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You really should check out Shock Treatment or Fuddhat/Kill Da Wabbit if you like 5.10 slab. Both excellent routes, easily superior to Online in all aspects except ease of access.

Here's a link to something a little less biased than Scott Silver. Sounds like a small victory. They'll still be able to ticket you for anyplace they got bathrooms though. "H.R. 3283, The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, creates a two-tier system for recreation fees on sites with amenities, but establishes that no fees are to be charged for basic use (including, but not limited to, parking, picnicking, general access, camping, hunting or fishing) on undeveloped areas that have little or no investment in amenities and maintenance." [...] According to the legislation, a “standard amenity recreation fee” may be charged on sites only if an area is managed, has substantial federal investments and includes all of the following: a permanent trash receptacle; designated developed parking; a permanent toilet facility; an interpretive sign, kiosk or exhibit; a designated eating area; and security services. An “expanded amenity recreation fee” may be charged if the user is taking advantage of specialty facilities or equipment such as boat launches; electricity; developed campgrounds; or the rental of cabins, boats, day-use or overnight structures, or historical buildings.

As I remember he didn't just convert. He also used his fame to publicly call for the death of Salman Rushdie.

Hear hear!!! This thread is about how many times you've climbed the Tooth this year, and associated stories. Let's keep this discussion on track.

Here's an interesting angle: The story on Bush's Nat Guard non-service bumped another much more well investigated story about the Niger yellow-cake uranium documents! Crazy. That Rove is good. Real good.

Four (4) Notes: After some searching, spied that route with the fixed draws that Dr. Merv was bitching about. That route looks pretty impressive! Has it ever been climbed? What about free climbed? Afternoon was recurrently punctuated by the thunder of dynamite being used to smooth out the Snow Lakes trail. Reminded me of the Winter up there. Pleasantly uncrowded, bluebird day, blah blah blah. You shoulda been there

Could be immobilized (dead or dying) rather than lost.

Perhaps related to this ?

And to talk about really convoluted... what if you just make a ring with your fingers and loop them around the draw, without weighting (or touching?!) them, while you clip with the other hand? Here, you're safeguarding yourself should you slip, but you are not using the draw as a hold for aid in physical upward progress? How about that question, oh ethics masters?

What about the chains on top of the Sword pitch? I ask for two reasons. 1) It seems like it would be very hard to clip without using them!! 2) The next "pitch" is a bolt ladder anyway, so you could just say you're starting the next pitch, not finishing the sword

I haven't been as active as I should be in WCC, so I could be wrong here, but maybe the reason WCC hasn't taken an official position on some of these issues on their website and elsewhere is because they've only had one (1) meeting so far. Perhaps the founders of this group like Mattp don't want to presume what the rest of the people getting involved wish to support, so they are waiting to get a consensus before forming an official position? Maybe if you got involved they might even want to listen what you have to say?

But Ryland, have you not considered that your act of ratting out the lawbreaker could itself detrimentally affect your access? The Feds might not have a quick clean way that will stop the bolting without inhibiting your access. You may lose your access due to collateral damage. You could say, "it was that lawbreakers fault", and ultimately, down the chain of culpability, I would agree with you, but the net result would still be the same.

I thought I was sticking strictly to the question of whether I would "rat" out a "fellow climber". I gave you my reason why I would be loathe to do so. That reason, in a nutshell, is I would be worried that going to authorities would possibly cause more trouble for us climbers than it would help.

At what point does it become worthwhile to involve the government, Federal government especially? Myself, I would think LAST RESORT! Purposefully involving the Federal Government to take care of something that will only be a problem if the Federal Government gets involved seems quite circular in an absurd way. I think Lammy's argument is that these illegal drillers will endanger all of our access once the Federal Govt. gets invovled. I'll buy that. However, when he implies the solution to this is to get the Federal Govt. involved my head begins to spin. I guess the idea is, if we come in and turn in other climbers, then the Feds. might like us as a group enough to let us continue climbing. It seems like this might be what is happening down in Inyo. However, the Feds work in strange and mysterious ways, and I wouldn't be surprised either if some Fed Govt rep just says, "screw it, this is a pain in the ass" and just closes climbing the easiest way they can, like just stop putting money into maintaining the roads that climbers use to access their crags. Anyway, ratting out climbers, besides being unmanly in a Vichy French kind of way, seems to be playing a dangerous game.

I vote the the Bogen/Off White option

Depending upon where you grease off on a slab, you often have a chance to stop sliding if you keep your sticky rubber underneath you. Think of it like skiing. You may stop if you slide into an area that's even just a little bit less steep. So anyway, pushing off or running backward may be giving up too soon. On slabs, starting to slide is not always impy you're at the point of no return. The only place I might quickly give up, and walk backward is if I was very close to an omnidirectional piece (bolt), so giving up and walking backward may save a little shoe rubber. Oh, and making sure the rope is not behind your leg is quite important on slabs. If anybody is gonna get hurt bad on a slab fall it is from the rope flipping them over and cracking their head.

