent heavy rains around Mount Rainier National Park have closed roads and campgrounds. The Carbon River road in the northwest corner of the park is closed indefinitely because of numerous washouts. The Sunshine Point Campground at the southwest entrance is closed temporarily because of overflow from Tahoma Creek. The road from the Nisqually entrance to Paradise remains open daily, with the road between Longmire and Paradise opening about 9 a.m. daily, park officials said. The Paradise snow play area remains closed because of a lack of snow. The Henry Jackson Visitors Center is open only on weekends.

I like the idea of blocking off the spur roads, and just keeping the main road open to the end. Just gating it in the Winter would be a reasonable compromise in my mind (might be able to keep some long-term riff-raff out that way?) I think this will be jist of my comment. I think it's important to write a letter like "I like your plan. The part about the X, X , and X, are good ideas which I support. HOWEVER .... I want you not to do Y. The reason I don't want you to do Y is .... " But you probaby knew that already. Letters which are basically votes are good. Ones that might possible convince are better. Big Snow Mountain East Buttress

Which of the top 100 is the most difficult? - techinically? - logistically? - overall? What about if you exclude the volcanoes?

"Turn your head and cough."

I don't think I rebutted the existence of extreme lefties protesting did I? In any case, I will acquiesce to your request, and agree that many lefty protesters' ideas/slogans seem a bit farfetched/silly. Hell, I even think the tried and true "No Blood for Oil" deal is a oversimplistic. However, my point is, is that I'll happily suffer through the "No Blood for Oil" silliness because 1) it gets the job done, and 2) it's far preferable to "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" I heard one report of a guy visible at the inaugural address (lefty protester probably) standing on a box with a black hood on his head with his arms outstretched. Now that's ART!!!

My comment was a direct like-minded response to JayB's implied scorn of the Left (broadbrush?) based on pulled-from-his-ass reports of stereotypical extreme members of the left. Perhaps his wasn't "demon"-izing because he didn't imply the extreme lefties were evil, just stupid? But for the Right, "Demon"ing will have to do, 'cause you gotta admit, that's the stereotypical rap on them. They're mean, heartless, and they eat babies.

Probably feel less mortified than serious people on the right must feel when they see people protesting Spongebob, when they read exhortations to "bomb those ragheads back the stone ages", or when they witness industrialists feasting on babies.

Do you have any possible comments climbers could make that would help our cause? The way I see it, the only thing that would help climber access compared to the current plan is KEEP THE ROAD OPEN! Unfortunately, that is probably not going to happen. I'm all for making my comments, but currently, all I can think of is saying the whole damn thing sucks. Which will probably be met by deaf ears. So, I guess what I'm asking is, is there any way that climbers can positively contribute to the planning process? Is there anything reasonable that we can ask for?

If Bush really is interested in the good of the country (which may not be mutually exclusive of the good of his party) he can break the log jam by doing what he did as governor of Texas. He found some democratic issue that was not totally repugnant to his side (probably because it was something that was good for Texas), and worked with them to get their issue done. His own side does not have the knee-jerk response to trash their own guy, so if he picked the right issue, he could get it done AND promote some goodwill with the dem's, This might help break the logjam of constant knee-jerk fighting. It took a reactionary conservative like Nixon to open up China, because liberals would too easily have been labeled commie sympathizers. Perhaps Bush could break the logjam by getting something good for the country done like universal healthcare.