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Aspirants Take Notes

[img:left]http://www.gdargaud.net/Humor/Pics/BoobRappel.jpg[/img]

Remember when sex was safe and climbing was dangerous? --Chuck Pratt

Why do you care? The Cascades will always be a collection of rugged, difficult-to-reach peaks featuring a bunch of moderate grade IV/V climbs that no elite climber outside of Washington will ever give a rip about. The bigger, badder-assed stuff ain't here (as far as the media is concerned). You can put up a 5.12 VI (if you can find it) and only folks here will care. You will not get sponsored for climbing here. The climbing media does not care and they never will. It doesn't matter whether a NW climb rivals something in Colorado or California. Nobody is paying attention. Let's remember what's special about the Cascades. Within a few hours of a metropolitan area, you (the mediocre weekend warrior) can beat your way up some ridiculous, bug-infested overgrown "trail" and within a few hours (or a long day) you can find the kind of adventure nearly parallel to what Fred B. encountered six or seven decades ago. If the AAJ and MattP don't pat your back for the effort, who cares?

Enjoyed your TR. With complete respect for those who knew and loved Lundin's victims, let it be know that if I happen to pitch off that hill on a wet afternoon, I do NOT wish for the event to be marked with an intrusive memorial of any kind, and please don't add a mess of bolts on a 3rd-class ridge, if that's where I happen to pitch off.

Maybe the underlying cause of all of this is that, in addition to lenders extending credit to high-risk borrowers who couldn't make payments when the economy went south, our decreased purchasing power is a function of the fact that we don't produce anything worth exporting. With cheaper labor available elsewhere, and with a flood of inexpensive imports ready for purchase at Wallymart, we have essentially drained our wealth while working desperately to serve each other coffee, hamburgers and take-n-bake pizza. The solution: isolationism. Let the consumer demand products made in U.S.A. Place enormous taxes on imported products to stimulate this demand. At the same time we should eliminate the possibility of collecting a paycheck from the govt. for doing absolutely nothing, in order to create a supply of labor for manufacturing jobs. Sounds harsh, but I believe this is in line with reality. The alternative is a bankrupt federal govt. that can't afford social spending or military spending or infrastructure spending, at which point we become the world's supplier of cheap labor to industrialized nations.....basically the inverse of 1950's America. Every cloud has a silver lining. Soon you won't have to travel to experience a 3rd-world nation.

And you, about as bored as you are unimaginative, have the time and energy carefully to elaborate on your perception of my activities this weekend....yet lack the intellectual ability to respond directly to my post. BTW, I added about 6,000 feet of elevation to my mountain bike log for the year this weekend, soon to equal 300,000 ft. The view of Fossil Rock from Enumclaw's Mt. Pete was shiny, metalic and disgusting.

You can not see the hypocrisy here? The Valley of the Kings is itself a blight on the natural environment. Men raped the rock there carving stairs, hallways, and rooms in the earth. Then when the earth reclaimed this land, men came again to rape the rock again. And you are participating in this carnage. And you cry your crocodile tears about bolts? Apples and oranges, KK. Mountaineering, and its legitimate derivatives, are for the purpose of exploration and recreation. Don't know how long you've been at this, but the proud traditions of mountain climbing (up until about the mid 1980's) in this country continually evolved toward preserving the medium. That the Mountaineers include this ideal in their mission statement reflects the recognition that most who enjoy the outdoors (through hiking, scrambling and mountaineering) prefer to enjoy these pursuits without the constant reminder of human impact. That some impact is inevitable, and that greater impacts exist outside the areas we love to explore, does not negate our responsibility to respect and preserve these limited resources. Their mission statement notwithstanding, the Mountaineers promote and encourage sport climbing and its unaesthetic, cowardly impacts. That's pretty f-ing lame.

Let's just take care of all your desires at once: BTW, who you callin' old? I'll bet you're less than a decade away from adult diapers!

Hey Peter, D. Cramer, Rock Cop, or whoever/whatever you are. I'm generally in favor of fixed belays. You may recall when RuMr gotta boner when I promoted a fixed belay high on Orbit. But what's with the anchor on ROTC? Assuming you can (or have ever been able to) lug your fat ass up that crack, do you have an opinion on the bolted anchor there?

Fabulous! More sport climbing! Ooooh! I just love it when you talk dirty to me!

Nice! We turned around high on that approach ridge one afternoon (after a terribly late start) when we decided we would probably run out of light. Not looking forward to descending down the approach's remarkably steep timber, we gambled on hiking out Quartz Creek. With low water in late summer, this turns out to be a pleasant boulder hop.

You may wish to read The Language of God by Francis S. Collins before announcing the finality of your transformation.

Not to discredit your accomplishment, but I'm not sure the logic holds up. No matter where you place bolts, traffic will increase. It does not follow that additional bolts are always a service to the crags. Are you telling me ROTC has an anchor now? That's weak sauce. I don't remember any difficulties finding a good anchor up there.

It's a Catch 22. To attract the swing vote, he must advocate change. But that's an indictment of the last 8 years, during which he was 85% lock-step with Bush. Count the number of times he used the word "fight" in his address. Perhaps that gives a glimpse (beyond the bunting and cowboy hats) of what we can expect. More runaway spending on fighting that does more to damage our international reputation than to make us safe.

Nice cheap shot from another small-minded sport wanker. Pretty sure Mr. Cilley has climbed pitches you'll only dream about. I completely respect that he chooses to toprope where pricks like you would pound a line of bolts.

Hey Snugtop! Got any favorite spots? Got any in Leavenworth?

Ian, I think you owe everyone on here a big apology for having mislead us into thinking you climbed the N. Ridge of Stuart. Go ahead, we're waiting..... In all seriousness, it's just an F'n triviality, that's all, that's always confused me especially after climbing the N. Ridge. One of my all-time favorites. Am I missing something? This trip report is labeled North Ridge.....not complete North ridge. It is labeled correctly. WTF are you bitching about? Exactly. Read the text and it's clear what was climbed. And 16 hours from that side of the mountain is GOOD time. I think somebody just wants us to be impressed that he climbed the complete N. ridge. BFD.

Correction: it's yet another bolt added to a climb that has been climbed without a bolt. Isn't that neat? More traffic! That's what I really wanna see! Index is what we make it. What's acceptable at Index quickly becomes an ethical standard in the mountains as well. Hey "tradclimbguy", maybe you should select a more appropriate name for yourself.

That's the comment I'd expect from Mr. Sport Climber. Hey Kevbone!

Agree. We were nearly displaced when our venture went south. Never worked so hard to lose so much money. Thank goodness for home equity loans.

Can't wait for football! Preseason starts Aug. 8th vs. Viks.

Exactly. After all that pedaling, I'm so fit I figure I can hold my breath all the way to Enumclaw and up Mt. Pete.

Saturday night there's going to be a carbon-free bicycle ascent of Mt. Pete in Enumclaw. I'm rapidly closing on my annual elevation goal on which I've been concentrating since my birthday in November. Seems I'm going to finish early. The goal was/is 264K (50 vert miles) off-pavement elevation gain on the bike, and since most of that has been on Mt. Pete, that's where it's gonna conclude. We'll leave my pad in Bonney Lake with a bunch of beer packed in ice, in our rucksacks. We'll pedal out to Petey and finish the dirty deed. Then we'll enjoy adult beverages and an alpine snack platter on Enumclaw's mighty Mt. Pete. Dwayner and special guest Dennis Erectus will join. Babes of cc.com are welcome. Heck, anybody who loves to pedal may join.

There's some funk up high as the angle eases back.