mattp

Ray, I understand the sentiment but I have taken that course twice and I did not find it to be inordinately full of BS. It is simply a classroom first aid course with a weekend outing at the end. You don't have to be a Mountaineer to take the course, there are no hoops to jump, the price was right, and I did actually learn something.

The Mountaineers' MOFA would not be a bad choice.

You didn't ask me, but I'll point out that Lewis Peak involves a 3300 foot elevation gain. I would not take a girlfriend there if she was not fairly hardcore or if I was hoping for a low-stress day in the splendor's of nature.

Alpinelite and NWOG publish articles and stories without allowing direct comment. Lots of climbing sites all over the web do it. While those sites allow a cleaner browing experience, I like the interaction we have here. Assuming we can get folks to spray in the spray section and stay on topic in thie route reports forums, couldn't we have the best of both worlds?

Now who is showing that they are a moron on this issue? Everybody knows that Seattle area tax revenues in fact pay for services throughout the state and NOT the other way around. If we kept all taxes paid from the Seattle area in the Seattle area, the rest of the state would have much less budget for roadway maintenance and counties like Ferry County would have nothing.

Timmy- NWOG and Alpinelite post articles where responsive comments cannot be entered, and there are climbing websites all over the place that do this. It certainly allows a cleaner browsing experience, but I think the cool thing about cc.com is the relatively unrestricted ability to interact. If we can get a greater handle on the spray in the route reports forum, do you still think there would need to be a "no replies" area?

I would simply put it in the Shasta forum even if that is geographically correct. Timmy: I'd like to hear more about your reasoning in thinking that there should be a forum where no responses are allowed to be posted. There are lots of sites around, including Alpinelite and NWOG, where this is a regular practice but I think what distinguishes cc.com is the lively discussion. If we can reduce the level of spray in the Route Reports forum, would that be better? After unleashing a monster, are you going anti-spray?

It looks as if everyone should head to Franklin Falls this weekend: TODAY...RAIN OR SNOW EARLY TAPERING OFF TO SCATTERED SHOWERS. SNOW LEVEL 4000 FEET NORTH PART AND NEAR THE CREST...TO 5500 FEET SOUTH. 2 TO 4 INCHES OF NEW SNOW THIS MORNING. AFTERNOON PASS TEMPERATURES IN THE 30S. WIND IN THE PASSES VARIABLE 5 TO 15 MPH. TONIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH SCATTERED SHOWERS...THEN RAIN AND SNOW DEVELOPING AROUND MIDNIGHT. SNOW LEVEL 4000 FEET NORTH TO 5500 FEET SOUTH. WIND IN THE PASSES VARIABLE 5 TO 15 MPH. SATURDAY...CLOUDY WITH A RAIN AND SNOW TAPERING OFF IN THE MORNING. AN INCREASING CHANCE OF RAIN AND SNOW AGAIN LATE IN THE AFTERNOON. SNOW LEVEL RISING TO 6000 FEET. AFTERNOON PASS TEMPERATURES 35 TO 40. WIND IN THE PASSES EAST 5 TO 15 MPH. SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY...RAIN OR SNOW. SNOW LEVEL RISING TO 8000 FEET SATURDAY NIGHT THEN FALLING TO 5000 FEET SUNDAY. AFTERNOON PASS TEMPERATURES 35 TO 40.

If the weather is halflway settled, I'd take JJA's recommendation.

NbyNW- It looks as if you are trying to make the point that the only time it is safe to belay withoiut an anchor is when you are able to sit well away from the top of the pitch, behind a large object. While I commend your sense of responsibility here, in my view that is not the case. There are plenty of times I may find it safe to sit right at the top of what might be termed "the pitch" (or even before the top of the pitch if I have run out of rope or found rope drag to be too much), and a more pertinent question would be not how far I am from the top of the pitch but whether I can position myself so my center of balance and the belay pull will be oriented behind the hedge or the boulder or whatever. Also, you ignore the most common situation where there are no anchors - snow climbing. Most of the time it is very easy to dig or kick a hole and sit in it in such a way that I could belay Fat Albert just fine. For sport climbing or crag climbing, your rule of thumb is not bad (though I ignore it sometimes). However, I don't mean to be snide, but I gotta say that if you insist on black and white answers (don't do it unless you can get well away from the top of the pitch), you may live well and prosper but you won't be very good at mountain climbing.

