Retrosaurus

DH is alive and well. Well, except for certain well-known character defects. Climbed Dragontail, Backbone/Fin wuith him on 8/28. Due to recent relocation he has not been e-surfing lately.

From The Wenatchee World 9/2/02: A 61-year-old woman suffered broken bones and chest injuries Sunday in a climbing accident on Mount Stuart, west of Leavenworth. Joyce Nielsen was in serious condition this mortning at Central Washington Hospital. She fell while climbing at the 9,000-foot level shortly before noon, said Jerry Yonaka, chief of operations for the Chelan County Sheriff's Office. Details of the fall were unavailable this morning. Search and rescue workers from Chelan and Kititas counties airlifted her from the mountain by helicopter, Yonaka said. In addition to chest injuries, Nielsen suffered facial fractures and a broken arm, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Everything in the Omak area is on Colville Indian Tribal lands and is privately owned. Access is tenuous at best. Please don't go blundering around there and f* things up for the few locals that have acquired permission.

quote: Originally posted by sexual chocolate: So I got a new set of power tools! Don't laugh, but I got the Ryobi 18 volt super combo, with a sawzall, drill, circular saw, spotlight and THE PISTON ACTION ROTARY BUZZBOMB VIBRATOR!!! WHEE!!! All for 169, with Home Depot's REI-style guarantee! Let the slumber party begin, hurray! ...And I got some other things too. Hurray hurray!!!!!!!!

quote: Originally posted by allison: Sorry, Mitch, it's really offensive. I'm serious. What is really offensive is for public dollars to pay for "training" otherwise moral people to be "sensitive" of some queer's degeneracy.

quote: Originally posted by ScottP: Perhaps try a more positive attitude. Most places I go, I can find a way to park out of the fee zone that is pretty darn close. Those I can't, I walk a little further, ride my bike, or take my chances. This puts you in the non-voting category. You have not voted for the fee program but have not voted against it either. What if you are in my family's situation: My wife and I work opposite work schedules because we can't afford to pay for day care for out 5-year old. To take him camping we have to take two cars because of the work schedule thing. ($11/car/night.) If I want to take him for a scenic hike it costs $5/visit to a trailhead or $35/year. Should my 5-year old have to walk an extra 1/4-mile? And what about the hassels and inconvenience to use something that is being "managed in the public trust" and is mine to begin with? The forest service does not own the land. It is yours and mine. Do you really want more services provided at the expence of paying for all use? Another paved campsite? A solar powered water pump? More signage to tell you where to play for how many $? I want less services from the FS. Especially when I have to bend over to get serviced.

No. I believe you are looking for the Mountinsteers.

quote: Originally posted by allison: Mitch, That woman is an idiot, but using the term you did is extremely offensive, on par with the 'n' word and the 'c' word. Please consider a different choice of words next time. Thanks. Allison, Politcal Correctness is usually no more than a mechanism to obscure the lines between what is right and wrong. Get over it.

quote: Originally posted by upperdecker: No one enjoys paying the parking permit fee, but for a measely $35.00 it's not worth the time and effort to avoid it. For a great many people $35.00 is not a measely amount. For a young family with children just barely making it, or prehaps just barely not making it, they have had their public lands effectively taken away from them, or made a criminal for trying to use them. Is this right? And do you really want to support this theft of land that the FS had been managing in the public trust?

I am proud to pay fees to the forest service so that they can provide sensitivity training because some bulldyke got her feelings hurt while burning up firefighters instead of training them in fire science.

This is Mrs. R, SAY NO TO ‘FEDERAL LANDS RECREATION FEE AUTHORITY ACT ‘ (S2607) RECREATIONAL FEE DEMONSTRATION IS: · UNDEMOCRATIC—SOCIAL INEQUITY--- IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO PAY THEN YOU CAN PLAY. THIS IS A REGRESSIVE TAX THAT TARGETS THE POOR AND WORKING AMERICANS. · FEE DEMO IS NOT A SOLUTION. IT CREATES MORE EXPLOITATION OF OUR PUBLIC LANDS, EXPANSION, NEW FACILITIES, ETC. ETC. ETC. OUR PUBLIC LANDS BECOME NOT PUBLIC. · FEE DEMO TARGETS LOW IMPACT USERS: CLIMBERS, HIKERS, CAMPERS, ETC. · COMMERCIALIZATION. THE FOREST SERVICE RECREATIONAL FEE DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM WAS DEVELOPED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH (ARC) AMERICAN RECREATION COALITION THROUGH A CHALLENGE COST SHARE PARTNERSHIP. WHY SUCH INTEREST FROM CORPORATE AMERICA? ARC’S EFFORTS WILL INCLUDE EXPLANATION OF THE FEE PROGRAM TO RECREATION INDUSTRY AND ENTHUSIASTS, AS WELL AS EVALUATION OF DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS. STOP FEE DEMO AND SAVE OUR PUBLIC LANDS NOW: Write: Senator Jeff Bingaman, Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, 364 Dirksen, Washington, D.C. 20510. A brief handwritten letter makes the most impact. Ask him to vote for the Forest Access Immediate Relief Act, H.R. 908, and Forest Tax Relief Act H.R. 1139. ACT NOW! Thanks, Betty Merriman

