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I agree with your assessment of the FC choice. But I don't think it's cool to say "I told you so" after the fact. I'm sure he understood that he'd made a mistake as soon as he was retreating back down the mountain with his tail between his legs. No need to rub it in, especially after the guy had the balls to post a trip report where has was basically volunteering to eat crow. The fact that the Sulphide may well have been a worse choice is just sort of ironic and goes to show you that "you never know".

As I remember it, this guy wanted to do the Fisher Chimneys, and a bunch of people said he was too gumby to do that, go do that boring-ass Sulphide Glacier slog. Then, he went and did the Fishers anyway. Which is sort of annoying, because if you were one of the many people who gave him advice to do the Sulphide, you probably just felt like he asked you advice, you took time out of your day to give him some advice, then he just said, "oh well nevermind, I'm just going to do what I orginally wanted to do anyway." If he wasn't even going to consider what you had to say, why did he fucking ask it! Lambone used to do that shit all the time Anyway.... he ended up heading up the Fishers, made a judgement call that the weather was too shitty and they bailed. A bunch of jerks posted "I told you so". And the amusing punchline is that this was quickly followed by a report of some group who had attempted the Sulphide that day and got caught in the storm and had to be rescued!! Made the I-told-you-so guys look pretty stupid in my opinion. I-told-you-soers are so SUCK!!!

Gravity is harsh, and people need to understand that. Maybe by being a total dickhead to the stupid you can prevent someone else from getting in a bad situation. But then again, how stupid do you think we are? Mr. Spliffy, do you think anyone read that trip report and thought, "Oh cool! I wanna do something just like that! Sensitivity of the toes is overrated."? Do you think the self-admitted bumbling climbers need to be brought down another notch? For their own good and the good of others? I don't think so. I think the message gets across without raking the guys over the coals. If we raked everyone who anybody thought was a dumbass over the coals, pretty soon we'd have very few trip reports to discuss. I think it should be OK to say climbers screwed up once in a while. But only if it serves an important purpose. If it's obvious that the climbers did dumb shit, but they paint it as being smart and the way to go, then I think it's reasonable to criticize. As I remember, the SA TR was pretty self-deprecating. I think that guy understood he made many bad choices. He presented them as such, and any newbie who read that report is gonna be thinking twice now about hitting the SA at 9AM in September. Even without Mr. Spliffy's abrasive commentary! Only the most thickheaded idiot would think of that report as a grand tale of accomplishment or a good how-to example. Raking that guy over the coals: doesn't help anybody, makes the TR writer feel even more like shit, and discourages further trip reports. On the other hand, that Mr. Radon report about the Fin seems to me more like one that should be open for criticism. They appeared to make some bad choices, but the report read like they were fucking smart guys who did everything right. But still on that one, if you want to help anyone, it's probably best to be somewhat constructive and as polite as possible in your criticism. In the hope that you won't discourage others from telling their stories. That's my view on this thing.

Coke 1.25 what about beer?!! I went to the supermarket the other night and every goddamned beer was on sale for $7 a six. But I'm sure you all know this already

Painting those rings would be dangerous and irresponsible as the paint would hide how rusty those things are. Those rings are timebombs! Accidents waiting to happen. I'm amazed noone's died yet.

Alpine climbing often involves climbing with a pack. Go to the gym and climb with a pack filled with a bunch of books or something (and make sure to hook an ice-axe on the outside). Make sure to be wearing your helmet too. See how much fun that is? Alpine climbing sucks. All that stuff about learning how to hike and scramble is a very good idea if you haven't done any of that yet. Hiking and scrambling with a whole bunch of heavy climbing ropes and gear in your pack wouldn't hurt either. See how much fun that is? Alpine climbing sucks.

Link? But you would get to deduct that $5,000 for purposes of Taxable income at the Federal Level You are indeed voting in your own fiscal best interest, with which there is nothing wrong I say! It amazes me though how many lower to middle-income people vote Republican even though it's going to cost them a ton of money (in order to fund the high income people). True believers I guess!

Though difficult, I will give a reply more worthless than Lammy's: slkfhjs

Don't you know that capital punishment is not effective as a deterrent? Get with the damn talking points!

Maybe you could manufacture documents that state Iran and Iraq bought Uranium from you too!

Pope, perhaps they could find a toproping cliff, but for some reason, these guys/gals prefer leading using bolts. Though their desire to do so may seem dumb to you or I, they still want to do it. I don't see how one can justify prohibiting them using a reasonable chunk of land in the National Forest for an activity that is fairly benign. With respect to your question to Rudy, I think in some respects the use of the Nat forest is a privilege and if one's impact exceeds reasonable levels then it would be reasonable to cut off their access. I don't think the current situation merits this. Hopefully it never will. Because the snow-mo's already have their chunk of land over on the slopes of Mt. Baker as well as a bunch of other places, I don't think prohibiting them in the Alpental Valley would contradict my logic here.

I seriously doubt it would be the highest total tax burden. For example, CA has a high income tax and a high sales tax, as does NY. I'm not familiar with other states. And I think it was more Locke (and to use a frequent Greg W dodge) the state legislature that foisted the Mariner's stadium on us, and didn't "we" vote overwhelmingly in favor of that stupid Seahawk's stadium. I think you're using deceptive marketing practices there FF. Was Sims responsible for the design of the EMP too? As for Greg's Sims objections: Fuck "homeless people are scary" Bothell. Though I don't know much about it, I share your distaste for the lightrail thing. Sims' disregard for a sizeable minority of the populace reeks of GWB in that case. Don't know anything about King County parks. I thought it was Seattle City Parks that got shut down, but like I said, I don't know about it.

