chucK

Hey! If you wanna do something scary, go to google news and do a search on "climber airlifted".

The radio (KPLU) this morning reported a 500 foot fall on Shuksan, airlift, climber alive. Don't know if it was the NF though. Can't find any info on the internet about it. Probably because the climber lived. Also, people seem to get hurt regularly on Chair Peak. That one probably gives LR a run for it's money.

Assmonkey what you say may be true, but I'm not so sure that electing Kerry would preclude a draft either. In fact, it might be more likely if he's elected. They need the manpower according to the generals. Kerry can do the dirty deed and blame it almost solely on Bush and his fucked up deeds.

And why is that? I'm curious. Is it because, though a bunch of knuckleheads support this stupid war, that they would rise up and literally revolt if they or their children had to go do the dirty work?

emphasis added Using the IRR would be calling up people who don't want to serve (anymore). Not all, but some. I think that's close to a draft. And yes, I think that suiting up the reserves to go to actual combat is sorta like a draft, but it's not as close to a draft as this thing. I didn't say it was a draft. I just said it's close. It also indicates that they are seriously hurting for manpower, so "close" in my sentence could also mean "close" as in the draft is the next step. And give me a break, your sisters reenlisted. They are not applicable to a discussion about IRR, except in a "rah rah, this war is great" kind of tangential way.

Check out this audio link. Click on the "Commentary: Minnesota Bus Ride". I thought it was fun! Fairweather warning: It's a link to NPR!! But don't worry. It's basically apolitical.

Military says it might return some former soldiers to duty

To specifically train for Thin Fingers you could toprope Thin Fingers to death. You can get a rope up there by either climbing Tatoosh/Free At Last (5.9 burly squeeze) or Narrow Arrow Standard (5.6 hanta-virus chockstone crawling) to the big ledge with big tree, then climb down a tree to the TF anchors. If you find a 70m rope you can toprope it from the ground. There is a nice sustained section of sinker hands, but I don't know how Alex can characterize it as sinker hands all the way. The sinker hands is a rest between the hard parts. Add: Rattletale 10a/b to the list above.

Gotta go to MA to get the license!

Adventurewagen, Letting the general public know that you think it is a dangerous route is great. That's what this board is for. What I don't get is your need to keep repeating what you guess were negative motives of the routesetters. What do you gain by continually making that point?

Bootying a biner off a midpitch bail is one thing, but ripping off biners from established rap stations is lame .

I agree that it is perplexing that there is not a continuous line of rap anchors especially in light of the extent of work done on the rest of the route. And this unexpected feature has already snared quite a few climbers. However, assuming some base motive of the routesetters is not very cool. There are many other possible explanations than what you accused them of. Also, your decision to continue climbing up past the rap gap in threatening weather was not the fault of the routesetters. I think it makes sense that the route takes a jog to the side at that point in terms of alleviating the rockfall hazard to those directly below. Finally a friendly reminder: Don't get on this route without a helmet! Even smarter would be to just turn around and head elsewhere if there's a car in the parking spot already.

This will probably be old news by tomorrow: "The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror. ..." read the whole article (New Yorker). Rumsfeld may be taking the big dive, or may be on his way to national (cult) hero status a la Ollie North. One of the two.

I link stuff already on cc.com from my webpage sometimes, but I never upload a picture to cc.com myself in order to link it, just to save space on my page. That would be very impolite!

Turning off Zone-Alarm did it for me too. Yea! I can see these guys again!

The more popular climbs (the ones that get more feedback perhaps ?) have much softer approach times than do the more obscure ones. For me, I'm doing well if I am close to the Beckey time on the less traveled routes and beat the time by a factor of two on the more popular ones.

Thank you Pax! Your photo of me will please my sponsors. Tallest one on the left is Chair. Snoqualmie is very prominent but out of the frame to the left (you could see the slot/enigma couloir from up there). With respect to j_b's comment: there is a telltale sign that people do often rap off of the backside. With respect to Ken4d's comment: yup. Oh and one more thing, I think there is a GaperJeff or Jeffrey that posts here that is not the Jeff in that photo.

Fukin' A Josh K Your eloquent words have convinced me to vote against Bush! For the good of the country.

could it be a firewall issue?

Same thing's happening with me too. Only on my home computer (XP), not on "other" computer (2000)

Awesome handle "Elcapinyoazz"!

I made it too easy on you. You didn't even present any facts!

If that means what I think it does, yes. It is difficult with Kerry, but failing that in almost all cases I can easily fall back to "he's way less evil than the other guy"! Actually, I'm not really worried about the outsourcing thing at all. Trying to prohibit it is stupid and impractical IMHO. It's like Star Wars or something. Kerry is not a total ignoramus and if he gets elected, I am confident that he will not destroy himself trying to vanquish outsourcing. If he wants to hold his cards a little closer to his vest to not turn off the the ignorami who think we can kill outsourcing with an M-16 or a Nucular Bomb, that's fine with me.

Ummm...Josh...he's been president of the United States for almost 4 years now. I think he's established a record we can use to evaluate him.