Alasdair

The main reason he wont do this is because the mounties probably wont let him. As I understand it hey have a set Curriculum and they want their leaders to have recently been through it themselves. One of the best climbers on this website went to the mounties and tried to teach a kids course and got absolutly nowhere because of all the bullshit rules they had. To put it lightly the mounties missed a great opportunity to have a great person and teacher work with them, but they missed the boat. I know lots of people (including myself) who would be happy to do some teaching or mentoring for some of the kids programs, but the mounties lawyers are not going to let that happen. Everyone else needs to keep in mind that there are some very good climbers that have come out of the mounties programs.

Hey any of the squamish regulars know how long that block at the top of the first pitch of Exasperator has been loose? I did not give it a big tug, but seems to me like it might be time for that thing to be removed before it goes while someone is on route. Has anyone given it a good tug? It certainly moved when I grabed it.

still pretty fucked, but since the rain is here I figured I would just have at it.

Hey how long does it take the grand wall to dry out after a good rain like we had this week? Is it one of those climbs that seeps for weeks after a rain or is it pretty much dry right away?

I am a little confused about how anyone would allow themselves to take a fall directly onto a clove hitch. I can not think of a single way short of jumping off a ledge tied into the belay with slack that you should be taking a factor 2 directly onto a clove hitch. If your buddy really did take a factor 2 onto a clove hitch then he should take a serious look at the systems he is using and figure out how to do it correctly.

Neither are ever a necessity. If the glacier is icy walk an extra quarter mile down the ridge toward Little Annapurna and go down that way.

Here is the photo I took yesterday. Good to meet you up there.

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Ok several people have asked me what the summit looked like in some PMs, so I will give up the goods. It is mostly snow (<50degree) that is protectable on either side with rock pro. A set of stoppers and a few small cams is more than enough. A short step on rock to gain the ridge to the summit is nesasarry on the last pitch. I recomend gaining this on the left of the snow on class 4 rock. This beta is from last week. I would expect it to get a little harder before it gets easier due to more rock bits metling out. Hope this helps.

Me

I have contacted the sheriff office with the the relevant info. They are sending and officer up to check on the vehical.

YOu need to call the sherrif and report that red jeep. I believe that fits the vehical description for the guy who disapeared last fall. Rodger Jung? I think. That is all from memory, any one else have info?

Dru, IF you promise to light yourself on fire I promise not to put it out and I will bring the marshmallows.

Ok I am heading down to Southern Utah with girlfriend and dog for a couple of weeks. Anyone got any suggestions on good one pitch climbing? Anything up to .11 is fine. Also what are some good hikes that we can get out and do with the dog? I have been there three times before but only with a mountain bike. We have no solid plans other than camping out and keeping it real low key. Give your best moderate climbing ideas, favorite hikes, best things to see and best ways to kill the day. Thanks

The way I understand it is MAST from FT. Lewis have not been helping out for at least a year now. All MAST support has been coming from OR. Basically this means we have a longer wait time. I know that on an incident on Stuart two MAST blackhawks were called in and used Yakima as a base until the incident was over. This does effect the amount of air support we will have available. I dont think it will change Rainier, or N. Cascades NP, but it has definatly lowered your chances of getting picked off of many other peaks. The sheriff will not contract a private company out to come pick you off a peak, and they wont use their own choppers to do this type of work. For the most serious accidents in WA I think we will still see MAST getting involved, but dont count on it. In short you should be self sufficent and have your self rescue down. Either that or you can send a letter to the "terrorists" and ask them nicely if they would stop shooting down all our helicopters that keep shooting at them.

Ross lake damn.

Yea hes been perfecting it for over 30,000 pathetic posts now. I think he ran out of usefullthings to say about 29,000 posts ago. Apparently after 30,000 all you can come up with is condescending bullshit.

Unless the roads are REALLY bad there is very few times that you ever really need a AWD or FWD vehical. Yes front wheel drive cars do quite well in the snow. Are AWD cars better? Yes, but do you need one to get to Stevens pass? No. Much of it has to do with tires. If you have good snow tires on the car you will most likely be fine. Yes there are some times you might have to put chains on, but if you do most AWD cars probably should also. Ever noticed what the majority of vehicals that spin off the road are in slick conditions? FWD and AWD SUVs this is because they really are not any better than any other vehical in the snow, but the drivers seem to think they are. I often drive a Toyota Camry in the snow and it works great. I have driven back and forth from Banff several times in the snow and have no problems at all. I know several climbers who use honda civics and get out in the winter a ton. They may not look as cool, but at least you know you did not over pay for your car.

They are Peregrines. Just look for the pointy wing tips. Also they are quite a bit smaller than redtails. Another way to tell them apart is there call. The red tail call is the one that evey single fucking movie and TV show dubs over any shot of a bald eagle(the bald eagle has a horrible sounding call so they dont use it). I guarantee youve heard it. The perigrine usually has a series of screetches not unlike the structure of the swift that most of us have heard in levenworth and places like that.

Interesting. I would tend to thing the ranger might know, but I have never seen a bald eagle at smith. I saw several golden eagles this weekend. It is actually not unheard of for a bald eagle to nest on cliffs, but usually they will prefer to use trees if they are available.

You mean Golden Eagles. Bald Eagles nest in trees, Golden Eagles nest on cliffs.

Dont know if this info is still usefull to you, but I was at Smith this weekend and checked out Red Wall. From what I could see there is no nesting activity on RedWall at all anymore. There used to be a pair of Golden eagles that nested on Red Wall every spring, but it looks like they have abandoned that area. There are two nests (also Golden Eagle) accross the valley on the North point climbing area and that entire wall is closed. We checked the area out below one of the nests and found tons of little bone fragments, complete skulls and other rodent body parts. It was pretty cool to take a look. In addition to the Golden Eagle nests we saw lots of Peregrines. More bird of prey activity than I have ever seen at Smith. Its really great climbers and birds apparently thriving in the same area. Disclaimer: Dont ever go near bird nests. It is ok to look in the area below a nest provided that there is no sign of the birds, and the nest is a long way above the ground (at least a couple of hundred feed), but do not make a habit of it. If you do this do it after the nesting season. Oh and dont remove any of the bones, they help people studying the birds do lots of research.

Yes it will be in this folder C:\Documents and Settings\(what ever you user name is)\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files It will be the biggest thing in that folder after you delete all you downloaded porn. If you cant see that folder click tools -> options -> folder options and click hide system folders or something like that.

Edit to original post: Dru, when are you going to get a girlfriend? What is the title below the username going to be? "Need to get laid"? This thread now accepting bets on when Dru will get a date.

I all set on the partner front for this weekend, Sorry. We people ski in to liberty bell all the time. I am sure that would be a great place to go. It really is only a few miles from the gate. If you go take pictures, because we all want to see what it looks like right now.