ScottP

Excerpt from a TR of climbing the Weaver's Needle in Arizona: It wasn’t long before I realized that Phil and Rik were some ways behind me. I got lost in the quite air of impending dusk. Occasional birds rustled through the brush and the area took on a distinctly forlorn atmosphere. A bend in the trail appeared through the brush. It was a dry wash crossing. On the uphill side was a garage- sized boulder. Deciding to wait for the others, I climbed up on the boulder to escape the stifling nature of the brush-lined trail. I looked out toward the Superstitions and marvelled at the beauty. Soon I heard voices. Now I’m not normally such a nasty sort, but as those guys approached, I couldn’t help but lie in wait. At the point they dropped into the low part of the bend, I jumped onto the top of the boulder and let out a blood-curdling shriek. Rik immediately froze into a rendition of Meunch’s "The Scream". To this day all I can remember is a blur and what I like to think is a puff of dust as Phil bolted out of the wash and out of site. It took several minutes before I was able to crawl off the boulder. I wiped the tears from my eyes and bushwacked around the boulder and back to the trail. Rik and Phil kept going and it was a while before I caught up with them. After a time it was pretty much agreed that wasn’t too funny. Rik and Phil mostly.

I'll second Pallisade. Macadamia nut pancakes as an appetizer.

Sorry I don't have a link... Block the Vote By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: October 15, 2004 Earlier this week former employees of Sproul & Associates (operating under the name Voters Outreach of America), a firm hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters, told a Nevada TV station that their supervisors systematically tore up Democratic registrations. The accusations are backed by physical evidence and appear credible. Officials have begun a criminal investigation into reports of similar actions by Sproul in Oregon. Republicans claim, of course, that they did nothing wrong - and that besides, Democrats do it, too. But there haven't been any comparably credible accusations against Democratic voter-registration organizations. And there is a pattern of Republican efforts to disenfranchise Democrats, by any means possible. Some of these, like the actions reported in Nevada, involve dirty tricks. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired an Idaho company to paralyze Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts by jamming the party's phone banks. But many efforts involve the abuse of power. For example, Ohio's secretary of state, a Republican, tried to use an archaic rule about paper quality to invalidate thousands of new, heavily Democratic registrations. That attempt failed. But in Wisconsin, a Republican county executive insists that this year, when everyone expects a record turnout, Milwaukee will receive fewer ballots than it got in 2000 or 2002 - a recipe for chaos at polling places serving urban, mainly Democratic voters. And Florida is the site of naked efforts to suppress Democratic votes, and the votes of blacks in particular. Florida's secretary of state recently ruled that voter registrations would be deemed incomplete if those registering failed to check a box affirming their citizenship, even if they had signed an oath saying the same thing elsewhere on the form. Many counties are, sensibly, ignoring this ruling, but it's apparent that some officials have both used this rule and other technicalities to reject applications as incomplete, and delayed notifying would-be voters of problems with their applications until it was too late. Whose applications get rejected? A Washington Post examination of rejected applications in Duval County found three times as many were from Democrats, compared with Republicans. It also found a strong tilt toward rejection of blacks' registrations. The case of Florida's felon list - used by state officials, as in 2000, to try to wrongly disenfranchise thousands of blacks - has been widely reported. Less widely reported has been overwhelming evidence that the errors were deliberate. In an article coming next week in Harper's, Greg Palast, who originally reported the story of the 2000 felon list, reveals that few of those wrongly purged from the voting rolls in 2000 are back on the voter lists. State officials have imposed Kafkaesque hurdles for voters trying to get back on the rolls. Depending on the county, those attempting to get their votes back have been required to seek clemency for crimes committed by others, or to go through quasi-judicial proceedings to prove that they are not felons with similar names. And officials appear to be doing their best to make voting difficult for those blacks who do manage to register. Florida law requires local election officials to provide polling places where voters can cast early ballots. Duval County is providing only one such location, when other counties with similar voting populations are providing multiple sites. And in Duval and other counties the early voting sites are miles away from precincts with black majorities. Next week, I'll address the question of whether the votes of Floridians with the wrong color skin will be fully counted if they are cast. Mr. Palast notes that in the 2000 election, almost 180,000 Florida votes were rejected because they were either blank or contained overvotes. Demographers from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission estimate that 54 percent of the spoiled ballots were cast by blacks. And there's strong evidence that this spoilage didn't reflect voters' incompetence: it was caused mainly by defective voting machines and may also reflect deliberate vote-tampering. The important point to realize is that these abuses aren't aberrations. They're the inevitable result of a Republican Party culture in which dirty tricks that distort the vote are rewarded, not punished. It's a culture that will persist until voters - whose will still does count, if expressed strongly enough - hold that party accountable.

"Want some wood?"

