mattp

That North Ridge on Pinnacle Peak at Rainier is a real winter/spring gem, in my opinion. I've always gained the ridge from the east, however (I've done the climb twice and attempted it once more). It has five short pitches, all with good belay spots, and it will entertain.

More nonsense based on misinformation, Jay. Bus drivers do not make 100k. This site indicates that in Seattle, where they are presumably paid more than they are in Yakima, they make $50k. I've talked to several bus drivers about their income and even that is higher than almost all of those I've seen. Not only are you misinformed, but you talk in truisms. Even the most ardent union booster will tell you that the government exists to serve the public interest rather than the private interest of individual employees. So what. You've fallen for a "war on government workers" that is a smokescreen for those whose goal is to reduce government. Personally, I wish we could pay police officers and school teachers more than we do because I think it would probably get us better cops and better teachers. I don't know about bus drivers.

I don't know what you are intending to say here but I, for one, often pay more than "low bid" when faced with an offer for someone to provide work that I think will be sub-quality, workers who I don't like or, in fact, work that for some tangential and maybe even political reason or another is something I cannot support. Maybe you have no such concerns for quality or values. I do. If your point is that we should run our government like McDonalds, I disagree.

Question for you, KK: where DO you get your information? You didn't say it, exactly, but I think you believe the Republicans are more likely to balance the budget than the Democrats or "fix the economy. Am I right? What about the history of the last 30 years would lead you to this conclusion?

I largely agree that the Democrats are beholden to the money and the machine just as the Republican party is, but they are not the same and that is why you and I both probably voted for Murray over Rossi. However, I don't agree that is why they got trounced in this election. I think their inability to deliver a coherent message is a real problem for them. I don't know what you watch. My post made that clear.

I hadn't thought about it that way, Tvash, but I think you're right: in a sense it was a fair fight. The impacts of Citizens United probably favor the Republicans over the Democrats at least a little bit, but that issue aside I think the main reason the Democrats did poorly is that they are completely inept at delivering a coherent message. For example: it is the Democrats' unwillingness or inability to simply point to the last three decades' example that allows Republicans and Tea Partiers to say that the Republicans are more fiscally responsible than the Democrats at this point, and apparently even well meaning and least somewhat informed citizens like KK accept such nonsense (I say somewhat informed because, although he may well watch a lot of "fair and balanced" FOX TV, KK at least gets the strait scoop here on cc.com).

Hey Jay: what is YOUR argument here? I don't mean to pick you in particular out, but this thread has pages and pages of counterpont without anyone actually stating THEIR position. Seriously: I get it that you think you are smarter than the other guy or j_b thinks he is more fundamentally perceptive than you or whatever it is, (and I could add similarly uncomplimentary and certainly incomplete descriptions of others' roles here)... but what is your actual position? What do YOU think defines the middle class and how does that have to do with any topic of this thread?

I think you are right, Sobo. I think "zero tolerance" results from a combination of at least two factors: (1) legislators earn "points" with the electorate by being "tough on crime" (or other perceived violation of the public trust), and (2) judges are human beings and many think they are too prone toward granting lenience in circumstances where they should not do so. I think that factor (1) is inarguable. Factor (2), on the other hand, is not so clear. I certainly agree that rules must be rules or we wouldn't know where we stand. Judges work very hard to apply the law and work hard to apoply the rule of law. But I don't know where anyone has ever shown that judges are overly lax or permissive in carrying out their duties as judge. In the criminal context we have seen where Judges have set repeat offenders free and in the civil context we have seen where they have dismissed huge jury awards. But Judges are Judges. They have a role in the legal system. Are there studies "out there" who show that they are habitually lax, liberal, lenient, or anything like that? My own experience as a practicing attorney and as a juror and as a judge suggests exactly the opposite: for the most part judges see the cases where things went wrong and this tends to make them think that something must have gone wrong if a case is brought before them. My guess is that the average judge is not likely to apply undue lenience without any kind of "zero tolerance" laws adopted in response to public attention to a particular issue. In my opinion, "zero tolerance" may be a good political response to some issues but it rarely makes sense in response to human issues.

Are you guys trying to make political arguments? Most of what I see here is a bunch of jabs at "the other guy." Seriously. What is your point?

I don't know if they have any left, but Edgeworks has been very conscientious about sending checks to the Washington Climbers Coalition after making sales of these posters and they have raised a significant sum of $ for the Index Fund. By the way: I hope you are doing well, Steph.

Have I ever once claimed to be a "moderate?" (By that I assume you mean "middle.") Yes, I believe the Democrat politicians can be "political" just as the Republicans can, and I presented here as examples of my disdain for Democrats how they mostly went along with the Iraq war or are now afraid to talk about deficit spending in an honest fashion. I don't know the actual thoughts of anybody who claims to be a "moderate" except a few friends of mine who say they are "moderate" but are in fact totally uninformed and are so at their choosing: they are not at all engaged. I think Prole may be more or less right that "moderates" are frequently (I'm not sure always) more "ignorant" than the hard right. On the issues of the day, for example, you cannot seriously argue that the Republicans have any credibility at all in terms of being likely to balance the budget but the dedicated are simply that while the "moderates" are choosing to be blind to history. From your posts here I deduct that you think that anyone who has distrust for both parties should vote as if they were the same and vote for some third party candidate who has no chance or not vote at all. Given our system, that's foolishness.

