Dru

Why dont you guys ever have house parties instead of going to the bar? The beer is cheaper at a house and you can smoke dope while you drink.

OnSight makes em (butt bags)and you can get them for $25 CDn at MEC.

So its a drybag for hikers. Makes sense. I bet they are kinda heavy for alpine climbing though probably pretty comfy for hiking. I bet they would be good for, say, the Olympic Beach Trail, or doing a route on Baker today or monsoon trekking in Nepal with all the leeches.

quote: Originally posted by rayborbon: He finally left me alone. But only cuz he was in the Valley for a few weeks..... ?

You need padding for your harness... i recommend the human body fat kind. Eat a few dozen bags of chips and a dozen cheesecakes or so as training for your ascent.

And: the following information comes from a presentation inOregon last week by Kevin McKelvey (USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station andleader of the National Lynx survey protocol). I got it via mailing list email from a registered professional biologist presenting a biologist's interpretation of the whole matter. Kevin gave a brief synopsis ofthis debacle which not surprisingly was quite different than that whichappeared in the press and thankfully more complete. 1. The origin of the contraversy was that a lynx researcher working inWashington reported 14 positive results from lynx hair pads which had beenplaced in a number of National Forest sites in Washington State. Thisresearcher had processed the DNA samples in his own lab. 2. There were a number of biological staff who were quite skeptical of thisand as a result introduced some "blind" tests into the system the followingyear. These blinds, unfortunately lacked any reasonable care and scrutinyfor the most part and the results that came from them caused the staff whosubmitted them to stand up and say - Hey this doesn't work. In fact theprocess for obtaining and submitting the blind samples was ad hoc and notwell controlled. As a result there were problems with samples (e.g. one mayor may not have been a European Lynx (someone's pet - but the person whosubmitted was not sure), Harry the Bobcat (who not surprisingly after goingthrough taxidermy and sitting in the light for many years had no usable DNA)etc etc. 3. The original researcher (almost 1.5 years after the fact) indicated thatthe samples in his lab had been contaminate with known lynx DNA and theresults had in fact been false positives. This points out a couple of critical issues: 1. The critical need for issues like this (particularly those surroundingthe status of species at risk) to be based on quality science. 2. The need for appropriate and effective communication. In fact the lynxprotocols and the lab doing the national lynx survey work had conductedblind trials. If there had been proper communication between those skepticalprofessionals and the lab the whole issue could have been resolved a lotquicker. In addition had the original researcher re-assessed his sampleswhen the contraversy started the issue would have been put to rest a lotearlier and not endangered the entire national sampling protocol andprogram. 3. The need for the utmost levels of professionalism in the practice of ourprofession. We can't afford to be distracted into spending energy dealingwith the types of side issues like this one in the states. There are manyother more important issues that really need energy and attention in thespecies at risk realm.

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy" - I cant remember who said that but it mighta been Groucho Marx?

That looks like Borbon - I never was that rolypoly.

remember the rock fall issue... you have a helmet but what about your mutt?

quote: Originally posted by philfort: Yeah Dru, you should pay more attention to the Everest IMAX.... *this* is Everest: Nice try bozo, I know that that is Aconcagua

If you sent an email to Howie Richardson directly howie@vip.net he might be able to help you out with that.

