mattp

Yes, Saber, those cracks over there can be pretty good and they are so parallel sided that many of them really do force you to learn to jam. If that Trapese wall is cleaner up top than some areas, it'd be a good place to start. However, at Vantage it is for the most part more approaching 5.9 before you really do any actual jam crack climbing. On lower angle rock such as at Leavenworth, there actually are 5.4 to 5.6 jam cracks.

Vantage has some OK cracks, but I don't think I'd recommend it for top-rope crack climbing. Is Trapese Wall somehow not plagued with the typical piles of deadly flakes at the top of most Vantage crack climbs?

Head for Thailand/Nepal/Indonesia. You can easily spend 6 months in Asia and have it be cheaper than staying home - including the airfare.

Icicle Creek canyon, Leavenworth.

Actually, Lammy, you can take that blank for my having hit the wrong key when I took a phone call. As you obviously know, I don't teach climbing and I haven't taken a class recently. That is why I used the word "apparently." Earlier in this thread it was stated that anchor building is a "complex" topic. It has also been argued that it is more important to learn to build an anchor than to learn to place gear -- flat out. In another thread, about two months ago, we had a similar debate when somebody stated that they knew how to place good solid gear but they didn't think they were qualified to climb Moscow at Smith Rock because they hadn't been trained in how to "build an anchor." We keep hearing how important learning to place a "SRENE" anchor is - probably on average twice a month on this site. If this focus on anchor-building isn't coming from the Mountaineers and the Mazama's, perhaps it is coming from the climbing magazines. Or maybe it is all John Long's fault. You, in your ultimate knowledge of all things climbing, are probably qualified to tell me where the idea comes from. But the point is, it is like worrying about giving a trad climber a dynamic belay (remember our past over this? We can argue about it until we turn blue but I'm going to stick to my guns here until I get bored or I get another phone call - and I DO have to get some work done this afternoon). I believe there is some disinformation out there when it comes to the importance of SRENE anchors and the potential for SRENE anchor construction to mitigate the danger of not knowing how to place gear. For just about any TRADITIONAL rock climbing situation I can think of - learning to place gear is FAR FAR FAR more important than learning the best way to equalize everything at a belay station.

You lost me there, Catbird. As you know, I don't place much emphasis on kill-o-newtons but a single bomber camelot placed in a construction where a nut would fit is more than sufficient for a belay anchor in my book and the second one that I place is for a back-up. I sure as hell don't bother equalizing them at every belay -- especially if it is on a ledge rather than hanging in space somewhere.

The point here is that, in my view, the importance of building an anchor has been overemphasized in recent climbing instructional settings. Apparently, lots of instructors out there make out like "building an anchor" is some complex thing, some teach their students that it is important to equalize and doubly redundant everthing when one piece may be a ten inch tree, and some people get the wrong idea that placing multiple anchors will make you safe when you don't know how to place gear in the first place. If you would read this thread and think about what I've been saying for even as much as thirty seconds, you wouldn't think I was advocating learning to place gear first, and only then talking about "building an anchor." Like you said:

duh.

Nobody here is suggesting that you learn one without the other, troubleski -- the discussion started with a statement that sounded like the point was that "passive gear is safer for omnidirectional purposes than cams" (completely incorrect in my view) and then we turned to the question of whether it is more important for a beginning climber to learn how to set a "SRENE" anchor or how to actually place gear. I say emphasizing "SRENE" before learning how to put in the gear in the first place is putting the cart before the horse, and I'd perfectly happily climb just about any crag route around with someone who knew how to place gear but had no knowledge of "proper" SRENE techniques.

That's the thing, Boatski: my shameful misreading of your post aside, we'll go round and round about this because you are totally into this "anchor is the only thing between you and the ground" idea. I disagree completely with the premise that anchor building is more important than gear placement. I know I may be in the minority school, but hey - I'd much rather fall on a good piece of gear with a shitty belay anchor at the ledge below me than the other way around. MUCH RATHER. If somebody knows how to place solid gear, I could explain to them what is needed to build a SRENE anchor in, like, a half hour at the crag. If they know all about SRENE but not how to place gear, it would take several days' with them before I'd trust their gear placement skills.

Scott- Check out my post, two posts up in this thread. Your questions are answered. Sorry I can't go tomorrow or I would -- but my guess is that the F.S. is on top of our immediate concerns here. If only we could get them to maintain the endo fo the road to Green Giant Buttress and the left fork leading to Exfoliation Dome....if you want to do some roadwork, these need a chainsaw, bulldozer, and truckloads of gravel.

