mattp

I'm not following you here, Blowboarder. Was there a guidebook to climbs on the Reservation - or was the idea that one was about to be published a contributory factor in the Tribe's decision or that of any of the individual landowners involved? I know the climbers over there were largely secretive for twenty years or more and some feared what might come with publicity.

Yes, and that deck is all brand new and looked pretty good as I walked by at lunch time. Anybody gonna transport Jens? I wanna hear his war story about how he broke his heel while saving some poor orphan child from being abducted by aliens.

Nope, but if you recommend it I could invest two hours.

Bush is a criminal and incompetent?

Certainly all of us are more receptive to information that confirms what we already believe, but some are more rigid in this respect than others. And yes, I agree that Fahrenheit was intended to present a position more than any balanced factual history - of course. I think, however, that a fair analysis of it would show it was more factual than, say, The Road to 911. I haven't undertaken careful study so I could be wrong.

I actually do look for counter-arguments and just plain factual background, DeChristo, but if we're casting aspersions according to the political views of those we're casting upon I'd have to observe that the right-leaning posters on this site have been much more prone to posting without actual information, ignoring new facts, and running from the discussion when strong counter-arguments are presented.

Not that I'm suggesting Mr. Moore is beyond stretching the truth, but I checked out a "Michael Moore lied 59 times" website and I found it rather amusing: there was lots of detail there and footnotes galore, but the overall complaint was that Moore presented things in such a way that the facts could not be proven wrong so much as he painted an inaccurate story by assembling facts that were prejudicial. The first three things I looked at were where the author pointed out that Moore "lied" by saying that Bush would have lost the Florida election had there been a recount, the second was that Moore "lied" about bush family connections with the Saudi royal family, and the third was that he lied about the # of vacation days Bush took during his first 9 months as president. In each of this case, the author did a good job of assembling facts to show that something Moore said was not fully accurate, but the substantive assertion Moore made in each case remains correct as far as I know. If the other 56 "lies" told by Moore are of similar caliber, I'd say his critics really have little to complain about.

Give ME a break, KK. Nobody needs to spew ad hominems about Bush and his gang. They are a bunch of criminals, the biggest threat to world peace since Hitler, and they're all ugly.

I think few who have climbed the first pitch of Midway over the years would agree with Dru on this point. Ratings are generally thought to compare the relative difficulty of a climb, and not the relative difficulty of a climb in the state it was twenty years ago. I don't think the increased difficulty from having all the little nubbins and crystals flattened is really all that different from the breaking off of handholds -- it is just alteration on a different scale.

Does the spray function weed out the most offensive or idiotic posts when you accidentally log on under your real name?

A little gardening and then we missed the nude cyclists but went to Fremont later in the day on Saturday. With all those political action booths, I kept wondering where were Fairweather and KK when you need 'em. I had a nice day in brilliant sun in Leavenworth yesterday and there wasn't even a traffic jam on the way home. Not a bad weekend.

I agree with this whoeheartedly. At Leavenworth, as probably just about everywhere else in the state, I bet most of us could find routes we think are good and routes we think are bad. Some of us focus much more on bolts than others, but our evaluations include ideas like (1) did I or might I enjoy the climb, and (2) do I think it adds to or detracts from the area in question. Given the wide range of aspirations and aspirants, we are never going to reach any consensus. Discussions here on this dot com are clearly much more dominated by an anti-bolt manifesto than than you'd find if you brought up these discussions at the crags, but that doesn't necessarily indicate much about the validity of these views so much as I think a consideration of this aspect of our discussion adds some perspective. Be that as it may, I believe we could have a lot more interesting discussion if folks on ALL sides of the discussion were less quick to rant and rave about "that guy."

If he is completely immobile, How 'bout Jens' Good Times Tavern?

"I hate bellevue." That is really really a horrible bad thing to say. For sure it warrants the "F*ck you whiner" responses.

Interesting how mythosgirl tries to spark a conversation about suburban lifestyle and she gets attacked as if she has personally insulted somebody. “The suburbs lack soul” may not be a new idea, and perhaps mythosgirl is not going to be the next Jane Jacobs and shape American thought regarding urban planning for the next several decades, but just what is wrong with talking about how we want to live? Or don’t want to?

Why do you hate America?

It'd be interesting to add a question or two about bolting attitudes, such as "in general, do you feel there are too many bolts in place at crags around Washington state," or "should we strive to maintain some areas relatively free of bolts," or maybe somthing similar. The results of such a survey would give us something to talk about for weeks at least.

I'd go to Erie, too. I'm not sure there is any greater chance of rain there than Leavenworth and it involves a little less driving.

On granite I've found a 5" broad knife usefull for cleaning lichen from flat surfaces, but this tool is not at all helpfull on many other types of more textrured rock. By the way, anybody have an old alpine hammer they don't use? I destroyed mine using it to try to pry out a bolt. The mangled pick catches in cracks now.

Tim L’s got a point. Where it comes to arguing about the good old days or who has athe proper sense of style we could carry on forever but bait and bash arguments on cc.com are of limited value and probably will not result in great progress. One thing is for sure, though: land managers and property owners generally do not want to get involved in bolting arguments and I don’t think it serves climbers well to drag them into these discussions. They may well care about safety and environmental impact, but non-climbers are rarely concerned with what might be “fair means” or the pursuit of 5.15 and generally do not want to be asked to take sides with one group of climbers over another.

For getting down and dirty with a real NW choked crack, an alpine hammer works better than any other tool I've found.

I could probably either go tomorrow or Sunday, but not both. My wife isn't home yet, so I don't know if I have a preference. The weather forecast is rather iffy both days ... I was in poor condition BEFORE five months of absolute inactivity. I've had severe back problems, and am still resorting to codein pain killers three or four days a week adn even simply rolling over in bed or standing up from a chair hurts. But I'm getting back to regular activities. The bottom line is: I want to climb easy routes. I climbed some 5.10 slab a few weeks ago but my shoulders are screwed up and on any real rock I'm looking at 5.8? I'd even enjoy Midway and stuff like that right now. It is, in my opinion, the best 5.6 in the State. (Of course, I've always enjoyed that climb. )

Tomorrow?

This whole thing is getting nutty. I'm outta here.

God dammit, Rumr. Stupid arguments are what it is all about but you're right: we DO come off as a bunch of clowns.