Nope. If that were the case it would look like this:

Agree about the 70m ropes. I get annoyed by 60m ropes even. A 60m is probably pretty good for a skinny rope doubled while simulclimbing. Doubling up a 50 is just too short. 70m ropes are good for people who like ropedrag or those who want to able to toprope Thin Fingers from the ground.

Is it nobler to do your 60m at all costs, or is it better to pull up short at a comfy belay? I used to always try to stretch the rope (within reason) to the end. I'd do this in the interest of speed. Less belays, less changeovers, less pitches to reach objective. But then, this seemed to just bite me the ass too many times. Too many times I passed up that comfy belay ledge or bomber tree only to end up suffering at a slopey semi-hanging spot trying to keep the rope from tumbling down into a crack; or, freaking out while belaying the next two pitches wondering if the "best thing I could get" anchor would withstand the ultimate test. Too many times I grunted through 20 m of ever-increasing rope drag, making the pitch more of a chore than a fun recreation, just so I could stretch out the rope. Now, I no longer believe that maximizing pitch length is the dominating criterion for where to stop and set up the belay, even when, or especially when, speed is an important consideration. A couple of extra changeovers may not spend as much time as it would to have to fiddle and finagle setting up a complicated belay anchor. Those couple of extra changeovers may also take less time than one would waste trying to make changeovers on small awkward belay stations built for one (especially true if party is swinging leads). I was expecting to make this a "discuss" topic, but now the post is looking more like a treatise. I guess I could still ask the question, "how much rope do you go through before you start considering a belay?". Obviously, you are not going to stop and put the next belay 10 feet above the previous one without very good reason (comfy armchair station with 3 large bolts and fridge full of beer). What's your criterion for when to stop and setup the next station?

More than 10 feet up I think. Probably 10 feet up after you squirm out above the chimney/offwidth which you enter directly above the belay anchors. I made the mistake once of traversing right, just after escaping that chimney, and it was a down-angling strenous hand traverse that just got you pumped then put you right at the hard part of the yarding way. If you want to do the easier way make sure the hand traverse you take out right is a very easy one (and cool too, 5.7 hand traverse, butt over BIG air).

Not like I know anything first hand, but from what I've read (now and before this war), War is hell. GD, here and always, with your first-hand knowledge you have been reminding us of that. I guess this is an "I told you so", but even before we went into this thing, I think anyone betting the farm on a quick, clean, evisceration-of-the-brutal-Saddam-regime, Iraqis-welcoming-us-with-open-arms, end-of-story conflict had to be pretty damn naive. Unfortunately, those that took us into this war, the administration AND the sheeplike congressional "leaders" didn't end up losing their farms. They're still selling this thing like it was a great idea, and the sad thing is PEOPLE ARE BUYING IT and eating it right up. Lame. Sorry GD for maybe twisting your message. My point above is tangential to yours. To address your point, you seem to be saying that we gotta continue this thing, and when we do, use strict resolve; that is, hit them where it hurts, and hit them hard, etc. I don't reject your idea out of hand, but can your suggested tactics mesh with the goal of winning the hearts and minds? Like you said, this involves killing lots of innocents. This surely hurts the goals of a hearts and minds strategy. Do you think trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis is a fruitless task? Or do you think that while we will be hurt in that department by killing of innocents, that in the long run, the end goal of a "free and stable Iraq" will be furthered? Or possibly, you may think the goal of a free and stable Iraq is just a pipedream? From some of your stuff I get this impression. The above are all genuine questions (with the exception of first paragraph which was me trumpeting my political agenda). It's easy to "I told you so" the people that wanted to do this shit in the first place. Unfortunately we are all now stuck with the more important question, "what do we do now?"

way to get out and explore!

Sno Mtn. trail to Cave Ridge, up through the meadow valley, then popping over the crest into the basin south of Lundin is defintely easier than the Red Mtn trail way. The meadow is usually quite nice, but it's a little touch and go to find where to pop over the left crest. Robert's suggestion to climb all the way to top of Sno Mtn is more sure, but a bit longer. You can also get to the col east of Lundin by taking the Commonwealth Basin trail all the way up and then find a fairly devious patch over and around the crags between Red and Lundin. Don't count on trying to find that way back (if you've never done it) in the dark. Once you're at the col east of Lundin though, probably the easiest way to get to the West Ridge is to summit Lundin then downclimb the West Ridge to it's base.

Guess I didn't notice the tongue in cheek part. My apologies. I liked the part where you guys did all that funky stuff tieing and untieing at the top of the Fin too!

Vantage would be a poor choice of places to bring kids, especially smaller ones. Too much rockfall.