mattp

Its probably in good condition right now.

I think Midway and Angel crack HAVE gotten harder, but I'm not so sure about the others.

Strong talk there, Kix, but as far as I can tell you were invited to do so but failed to step up to the plate. You gonna take advantage of a second invitation? Kkurt is a good host and I'm sure he'll make you feel welcome.

I tried looking at the King County GIS map system to see if I could find out who owns the property, but I couldn't identify the parcel in question - at least not without more than a quick scan because the parking lot is not shown on the map. I'd be inclined to say why not stick with already developed crags out there but I havn't focussed on that particular bit of landscape so I don't really know what you are talking about. If you are really interested, you might contact the land manager. She can probably tell you who owns the parcel in question or at least how to find out. WCC web page

That could be, Will. The way I did it, I always broke it into short pitches to maintain closer contact with my partners and it seems to me it was one longish and a short rappel on 50m ropes, then scramble down a gully a bit. Would that be as close to the Falls as I remember it being? Does it have a name?

Whoever said you might anger somebody if you take a large party of newbie's up Nutcracker is probably correct. Twenty five years ago I guided somebody up that climb and the party behind us got all tweaked because they thought we were in their way. The fact is, I cruised the thing and I didn't notice anybody waiting for us but my guy needed lots of coaching and so I was yelling instructions enough to attract attention. Also, I think he may have dropped a carabiner at one point and they tole me he wasn’t giving me a safe belay. Anyway, that evening we had a big argument about it outside the Mountain Room, with a couple of guys saying I had no right to take an inexperienced climber up there and I took the position that my newbie had every bit as much of a right to climb Nutcracker as these guys and I knew damn well his belay might not be reliable but that was my problem and not theirs. Whether it is right or not, people seem to get rather possessive about the classic routes and they are often prone to viewing other parties - especially those who may be a bit slow or who they perceive as dangerous - as simply being in the way or maybe lacking a right to be there in the first place. The fact that you are going so early in the season will help somewhat by reducing the chance of running into big crowds. There was a four or five-pitch 5.5 on a little tower-like thingy a couple hundred yards east of Yosemite Falls that I used to use for newbie climbs - the pitches were short and easily managed, with comfy belays, leading to something resembling a summit, and requiring a couple rappels to get off. I wonder if it is now in a guidebook - it wasn't when I was climbing it but that was years ago.

Advantages of Camp Muir include that there is dry ground to sit on, you don't have to blue bag your crap, and you can see off to the Southwest where the weather usually comes from. If I was going to spend three nights up there, I'd probably opt for Muir but, on the other hand, the Flats will feel more like you are on a big mountain somewhere and it IS that much closer to the summit.

I thought Blows against the Empire was an OK Jefferson Starship album. I also liked "Crown of Creation," from Airplane. In a similar vein, "If I could only remember my name" by David Crosby had several members from the Airplane, the Dead, Jorma Kaukonen, Joni Mitchell, etc... on it. These albums didn't have the rocking energy of 3/5 of a mile, though.

"Rock Climbs of Central Washington" is supposed to come out this Spring and Bryan Burdo is working on a new guidebook which will present Mazama area climbs.

Trogdor put it a little differently the other day. Your pictures are like crack cocaine for climbers. Browsing your gallery becomes every bit as addicting, and the temptation you stimulate is just as dangerous! I'm sorry I missed the opportunity to shake your hand the other night.

I for one am into the three or four-day itinerary on Mt. Rainier. I've climbed it 12 or 13 times, and the most fun was the trip where we took five days. Yes, you can run up and down in a day, if you are fit, but Mt. Rainier is a cool thing and it is worth taking time to enjoy it. Nelson is right that there is a downside to hanging out high on the mountain where you may be exposed to high winds or storm or whatever but just last week I saw Mike Gautier give a talk where he said that the odds of a successful summit climb improve dramatically for parties that spend an extra day at their high camp before going for the summit.

Tempers flared over Winter Walk Wall a few years ago, but I have not heard anything about it recently. http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/s...e=9&fpart=1 (Old CC.COM thread) http://www.washingtonclimbers.org/Forums/showthread.php?p=791#post791 (WCC notice) kdwight[at]wonders.eburg.wednet.edu (Frenchman Coulee Climbers Coalition contact, possibly out of date.)

It takes a community to change a light bulb. If you had to ask, you probably hate climbing or have some deepseated anti-social agenda.

I think we'll see some good with some bad, Joseph. As various pressures on open spaces increase, there are increasing voices of those who would shut climbers out of certain climbing areas. A concentration of climber-visits and growing numbers in a specific location will tend to increase those conflicts at those particular locations, but a greater acceptance of the sport, however you define it, may also help us gain credibility and may also mean more climbers end up participating in recreational planning and management efforts.

Climbers do have some identity issues, though. Look at all those on cc.com who say "I'm an independant badass and I hate the government" when what they want is MORE beta on Liberty Ridge, a better plowed road to White River, and they take a cell-phone "just in case;" or look at those who refer to Yvonne Chouinard as a hero of some vanishing anti-establishment movement when he was the number one capitalist in the sport. Yes, I'm being a bit snide, but it is true: we all have a distorted picture of ourselves sometimes.