This is Mrs. R, Here's a Fee Demo Public Response speech from Alasdair Coyne. Public Response to Forest User Fees National Fee Demo Meeting, Covina, 2.24.99, Alasdair Coyne, KSWC. The successes of the Adventure Pass program are easily recited - repaired facilities, cleared trails, more staff out in the Forests, nearly 200,000 passes sold and about $2.7 million raised over the first two seasons. Nobody objects to this. But this is only the bright side of the program. The dark side of the Adventure Pass is a timebomb of protest that is very largely of the Forest Service's own making, as I will explain. In brief, Forest fees are now clearly understood to be the agenda of major corporate recreation interests with their greedy eyes on opportunities to make money from the public's use of its own lands. The smokescreen has been declining recreation budgets, which are now widely perceived as an orchestrated strategy, as an excuse to start up fee programs. The Fee Demo Program has not been a Demo at all - the push is clearly to sideline public protest and to make it work at all costs. It has been straightforward for the average American to put together the corporate commercialization agenda and the manner in which fee programs are being implemented full steam ahead, regardless of widespread protest. The main problem facing you, then, is the public perception that, as fee program staff, you are acting not as public servants, but as corporate lackeys. Derrick Crandall has been carefully putting together many of the pieces of this commercialization agenda, for the past few decades. But perhaps he should have heeded the July '88 Outdoor Recreation Policy paper from the Domestic Policy Council, which recommended that "the cost of basic access to federal lands should not be included in fees," as that has been, by far, the most unpopular aspect of Forest fee programs. That this commercialization agenda exists is without question. The Recreation Roundtable claims direct responsibility for Fee Demo. That the ARC represents a membership almost entirely composed of recreation corporations, is a matter of public record. We do not question the ARC's right to lobby Congress for money-making opportunities on our public lands - but we do not believe that this should happen in a vacuum. The cosy Private/Public Ventures, the Cost Share/Challenge agreements - none of these reflect the interests of the majority of Forest visitors who are quite content with a non-commercial Forest. But, Fee Demo is only the tip of the iceberg. The ARC's current big push is for the Visitor Infrastructure Improvement Act, which they themselves produced. It is designed to enable private enterprise funds, the big money, to construct and maintain major visitor facilities such as marinas and lodges on public lands. Fee Demo has come as far as it has for two reasons - (1) that nobody representing low-impact Forest visitors was paying enough attention to recreation budgets and issues and (2) that it came out of nowhere, as a stealth rider to the 1996 Appropriations Bill. That Fee Demo came about by rider was the warning shot. That it was further extended by another rider last fall is testament to the care one must take, if one is to engineer the privatization of management control of public lands. What the Forest Service has been ignoring, at its longterm peril, is the steadily-growing, articulate and very reasonable opposition to Fee Demo. Last fall the Sierra Club took a nationwide position against Fee Demo, against the further commercialization, motorization and privatization of our public lands and in favor of increased recreation budgets. Many, many other organizations will be taking similar positions this year. The Feb. 99 Senate hearings on Fee Demo will likely be the last, at which one or more national opposition voices are absent. The big question is, how far does the commercialization agenda move forward, now that the spotlight is on it? The spotlight of media and public interest attention is set to change all of the ARC's best-laid plans. Marketing wizard Robert Shulman's efforts notwithstanding, the going will no longer be easy for Fee Demo. The good part is that a broad debate on the future of Forest recreation is now underway. For too long, this has been taken for granted by the American public. Access to our Forests - what Derrick Crandall regularly describes as a free lunch - has been widely understood as a public service, paid for out of federal tax dollars. Imagine a Forest Service where, once again, recreation dollars from Congress are adequate to the task of maintaining our National Forests' recreation facilities. Where the public conservation and recreation communities, nationwide, act as watchdogs to ensure that the budgets are sufficient to the needs. Where staff like yourselves no longer need to issue parking tickets when you're out in the field. Which Forest Service did you sign up with? Which do you want to see? In Southern California, the emphasis has been on ignoring the protest and counting the money flow, contrary to the Adventure Pass Orientation Guide's statement that Project success will be determined "by public support for paying a fee to recreate in National Forests," not "by the amount of revenue generated." No amount of communications plans will make everybody accept the Adventure Pass. It has been a terrible mistake to believe you can somehow sell the public on paying a fee. If you'd been paying attention to the important issues raised by the papers on Alan Watson's website, you could be addressing those issues, but you're not. Surveys of comment cards are meaningless to understand the views of all those protesting fees, who'll never hold a comment card. While focusing myopically on the sale of thousands of Passes, you've ignored the determined and lasting voices of disagreement. This is important because these are the voices that will shut down Fee Demo. This is exactly how the Forest Service has created Fee Demo opposition - by sidelining it. If the idea was to push Fee Demo down our throats, of course you can't listen to us, because our views get in the way. But the results of seeing report after report that make Fee Demo seem like the only future for Forest recreation, have been the dozens of critical newspaper stories, the thousands of letters to Congress, the public protests and the growing network of Fee Demo opponents around the nation. In Southern California, for those of you from further afield, one protest group alone has fairly easily persuaded over thirty Adventure Pass vendors to quit selling tickets to public Forests. Congresswoman Capps (D/Santa Barbara) has asked her constituents to stop writing to her, complaining about the Pass. At least four newspapers have taken editorial positions against the Pass. And there is the Bono/Capps bill, introduced by two Southern California Congresswomen who have heard so many constituents complain about the Adventure Pass Program. Still the Forest Service is behaving like an ostrich with its head in the sand. How can you marginalize protest, when elected Representatives have been stirred into action, with now two bills to end Forest fees? And with more to follow? Yet not a word of this in Forest Service reports. No wonder the protest is getting stronger! Derrick Crandall's July 29, 1998 letter stating ARC's "plan to work with the federal agencies to help identify and eliminate the reasons for strong localized opposition to the program" only makes the opposition work harder. It also makes it impossible to deny the ARC's close involvement with Fee Demo. The Enterprise Forest's position is that citizen protest is centered around a handful of opponents in Los Padres Forest. This is a highly dangerous claim for the Forest Service to make. It can only serve further to undermine the Forest Service's credibility with regard to the Adventure Pass. How can you have a Demo program, if only one outcome, permanent fees, is to be permitted? How can you have a Demo program if the voices of major segments of the Forest-visiting American public are prevented from influencing the program? The results of this imbalance, which could truly be devastating to the Forest Service for a much longer timespan than that of Fee Demo, have been to strengthen and unite those user groups opposed to fees. How will the Southern California Forest Supervisor's claims of project success look, when mass protests with TV news cameras visit the trailheads in Southern California this summer, to protest the Adventure Pass? When many thousands more protest letters flow into Congress from around the nation, how can you say the program is successful and well-received? No, the public relations campaign has already slipped beyond your grasp. You can continue the press releases which show how much money is going to Forest facilities, but as long as you sideline the protest, you can never engage it. And it's not going away, it will only get hotter. It may involve ripping up the Adventure Pass program by the roots, in order to begin afresh with a totally new look at the future of orest recreation, one that includes all interested parties, not just the corporate ones. Have you considered what happens to your longterm working relationship with the Amercian public, when you are so blatantly in cahoots with the ARC? The future of Fee Demo is, of course, in the hands of Congress. I promise you that there will be many thousands of Americans who will fight permanent fees. I believe their campaign will prevail. Isn't it time for you to at least consider, publicly, that Fee Demo may fail and begin to ask what happens next? This is what democracy is all about. Thanks, Betty

