mattp

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 The brazen disrespect and disdain for world opinion expressed by Bush far superceded that expressed by Clinton and I'm pretty sure you know it.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?

For sure. When you post something about what's happening over there, I read it. Nobody's making $100.00 an hour? I bet you're right -- certainly not the average truck driver. (Some Halliburton "site manager" probably is, though.)

Mike, thanks for offering some real perspective here but your constant suggestion that those of us who aren't in Iraq are not qualified to comment on the war, or U.S. policy, or even the meaning of daily events over there, is wrong. The military and political and economic operation that you are a part of is not a goal in and of itself. You are there to serve or support the interest of the American people - including your good buddy Billygoat.

Thanks for the groveling, Fairweather, but nobody ever called me "badass" when it comes to climbing. I've been at it for a while, but I've never climbed anything X-TREME. And, I really AM a girlie-man. Did you know I drink French wine and in my spare time I raise flowers? My wife and I have a cat; not a pit bull. I don't drive a pickup. However, no thanks for the argument. Your "Mountaingoat-style" response was exactly that: just like Mountaingoat you appeared to address each point but most of your responses were meaningless or just plain baloney. Eliminating the need to get a search warrant to search a U.S. citizen's private home based on nothing specific isn't eroding the protection we thought we enjoyed from the U.S. Constitution? Liberals are trying to stop talk shows or the expression of political speech?

And he completely avoided the main point I made about how Bush and Co. have pursued more radical change than any other recent administration. Sure, that evil Clinton administration proposed universal health care and "don't ask don't tell," but Bush and Co. want to "restructure" (dismantle?) our society and our foreign policy in some pretty astounding ways. Sure, my "krugman argument" has a bit of hyperbole to it, but not much.... And I bet he could kick Fairweather's ass, too. Me? Well maybe not. I'm a girlie man.

Oh. As to Afaghanistan, I don't believe I said we had no right - though perhaps I did. I believe that we should have gone after Bin Laden and his traning camps, and it has been a step backward for us to occupy the capital while allowing the warlords to run the rest of the country. I also believe we did not even really try to get Bin Laden - or we wouldn't have given him advance warning the way we did or carried out anything like the operation that we did.

Fairweather: I have consistently replied more directly and more specifically to your arguments than you have ever done with mine. For three years. Your courteous and specific reply is nothing but pure B.S. in the style that only you can provide. Kerry Co. started the talk about Bush's service "record?" I wouldn't put it past him, but I don't think that is the case. It was first brought up by a Boston newspaper, if I remember correctly though. You're trying to say that Bush and Co are strengthening environmental regulation? Huh what? The new policy of pre-emptive war is not a change from our prior position on such matters? Baloney. Bush's press conferences and the military's release of information has not been more restrictive than any recent president, and probably more restrictive than any – including REAL wartime presidents? Tell us another one. and on and on.... Now tell us how much you hate Clinton again. Thats manly.

Fairweather You are full of baloney on this military service thing. Far more than the democrats, it has been the REPUBLICANS who have made an issue out of one's leadership qualifications being based on their military record. Those criticizing Bush for record don't really care if he served or not so much as that he sleazed his way out of it rather than either (a) serving or (b) stating that wars in general or that particular war were bad. As for their attacks on Kerry's record, even McCain said it is a shame that Bush and company have tried to make such a (stupid) issue out of this and they are shooting themselves in the foot. Oh well. Kosovo? You know as well as I do that it just didn't make much press. If they had shown pictures of civilians getting blown up on the 5:00 news, there would certainly have been a big uproar. But you haven't answered my basic question: our guys were not in harm's way, it was undertaken with the support of nearly all (if not all) of our allies, the bad guy is gone, ... etc. What do you think you prove about Bush when you bring it up over and over again? Clinton sucked too? War is hell? Agreed on both counts. Or are you trying to say (on the one hand) that the peacniks should have spoken up then, but (on the other) they hate America if they speak up now? By the way: Do I Hate America? Bush and co: 1. Want to unwind 75 years of well-fare and social security. 2. Want to void 300 years of the separation of church and state and make the U.S. a Christian nation, also would like to teach creationism in schools rather than evolution. 3. Want to erode the last 50 years' progress toward more environmental and sustainable industrial practices. 4. Want to roll-back 100 years' progress toward more progressive taxation. 5. Want to sacrifice a 100 year tradition of privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures in the name of a war on terror when they have no reason to think the new police powers are going to help at all. 6. Want to cut back on the freedom of the press. They've been the most hostile toward the press corps and the most controlling of "news" of any administration ever. 7. Want to end our long-standing policy of going to war only when we have to. In other words, these guys want to fundamentally change what this nation stands for and has stood for in nearly every spere of political and social life. They don't like what America is, and they are for radical changes in every single one of these areas I've enumerated. (By the way, lest those of you who hate those of us who you think hate America want to cry foul, I should point out that I encountered this argument in a recent book by Paul Krugman.)