I’m kind of with Joseph here. The sport is very different from what he and I started out doing thirty-five years ago, when it had a lot more to do with exploration and the “ecology movement” was new and Chouinard was promoting “clean climbing” while the latest Mt. Everest climb was reported in a Sierra Club book with as many pictures of Nepali villagers and flowers as actual climbing shots. Sure, Foops was a big sensation in the ‘Gunks, and John Gill was doing his thing, but it was generally accepted that any climber who was serious about the sport would eventually end up in the Tetons and a climb of El Capitan was kind of like the holy grail - not necessarily because they offered technical challenge any more than that they were dramatic pieces of landscape calling out for us to visit. The influence of climbing gyms and sponsors and competitions has been profound. I’m not going to say to say it is a bad thing – it is just different. Climbing at Mount Rainier is down, and I think though don’t have any statistics to show that it may be falling off slightly at Index or at traditional crags in Leavenworth like Castle Rock and Snow Creek Wall. The climbers who flock to Little Si or to the latest boulder garden are doing amazing things. I have tremendous respect for the athleticism of it all. I’d encourage them to go to the Bugaboos sometime, and see what the alpine environment and the just plain magnificance of such a place adds to the equation, but I realize they may well have little interest in my sense of aesthetics and they probably don't want to spend their vacation waiting for a week of rain to go away.

Plenty of people around here consider beaver to be vermin. The problem is, if you have a good place for them, you'll have a hard time getting rid of them and their idea of a good time may not be your own. (They like to topple trees and cause flooding and stuff like that where you may not want it. For example, do you have a culvert under your driveway? That makes a perfect dam.) Having never had a yard/farm/woodlot in an affected area myself, I think they are cool animals. Ever been out in a boat out behind Husky Stadium in what was previously known as "Garbage Bay?" The little guys are ripping it up right here damn near in downtown Seatown. When they smack the water with their tail and take a dive, it is very cool!

That is for sure an awesome custom add-on. There used to be some cuffs that folks regularly scavanged from old Salvation Army alpine boots that made good braces for leather telemark boots. I think they were Nordica cuffs. They wrapped around from the back, and provided awsome ankle stiffness, and a slightly forward cant. A commercially available product was more or less equivalent.

I'd say CJF is probably on to something in that it would be better to have rules against such riders rather than to let a president pick and choose which ones to delete. Not only might this open up the opportunity for games where they pass bits that they agree in advance or assume that the Pres will veto or where the pres will otherwise make a political ploy hay out of this or that line item veto when a similar or even worse provision is coming down the pipeline somewhere else, etc. but, if accountability is the goal, the legislators and any Joe blow citizen who is paying attention actually has to have a chance to look at what is being voted on and a line item veto does nothing to provide that opportunity.

They are already working on it. On Iraq, they say "the Bush administration blew it" but they pose no alternate vision of where we ought to go at this point just as they've presented no alternate vision all along. On morality, they continue to let the right define morality as fighting against abortion and gay marriage while invading countries with no excuse, arming various despotic governments all over the world, pushing around the less powerful at every turn, cutting aid to the poor, and lying to the American public every time they are confronted with a difficult question. And on domestic programs they are a mess, too. You wanna vote for Hilary?

And, as to the line item veto, do you think GWB would be for it if he thought it was going to promote accountability?

ChucK, it is indeed a big step for KK, and it is significant to see people from both ends of the spectrum starting to agree about that George Bush may not be our savior. I don't think KK or anybody else on the "right" side of the fence is likely to admit GWB is the worst ever, you are right. But we may well look back one day and conclude that in fact he was. Do you disagree with my points above?

You sure are a great cheerleader for George Bush, KK. It looks to me as if he has: lied to take us into a war that virtually everyone agrees is one of our worst foreign policy disasters anywhere, while his own intelligence people and most of our allies were telling him this would be the result; his actions have crippled our military and he has reduced support for military families at a time when he tells us we require a strong military and need to show more respect for the young men and women who defend us; meanwhile he has undermined virtually every treaty there is on weapons control and resisted any cooperation with our “allies” on global warming and various other matters alienating most of the rest of the world; he’s doing his best to bankrupt our government and increase our dependence on foreign investment at a time when he says we can't depend on anybody else in the world; he has weakened support for public education while telling us we need a better educated workforce; he's tried to take apart social security in response to a crisis most agree doesn't exist, while failing to address medicaid and medicare in any effective fashion; he's worked to undo every environmental constraint on industry that he can; his political machine has a huge segment of the American public focussing on abortion or gay rights, thinking it is moral to hold the line on these issues while it is not immoral to undermine world peace and reduce or block aid and support for the downtrodden; he stole the first election for sure and who knows about the second; and he continues to seek to concentrate power in his office while out and out lying about his goals. Do you think he wants the line item veto so he can reduce wasteful government spending? Really? Mediocre but not bad?

The Rick Steves editorial in yesterday's paper was well stated: the greatest threat to the U.S. security and freedom is not Bin Laden or the evil terrorists, but those who use BL and the ET's to stir fear in our hearts and distract us from what really matters. The Dem's are either losers or equally complicit facists if they can't get THAT message across.