quote: Originally posted by Off White: quote:Dear Mr. White, Congress has decided that some of the operation and maintenance of recreation facitlities should be borne by the users of those facilities and not the population at large. Maintaining recreation facilities such as trailhead toilets and trails is not free. Gary Paull Wilderness & Trails Coordinator Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie NF phone: 425-744-3407 fax: 425-744-3255 gpaull@fs.fed.us Hello, This is Mrs. R, If this is all the forest service is interested in then why are corporate interests working overtime for fee demo. Sounds good, but doesn't quite ring true. Here's an excerpt from the end of a forest service document www.fs.fed.us/r6/rogue/trl_park_fee.html about the Rogue River National Forest. "The Forest Service's recreation fee demonstration program was developed in partnership with leading national recreation interests. Its implementation is occurring through a Challenge Cost Share partnership with the American Recreation Coalition (ARC). ARC's efforts will include explanation of the fee program to the recreation industry and recreation enthusiasts, as well as assistance in evaluation of the demonstration projects. For further information on ARC's efforts, contact ARC at 1225 New York Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20005 or ARC@funoutdoors.com" Does this sound like maintaining recreation facilities such as trailhead toilets and trails? Sounds alittle fishy to me. Like any business venture, the FS is working overtime to provide more improvements on Public lands, more roads and more exploitation. Nothing can come of this but exploitation and diminishing wild lands. It's really not about saving the FS's ass. It's about preserving our public lands. Once fees are implemented, then our lands are no longer public. It's outrageous to be charged to take your children for a walk on the public lands in our country. I'm feeling pretty unAmerican about this time. I've been unable to find this 'Challenge Cost Share Partnership' yet. So if you find it before me let me know the address. Also, I was reading last night that 9/30/02 is the deadline for the last extension on fee demo. Don't quote me on this, I don't have the source in front of me. Write Congress. Wouldn't it be great to fill up Snow Creek Parking lot, Colchuck/Stuart Parking lot with protesters out there hiking/climbing/recreating without passes. No room for those willing to pay. I'm for it; I'm willing to fight for this one. There's way too much at stake. Betty Merriman

