mattp

To get water out of a talus slope, a 2 foot length of 3/8" tubing can be VERY helpful. However, you might want to reconsider your ambitions of drinking anything from the south slope of Mt. Adams. The Lunch Counter smells sort of like a sewer, and the throngs climbing up and down the hill have almost certainly fowled anything above there as well. (And I pretty much drink water freely and untreated everywhere I go.)

Not to make excuses for a clumsy system or anything, but is there anything about computers that is NOT a pain in the ass?

I think there is nothing inherently less reliable about a cam placement than a nut. Afterall, you can often place a cam in what would otherwise be a good nut placement and it is more secure than the nut because it will not fail when pulled upward or outward (yes something not likely to happen when you are actually on rappel but possible when you are setting up to get started). The possibility of a walking cam is much greater when fooling around at the starting point, too. Once you've started your rappel, I think weighting/unweighting the rope is not likely to cause a cam to walk unless you have some fancy rescue-type equalizing set up where things may move around given unequal weighting or perhaps when you make a diagonal start or something. Of greater concern with regard the reliability of a cam as a rappel anchor, I think, is that you can and may well use a cam in a spot where a nut would not go and which is inherantly less secure - like a parallel sided crack in shiny rock, as Gary describes, or a flaring crack, or behind a loose flake, etc.

Now go back to that gallery page and right-click the image. You'll get a URL that ends in ".jpg" and if you insert that between the image tags, you'll get a picture.

Nope. I'm commenting on the fact that if you read the article that PP linked, it sounds as if the U.S. was saying that they think they might have prevented the 7/7 bombings if only the British hadn't blocked their efforts to do so. It is all speculation, and everybody is just trying to make their political points regardless of any actual facts -- like those who said 7/7 would never have happened if only Spain hadn't pulled out of Iraq following the Madrid bombings. I'm saying that the connection with last year's bungling an ongoing intelligence operation targetting a British terrorist cell is probably just as clear as that the Bush spokespeople want to make now. You won't find them willing to talk about their screw up last summer, though -- only what they present as Brittain's lack of resolve eight weeks ago.

So you're saying the "Pup Effect" is for EVERYTHING to be covered in filth? The wire brush is man's best friend, huh? (Or should I say "pup's best friend.)

In Darrington, we call this the "Darrington Effect." Looking up at most any route from below you see all the lichen, moss and even bushes that grow beneath overlaps and on the downside of every knob and ripple, but the upward facing surfaces in any area that doesn't have an ongoing seepage issue are all clean 'cause anything that grows there gets taken off by avalanches and spindrift and ice creep during the winter. Sounds like you have the "Pup Effect" going on.

Does anybody remember when, last Summer, they had a mole working for U.S. or British intelligence, and the Bush administration blew that person's cover by telling the press they had inside information in an attempt to justify raising the terror alert during the Democratic convention? After this, the British had to hurry up and arrest a bunch of guys real quick and it virtually put a stop to what was until that point a very productive intelligence operation targetting a cell operating in Brittain. Who knows what they might have learned had they arrested this guy Puget refers to. It is equally feasible that, a year ago, the U.S. blew British efforts that might have prevented 7/7 as it is that, a month ago, the British denied a U.S. proposal that would have. A year ago we had a mole who was exchanging email with higher ups and forwarding his findings on to us. Would we have gotten crucial intelligence from this guy Aswat?

TO display an image, you have to put a complete address between image tags in the text of your post. . I believe there can be no spaces before and after the address, but that may not matter. Medium compression of a jpg file with photoshop results in a very viewable image for the web, and I think 600 x 800 will fit just fine. It will also fit the browser window unless somebody has some extremely narrow screen settings (try it to confirm the file size). Then you have to post it to a website somewhere so that it has a URL. If you want to put it in the photo gallery here, you may want to submit a slightly larger image than medium compression 600 x 800, but if you do and if the large size image as viewed in the photo gallery takes up an entire screen or more, it is more considerate to link the medium sized image from the photo gallery so that the thread remains readable without scrolling right and left. TO use an image from the photo gallery for viewing in a post, you will have to right click the photo as viewed in that gallery to get the actual URL for the photo iteself, rather than that for a page which loads the photo with all the photo gallery navigation and etc. appearing (if you just copy the address while viewing a picture in the gallery, it won't work).

