mattp

If your buddy is worried about being labeled an American, DP is right he can masquerade as Canadian. Personally, I have never found that I was mistreated for my citizenship anywhere in the world: outside of the U.S., people seem much more able to distinguish between someone's government and the individual. (You probably won't even get any harassment even if you had a small American flag or a patch that said "NewYork" on your backpack in Paris, but can you imagine traveling around this country with a turban on your head or something that identifies you as an Iranian?) If your buddy makes a spectacle or nuisance of himself somewhere, he is likely to be chastized for being an obnoxious American. If not, I doubt he'll have much trouble with it.

I agree with David Parker that travelling in a rental car is a better way to go, but backpacking/hostelling can be fun too. He'll meet lots of other people doing the same thing and he will find out from them that there is a really cool beach somewhere or that the good smoke is available at such and such a coffee house or whatever. RBW is right - most people travelling this way quickly find out that they have brought too much luggage and they start leaving things behind as quickly as they can. RBW is also right that using a phrase-book will help your buddy meet and get help from locals, whether it is at the bakery, the train station or in a hotel. A cultural guide will also help inform him that, in Greece, waving good-bye the way we do actually means something quite different - and it is insulting - or that French people will not like it if he shouts accross a store to his buddy that he forgot to get the cheese whiz. As to hotels, he may find that a cheap hotel that caters to backpack travellers will cost little or no more than a hostel - and they usually don't have stupid rules about bedtime and alcohol and stuff like that.

Pope- You know full well the difference: Sphinx and his equals have not dominated and destroyed every single thread that ever had anything even tangentially to do with the bolting issue for three years. You also know that at least one of "Sphinx equals" has been shut down recently. To be sure, there are a lot of double standards and contradictions about how this board is operated -- but that is not one of them. And, by the way, I think you are right that it was the former. Dwayner was banned for spraying "his" obnoxious banter - not for spraying somebody else's. Also, by the way, I think you completely miss the boat in one small bit of your argument here: in carrying on like an idiot, Dwayner did not intellectually intimidate anybody. To do so, he would have had to discuss real issues in much more of an honest and clearly thought-out manner.

If he's into cities, he'll want to spend time in Paris and Amsterdam. If you want to see art and night life and stuff like that, these are MUST DO. If he wants to see countryside, the south of France is probably the most pleasant place I have ever traveled and if he is a rock climber, tell him to head for the Verdon Gorge: it is ABSOLUTELY MUST DO and he'll be able to pick up a partner within a couple hours of arrival there. And don't forget about Eurodisney. Is he going to be "backpacking" or renting a car or what?

I don't think that was my post. Thanks for the credit, though.

Lets hope he's right. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if the evil media found it more profitable to stress stories about bombings and assassinations than to discuss progress toward a new sewer system or PTA meetings and improvements to the school system. Don't we see the same kind of coverage here in Seattle?

Pope has no interest in logic or even in presenting his case. Here, as in the bolting threads, he seeks only to grandstand and cause trouble. Pope knows full well that Dwayner was not banned for his position on the issue but that he was banned for refusing to stop spraying his obnoxious banter -- and that he refused to give it a rest for even one day. Pope proclaims that we are entering the Dark Ages because he fears that he may not be allowed to carry on like a clown-bully in the bolting threads. Rather than the Dark Ages, I'd say we may enter the Renaissance if all of the sudden we might be able to look at things in perspective instead of resorting to demagoguery. Who knows, if he elects to participate in some actual discussion of the issue instead of simply recycling the same two or three clever insults for three years, Pope might even find that he can express himself in an artful manner.

Trask, you're not going to get all thoughtful on us and suggest that pointless posts on cc.com are a waste of time, are you???

WTO or MardisGras or the danger of wandering around in the Cenrtral District on Saturday night would be examples of why I should't leave my door unlocked at night or leave my car running in front of the store? I don't think so.

