mattp

quote: Originally posted by Dave Schuldt: let's stop the bullshit How can I disagree?

The basin at treeline that you pass through before climbing that last slope to the col is also not a bad place to camp. Again, this will be dry after mid-season.

Dan - I'd like to meet you, too. I'm not sure about shuttling a dozen or more pub clubbers to your house after we've been drinking beer, however. Is that what you are suggesting?

The only place where you would likely want to haul camping equipment to a base from which you could complete several climbs would probably be the basin on the west side of the Liberty Bell group, but this is only an hour and a half from the trailhead and it is a fragile and heavily travelled area that doesn't really need the impact. If you are looking for alpine rock routes, stay in one of many campgrounds nearby (Klipchuck would be a good choice) and check out Burgundy Spire, Big Kangaroo, and Black Peak. These and plenty of others in the area make worthy objectives, all of which can be climbed in a day from the road. If the weather turns sour, there are sport crags and Goat Wall (a moderately large wall with a couple of sport lines on it) in the Methow Valley, close to Washington Pass but drier.

ChucK- Your post suggests you may not have been there before (?). Maybe we better "recon" it. If you proposed it for May 21 we'd have plenty of time to check it out beforehand. I mean, gosh, you wouldn't want to recommend a place that was lame, would you?

Somebody named Beckey e-mailed me and asked "Why can't they just pick a location and stick with it?" He continued with something like "Any event planner knows that you have to select something in advance if you want a good turn out..."

I worked for Outward Bound for several years and we did not carry or allow our students to carry any toilet paper because they would inevitably end up strewing it all over the woods if they had it. You should have seen them when we took away their stash on day one! After three weeks of wiping their butt with leaves, moss, pine cones (sweep only with the grain), sticks (peel the bark off first, rocks (river rocks are OK) and snow, most became comfortable with what they could find in the woods but they ran for the two ply as soon as they had a chance.

Clyde- I understand how somebody might feel intimidated. I've been there: I learned to climb on a 25 foot sandstone cliff in Michigan where everything was exclusively top-roped and I went pretty much directly from there to the Tetons where I had to lead and there was mountain weather to worry about. Though I had been backpacking for many years and I had some prior experience with an ice axe, multipitch climbs were entirely new. I did some routes with my brother who had learned to climb in a college outing club, but initially I learned the most by reading "The Freedom of the Hills" and then going out with friends who were no more knowledgeable than I was and trying not to get killed. My comments here were not intended to suggest that one who is intimidated is not worthy but were intended to suggest that one need not let that intimidation prevent them from going out and trying new things. -Matt

You will need someone in your party who has some alpine experience if you are going to safely climb Mount Rainier without a guide, but if you are going to climb the Emmons or Dissapointment Cleaver they need not be technically proficient so much as they need to have had experience with party leadership, mountain weather, and routefinding (yes, even on these "dog routes" you should be able to find your way around in the event of a snow storm or whiteout). Everybody in your party should know how to self arrest, and should have practiced it with a pack on. It would be a big plus if one or two of you knew about crevasse rescue, but if you have a party of, say, five or six climbers and you read a chapter in Mountaineering the Freedom of the Hills and do what it says about glacier travel, you should be able to get somebody out of a crevasse without any great difficulty. A rockclimbing background will be of little or no benefit on either of these routes.

ChucK, you might be right about the summit of Sahale -- it is exposed and can be a little intimidating, but I would have no hesitation taking a complete novice up there. I believe I could get just about anybody up and down it without scaring them too badly, and once they have done this a newbie will likely have a strong sense that they climbed a real mountain. In my opinion, crevasses are a PLUS for an introductory climb just because they are something exciting which somebody from Chicago probably hasn't seen before. As long as the leader knows what they are doing and the party is four or larger so they can easily pull someone out of a crevasse, I would go out of my way to select a route with a crevassed glacier. We're not talking the Khumbu ice fall here, but something scenic. I would think Mount Ruth would be another excellent choice because it has little talus, it is not a huge effort, and it is not technical but it is very scenic.

If you're going to be in Oregon, you might try Collier Glacier route on the Middle Sister. In Washington, Ditto on Baker and Sahale. For an introductory climb, these offer more scenery compared to effort than, say Rainier or even Adams.

Raustin, I'm sorry if you took offense at my remark. I sincerely meant it, though, and did not intend any insult: if the guy consistently climbs 5.11, he should have no trouble with the south face if Ingalls. Rather than being insulted, he might feel complimented and confident in anticipating this venture in the alpine realm.

