mattp

Fairweather - you dismiss the study reported by Hakiowa because (you claim) the source is unquesitonnably and hopelessly biased. That is a complete evasion of the point and a classic conservative dodge - discredit the source and ignore the statement). That study, and others like it, have consistently shown that those whose major source of news is Fox TV are very likely to think that we found weapons of mass desctruction, that Saddam was responsbile for 911, or that he was closely tied to Al Queda, or all three. None of the above are true. People who listen to NPR as their major sources of news are not likely to have thess "misimpressions" or any others that are anywhere near as fundamentally flawed when it comes to the FACTS underlying today's discussion of the war. I believe the Kato Institute and the Heritage Foundation are much more frequent commentators on NPR, then their liberal counterparts are commentators on FOX -- also that they are treated with much more respect and given much more of an opportunity to present their views coherently when they do so. Am I incorrect about this?

By "studs" I mean wedge anchors, not split shanks. I don't know anybody who regularly uses split shanks. I have removed and replaced lots of them, but I don't recall ever actually placing one. Unless bolting on lead, perhaps, I see little justification for using them -- even then it would be questionnable in my mind because you could place wedge anchors just about as easily but the simplicity of the split shank is a plus and that is why I do carry a few once in a while, for the purposes that Dru described. (I suppose that if you are committed to coming back and replacing them, the easier removal of the split shank might be a plus.) The difficulty in removing the wedge anchors is definitely an issue when it comes to replacing or removing them. This is why I have periodically been posting inquiries on this forum asking about devices/systems for removal that may be more portable than a 5 foot "love bar."

Kurt may be right, Marylou. If some poor sucker thought this was a climber's website and came onto the Climber's Board and asked for a gear list for The Tooth, they obviously must deserve to be put down. The North Face should never think they have a right to host a slideshow and have someone mention it on this board. And yeah, and some poor schmuck who gets stuck on top of Glacier Peak, well he MUST be a big time loser. And anybody who ever retreated from a pin on an Index climb where the guidebook suggests carrying pins, well .... they just get what they deserve.

We've been using the studs almost exclusively. Yes, I think the "taperbolts" might be the ones I am referring to. One drawback is that they are not as easy to get, and I really have little experience with them and I'm not sure just how much my buddy has used them in field situations. I watched him place one, once, and it was a little clumsy starting it into the hole but otherwise it seemed OK.

Nope. 'Just made it up. Should I apply for a job writing text for O'Reilly?

I would expect them to have stories about US soldiers getting shot at, chucK - of course they do. But my argument was that if I listen to Fox news on the radio for a week, I bet I can find an introduction to a story that is more biased than that cited by Puget - especially if you look at it the way that Jim did and ask yourself, "which if any of these statements can be said to be incorrect?" I just made up an imaginary statement from a reporter introducing, say, a story about the latest even promoted by Wolfowitz or somebody, wherein the report parrots the lines that are told us daily by Rice, Bush and Rumsfeld. Is that an unlikely scenario?

I ask about your use of these bolts because in the past I found them problematic. It has been so long since I've tried them that I can't really remember what the problems were but I seem to recall having trouble getting them into the holes and getting them to properly "grab" - I think these problems may have been as frequent as one in ten or one in twenty. Have you ever had such issues with them? Maybe I was just a bumbler but I distinctly thought that regular "studs" were easier to place (of course I think that was something like 15 years ago and the hardware may not now be exactly the same). The very characteristic for which you recommend them - that they are so easily removed - is also a drawback of the five-piece bolts. Bolts quite often go missing, whether through the work of bolt-hating rock cops or vandals, and we don't always want to facilitate that. Apart from these issues, I believe stainless steel 5-piece bolts are rather spendy, so this may be the main reason I know nobody who uses them. I will always argue that one should not "cheap out" when it comes to hardware, though, and the simple fact that I don't know anybody who uses them is not necessarily a reason to think they are no good. What you say about the lower head profile and the ease of removal is correct and maybe I should take another look at the issue. By the way, my friend "the safety man" has some weird bolts with coils kind of like a helicoil that he says are WAY stronger for a given size than either studs or 5-piece bolts. Have you ever looked at those?

I'm having trouble wlith your links, there, Mr. ChucK. I bet you found something interesting, though. I just made that quote up.