From the west, one of the shorter and more scenic routes is the Collier Glacier. You start at Frog Camp on the old McKenzie Pass highway, and follow the trail up and accross the White Branch lava flow and, instead of heading south to the Renfrew you detour a little north to "Collier Glacier View," and then head cross country through a cool and wild-feeling basin below the Collier. There are some crevasses on the glacier, little or not bare ice will be seen, and the "difficulties" can generally be avoided by hopping on the ridgeline to the right. Rockfall from the SW face of North Sister is something to watch out for. This approach samples some of the areas finest volcanic scenery and what is almost like a real glacier.

Wayne mentions a spirit of anarchy and individualism that is often touted on this site as the spirit of cascadeclimbers.com and northwest climbers in general, but I think the reality is that we are a much more sheeplike bunch. The frequent dumping on the Mountaineers on this bulletin board is in my mind a clear example of this: everybody knows it is cool to trash the Mountaineers and even the stupidist joke or most trivial complaint directed their way will draw applause so we do it over and over again. Similarly, everybody seems to think that car-to-car speed climbing is the only commendable way to climb anything, or that the only climbs worth doing in Washington are listed in Jim Nelson's guidebooks. Anarchism and individuality? No. That's more like centralized group-think. As pointed out, the Mountaineers have a definite "program" that is very structured and one is going to have to work at to get outside the box, but if you work through their checklists and keep your eyes open you will definitely learn something. Pope: I think what you say about Evergreen may be vaguely and generally true if you are talking about an "average" student who just wants a degree and doesn't have a specific goal, but for years (maybe still?), Evergreen had a much higher acceptance rate as a pre-med program for top medical schools than did the UW. Also, with less hoops to jump through and a faculty who actually thinks it is their job to teach instead of to publish or whatever, there has been generally more opportunity for students wishing to do graduate-level science as an undergrad at Evergreen than at the UW.

Fairweather and Greg: I remain totally confused over why you guys seem fixated on Kosovo, and keep comparing it to Iraq. Not one American died in Kosovo. We flew over at 5,000 feet dropping bombs - at the request of or with complete approval of our European allies. We never occupied Kosovo. I don't think anybody has alleged that we may have been motivated for our own military or financial objectives. It does not appear to be a rallying point for generations of terrorists. Aside from repeating some snippet from an old Fox news commentary, just what is your point in harping on Clinton in Kosovo all the time? I still don't get it. (Though if you think the Democrats are a bunch of losers, I'll have to agree--its just that I think they are a better bet than Bush and his band of liars.)

Fairweather: NEWS FLASH!!!!!! Clinton is not running for reelection. The point here is, as already pointed out, Bush and the chicken-hawks are politically vulnerable because their guy evaded military service whereas their challenger served with honor. All those who served with him verify his valor, but the chicken-hawks parade around a bunch of guys who happened to be somewhere in Vietnam at the same time who say Kerry lied about some part of his military record. And then they try to tell us that anybody who would cricitize a veteran or a warrior or a "wartime president" is a "girlie man." Wake up, buddy. You are a complete drone if you swallow this particular load of B.S. and don't see the hypocrisy here. Find another "talking point."

Mount Index is cool if you are enamored with Mount Index (and many of us are, having driven by it and admired it so many times); otherwise I think there are better outings around. The North Face is certainly doable, but I'd want to bring a rappel rope and the first pitch on the Middle Peak, climbing out of the notch from the North, is more than most of us would want to solo. I think it's rated 5.7, but it'll get your attention! The full traverse (North-Middle-Main) is a big outing. (1 1/2 hours driving) The West Ridge of N. Twin is a very enjoyable scramble on excellent rock, with no glacier travel but an alpine feel about it. (four or five miles on logging road for an approach, though). (3 hours driving) The Sulphide on Shuksan is a great suggestion for a mellow glaciated climb that most of us would feel OK about doing without a rope, but there certainly ARE crevasses on the route (I've skied it in the fog in October, though, so they aren't that bad). (3+ hours driving?) Mount Ruth is another mellow glacier climb. (3+ hours driving?) For a mellow rock solo, Ingalls S. Ridge is excellent. (3- hours driving) S. Early Winter Spire via the S. Ridge is a good rock scramble with a single 5.7 move that isn't too scary. (3 hours driving)

In addition to being a party, Ropeup has gotten a lot of climbers together -- people who would not otherwise have climbed together. Some have made their first multipitch climbs, or tried "outside" climbing for the first time, or .... Leavenworth last year: Smith last year: Leavenworth the year before:

An example of Bush co's sensitivity.

As a direct result of Bush co's politically motivated "leak," it looks as if al queda guys are getting away. USA Today

I think just about anybody could do that, Greg. And I'd be for it: liberal and cowardly stuff like tyring not to turn the entire Islamic world against us by saying we're going to Afghanistan and Iraq on a crusade, and working with our allies instead of calling them names like "irrelevant" and doing our best to turn them against us.