Well , I did lead the entire route.

No. But I am pleased that he made it at all. Especially considering the shortage of "adult beverages" and surplus of smokes.

Partner found. Here is the TR: Dennis Harmon and I did make it up Backbone Ridge. The weather was perfect. One other party on the mountain, Brian, from Leavenworth Mountain Sports and his partner passed us on our way up the moraine. One other party on the mountain and of course they are on our chosen route. No problem with that though. They only "shelled" us once on the beginning of the 3rd class at the start. They climbed much faster than us old dinosaurs. Harmon climbs slowly and I just didn't know where the f* I was going. We were one pitch behind them on the O/W crux and watched them climb that and then didn't see them again until they were on The Fin. That 6-inch crack is really a bitch, esp. with a pack. The first half protects well enough with a collections of chockstones and a few odd placements, but the 2nd half of the pitch is definitely way run out. I had saved my #4 camalot for there but it would not go in at all and I didn't even use it on the pitch. If you don't have pro for a 6 to 7-inch crack you are, how shall we say, "shit outta luck" and likely climbing into the groundfall zone near the end of the pitch. Maybe 15 feet before the end of the pitch you get an awkward to reach 2-inch cam behind a fat flake on the left wall. That said, it is really not all that bad. Just classic "desperate thrutching." Standard O/W technique. The next several 5.7ish pitches went well, though we strayed left a bit. Lots of route latitude and fun moderate crack climbing on sound granite. We then simul-climbed for several pitches up onto the middle of the initial ledge system on The Fin. The Fin is an amazing piece of rock and I would like to spend more time on it, but it is a little inconvenient to get to, being ~1500 feet off the deck. It was very difficult reconciling the discrepancies between Nelson's description/diagram of climbing on The Fin and the actual features that we encountered. We never climbed anything harder than 5.7 on The Fin, although the possibilities are certainly there. From maybe halfway across the initial ledge system we climbed face climbing and wanna-be cracks up to the right side of a large ledge whose left side dropped off in shallow left facing corners. Then up the well-developed left-facing corner that formed the right side of the ledge. From there an ascending leftward traverse on an obvious somewhat rubbly crack all the way to a perch on an arete at the left edge of The Fin below the huge overhanging block (where it looks like there will be a good ledge but there is not). From here a long crack traverses right (bypassing a beautifully clean O/W crack nearer the huge overhanging block) before ascending and then traversing rightward again through a notch at the top of The Fin. About two pitches along the backside of The Fin before going back out front again through a notch where you have your choice of many beautiful ascending cracks and corners or you can traverse off rightward to the 3rd class rubble at the right side of the top of The Fin and finally through a notch on the summit ridge just left of the summit block and about 200 feet from the actual summit. We topped out at 8pm; timing it so that we could enjoy one more descent of Aasgard pass in the dark.

I seem to remember a great many drill happy sportwads laughing when I suggested that the future of climbing protection was likely to be super-adhesives . And that the current whaterer goes attitude about drilling would make their "accomplishments" seem rapacious. I'd just like to say: "RIM ME!"