The Eightmile Creek trail is in pretty good shape, all the way up to Squire Creek Pass. Watch for ice.

Murray - I am NOT arguing semantics here. I'm arguing focus. I believe it is completely misguided for people to place so much emphasis on worrying about creating a "SRENE" anchor when they don't even know how to place gear. A month ago somebody told me what SRENE stands for, and I don't disagree with the fact that it is a very good idea. But it is really, in my view, just as simple as I said: place three good pieces of gear, in different cracks if possible, have at least one of them good for an upward pull, if possible, and tie the whole mess together. You DO NOT have to attend multiple anchor-building clinics to build a very safe and secure belay anchor. You DO have to attend multiple gear-placement and leadership judgment and other tecnical clinincs to be able to safely lead and place gear. Boatclimbski's example only reenforces my point, I think. His students could not place gear that would hold them if they jumped on it. I bet their problem was not that they didn't know how to properly use a cordellette or that things weren't doubly redundant - their problem was that they didn't know how to place a good nut or cam!

This past weekend, while everybody was out chasing down some early-season ice a day or two after it started to warm up (you shoulda been there Thursday), I climbed on warm dry rock in Darrington one day and took an exploratory hike the next. From the posts on this board, it looks like some of the ice hounds had a good weekend but let's hear it for weather that is sunny and warm enough to enjoy rock climbing in the late Fall!

The road to Three O'Clock Rock, the Clear Creek road, has mostly been fixed following the massive landslides that took it out about three weeks ago. However, there remain some serious erosion channels and we're hoping the Forest Service is going to go back and fix them before winter or there will not be a driveable road after one or two more big rainstorms. Meanwhile, big thanks to the Darrington Ranger Station are in order. Before I first contacted them about it in 1997 or 1998 they were allowing the Eightmile Creek trail, the one serving Three O'Clock Rock, to fade away. They then supported several work projects run by the Washington Trails Association and sponsored by The North Face and the Access Fund, and now that trail is in pretty good shape. They have also put a significant effort into that Clear Creek road over the last several years and now the traihead sign is back up at the Eightmile Creek trailhead, indicating that they probably plan to maintain the road and trail. I won't say they did it all for us, but I bet our letters and our volunteer labor helped and my contact with the Darrington Ranger station has been very positive throughout all of this. Since Three O'Clock Rock was developed about 25 years ago, climbers always have and will continue to be the biggest users of that Eightmile Creek trail because it really doesn't go anywhere (yes, it goes over Squire Creek Pass and it is very beautiful up on top - a good place to take your gal for a picnic - but the trail is noted in hiking guidebooks as one that is more or less NOT recommended). Similarly, while some Darrington locals go up there camping and hunting and there are some mining claims up that Clear Creek road, I bet most of the automobile traffic up there is climber traffic as well.

Murray- Where I'm coming from is that anchoring is NOT a complex subject. I've said this in other threads, but the simple fact is that placing pro is far more complicated and demanding, in my view. Just about any three good pieces (especially if at least one of them is a multiple directional), tied together in just about any fashion, are good enough to protect pretty much any belay. Common "complexities" here involve issues such as how many 'biners do you waste in the whole mess that you have created, or did you set your anchors and locate yourself such that you were in the direction of the line of pull from your anchor. These issues are obvious on simple visual inspection. Yes, this is an oversimplification but not much of one. For protecting the leader, on the other hand, there are many much more complex issues to consider: fall forces are likely going to be much greater and I may trust a tiny wire way up toward the end of a pitch but not near the start; if not careful, I'll place a cam right where I want to step or in the way of a handhold; I may kick the pro out as I go by; rope movement may saw up and down on a sling, causing the stopper to fall out or the camelot to walk back into the crack; a loose flake or a shallow seam requiring skillful gear placement are much more likely to be the only option; the use of runners to extend the pro runs against instinct because it places the catch point lower but they may be essential to reduce rope drag or prevent the rope from running over an edge; etc. -- these are much more complex concerns. Yes, anchor building is an art and a skill - but it is not in my view anywhere near as much of a mystery as is commonly suggested. Everytime I state this it is rebuffed (somebody says "what about the guys on Mt. Washington" or whatever) but in actual fact I have never heard of anybody falling off their belay ledge and falling to their death - unless their partner took a half-rope fall onto the belay or somebody dropped the haul bag on a wall climb or something. In these cases, I'd say the cause of the accident was the long leader fall taken by somebody who obviously used inadequate pro (these accidents don't tend to happen on unprotectable granite slabs) or somebody really messed up with the haul bag. These accidents would be much better avoided by having the leader place solid pro on their lead or by being more careful with the haul bag -- and the addition of a more sophisticated cordellette to tie the same three pieces together at the belay would probably not have made any difference. Any new leader should spend a lot more time learning to place gear on lead, in my opinion, than learning how to build a John-Long-approved belay.