From the April 2002 edition of Outside Magazine Debunking LynxgateAs lawmakers accuse seven government biologists of fraud, the truth isdrowned out by the headlines By Daniel Glick "THE ONLY THING we were doing was trying to get to the truth," says MitchWainwright, a 46-year-old Forest Service wildlife biologist based in Amboy,Washington. Instead he got an unwanted starring role in the most bizarreenvironmental flap of recent memory: Lynxgate. Details of "the great biofraud," as the The Washington Times has dubbed theaffair, first emerged just before Christmas. Wainwright and six other stateand federal wildlife scientists in Washington State allegedly "planted"clumps of wild lynx fur in the Gifford Pinchot and Wenatchee nationalforests. The intent, say their accusers, was to trigger the protections thatare imposed when a threatened species like the Canada lynx is found livingin a new area, namely closure of the forest to recreationists and loggers.For their roles in a green conspiracy that seemed worthy of Oliver Stone,Wainwright and five colleagues were reassigned to other programs-one otherretired-and were told to keep their mouths shut. Wainwright was veryreluctant to speak to Outside, fearing not only for his job but also for thefuture of all endangered-species programs in the United States. Why? Because industry groups, pundits, and conservative lawmakers-led byRepublican House Committee on Resources chairman James Hansen of Utah andScott McInnis of Colorado, the Republican who chairs the subcommittee thatoversees national forests-are using the lynx controversy to launchwide-ranging attacks on endangered-species policies past, present, andfuture. "There is so much fear out there about how [the Endangered SpeciesAct] works," says McInnis spokesman Blain Rethmeier. Then again, at leastsome of the fear has been inspired by McInnis himself. Last year, after fourwilderness firefighters perished in a blaze in Washington State, he chargedthat Forest Service officials may have been culpable by delaying a decisionallowing a helicopter to scoop water from a river containing threatenedfish. The charge was later proven false. What emerges is not a scientific scandal but a case study in media-amplifieddemagoguery. It's all pretty rousing stuff, but the real untold story is that the greatlynx biofraud is baloney. Outside interviewed 25 scientists, investigators,and policy makers familiar with the incident, and reviewed all the relevantreports. What emerges is not a scientific scandal but a case study inmedia-amplified demagoguery. There is no evidence whatsoever to supporteither a conspiracy or a cover-up. The scientists didn't "plant" lynx fur inthe forests. They didn't plot to invoke the Endangered Species Act throughfalsified data. And even if they had, it wouldn't have worked, because anyevidence of lynx would have to be confirmed with further research before newmanagement decisions could be made. Lynxgate's selectively told tale of environmental skullduggery has soangered some biologists that they've started using the M word. "It'sMcCarthy politics all over again," says Elliott Norse, a founder of theSociety for Conservation Biology, an Arlington, Virginia-based group thatencourages biodiversity research. "It's the stupidest thing I've everheard." To understand this fracas and why it has staying power, it helps to know alittle bit about the threatened Canada lynx, a cousin to the bobcat found inCanada, the Rockies, and across a northern swath of the United States. Thecat first landed at the center of controversy in 1998, when ecoterroristscited the need to protect its habitat as justification for burning down $12million worth of facilities at the Vail ski resort. But our story begins thefollowing year, in 1999, when an interagency team of American biologistsbegan a three-year, 16-state survey to determine where in the nation the catstill roamed, and where it didn't. The team's primary scientific tool is asimple rubbing post, wrapped in carpet, laced with attractant scent, studdedwith small tacks, and placed in the woods. Drawn by the odor, critters brushagainst the tacks and leave behind hairs, which are then collected and sentto the Carnivore Conservation Genetics Laboratory in Missoula, Montana. If asubmitted sample turns out to be lynx, that means the cat exists in thewoods where it was collected. The problem was that in previous lynx studies, biologists had complainedthat the lab's results were screwy. In one case, technicians reported thatsubmitted hair samples came from feral house cats-though the fur in questionwas taken from