Going to Rattlesnake Point in Ontario, we arrived late at night and for some reason we didn't want to head into the park so we pulled onto a farm road, and hopped a fence to roll out our bags where there was some nice flat grass on the other side. About six in the morning, I heard some snorting and cracked an eye open to see a big nose, with some big eyes somewhere not far behind. I shake the fog out of my brain and I realize it's a large cow, and then I notice that we are completely surrounded by ten or twelve of them. They are all standning in a perfect circle, staring at us. The big guy and his friends stand resolute as I nudge my buddy and we both sit up to start discussing what to do. Ethan stands up and waves his arms. No dice. He grabs a sack of tent poles that we hadn't used, rattles it and swings it as if he's going to whack Mr. Big (he's too scared to actually make contact). No luck. Whistling, shouting, whatever we try just doesn't seem to change anything. Five minutes later, farmer Joe must have opened up the barn or something. We didn't hear or notice any signal, but the cows just turned away and walked off.

Good job there, Jim. I immediately assumed PP was on to something at least as far as the idea that the "leader" he recited was pro democrat and anti-Bush, but I think you have correctly pointed out that to state, in a succinct manner, the truth about what is going wrong with Mr. Bush's war policy sounds partisan to us -- and the reason is because we are so consistently presented with a positive misstatement of things whenever any administration official is on the air. Think about it. If you heard a similar statement that consisted of postitive remarks about the success of Bush's foreign policies, many if not most Americans would be less like to immediately identify it as partisan because it would quite closely resemble what we hear daily from Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld: What do you want to bet, I could find a fox news story that begins with exactly this kind of leader. But you couldn't make the same kind of point-by-point argument that these statements are accurate, could you?

Why would the fact that NPR starts out with a provocative and partisan leader indicate that "the media is liberal?" What kind of partisan messages do you hear on leaders to news stories on FOX? Do fewer people listen to Rush's show? Or is it less credible? How many conservative pundits speak on NPR radio as compared to the number of liberal pundits who speak on AM talk radio? How are the conservatives treated on the "liberal" NPR as opposed to how the liberals are treated on AM talk radio?

If I listened to any number of a.m. radio stations this morning I bet I could have found just as striking an endorsement of Mr. Bush's foreign policy, no?

Please make the voices stop.

Uniroyal makes pretty good stuff, or at least they used to. Tough, too.

I just called the ranger station to attempt some follow-up after last weekend's ropeup, and the guy at the main reception desk told me that the Eightmile / Mountaineer Creek road reopened today at noon. I asked him about why it had been closed so long and he pointed out that it actually reopened ahead of schedule, but he also explained that the project was complicated by the fact that the bridges were not rated for heavy construction equipment so they couldn't get all their equipment over to both sides of the creek, and they had to replace the lower one first, and the upper one second. Also, he noted, they had to wait something like 3 weeks for the footers to set up each time they poured a new one. I asked him if there was any reason they couldn't have allowed hikers through the area in the meantime, and he said that it was part of the contact that they not allow it. He said that the contractors do not want the liability for possibly having the public around the construction activity, and this is a standard contract provision.

I don't know about the soft shells, Cracked, but I once went skiing up at Snoqualmie Pass in a rainstorm where we were using umbrellas on the lifts. I was drier in my windbreaker, freshly treated with reviveX or something, than every one of my friends in their gore tex. They were all experiencing leaks in the g-tex and sweating at the same time. I had neither problem. I'm not saying the stuff doesn't work (I'll argue that point tomorrow, though) but it is not the wonder material that many people proclaim it to be and, properly speaking, I think it is neither waterproof nor truly breathable (of course, water isn't breathable so nothing is breathable when it is fully drenched in wet weather).

Drilling on lead with a power drill is in some ways scarier than using a hand drill. You can put the hand drill away such that it might not hurt you in a fall. I'd sure hate to take a fall with the power drill in my hand or hung around my neck.

You might be able to do that, Ursa, but I'm not aware of any tape, and I don't exactly know what kind of glue you would use, either, that would actually stick and be readily removeable. I think ChucK's suggestion about trying the "removeable" bolts, or Mr. E's about using the 5 piece might be more practical. I should note that Erik is correct in saying my "tinkering" step in route development should not often involve bolt removal if you do as he described and truly mark potential placments, pretend to clip them, and discuss each one at significant length witih at least two or more different people, etc. But mistakes can happen never-the-less, and I have found it to be the case that you don't know what you have until you actually go for the test-lead. Mr. E. - how many of those 5-piece bolts have you placed, and in what kinds of rock?

Hate is everywhere, rob bob. Why must you be so cold and wall yourself off from the world that you cannot see it?

They probably would do well, fern, and who knows - they might even have more to add than you might think from all the sneering about how wimpy and pathetic and nonexistent these folks are according to those who are debating with me in this thread. That enlightened future is ahead of us but, for now, I am the lone voice of civility and sanity in a wilderness of humiliation and hate. Well, er, ... Al Pine likes me, anyway. I think. Don't you Al Pine?