Nice one, Dwayner! Keep writing like that and you can be in the "in crowd!" It might be time for a Tacoma event one of these days. Allison - Of course most of this is argument is just for argument's sake. Half of the time, that's why you post. Ray - That was the Blue Star. The Blue Moon is in U. Dist, and by your standards might be too full of dirty hippies (at least on Grateful Dead night) but it is an OK place, though crowed and with small tables. The strip mall in Totem Lake? I remember some place in Redmond...

But Erik- Wouldn't it be sweet if the taxpayers built a monorail line to Der Leavenworth, with a stop at Index? Visualize progress.

I thought we were talking about the New Orleans for next week. And there was some talk of an Eastside event in the not too distant future....

Those look like just the thing for a multi-directional anchor.

Well said, Spankerman. The plain fact is that most of those who complain about the smokey venues almost never show up at pub club. I agree with the "whiners" that it was too smokey at Teddy's two weeks ago, though (I guess that makes me one of them), and I'd be happy to go to a "suck-ass" bar once a month or whatever. I will also point out that there was almost no smoke at all in that non-smoking part of the Lockspot this week and I bet that, had she been there, even Minx would have been able to wake up in the morning without taking sudafed . This is kind of like the Eastsiders who argue that we owe them a date in Issaquah or Redmond but when we go there hardly anybody shows up or they all go home by 10:00. I'll gladly drive over there once in a while, and it may be overdue, but I wouldn't drive there every other week.

I'm not worried about the black suburbans, though indeed I think one could make a case for the idea that 1984 is here, but I hate logging in to a site, knowing that all information I give them will be used to send me targetted marketting that my spam filter may not intercept.

Aye aye, sir.

Its OK, Trask. Somebody should tell me to shut up and go back to work, too.

Fleb- Splitting a thread might be a good solution but (1) I don't know how to do it, and (2) we shouldn't have to. I might see if I Jon can help me try it with that Chair Peak thread, though.

Fleb- I understand why you or Ray or anybody else might not want to be moderated on. Even though it is obviously personal, try not to take it personally. What I saw in that thread appeared to me as if there was some effort to push the margins a little bit, and I don't remember your post in particular but the general point is lets try to keep spray in the route reports forum to a minimum and, as the sprayer's say all the time: it's the internet and it is really no big deal. If I or Ade or anybody else are not doing a good job, you can complain about it here or send PM's to Jon or whatever, but try not to get too upset. Just because you may be proud of your sarcastic remark of offended that it was removed doesn't seem to me to be grounds for advocating a battle with the management of the site.

So, when faced with the drug-crazed axe wielder, is it more honorable to beg for mercy or to grovel?

If you mean that groveling includes the large measure of submission and perhaps the disiplay of fear, I agree they are not the same. Do you truly think it is always dishonorable to display submission and fear? What would Buffy do?

If it were allowed, I might use a waist belay for a smaller partner or a "slab" route. Maybe that's why they have rules, to prevent idiots like me from getting somebody hurt!

I disagree with the assertion that there is no honor in groveling. Groveling can be honorable if to do otherwise is futile and one believes that, by groveling, they can serve the greater good. I bet Chepe is pretty good at it when Ray's got a dog biscuit in one hand and a whip in the other!

Dru- You may be right that I only saw the word "buttnuget" in Cavey's autosig and this may have led me to misinterpreted the exchange. If so, Cavey should consider an autosig that isn't intentionally obnoxious. But what I saw was six or eight posts, I believe all but one contained some kind of rhetorical put-down or at least the assertion that another poster didn't know what the hell they were talking about, and don't think Cavey's autosig was the only graffic nastygram. I concluded that this banter was going to continue and that it was not relevant to a discussion of Big Four or Colonial and could just as easily have been undertaken in another thread, perhaps in the Spray forum. Jon and Tim have been requesting that the route reports threads not fill up with garbage since just about the beginning of this board, and I will try to see if I can help that along in the forums that I moderate. The "rules" have not changed and I really don't think there is much that is unclear. The only difference is that Jon has decided to ask that people actually follow them. In the forums that I moderate I will try to my best to do so fairly.