the middle of a wilderness. (The lab says it has clearprotocols in place to correctly identify samples.) So in 1999, and again in2000, several biologists working on the survey on behalf of the U.S. ForestService, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and the Washington State Department of Fishand Wildlife independently decided to test the men and women in white coatsby sending them hairs from a captive lynx. One biologist even sent in hairsplucked from "Harry"-a stuffed bobcat that he keeps in his office. In September 2000, somebody at the Forest Service sounded an alarm about theuse of these "unauthorized" control samples. A departmental criminalinvestigation cleared the biologists of any wrongdoing, but a second report,prepared by a Portland, Oregon, private investigation firm and completedlast June, notes that the biologists claim to have done everythingaboveboard, except for a small detail: The national lynx study doesn'tauthorize using control samples, whether they're taken from Harry or acaptive lynx. The scientists shrugged, and the whole thing landed in abinder on a shelf. In mid-December, someone tipped off The Washington Times, and the papersubsequently ran with news that "wildlife biologists planted false evidenceof a rare cat species in two national forests." Other papers followed suitwith bombastic editorials, and the fur really began to fly. CongressmanHansen called for a top-to-bottom federal review of the lynx survey. Thescandal, he warned, threatened the very economy of rural America. "Thishoax, if it hadn't been discovered," Hansen said, "could have wrecked somepeople's way of life." Mitch Wainwright and the other alleged conspirators, whose names wereblacked out of the private investigator's report, could do nothing but sittight as a maelstrom began to rage around them. Interior Secretary GaleNorton and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, who oversee Fish and Wildlifeand the Forest Service respectively, each put their Office of InspectorGeneral on the case. A congressional hearing was scheduled for February 28.But while Wainwright declined to discuss specifics, citing theinvestigation, he flatly denies the conspiracy charges. "There was no collusion," he says, "no agenda." The strangest thing about the so-called planted fur samples is theassumption that saws and snowmobiles will fall silent wherever lynx arediscovered. In fact, there are virtually no cases in which the presence oflynx has changed management policies. Lynx certainly didn't stop the ForestService from approving the Vail ski area's planned expansion into whatColorado state biologists considered prime lynx habitat on the White RiverNational Forest. When presented with this fact, Marnie Funk, a spokeswoman for Hansen'scommittee, would only refer back to the private investigator's findings."There is clearly no smoking gun in that report," she allows. "But there areunanswered questions." She declined to elaborate, citing the pendingcongressional investigation, except to add that the biologists' use ofunauthorized control samples was "a questionable way to conduct a study."Wainwright acknowledges that he erred by not following the chain of command."We did things wrong," he says, citing their failure to clear the controlsamples with the head of the lynx program. (The biologists' immediatesupervisors were aware of the control samples.) The small point is welltaken, but the bigger picture here should give pause to anyone concernedover how easily politics trumps science inside the Beltway. "Anything endangered-species related is now being called into question,"says Eric Wingerter, national field director for Public Employees forEnvironmental Responsibility, a green-tilted group that includes federalland managers. And the conservative press rushed to provide those criticswith a soapbox: "The tendency of true believers," sniffed an opinion piecein The Weekly Standard, "is to defend any means to their end. "Indeed,post-Lynxgate, some lawmakers have called for a review of an unrelatedfederal grizzly-bear research program, while others are rehashing dubiousstories that federal biologists faked data that touched off the spotted-owlwars of the eighties. "The people with the agenda aren't the biologists,"says Wingerter. "And the biologists are scared to death." For his part, Forest Service scientist Mitch Wainwright, who is now workingon timber-sale evaluations, does plead guilty-"of naïveté." But as forcharges that he and his colleagues were engaged in a crusade, he isemphatic. "Nothing," he says, "could be further from the truth."