Nope. My wife already told me how to vote... I mean: I've already voted. On the Dino Rossi race? No doubt there. Patty Murray has her problems, in my view, but she still has a lot more going on than THAT guy. By the way: I believe Murray was one of very few elected officals who said, before the invasion and when it was obvious, that the Iraq invasion was not only based on false pretenses but ill advised. You, Fairweather, argued that both ideas were anti-American and naive. Your pal Rossi spews the same "government is bad" and "we hate taxes" nonsense that I described above. You're being smart-assed here but I'm serious: do you think I'd waste a vote by not voting against HIM?

Thing is, Mr. Fairweather, your "dimwit" is correct. Anybody who says they can balance the budget without touching military spending and medicare and medicaid, without raising taxes, is either lying or extremely ill-informed. The sad truth is that, really, we all should know this. Ever since Regan made it big we've been hearing politicians tell us they are going to "cut government waste" and there have been plenty of attacks on wasteful programs like environmental protection and public education and it hasn't solved the problem. In fact it hasn't solved ANY problem. And then we cheered on a bunch of yahoos who led us into two extremely expensive wars while giving us tax breaks. Sadly, nobody either on the campaign trail or even comfortably in office can address reality here. It completely astounds me that Americans seem to demand that our leaders lie to us.

No "lawyer thing" here, Fairweather. My only point in suggeSting that you would have presented if if you had "ACTUAL INFORMATION" is that you are usually straight forward if you actually have information about a topic. Here, it IS just discussion, though, and we engage in plenty of discussions based on little more than abstract thought. Maybe there should be new bicycle standards put in place but I think most people would agree that if there was a "typical road bike" standard and we now think that standard is unsafe, it would not be "fair" or "reasonable" to expect or demand that Mr. Gendler should be held to such standards in hindsite. That specific case aside, I would think it was probably in the public benefit if, in light of Mr. Gendler's large settlement agreement, there were new standards put in place and my friends who ride bicycles to work were soon going to be able to do so more safely. This would be probably much cheaper and more efficient than having some government bureaucracy study the issue and eventually reach the same conclusion. (I know you believe he doesn't deserve the $8 million, and that bike safety is not important, but I again repeat my question about whether you would prefer that a government agency be expected to inspect our roadways for bicycle safety and establish the rules. I note that you distorted this argument already but will you please answer the question?) I don't ride a bike, as my back problems don't allow me to do so, but I believe my friends and neighbors who want to do so should be able to do.

OK then. "Typical" road bikes are unsafe according to Mr. Fairweather, and anybody who rides on one should not expect public roadways to be safe for them. Further, with regard the specific incident that underlies this discussion Mr. Fairweather assumes that had the injured party been riding on slightly wider tires the incident would not have occurred. (Let me be clear: I have no knowledge either way, but I assume that Mr. Fairweather does not either of I would expect that he would have presented it here.)

So your position is, then, that the "typical road bike" is patently unsafe? And, on a separate note: do you have information to indicate that Mr. Gendler was operating a "typical road bike?" Would someone having been on a mountain bike as you espouse have avoided the accident that befell him? Edit to add: You added your "ancedtoe" about your father's bicycle license. I agree to the extent that you argue that cyclists should be expected to fulfill licensing requirements if they expect public infrastructure and law enforcement to apply to them but I have frequently understood you to argue that law enforcement and "Public" infrastructure were too broadly applied in our society. Shouldn't somebody be able to ride their bike to work outside your demand for POLICE and LICENSE authority?

Yes. Riding a typical road bike on city streets with a 700x23 tire is, I believe, unsafe. The DOT, I presume, has no position on whether or not this is appropriate--since cyclists who ride on public streets don't have to submit to any equipment safety standards. But they should. OK then. I simply disagree. I believe that someone riding a "typical road bike" on a city street should be able to expect that the street was safe for riding a bicycle - the same as I expect that the same road is safe for operating my inherently dangerous automobile.

I'm with you. The POLICE should be enforcing any laws that apply to bicycles just as they should enforce auto traffic laws. And the cyclists? Of course they should be held accountable and legally accountable for looking out for their own safety. Do you have any information that would suggest that Mr. Gendler failed to operate his bicycle in a responsible manner? Is it your position that he was operating his bike in a way that demonstrated a disrespect for traffic laws or that he was riding on what you may assume to be "unsafe" skinny tires?