Hi, This is Mrs. Retro. Fee Demo, came on a ryder attached to an Interior Appropriations Bill in Congress. It is a demo program but they can issue citations. This ryder gives the forest service authority to contract out to private industry to build marinas, resorts, theme parks, etc, etc, etc, on our public lands. This bill was put together by ARC (American Recreation Coalition) which is made up of CEO's of big corporations such as REI, DISNEY, MOTORHOME COMPANIES, American Hotel and Motel Association, American Motorcyclist Association, American Petroleum Institute, American Powerboat Association, American Resort and Residential Development Ass'n, American Suzuki Motor Corporation,Chevron Corporation, Coachmen Industries, Inc., Coast to Coast, The Coleman Company, Inc., etc. etc.... There are no low impact representation in the ARC membership. STATEMENT BY DERRICK CRANDALL, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN RECREATION COALITION, ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RECREATION FEES DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM, PRESENTED TO THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS AND PUBLIC LANDS, FEBRUARY 26,1998. "...we are proud to say the American Recreation Coalition and the Recreation Roundtable - a related group of recreation-industry CEO's - have invested heavily in staff and member time in helping the federal agencies covered by the fee demonstration program with project-level and national support and advice on sound fee programs. We have arranged for top marketing and communications executives from Disney, REI and other companies to work with the Enterprise Forest fee team in the design and implementation of that project; we have assisted more than a dozen additional Forest Service fee sites with specific communications efforts,..." An article in May 98's Motorhome Magazine quotes Derrick Crandall of the American Recreation Coalition - "We believe the Forest Service largely will be out of the developed-site camping business within the next 10 years. Where we do see a difference is in the need to upgrade or consolidate existing campgrounds that are too small to be economically viable if they were operated by the private sector. "If you have three 40-site campgrounds in a National Forest district, we may well see that those are essentially closed and a new 120-site campground is built to today's standards, using private-sector dollars." They also list what makes a site economically viable, laundry hookups, store, rentals, etc..etc.. Think of snow creek parking lot having a store and other privately owned businesses. Does this outrage you?? Commercialization of our public lands; it's happening now. The fee demo program lasts until 2004, but ARC is working overtime to make it permanent. ARC is also in charge of evaluating it. How long and how far do we need to bend over. The devastation to our public lands/wilderness will be great, if ARC has it's way. We will become the customer on our own public lands. Feel like a foreigner without a home yet? I do. Write your congressman, become aware of the issues. Washington Congressmen/women: Washington's 3rd District: Brian Baird U.S. House of Representatives 1721 Longworth Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-3536 Fax: (202) 225-3478 Washington's 6th District: Norm Dicks Congressional Offices WASHINGTON, D.C. 2467 Rayburn House Office Bldg. Washington, D.C. 20515 (202) 225-5916 [voice] (202) 226-1176 [fax] Websites to check out: freeourforests.org; sespewild.org. Don't buy a forest pass, or a parking pass. It is used as a vote for fee demo. Fight it. What ever amount the forest service brings in from fee demo, it is subtracted from the amount they receive from the Federal Government. This is scary and makes fee demo something more permanent. Ask your Congressman to cosponsor and support the Capps Bill H.R. 908. This is pending legislation which calls for an immediate end to forest fees and using forest road construction funding for forest recreation! Ask your Congressman to cosponsor and support the Bono Bill H.R. 1139. This is pending legislation which calls for an immediate end to forest fees!! So lets stop talking about fees, and get to the real issue 'COMMERCIZATION OF PUBLIC LANDS'. PS. Fee Demo is undemocratic. One of the definitions of democracy is social equality. Does this sound like equality to you? "IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO PAY, YOU CAN PLAY" Betty Merriman

I wanted to climb Backbone tomorrow but my partner is missing. Any one up for it? Or something else?

I think STAY FREE makes pads that would work well for you.

quote: Originally posted by Thinker: OK, I gotta ask. Are you protecting the direct start, or the crack/dihedral? to the left of the direct start? The crack/dihedral. The Direct start is obviously run out.

True. True.

quote: I saw a visiter of the site take a grounder on Canary. Then he fucked up because you can protect the climb so that you can jump off anywhere in the first 30 feet and not deck.

I was on Dragontail yesterday and the snow was as Matt P supposed, bullet-hard. Descending toward Aasgard after the climb the snow was still basically, bullet-hard. Only the top half inch had softenned at all throughout the entire day. Recent cool weather is supposed to change today and be hot through the weekend, likely softening the glaciers enough to make crossing them without "all that crap" less dangerous. No one can report current conditions, unless they are there. Snow conditions can change drastically in 24-hours. The real question is "Are you willing to gamble on conditions?" And if they are tougher than you hoped "Are you going to step over that line and do it anyway or are you going to bail?"

Unless you are on very clean and unbroken terrain, you will most likely benefit from shortening your rope (by about half) to limit rope drag and to facilitate communication.