I don't know where Murray is coming from. Yes, cams can rotate and walk and sometimes they get out of position this way, but in most cracks they are if anything MORE resistent to being pulled out of position if the force upon them comes from directions other than the one anticipated, aren't they? How many times have you "kicked out" a nut or just had the rope movement cause it to fail when it was perfectly good for the fall anticipated when you placed it? I often prefer a camelot for a belay anchor specifically for that reason. In certain types of rock, such as the andesite cracks at Tieton, nuts are sometimes more reliable then cams in this respect. But in most granite cracks, for example, I'd say no. In most sandstone cracks, absolutely not. If you aren't careful to place the anchors at a belay station in opposition and tension them correctly, and even some times if you are, a plain old fashioned nut is much more apt to fail when cross-loaded or whipped about.

J_B- That's the point: the only way Bush and Co. could NOT have known that the story was completely overblown (actually it was just about totally false) was if they deliberately ignored available information. Jessica Lynch was just a pathetic bit of propaganda but it is part of a whole: and Rumsfeld himself publicly stated in May that the whole administration effort was toward selling the war (he used that word) rather than presenting what was actually going on. One may argue that politicians always lie and this is just situation normal, but I think Bush and Co have taken it to a whole new height and the suggestion that Bush himself is somehow a victim of his handlers and actually believes what he is saying is just another illustration of that phenomenon: the implication is that while the commander in chief doesn't know what is going on, we'll let him avoid any responsibility for that by saying that he probably believes what he is saying and nobody should be so crude as to call him a liar. That's what I call sticking our head in the sand and blindly wrapping ourselves in the flag.

I'll save a seat for you.

Cracked - You want to be a "silver plate" donar or "platinum?" At 5:30 tomorros morning, we're serving sausage and instant oatmeal in the Index parking lot, $750 or $1500 a seat.

What Trask said.

cracked - if you don't know anything about his using a false report of Saddam's seeking weapons grade uranium in Africa in his State of the Union Speech, your opinion on absolutely everything that Bush does or says is completely invalid because you are obviously not paying attention.

Harpell and Cracked - He might get away with that excuse in the case of the Jessica Lynch story if it had been a relatively small story and was not one that has been kept alive since then with periodic references to it throughout the media and even a docu-drama TV movie and such. There can be absolutely no such excuse with reference to the uranium purchase -- his guys were repeated told that the story was false and the insisted on using it anyway -- again I note -- in the single most carefully crafted speech of the year. You guys can stick your head in the sand and blindly march behind the flag, but that is all you are doing.

Maybe Erik didn't say it, Cracked, but I will. I believe Bush and company lied about Jessica Lynch. Administration spokespeople (probably Bush included but I can't remember for sure at this point) commended the brave soldiers who carried out the daring night time rescue of such a brave soldier who had gone down with her gun blazing and then was mistreated by her captors. Even if they did not actually speak that lie (and I believe they did), the ultimate responsibility for the U.S. Army propaganda lies with GW Bush anyway. He is commander in chief and his people almost certainly "approved" the who spin on the story in the first place, and certainly did nothing to correct any misimpressions in the second. To borrow a line from Richard Nixon - Bush wants to take all of the responsibility (for making so much progress in the war against terrorism) but none of the blame. It is pathetic that he is trying to get out of taking responsiblity for his citing the African uranium purchase in the single most important and most carefully prepared speech of the year by blaming it on the CIA or whoever -- WTF? Or that nobody in his administration is taking responsibility for or even admitting that they failed to anticipate that there might be ongoing resistence to American occupation. Who in his administration is taking responsibility for cancelling the Clinton administration plans to take out Bin Laden? Nobody. Sorry, but your "logic" here eludes me.