Maybe I missed it, but I see nothing in the news media that indicates that Mr. Gendler was violating traffic laws. Mr. Fairweather argues here that bicyclists should obey traffic laws and purchase insurance like everybody else, and I'll have to admit that when I see some young cyclist who seems to think he's invincible and is flipping off drivers (usually it is a "he"), I tend to agree. But this may have little to do with Mr. Gendler's case. For those who think that the tort laws (this is the 1,000 year old tradition that has led to the so-called proliferation of "slip and fall" lawsuits or the "McDonalds coffee bonanza"), I would ask: what is the alternative? Would you prefer that the State of Washington had the 1" crack authority that roamed around the State, looking for cracks in paving surfaces that might prove unsave for cyclists? Those who pursue a political response to verdicts in a case like Mr. Gendler's lawsuit are in almost every case against "State intervention" and vociferously oppose regulatory "imposition" in areas such as workplace safety, handicapped access, or anything else that might actually have assured a safe urban environment for citizens like Mr Gendler to pursue the safe earning of a living, safe journey about the community as a handicapped individual or, in the case of Mr. Gendler, a safe opportunity to ride his bike on public streets. So: if large liability awards are no good, what is the alternative? The safe biking police? Or do you just think that people who ride bikes are idiots and shouldn't expect anybody to look out for their welfare? Fairweather?

The challenges involve more than simple cost. Public toilets everywhere are subject to general grossness and vandalism so that there are increasingly no public toilets available in stores, parks, or even in town. Remember the self-flushing toilets in downtown Seattle? They are gone in favor of having piles of pooh in the alleys. I believe that the porta potty at Vantage is gone because the contractor refused to service it after finding needles in there on more than one occasion.

As often occurs, there is an argument here that may be simply for argument's sake. I think the post that set this discussion in motion was Mr. Webster's statement that he had once put up some run out climbs and has decided that, for him at least, it seems a "waste" of good rock to bolt climbs that nobody wants to follow. My guess is that most posters here would agree. Should all climbs be bolted as if they were housed in a climbing gym where the insurance company says it must be "safe?" My guess is that most posters here would disagree. In the best of worlds, would we have a variety of routes at a variety of climbing areas, with some being "safer" than others? My guess is that most posters here would agree. -- Good points are made about the "value" added where one guy takes it upon himself to eliminate run-outs from a crag or from crags in general, or if another climber (might not be a guy) takes it upon themself to bolt a "statement" about boldness, but I think the bottom line is that we should strive for and maintain variety. What it comes down to is really little more than PERSONAL PREFERENCE. The trend is taking us away from ground-up and heads-up route development, for sure, and while most routes of, say, the 1970's were scarier than are those of today, I think we're doing OK as long as there remain a healthy number of the "old school" test pieces out there (even if they are developed in more recent times). We can argue 50/50. 60/40. 80/20 or 90/10. I am OK with that.

I've seen it work out OK, Off, but I agree. I think it may have something to do with the policing aspect to managing a campground. I say this based only on my comparison of personal experiences at local campgrounds. The campground "hosts" in the Icicle and at the Cle Elum Campground, to name two local examples, have turned out to be very unfriendly to campers in a way that in my experience has been completely contrary to the notion of public lands. However, at the Clear Creek campground near Darrington I found the campground hosts to be great and their running of the place as a campground was a significant improvement over the prior situation where the Forest Service had allowed homeless people to camp long term and rent-free. I don't know, but I guess that it may have to do with the fact that in Icicle Creek, with hundreds of campers every weekend of the camping season, they spend a lot of time "correcting" misbehavior and get rather jaded. At Darrington, with less than a tenth the traffic, they probably don't have nearly so many problems and I bet this allows them to take a much more human approach to the role of "host." I don't know, but my guess is that the privatization of collecting campsite fees is maybe OK but the privatization of even the "early detection" phase of policing a busy campground may be not so good. (I think that the the campground hosts at Leavenworth or Cle Elum call for the LEO's when they need active law enforcement backup.) The difference may simply be a personality thing (Darrington got good people while Leavenworth and Cle Elum got bad) but I suspect it may well have to do with the demands placed on the couple who has chosen to spend their Summer living in a motor home, collecting camp fees and making sure things are running OK.

I edited the original post to make the pictures display properly. Justin's post is not just duplicative - he simply displayed the pictures that did not display in the original posting of the original post. Damn computers.

I'm glad to see some Darrington stoke on here. The Rubber Soul pitch was a blueberry pull during all early ascents. The crack had been dug out for pro in a couple of spots but it was all vegetation and somewhere in the middle of the pitch there was a "belay tree," no more then 1" diameter and 2' high. It had rap slings on it when we dug out the crack in 1998, and we took the entire thing home, with the slings still on it. Jim Nelson hung it on the wall at Pro Mountain Sports for a couple of years. The crux on the last pitch is made much easier by clipping the crux bolt and then stepping down and left before moving up and back right to reach the next bolt. Topo: pdf file

It was a nice event yesterday. Moving, too. I don't do stuff like that but I teared up. A quote from someone I spoke with afterward: "Dallas was a chief of our tribe."