I figure my eternity will be a descent through old growth slide alder and devils club on a 35 degree slope during a perpetually moonless night wearing shorts, a tee shirt and no headlamp while carrying a 70 pound pack without a hip belt. It will be raining and 37 degrees F. I won't ever get to the car for Larry the Tool to write me a ticket, though somewhere ahead of me will be the sound of a creek I will forever try to get to to slake my wicked thirst. Behind me will be a whiny bitch partner falsely harping on me for being too slow on route as the cause of our demise.

Um, is that "know" in the biblical sense?

no no no, that's not a battery pack. that is where the puppet strings attach This all reminds me of a Robert Heinlein story..

I like the way that one tower is flippin the bird.

Or you can cut up your perlon cordelette for rappells

MMMHhhmmm...

The Newton force meter for anchors. Measurements for that 1/4 of the rope you shouldn't go beyond. Having a new rope each time you want to lead a route. Gym/bolted route prerequisites... When did over-analysis come into vogue? Do people really worry about this shit when they climb?

"Besides that, I thought you liberals were the 'tolerant' party? I guess not."

Recommendations: • Build your anchors to withstand 25 kN (5500 lb) when possible. • If you are going to use wire chocks and cams that have a typical strength of 2000 lbs, then don’t lead out more than 1/4 the belayed rope length. • Never exceed your climbing abilities on a big wall climb. Test your skills at a rock gym, on bolted routes, or under top-roped conditions. • Use only ‘new’ ropes for lead climbing. To protect against shock loading of the anchors, use a rope with a low modulus or impact force rating. • Use a dynamic belay device.

There is one off Big Honker that leads to the upper pitches of Swim. It's the only one I know of that isn't on an aid route.

Makes for nice fingerlocks though...

You weren't born yet.

Fundamental difference perhaps, but my point was those who will be on the receiving end of any protests only need to get a close view of the expanse on either side of the West Buttress (an opportunity I assume they had) to rationalize the bolting they did. By my count, there are about 130 new bolts in place on the routes between (and including) Rainman and Westward Ho since I first went up there in the mid 80's. To somebody who doesn't have the intimate relationship with the Dome that many of us do, that is a substantial impact that might seem to eclipse the few dozen (?) that were placed for the ropes stage of the race. As I said earlier, any protest should not focus on the bolts.

It seems likely (to me) that a formal complaint about a few dozen bolts from a user group that has, collectively, placed many tens, if not hundreds of bolts on the same formation will probably fall on unsympathetic ears. I think a more productive focus would be on those things that have an impact on the ecosystem as a whole; the supposed lack of human waste disposal, trampled vegetation, etc. Add the bolting abortion as a rider rather than making it the focus of the protest.

There's also some "gnarly" video footage

Or the "I'm not a US citizen." bin...

From MediaMatters.org •The daily Rasmussen Tracking Poll released September 7 showed the two candidates tied with 47 percent each among likely voters. In the Rasmussen poll released September 8, Bush had a 2-percent lead (48 percent to 46 percent), which is within the two-point margin of error. •A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted September 3-5 showed Bush with a 7-percent lead (52 percent to 45 percent) among likely voters. But this represented only a small change in support for each candidate from the poll's previous results, which eleven days earlier showed Bush with a 3-percent lead (50 percent to 47 percent). The margin of error was +/-3 percent. •An IRC International Communications poll conducted September 1-5 found that of "registered voters who are certain they will vote, 48.2 percent say they will vote for George W. Bush, 47.3 percent for John Kerry, and 4.1 percent for others or undecided." The margin of error was +/-3.5 percent. •A Zogby poll conducted August 30 through September 2 (overlapping with the TIME magazine poll) showed Bush with a 2-percent lead over Kerry (46 percent to 44 percent) among likely voters. The margin of error was +/-3.2 percent.

After a near fatal car accident that left me somewhat deformed, I came back strong as a climbing guide for kindergartners.

This year none. Total is 10. Six with partners and 4 solo. It is a nice, quick fix and a good workout. I don't quite get the "choss" designation though.

and Seems to me a dichotomy on this particular site. Anyway... I'm guessing the route in question gets a bit of traffic, and might even be a rung on the ladder of routes for aspiring alpinists. On most alpine routes one won't necessarily expect bolts to be popping up on a regular basis, so to happen upon a bolt, let alone a good bolt, when it's particularly wanted would be a bit serendipitous. I guess somewhere between dayglo pink and chameleon would be a good compromise in this ever increasingly crowded climbing world. Thread drift ahead... This was pretty much my point when I made such a big, albeit, unpopular stink about the bolt ladder on Town Crier. It is a pitch with a clean fall if any of the originals blew and to this day I believe it should have been left as it was, the bolts only to be replaced if the originals gave way. On a final note, Scott Johnson mentioned the bolt on SW rib on SEW spire being all the FA party had as an option for pro. Not unlike the chopped bolt on the fifth pitch of Outer Space, in my opinion. My apologies for the randomness...I don't post much.