pope

Very nice. I've always wanted to climb in the NE in winter.

Yeah, exactly. Few things are more lame than armchair adventure reviews....except maybe armchair adventure reviews offered by a guy with nearly as many posts as the elevation of Mt. Everest. He's probably at this moment preparing an essay arguing that the team would have succeeded if they had chosen to bring modern bent-shaft ice tools with no leashes.

Far too much fuss is made over whether a climb is made during the "official" winter season (as defined by some arbitrary interval of calendar dates). Anybody who got off the couch this weekend knows that conditions in the Cascades were pretty Gol-darned quasi-Arctic, regardless of whether the official winter season has arrived. I think what's more interesting and relevant are the route and weather conditions. During a temperature inversion, for example, it is possible to climb warm and dry south-facing rock at altitude in the middle of the official winter season. It is also possible to find snowy, difficult rock in the middle of a freak summer storm. Nice effort guys.

What about the sit-start on the Town Crier?

I think that Saturday's game with the Colts will come down to offense. If the Hawks can put more points on the board than their opponent, then Seattle has an excellent chance of winning.

Those are nice but I think I like your work better. You've captured some striking images and I appreciate skilled photography. Maybe the best thing about your photographs, however, is that YOU DONN'T APPEAR IN THEM.

SIT DOWN!

I'll out-climb you on your best day and I can out-drink you right now.

Gary comments: Gary contributes: Thanks for sharing. My life has been enriched by your contribution. Dwayner and I aspire someday to be so profound and simultaneously entertaining.

Huh? Yes, I like it.

Here's what I think. Folks have been dogging 5.14 since when....1988 or so? It's time for 5.15, and if David What's-his-name is a big rock star and let's say he can't really climb it, then I suggest we call it 5.16. It will sell magazines and that will sell quick-draws and such and it will be good for the sport, from the financial perspective.

Try to imagine how little I care about how much you care about .....anything, really.

Say, that's pretty good! We'll be seeing that one again.

OK, you mental midgets, I'll explain the joke for the slower members of our readership: On the one hand, you have MattP (a moderator for crying out loud) complaining that another potentially serious bolting discussion has degenerated because of ridicule and intimidation which cause some participants to "go away".... On the other hand, you have Dwayner who was ridiculed and ultimately banned BY MODERATORS (by MattP for all we know) for attempting to make serious statements about bolting. Ain't that amusing? Ain't that pathetic?

MattP says: Or worse, one of the moderators will ban you for trying to deal with the issues. Like my buddy Dwayner who got banned for his ability to construct arguments that were unpopular with (and intimidating to) one of our moderators. It's been more than a year since he was banned for saying exactly the same things you can read in the recent crack bolting thread. I think it's time to invite him back.

For the record, if you heard "tap tap tap" (a detail that didn't appear the first time you wrote your version of the story), it didn't come from me. I place and carried no pins on that climb. The hammer was for back cleaning weighted nuts. I didn't use it. Also, we didn't meet that day. You confronted my belayer. I had no idea what was going on down there. Last I looked that thread had disappeared. Somebody didn't like my version of our encounter at the gym. My guess is that a moderator named Peter Puget erased the thread.

I'm telling you dude, your inexplicable response to the experience (not the beauty of the pitch) is explained this way (whether you understand this on some conscious level or not): when you're climbing a wall without bolts, you feel scared, wild, independent, rugged, maybe like a pioneer, like a mountain man, like a warrior. When you clip bolts, you feel like a pussified city boy, and there is visual evidence to suggest you're not far from civilization, and that depresses you. Our session is over. Get off mny couch. Oh...and that'll be $50 please.

Yes, precisely. There is no "logical" reason why one should oppose bolts. The logic starts from some kind of premise, that climbing is a "special" activity (read the post above). Then if you assume that this experience is a function of how close to a "wilderness" feel the climb has, and if you assume that future parties should be able to find the same "special" experience on the climb, logic then dictates that we should avoid bolts (or at least restrain ourselves when applying them).

Let's see, already trashed by pin scars, a few bolts didn't make it any worse? Is that one of the good points? Two piles of dog shit is no worse than one? That is a good point!" Any good points in there I may have missed? "Gee it's too bad but young folks make mistakes." Certainly true, but a trail of bolts is something that can be mopped up. With this point I disagree. Instead of an example of mistakes made, from which we can all learn a lesson and improve our behavior, it is my observation that one trail of bolts tends to give the green light for the next. Take Vantage, for example. A couple of 40-ft faces get bolted and suddently everybody with a roto-hammer sees a line with all of the potential for an 8-bolt "test piece". And when examples of bolted cracks get zero reaction from those who disapprove, the message is that it's "open season" for bolts. Cracks, previously bold face climbs, everything is fair.

Or maybe the good points were hiding and I failed to find them. Please summarize these "good points".

Gee, your observations are always so illuminating. I think I get your point. Dog shit never stopped anybody from using a sidewalk. Let's deconstruct Dr. Hangdog Underwhelming's last argument. He suggests that I prefer pin scars to bolts. Actually, I'd prefer to see neither but if I had to compare the two infractions, most pin-damaged cracks I have seen are less offensive than a bolt trail. Not just aesthetically, but also because a pin-damaged crack still requires some degree of alpine skill to climb and protect. Clipping bolts never has and never will. Further, one infers from his writing that there is a choice to be made, that somehow bolts and pin damage are mutually exclusive. The notion that we should accept a trail of bolts because of its tendency to diminish piton damage is dubious. If you read Daryl's post in the Dana's Arch thread, you'll find that he is uncertain that bolting Dana's arch effectively prevented or retarded pin damage. And what a price. And now I have to return to this quote: I can't be sure, but it sounds as though you don't have a problem with finding a trail of bolts next to a protectable crack. How do you feel about a gondola being built on the Squamish Chief? Remember that the gondola wouldn't prevent anybody from hiking the trail.

...is like deflowering a girl to protect her virginity.

You're right. We need a new joke. Uh.....did you hear about the latest bouldering fad? The tandem sit-start!

Yawn. Do your homework and give your dim self a chance to understand the humor behind the photo and Dwayner quote, in reference to the history of Dana's Arch.