Correction. I am acknowledging the fact that I am overtly trying to do so. Those who fight the good fight in defense of spray, or those who simply like to propogate combative rhetoric or keep the one-liner flame alive or who proclaim their sense of outrage at somebody's cheast-beating trip report are just as actively imposing their sense of culture on other board users but they just aren't as clearly acknowledging it. Culture is not what one person says in an agument in the spray forum. The culture of this site is the sum total of what goes on here.

You call me elitist and condescending, rob bob, and a self-appointed minister. However, I didn't cast aspersions about your character, but instead attemped to directly address the points made by you, dru, or whoever else debated my position here - while virtually none of you guys has really tried to address my arguments head-on. I guess that is elitist, huh? I'm sorry you don't like my Rumsfeldian focus group. Would you like me to circulate an internet petition or start collecting notarized affidavits?

Erik's recipe is very good, but he left out the final steps: Test Lead Tinker These can be major steps in the process. It has been my experience that even the most careful route-setters do not really know what they have created until they go back for the test-lead of their new masterpiece. It is then that you find the clips that seemed to be in a straight line actually cause the rope to saw into a pinching crack behind a flake or that those easy moves that you thought didn't need pro actually turn out to be very scary, or that rest stance just below the crux is in fact not a good place to clip because the bolt causes the rope to get in your way so it is easier just to skip that crux bolt. You also find out, on the lead end of the rope, that the holds you scrubbed and which felt just fine on a toprope aren't really all that clean feeling and that you gotta go at it one more time with the brush, or whatever. The "tinkering" process is often necessary to render a truly well-thought out climb.

You misunderstand me here, robbob. You can spray hard in spray, and a significant number of your smart-aleck comments and brilliant critique are going to be tolerated elsewhere on the board, as well. Yes - I think a lot of the stupid rhetoric is just that: stupid. In my view most of the spray posts on this site are niether interesting nor funny - they are pointless one-line retorts, personal complaints related to somebody's private argument, recycled jokes that werent funny in the first place, and just plain empty banter. Go back and look at some spray thread from a month ago and see how interesting it is, outside the immediate context of trying to outdo each other right now this minute. Some folks think it is fun, and that is why we set up the spray forum in the first place and, yes, we allow some of that to creep into the rest of the board because we don't want the site to be "stiff." The problem that I have with all of this is that your exercise of your god-given right to spray is compromising somebody elses right to come onto the board without having to be subjected to that crap. Do you restrain yourself because the "gaper of the day" is someone who doesn't like to be ridiculed? No. Do you hesitate to trash a route report if you think it was written "in poor style" or describes a "pathetic" attempt to climb some "trivial" route? No. The second issue I have with the hostile, mysogynistic, or inane material it is that, for some reason, those who don't like the spray seem to be unable to figure out that they can avoid the food fight if they lurk in the route report forums, the newbies forum, and the rock climbing forum. This is in part because you spray-bots find it fun to constantly test the limits of our patience by pissing in those other forums, but it may also have to do with the format of the front page or just the fact that we have an established culture on this site that pervades the place - a culture where honest discussion is discouraged - even in the climbers' forums - and bravado is what carries the day. We hear so much criticism of of "cheastbeating" but when was the last time that one of the spraylords who ridicules Wayne for being a cheastbeater actually showed any humililty? Like I said, I DO laugh out loud at some of the stuff. I changed the route report forum policies last winter, and last month I was vocal in objecting to Dwayner's filibuster tactics when it comes to bolting discussions -- but don't worry, robbob, I'm not trying to stop you from having fun. If you want to battle it out with dicknose over who can get in the last word about which one of you has a bigger schlong, go for it. But do it in Spray and don't whine if I or somebody else joins your thread to say you are pathetic. Like you keep saying: it's spray, isn't it?

I would. I agree with the sentiment of what you posted, babnik, but I like cotton. I wear cotton pants and shirts every chance I get. I also don't wear gortex or any modern "softshell" jacket or anything like that (though the schoeller pants are pretty comfy). I wear cotton shirts and underwear even on a winter alpine climb, and I carry a rubberized raincoat and a windbreaker that is little or no more sophisticated than the one your father wore to baseball practice when he was in little league. I do so not because it is cool, but because this stuff works for me. I am often quite comfortable when my friends in their goretex shells and lates generation capilene underwear equivalent are freezing because they've sweated themselves all wet. I also vastly prefer wool mittens to any synthetic I have ever tried, and I kind of like wool sweaters. Old school, I guess.