The problem there was that he had copied the URL from the display window when viewing the photo gallery, and that is the URL for a page that loads the photo rather than the URL for the photo itself. You have to right click a photo shown in the photo gallery to find the actual URL for the picture and pasted that between the tags. [imag]http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/503/1267Summit_2-med.JPG[/imag](using img instead of imag) produces:

I did the traverse a while back and I thought it was a worthwhile outing -- even better than that, a classic -- but in a Cascades kind of way. I might even do it again some day. Good one, Mr ChucK. You can now drive Highway 2 past Mt. Index and stare it straight in the face.

Josh, there was a report of traverssing that ridge on cc.com a couple of years ago, though I think they may have accessed it from the gully just past Nooksack Tower. The answer to your question is, I think, very rarely or maybe it has not been done yet all the way from Nooksack Tower to the Smmmit. I thought The descent was tricky as Mike describes, and we were downclimbing fairly hard ice over a huge schrund in the dark, but it wasn't anything truly our of scale with lots of big mountain alpine descents -- it is just that there are few if any other climbs in Washington that require that kind of thing to get off (there must be one or two, but I can't think of them at the moment).

I did it maybe six or eight years ago. We camped way down below treeline and it was a LONG day from there. Like you, I've done plenty of bigger climbs with guys who I never even met before, but the point about this one is that it is demanding and dangerous enough that you want to be sure your buddy is going to be solid - at least read their resume first. Nooksack Tower is not like another Mt. Goode or Forbidden Peak or something. For a "moderate" route, it packs some punch.

Gimme a break, Syj, Ranger Friendly could help an old lady across the Mountaineer Creek Parking lot and you'd be accusing him of rape. Then you'd go on some rant about why did the FS cut down so many trees to build the parking lot in the first place -- was it just so the damn city folk could ruin the pristine Enchantments?

I think if they painted or posted colored dots close enough so that your delerious toilet mouthed buddy could follow them in the dark, lots of people would be railing about how that *&$#!!! DeForestCircus wastes money putting THIS UGLY SHITE in our pristine wilderness but we aren't allowed to hike up there without a permit 'cause it would ruin somebody else's wilderness experience .... and I bet you'd be one of them.

Mike - wasn't there a good bivvy on that knob a couple hundred feet below the base of the climb?

Yes, I'd keep it on your list. There are not that many routes in Washington that provide a real alpine experience like that and the rock climbing, while long and loose in places, is never exceedingly difficult. Nooksack is a cool destination and that North Face route is really fun. Don't go there unless you and your partner have done some other long routes and are at least somewhat well schooled on loose rock and ice, though.

Sorry for the "posts deleted." I think we've got the HTML errors straightened out, at least. Carry on.

Their website says they have pitchers. We have in the past had some problems with the servers having a bad attitude, and I suppose that comes from the fact that the place is a major meat factory on Friday and Saturday nights so they maybe get a bit jaded with large crowds and stuff. But the outside seating area is quite pleasant and Fremont seems to be the center of gravity for those who like to go out on Tuesday nights. Center of the Universe? That's a bit grandiose. And I thought Ballard was the center of the Universe, anyway. But the Ballroom is not a bad place and Fremont is "central" (in a NW Seattle kind of way).

Consider hiking one of the coastal strips, either Lake Ozette to Rialto Beach, or the Hoh River to Third Beach. If you can arrange a car shuttle, they make a good through-hike; if not, hike partway out and then back. Though the water is too cold to swim and there are nasty rip tides and stuff, the beaches out there are as beautiful as any beaches anywhere. The North Fork of the Quinnault is a nice one for day-hiking in the rain forest.

The outdoor seating will be sunny 'till almost 8:00. The Ballroom 456 N. 36th St Its on the north side of the street, a block or two west of the Lenin statute in Fremont.

Snugtop, I thought this was where you were going to post about how you have to empty that freezer of yours and there'll be about ten nice thick steaks on the grill for the first ten people who show up. I think there are no fires allowed out at Golden Gardens these days, but grills might be allowed. The Ballroom is half-way pleasant on a warm summer evening, too..

Due to some glitch, I can't read my private messages. Call me.

I bet the ridge line could be entertaining.