Stop drifing my thread! You already have a current thread for federal taxation stuff! By the way, primary is today, where if you choose to vote on democrats you can choose between Sims and that dumbass AG who lost the state (Us!) millions of dollars because she was late filing an appeal.

Agreeing with Greg's desire that we leave the fed's hands off our money, and attempting to heed Peter's plea to stop drifting his thread, I thought I'd post a new one here about Ron Sims' campaign platform centerpiece; New tax system for WA state: 1. Remove sales tax 2. Remove B & O tax 3. Institute State income tax I'm thinking this idea has something for everyone: shifting tax from sales to income taxes the poor proportionally less (makes us lefties happy). Removing business and occupation tax makes the righties happy. And finallly, here's the kicker, by shifting tax to income tax, we get to write off our state tax on our federal returns (can't do that with sales tax, or at least not easily) and GIVE LESS MONEY TO THE GODDAMNED FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!!! Pretty cool huh? Discuss.

You wanna talk about government handouts and overbearing government regulation, let's discuss what the federal government is doing for the drug industry by actively prohibiting US consumers' access to the prescription drug market.

Agreed. I came to that same conclusion while walking up to the Tooth one day last Spring. Once you decide that it's not reasonable to prohibit these people's choice of recreation (hard mixed climbing), then you have to concede that they should be allowed somewhere to apply their craft. The Alpental valley seems like as good a place as any, and a way more fitting place than many. The National Forest is a "Land of Many Uses". Mixed climbers oughta get their chunk.

stupid Bush, stupid Kerry. I am so depressed. What do you think of Ron Sims's tax proposal Peter?

Joseph, I agree with you that you should know what each other are doing. That is the best and most safe, especially when pushing your limits. What I don't agree with is that any specific method of racking and turning over the gear is going to make the difference between life and death. Too often, newbie climbers get concerned that they are so damn slow. They are hoping for some grand shortcut like "special gear turnover method" that is going to shave down their climbing times by 50%. I think this thread is based on this premise. My point was that if you concentrate on what you are doing, and like AlpineK said, always make sure you are doing something to move the team along, then no matter what the specific racking method is, you are going to save maybe 2 minutes max per pitch. Gear racking <=> life or death? No, I don't think you believe that either, we probably just put words in your mouth. Not being in synch with partner <=> life or death. That's probably what you meant. But usually the lack of synch won't be fatal because most people will not be pushing the life and death envelope when climbing with someone they don't work well with (if they know what's good for them). Sure you could die in some freak happenstance, but you could also die from objective hazard with your best in-synch partner.

Excellent TR Fast and light! Car to car! Dirty hippy, nice dog.

Life or death!? You climb pitch. Partner follows and cleans pitch. When your partner is anchored at the belay you give him/her the sling/racking device thingy with all your leftover gear on it. Your partner, arranges it the way he/she likes it and combines with gear he/she cleaned. On a free-climb, this can really only take so long, 2 minutes, 3 tops. Sure it's nice to have some shortcuts, but it's not that big of an issue. What slows a team down much more than having to rearrange the rack is failing to focus on getting the changeover task done, wasting time doing nothing cause your scared or thinking about something else. And of course, leading and climbing slowly.

I suggest using a bandanna over your face to inhibit the inhalation of lichen particles

I think the problem is that in the large states, if there is a close vote (FLA anyone?), that a huge number of people (the losing half) are effectively disenfranchised.

Allright! A post not dogpiling on Merv! Will Strickland for President 2004! Noone has come out of the woodwork saying it is acceptable to leave your draws up there. I am certainly not going to either. I will add some facts(?) specific to this discussion though. First, from viewing the routes from below, they don't appear to be so continuously overhanging as to make cleaning the draws on rappel very difficult. At the worst I think it may be inconvenient to get to the top anchors (climb another line? downclimb and/or rap through some icky trees?) Alex could probably fill us in on this. Second, I don't believe this alleged eyesore has been there since last winter as I walked/skied by there a couple times this spring and didn't see any fixed draws or ropes (though I was able to find the bolts and chains). Exit 38 is an ugly place indeed. I would hate to have this relatively beautiful placed soiled by a mess like they have there. I doubt it is currently in danger of such trashing since most of the use of these Source Lake crags occurs during the winter when the base area is protected by the snowpack. It could get pretty bad though if the crag gets more developed and an ethic of leaving lots of gear takes hold. I really hope this doesn't happen. ETA: It appears that I was not even looking at the route under discussion, thus at least one, maybe both, of my "facts" added here were incorrect . Apparently the route is quite overhanging, so getting draws on it and off it (on rap) would be a bitch. And since I wasn't looking at the correct route, I may have missed the offending items. If the draws have been there since last winter, it can't be too terribly obtrusive, since I missed seeing it on all 4 Tooth jaunts this year. Still would hate to see this "leaving the draws hanging thing" become the prevailing ethic up there. I hope it was just a mistake.

Not sure what you mean by the pass between Overcoat and Chimney, but we climbed Chimney many years back from the North side, and approached via the valley below the N faces of the Summit Chief group. Very nice approach (one sorta sketchy part), and a beautiful bivy just East of the overcoat glacier.