Yes, veggie, I am sure he CAN speak for himself and he probably will. But the notion that Seattle is not such a safe place was brought up in support for his argument that he needs a gun to protect himself in this rough and dirty city of ours. We've talked about the home invasion thing before, and probably will argue about it some more, but we've also been talking about why someone might need to carry their gun around outside of their home. I'd make a similar argument about walking around in the Central District though it is not quite so clear, perhaps, that the gun might not be useful for protection in that situation as when we talk about WTO or MardisGras. But if you went to one of those dangerous corners at midnight on a saturday and pulled out a gun after being approached or accosted by some hoodlum, I bet your chances of survival just dropped considerably.

In a related vein, I'd point out that I think gregw is not thinking clearly if he was suggesting that the guy who was killed during the Mardis Gras "riot" would have been well-advised to protect himself with a gun. I would guess that, had he pulled out a gun to protect himself, he might well have been shot by the police. The same fate might have befallen any shopkeeper who stood in front of his storefront and started firing on vandals during WTO (I can't think of any other defensive use that one might have made of their handgun during WTO, unless perhaps it would have been firing back at the police after being pelted with rubber bullets or struck with a billyclub, so I guess this is what he was thinking of). Speculation and reference to various remote scenarios may well be useful in a discussion like this one but I'm not sure these "examples" are proving their intended points.

I think you folks may be overestimating the danger of the Central District. Yes, if you walk past one or two corners in the area you may be asking for trouble, but the prior point about how this is Seattle we are talking about still applies. If you want to flirt with danger, try your midnight walk in certain parts of Detroit.

The view of Mount Shuksan from the ski area tarns is probably one of the most famous mountain images around and perhaps more widely used for commercial purposes than Mount Rainier. When it is not identified as Mount Shuksan, but for example when I have seen it on gas station calendars, sugar packets, and even in the backgroud of a sunday comic, this view of Mount Shuksan is more often than not pictured backwards. I even have a postcard that is printed backwards. I am guessing there is some graphic arts or marketing principal that favors having the major lines in an image slanting upwars from left to right.

Carolyn- Sorry to hear that. Back pain sucks! Is there an acupuncture school nearby? Even a beginning acupuncture student can often provide great (temporary) releaf from acute back problems - and that may allow things to settle down quite a bit.

Only if it started engaging in vicious personal attack -- but then again, I guess that is what drug-crazed axe weilders do, eh?

Just for these debates, somebody ought to register the avatar: drug crazed axe weilder!

Yes it did.

The Sun Hogs! Don't forget your golf club.

It has been several years since I've been there, Iain, but the next creek to the north used to provide easier access than the Pole Creek trailhead and I don't think it was quite so prone to the snow blockage that you report. There was kind of sort of something like a trail, mostly on the north side of the creek.

Beck, your post was harmless enough, but it was complete dribble. You and I talked about it last night and admitted that this was probably true, because you were drunk at the time that you wrote it. Simply re-write your brilliant observation and re-post it in a thread where it may have some relation to the topic.

The roads in from Sisters usually open early, and you can often (maybe usually) ski from Pole Creek or the next one to the north before Memorial Day. It is not a difficult ski run from just below the summit pinnacle into the bowl where Early Morning Couloir is. The Colier and Hayden Glaciers are way moderate.

Off, you raise a good question. Yes, his books are full of errors, and we defenders of Fred will point out that so are Nelson's guides and Smoots are even worse -- but one thing that distinguishes Fred, in my mind, is that I think he tries very hard to incorporate feedback from his readers. It is actually pretty cool that you could send him an Email about Fortress and he'd try to put it in there. Whatever you think of him, though, it is clear that someobody else is going to be taking over the reigns at some point. I'd nominate Lowell Skoog.

No kidding. Nice pic.

You got me there.

No, I did not say that and you know I did not say or even imply that. My thread was not about "are Pope and Dwayner mature." However, I'd have to point out that you have created here a thread that is all about the question "Is Dru mature?"