quote: Originally posted by Dave Schuldt: Do some bong hits in full veiw of people walking by. or inside Muir Hut

I rename Everest Mt Dru Spray Post For Ever

quote: Originally posted by rayborbon: SOunds good to me. Will bring phone. Bring the goods. Bp aint so friendly on that. Hear the old man will go too but not sure Inebriation is my middle name. FB left today with some people from MEC or so I m told. I will bring my life partner Bud Kine. I think you know her(b). erik met her too. she is a Brownie Leader.

If the world was flat that would be a good photo - someone cranking a one-arm off the edge.

"FREEDOM IS FREE OF THE NEED TO BE FREE. Free your Mind and your Ass will follow. The Kingdom of Heaven Is Within." - George Clinton/Parliament.

Ho man I am short of partners from hereabouts. Everyone studying or working. Im gonna head out from here tomorrow evening and probably camp at some secret free campspot along the way. Meet you in the Skaha parking lot about 8:30 or 9:00 am Saturday morning unless you have a better idea in which case give me a call and let me know. Anybody else keen show up then too!

Re Global warming and Sea Level Rise. Ya those Belgians, Dutch, Naurans, Maldivians etc. are gonna be pissed when their countries go underwater. But we are only gonna complain when they show up at our crags cause theirs are underwater, and spend all weekend taking the TRs on Mountaineers Dome that we wanted to TR... Man if it was the USA that was gonna be completely destroyed by 3rd World pollution you can just bet that Bush and Blair would be in their with bombs and guns... but when it is the other way around and the 1st World is essentially going to completely destroy a few small countries to the point of rendering them uninhabitable (except by dolphins) no one here gives a shit. I dont have an SUV... I have a car...Ok its got 4wd. Ok its a subaru. When are they gonna make an off road capable fuel cell car anyways?

quote: Originally posted by Greg W: I've read some of Trask's posts and I'll take that as a compliment. All I know is that since I began participating on cc.com the black helicopters have been flying over my house more often. DUDE HELP ME I THINK IM INHALING SOME OF THAT CHEMTRAIL!!!

You should hire tree surgeon AlpineK to cut down all your trees. Then climbers could climb everywhere and climate scientists would have a large sample size to prove global warming happens Doug, How do you correlate changes in tree growth rings with temperature as opposed to other factors? I know you can do it cause Ive done it myself but Im wondering if you use lake sediment cores or whatever as corroborative evidence?

They had all the right selection, they were poisoned by protection... They were lost in rock formations..." Neil Young, "Thrasher". Anybody got the full lyrics ofthat post them lots seem to be about climbing. The rest is about evil harvesters and that evil Kneivel jump of the Grand Canyon?

quote: Originally posted by AlpineK: I have a hard time keeping up with the science, but I do know that when I was a kid in the 70's there was always a lot more snow and at lower elevations. Also my dad, who grew up here in the 30's notes the same thing. He has pictures of Rainier that really make this point. While there is no 100% link between humans and global warming, if we wait till there is it may be so far advanced that doing something about it will be impossible. I think Fairweather may be right to some degree in criticizing the Keoto(SP) agreement. Capping consumption may be way to hard on the economy and ineffective in real reduction. I'm more in favor of governmet spending on alternative sources of energy. Unfortunately I think Bush is in bed with the big oil industry (why else would he try and keep info on the energy policy from public review), so it's just going to be business as usual. Ya see... the Earth has been warming more or less steadily since the end of the Little Ice Age (Neoglaciation) in 1860 or thereabouts. Most midlatitude temperate glaciers have been retreating since then. Setting aside the question of if the Neoglaciation ended because of human activities (Industrial Revolution activities) and it probably didnt, the question is, is this rate of warming INCREASING BECAUSE OF HUMAN ACTIVITY? see, that is a much harder question to answer than, are things warming up, which we already know the answer to is "yes". So the evidence I have seen, in my opinion, tends to support the conclusion that we are increasing the rate of warming. Not everybody agrees and even our best models disagree on the magnitude of our influence. BUT using the precautionary principle it seems better to assume we are capable of having a serious impact, and do something about it, than wait till things are really fucked up to htry and fix it. Because some of the engineering solutions proposed (making lots of stable plastic and burying it, fertilizing the oceans to create massive plankton blooms to fix carbon, etc.) sound really fucked and way more expensive than increasing fuel efficiency and switching to alternative technologies not on the carbon cycle (like making hydrogen from water with solar, wind and hydro (and nuclear but that has its own problems - we need workable fusion NOW) power, then using that hydrogen in fuel cells) . Anyways that was much too thoughtful and normal so FUCK YOU ALL IM GONNA APPROVE THE RAPE AND PILLAGE OF AN ENTIRE PRISTINE VALLEY NOW

take lotsa dried beans and generate your own methane gas.

Saying "global warming", clouds the issue (pun). "Humanly induced climate change" is a more accurate phrase. The issue is not if the globe is warming as a whole, but to what degree anthropogenic emissions are influencing global climate*, and what we can do to minimize effects of such potential changes. senmantics controls your discussion. if you cant agree on what you are discussing, how can you discuss it? *see, this includes the ozone layer. Phasing out use of CFCs didnt ruin our economy, did it?