mattp

The first link gives some background on trail developments and the gating of the road at Dingford (year-round)/Taylor River(seasonal). The second addresses some projected cost in building the new campground at Taylor River. The road paving project, I believe, is a separate budget item. There's big plans for the Middle Fork!

I agree with Fairweather that it WAS a disgrace how many antiwar posters treated returning vets. I always thought it was wrong for people to put the American flag on their ass or spit on the vets or whatever. Thing is, though, it was a divisive and confusing period. Just as wrongheaded as anything the "lefties" said - many on the right were saying (just as they are today) that anybody who criticizes an American military effort is committing treason, or that those who criticize American policies "hate America."

Hanman has done a lot of anchor replacement in Darrington and Static. He doesn't much like tat. Stripping off the old cabbage from dead trees on the West Slabs, he kept muttering "just how many slings do people think they need here? Who carries all this stuff?" In places it seemed as if the sketchier the tree, the more webbing folks were draping on it. By the time we reached the bottom, we had nearly a garbage bag full -- and we didn't get it all.

We had the same clouds in DTown

Climbed Exfo Dome and camped on top Saturday. Wet.

Climb: Exfoliation Dome - descent-West Slabs Rappels / Westward Ho Date of Climb: 8/29/2004 Trip Report: Over the weekend, Hanman and I went up and did some anchor replacement on the West Slabs descent route from the summit of Exfo Dome. Most significantly, we replaced several rotting half-dead and half-pulled-out tree rappel stations with bolted anchors. We installed the new stations in locations that we hope will be easier to find, and you can now stand or sit on an open ledge for the switch-overs instead of clinging to some tree that is trying to poke you in the eye. The first four rappels from the summit are set for single rope raps on a 60 meter rope. (My rope is only 57 meters and most of them were a little short of the end, so I believe all but the second one will probably be OK with a single 50 but I'd go with the 60.) This area has lots of craggy, half-dead trees and most of the ledges are littered with loose rocks and you increase the chance of getting beaned if you pull down a knotted rope. It is also low-angle so you are guaranteed to get a serious mess if you toss down two full ropes. The extra raps actually save time. To find the route, step down about 25 feet southward from the summit. The first rap trends down and slightly right to a chain station on a 12" ledge well outside the top of the obvious descent gully leading down and right. Three more half-length raps follow, with each station outside of (right of) the gully. The fourth station has a Fixe chain. Here, a double-rope rap (about 40 m) reaches a chain station just north of a rather prominent promontory overlooking the clean West Slabs below. 50 meter raps follow down Westward Ho. From the lowest belay station (atop pitch 1 of Westward Ho) you can rap diagonally left to reach a station from where you can rap back to the bottom of the gully approaching Westward Ho. We also removed several litter bolts and replaced several 1/4" buttonheads with 3/8" stainless. Approach Notes: The Granite Sidewalk is fun in the rain! If you get stuck up there, bail into the trees. Good luck.

A block of wood with an arrow on it might work better. We had similar problems with our hubcap trail markers in Darrington. Somebody kept thinking they looked trashy and they would diappear almost as fast as we could collect them along the road.

(That's herbal energy drink.)

Even if TG shows up with 10 kegs, don't forget to find some Tuff Love:

If, living in Seattle, you have to choose between one or the other: choose Smith. You can go to Leavenworth as a day trip. (This assumes, however, that you are up for the 5 hour drive to Smiff, and that your objective here is climbing at some place where you haven't or won't climb otherwise.)

Your fuckin joking right or you are a joke? Newbies if you can hike you can scramble. No tests none of that shite. This isn't what the current week's outing is all about, perhaps, but whether or not it is to be "tested," I'll say that back when I was a pup I took a one-day class from Exum Mountain Guides (just about the only rock-climbing instruction I ever had), and one of the most valuable parts of that class was indeed some instruction about scrambling. There is a lot to learn about body mechanics, energy conservation, evaluating vertical exposure vs. fall potential, party management, etc.,

For some background on the Middle Fork project, here are a couple of links. Declaration of Non-Significance and House Rpt.106-914 They are putting a lot of effort into the Middle Fork and I don't think they are going to let the road vanish. They ARE probably going to gate it, though - at least at Dingford and for part of the year at the Taylor River turn-off.

That is standard advice these days, but I disagree. Rock climbing is in part about strength and technique, but it is also about judgment and keeping a cool head and knowing your limits and finding the way when there may not be an obvious route in front of you. I believe that today's standard approach emphasizes the strength and technique to the detriment of these other aspects. You don't have to master everything in the gym before going outside, on the sport crag before going trad, and on a top-rope before leading. If you have an opportunity to try something new - say a true multipitch climb - and the circumstances seem safe (you have a competent partner who you trust), go for it. If somebody says "you can lead this pitch, and I'll watch you to see that your gear is OK" and if you trust that person's judgment and especially if you are looking at a short and relatively easy pitch on a developed crag, go ahead and try it -- even if you haven't yet mastered the SRENE anchor system or the fall-factor calculus equations or even practiced placement and removal of gear in any great deapth. In my view, we make things too complicated these days, and too much of a focus on technique and technical stuff holds many climbers back. Like you said: take what you can get - just try not to take too big of a bite of it.

