Beck

lummox, you're not suppossed to use keychain 'biners, dude!!! trango superfly, 31g 8kn open gate strength new wild country helium, keylock wiregate at 33g these are the new lightweights coming around...

and Beckey used to use old neckties, i read recently, as slings- i bet they were as light as the 8mm supper skinny runners out there!

"a walk in the woods" was pretty funny, indeed... bryson's tales of amateur thru hiking on the apalatian trail is a rib tickler. in "High Adventure" there are pictures of people, they're all climbing in wool or cotton, without a belay device in sight! They're all doing the dulfsitz manuever and wearing triconis! there's even a picture of young louis whittaker- man, did bob and ira have some hottie wives! Norma and patrica, i salute you for putting up with some real dirtbags!

got to add to the props, bros... Jon and Tim, you guys ROCK the Northwest and beyond with the brillance and scope of your site! take the yahoo to court or else ask him to run the nonorganized anti- ropeup protest group! they need a bit more hate and vehemence... but seriously, without CC.com there would be no pub clubs. there would be no ropeups i would have never met teddy ruxpin or mary lou your guys' vision three years ago has served the climbing community much further than any single move in the mountains will make you a better climber- you guys are climbing 5.18 on the accomplishment scale, that's for sure!!!!!

new 'biners on the horizon, a 31g ! plus a 33 gram keynose wiregate...coming soon to a climbing shop near you....

wouldn't it be fitting and appropiate if the US started using the euro? and stop the nonsense that the US greenback is "liberty's currency" around the world....seems like we are doing CUBA, and the black markets of the world, a disservice by their use of american dollars in black market economies... why they would continue next year, with the dollar being backed by a half a trillion in deficit spending, is beyond me...

that sounds pretty shitty, dru! why not step up to breton, or lateral over to tristan tzara? (but i do like jarry!) I've just read, "it's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be," "the paradox box" shambala press "the writers legal guide" and reread Roald Dahls' "kiss Kiss" or, outdoor books? "on ice and snow and rock" by gaston rebauffat and "high adventure" by bob and ira spring....great pictures!

real info and stats at fishproducts.com " techweenie " pages I don't have the url address...

Haglofs (or Bergans, but I think it's Haglofs) of Norway supplies Norwegian troops with polar gear made out of cotton blended soft shells material...it's one of the most breathable in that climate. I was just commenting on the three puffies and the multiple soft shell pants, packs, etc... I might get a new puffie a decade, after a severe thrash fest wastes the last one... my klettersack, I think its a decade old and it works as well as a new incantation. I have been upgrading into much more sophisticated soft shells as of late however... true about the old farts being a tough breed, has anyone read the story of the Endurance? and the two years stranded in the Antartic Ocean...those bastards were tough indeed!

why are you carrying all that stuff?

there's a Robert Service poem out there about the curse of the mountaineer and dirtbag called "the men that don't fit in"

Chiwawa from the SE is easier and much shorter, it's more fun early season than late, the more snow the better from that approach... going in from the S, there is good camping at a low meadow, then 600vert higher at a camp with KILLER bouldering problems( Ohmigosh, it's over the top!) and then just a couple vert short of the Fortress/Chiwawa saddle, with good water, if you ascend direct to saddle from High camp, you run right across them... Hmm, maybe I go there tommorrow and come back tuesday... anyone want to go?

...you don't want to eat ramen the rest of your life, its deep fried! ...switch up to rice noodle, still almost as cheap, for dirtbagger's pocketbook... and dirtbagger's anonymous, well, it meets just about everywhere!

Muffy, ask yourself this- "do I like to sleep in the dirt?" "do I like it?"

another thread has climbers going on and on about marriage and comittment, etc... I've found dirtbaggin a perfect excuse for stayin single!!! no woman i've yet run into REALLY wants a dirtbag climber, as soon as they find out you want to spend your honeymoon doing a two month traverse of the Greenland icecap, they're outta there! Unless they are of a dirtbag breed themselves....

anyone interested in going into the Dakobeds via the honeycomb anytime in the next couple of weeks, pm me.

me and a buddy were stranded at a Big Boy for over 36 hours in a blizzard for a ride to make it thru the storm after we did a big winter trip- we drank so much coffee, our kidneys hurt.

you guys dont bring helium balloons on ten foot strings to tie to the top of your wands? I thought that's what they taught me back when I was a mountie! ...and I wouldn't be picking up any of these "party " baloons unless you know for sure they're the generally inflatable round ones....

having lots more free time suddenly, so I must go climbing. Does anyone want to go low end Leavenworth, messing around at pearly gates, or givler's maybe... or Bathtub dome? Just got to ease back into things after a broken thumb this spring and two succesive rib injuries, but I feel pretty good..camp and hang, drink beer, watch fire burn at night

You can get cheap azz aluminum poles from a joint like Campmor- I bought a spare for less than ten bucks- And if you need to borrow one, I've got two, but you can't take it sea kayaking, thats what kills aluminum. I've got two to set up a betamid as a base camp in the winter, dug in like a circus tent- no annoying center pillar, just a little center bench, so I can't sell you one. Oh, Dave, just looking in my gear room, I've still got the cheap replacement one from campmor I'll sell you for five bucks- it not the most compact thing, but it works!

...just posting some valuable info, and a plaquette, if rigged correctly, lets you belay a leader, i don't think you guys really have thought that one out! and it lowers as smooth as you want.... no additional changeover necessary... the B-52 is a plaquette type device, but more shapely...and works on the same principle...

plaquette... lowers off easy...

..it lowers off easy..very easy..

...if you know what a plaquette is, read no further. I just bought a "GiGi", not a "GriGri", it's an old school plaquette device, ten bucks retail. it autoblock on belay, AND allows modulated lowering and release without changing the setup of the gigi. Also, a rock solid rope ascender in autoblock mode, and a good rapeller for a lot of ropes depending on how many biners you make the brake out of. Also allows easy use of ropes of different diameters simultaneously, and lets you selectively lower regardless... there's a few versions out there. the one i got is nice and simple. just ten bucks. retail. Buy one , you'll like it.

there is something indescribable out there in the mountains we all reach for with or hearts, regardless of the more rational and desirous reasons to be out there- the camaraderie, the silence, the natural experience, the pleasure of pounding pins or sending your free climbing ability higher. I grew up in a town than had granite and sandstone cliffs all over town, including a very impressive city park that had about two miles of sea cliff 40-80 feet tall of clean granite. I could, quite literally, and did, climb on the way home from school. There was also six months of winter, so I grew up skiing to school and out the back door into some pretty impressive terrain. I fell of my first cliff, thirty feet, when I was twelve or so. I learned how to place pro soon afterwards, and began to climb with buddies in swami belts and figure 8 leg loops back in 1982. Hitchiked to the american west at age 16. Got a job in the Ruby mountains of Nevada running a gin joint and slot house at 17. Ski and climbing bum thru college, many spring breaks became extended vacations. Now, I don't climb nearly as much as I used to. But I climb. Because I have to. I can't thing of anything more enjoyable than a good grovel and sleeping in the dirt, eating bugs and drinking glacial milk.