Good luck with this, Sara. If you are good at this, Alpine K may be out of a job. I would second the Ballard Bar and Grill, except that I might be accused of selfishly wanting to have pub club in my own neighborhood. Maybe we should have it in Columbia City, where no regular posters live anywhere near.

There was a detailed discussion of alternative routes over this col sometime last summer -- run a search and you will probably find it. I have been over the col without rappelling at all -- in September when, if anything, rapelling would be expected to be more necessary than at other times o the year -- though there was some sketchy down-climbing.

Lambone and Jay may be a little over-zealous in pointing out your hypocrisy, Pope (though I agree with them in part), but isn't it also kind of obnoxious to deliberately post false beta on a board such as this? Is it really all that funny if some poor sucker reads your "beta" and misses the opportunity to undertake their dream climb of Outer Space on their one and only day off all summer? Dudes: let's find some other way to amuse ourselves besides flinging insults back and forth, stirring up hostility, and spreading misinformation.

If you are a "consistent" 5.11 climber, you can climb up and down this route, unroped, with both hands tied behind your back. Or is this just a troll?

I'm told that the guy working it rates it at 5.12b. [ 05-08-2002, 06:08 PM: Message edited by: mattp ]

Mike is right - you'll have to make your own assessment when you are there. One thing to keep in mind is that, particularly at this time of the year, the degree of avalanche hazard changes quickly. What is safe in the morning, when frozen, may produce wet snow avalanches within a couple of hours of receiving sunshine. Freshly blown snow, unsafe after a storm, will settle considerably after as little as 24 hours. Etc. Even today's report may not apply tomorrow.

100% speculation here, but I would guess that right now (today) you could probably walk on top of a firm surface with just a little fresh on top. However, if it should turn warm, or rain, or both, the snow will soften up to the point that within a day or two you could be postholing big time.

The second point I tried to make was that I believe anti-tax or anti-government arguments are not likely to win anyone over to an anti-fee-demo position. I think our arguments should focus on policy issues like exactly how the Forest Service should provide public access rather than Constitutional arguments like double taxation or taxation without representation. True or not, the latter arguments are just going to cause many people to close their ears altogether -- particularly government officials.

quote: Originally posted by MysticNacho: I think I'm in line with mattp and greg on this one. ... Fee-demo needs revision, not elimination. Actually, I am opposed to fee demo altogether. Public lands should be managed for public benefit, and in my view the preservation of wild places and the provision of recreational access are two important objectives that should be funded by Congress. The point I was trying to make was that if there was only one, small, easily paid fee to use public lands, I probably wouldn't care all that much but it would still be wrong.

quote: Originally posted by freeclimb9: But it's public land for which you already pay taxes. True enough, but we pay taxes to support lots of services for which we also pay fees -- consider urban transit systems, postal service, state colleges, etc. To me, this is not the best argument. I believe that public lands should be public, and ideally this would mean they'd be free, but if there were one or two fees, easily paid, and cheap, I probably wouldn't bother to raise much objection. The problem is, every time we turn around there are more fees, they are not easily paid, they add up to a lot of money, and I am afraid that the whole thing is on a one-way ratchet. The Forest Service has been bad enough, but I don't want to see "Thousand Trails" running the Wenatchee National Forest.

Personally, I wouldn't mind paying to play. If it were easy to pay for parking, and if it were cheap enough, I wouldn't mind. But to me that is not the point -- what I fear is that they really are trying to commercialize the whole thing and this is only one of many steps down that slippery slope. When a Thousand Trails employee rousts me out of the sleeping bag in the morning, asking for the campground fee, I wonder who the hell is this guy? He doesn't belong there. And when two nights in the wildneress cost $70.00, when trail parking and wilderness permits are added up, that is just WAY too much. I don't generally believe in conspiracy theories, but it is starting to look pretty bad for "public lands."

My mistake. When I wrote "OMB," I was referring to a GAO report, a "summary" of which was linked on this site last Spring some time. It is probably the same one as referred to in the letter posted on the Maria Cantwell thread. It seemed to me that among other things, the report suggested that the fees generated by the fee demo program do in fact replace other funds, and I believe it also sharply criticized USFS mispresentations about the program.

I agree that the letter is probably standard BS letter that she sends back to everyone," but at least whoever wrote it seems to pretty much know what the issues are.