I took my my wife's niece and nephew climbing when she was 3 and he was 5. She was more fearless than he was, but both climbed about 5.4 on fairly steep rock up at Donner Summit. My 6 year old nephew is more cautious than either one. My brother took his 4 year old son up a three pitch climb in the 'Gunks - George was so young he didn't even know what he had done "me and my dad climbed a big rock!" (He has stuck with it, though. A couple of weeks ago, the two of them climbed the Beckey-Chouinard.)

That scree slope below the west ridge is your biggest nightmare of scree slopes. Some of it is "scree" sitting on top of rock and dirt in such a fashion that rocks over 10' in diameter skate out from under you with no warning. I'd hate to hobble down there with a broken ankle!

Saturday turned out OK. Thanks, Mr. Hohm! (Don't believe everything you hear about Darrington being a poor place to go in marginal weather.)

Darrington climbs are almost all multipitch affairs, usually with bolt belay anchors, and many are mostly bolt-protected -- but you gotta carry and use gear and it tends toward slab climbing. It is 1 hr. and 30 mins. from Seattle, though.

"That dude" also says that the flare is 5.9 and the last pitch is 5.9+. Maybe he is a rap bolter?

Pope, I had a similar reaction to the flaring chimney - it was physical! (I think the trick might be to try to go into it facing left, so you are ready for the pull-out move without having to do some kind of shoulder-jam to turn around.) You could be right about the 5.10 rating, but for twenty five years I've heard folks generally saying the last pitch is the crux, and even back in the hard-man days it was thought a "hard 5.9." I don't know. (Anyway, I've modified the topo I posted, based on comments I received. Feedback still welcome.)

If anybody is going there in the near future, take my TOPO for a test ride, and shoot me some comments (I'm particularly interested in trying to show the start of the climb and the right-trending pitch where Gary went astray). web page

There is a W or SW ridge, too, with some lava tubes about 1,000 feet below the summit.

Eightmile and Mountaineer Creek campgrounds are both closer to "the action" than Chatter Creek. If there is to be a day-only event, Mt. Eerie is superior to Leavenworth for top-rope climbing -- but its not for an overnight because there is no camping there.

Thanks for helping there, JB, but I still don't get it. The brazen disrespect and disdain for world opinion expressed by Bush far superceded that expressed by Clinton and I'm pretty sure you know it. You are just making a rhetorical argument here -- and I'm guessing it is because you support the Bush (I mean Wolfilwitz) doctrine. I'm guessing you think it IS our right to rule the world. The Bushies have said: we don't need allies-- they are irrelevant. And they acted against the wishes of the entire world except Brittain, Spain, and a bunch of tiny nations mostly dependent on American foreign aid. Clinton said: our allies have been begging us to help, while the Chinese and Russians are blocking the U.N. for their own reasons. Reluctantly, we help. Bush and Co. have worked steadily to undermine long-standing international agreements on environmental matters, weapons control, trade protection, you name it. They say this is appropriate because we shouldn't be bound by the same kinds of limits placed on "ordinary" nations. Bush and Co. have said we aren't bound by the Geneva Conventions, and shouldn't be beholden to any International World Court. There is simply no comparision. Bush defied the entire world and invaded an oil-rich country that was not at war, based on a pre-existing plan that he justified with lies. Clinton may have acted without U.N. mandate, and against the stated wishes of Russia and China, but he did so at the request of our long-standing allies, and he took minimal action in support of an ongoing operation. We did not occupy Kosovo, we did not stand to gain control of important resources, and there is not much serious question about what we were trying to do there whether you say the "intelligence" was based on lies or not. Were the players who we said they were? Maybe not. But we don't have any long-standing ambitions or involvement in the region on anything like the scale that we do in Iraq and the middle east. Bush and co. are radicals, bent on undoing or undermining fundamental aspects of world civilization that we've worked toward for a hundred years or more. Even your hero Reagan worked with the Russians to advance arms control efforts. But Bush and co. say international cooperation is for girlie-men.

Allright, you got me Fairweather! As far as I can tell with Google right now, you may be right that they still have to have a search warrant -- but they just don't have to show it to you It seems to me that they have broader powers than that and that the former standard that there had to be an "articulable suspicion," has been dispensed with, but I can't find it right now). Anyway, if they don't have to show it to you and they can go into your house when you aren't there so in this case there is every reason to think they would be likely not to ever show it to you if it might embarass them in some way, how are you supposed to be sure they obtained one? Also, section 219 allows them to get one in a single jurisdiction and they can use it all over the country -- so if your local judge says they don't have enough to go on they can shop around for a "friendly" judge who really doesn't care to protect you. You gonna answer my question about why is Kosovo so important now? Clearly it is not the case that you think angering our weak and poor "new Europe" allies is a big problem when angering the far more rich and powerful and long-standing allies in "old Europe" doesn't matter. Or is it? Like I said, I'll concede that Clinton was not so great and the Democrats suck. But what is your point about Kosovo? Are you trying to maintain that Bush and Co. are on the whole increasing enviornmental protection? Do you deny that the Wolfilwitz doctrine is a significant change in foreign policy, and that it was developed before 911? And what of my main point: aren't Bush and company a bunch of radicals -- in every sense of the word?