nerdom

Then again, pointing out others' follies and close calls may prevent others from taking unnecessary risks. $02.00 Albeit in a less pedantic fashion.

I just read in the most recent Climbing mag (yeah, I read it, despite it being a running biography of Dave Graham; once in a while, like last month's Gunks profile, they have something worthwhile), and in the "Passages" section read about the recent death of 29-year old Lyzz Byrnes. She fell while trailing a rope up a 5.10 crack to set up a TR for her pals. "The crack was damp and sandy, and she lost her footing at the top where the route traverses to the anchor," falling 60 feet to her death. Tragic. I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on free-soloing. Is it the ultimate expression of freedom? Irresponsibility? Hubris? The only "pure" climbing? Anyone?

Funny you should bring this up. Some friends and I passed this around the other day. I am a lifelong Red Sox fan myself, and decided that I would do my part to end the curse as well. So, on my upcoming trip to Rainier, I plan to shit in a Yankees cap and dispose of it in a blue bag. As for "lucky" gear, my buddy, after much cajoling, finally got rid of his 9-year old frayed, abused Petzl Jump harness.

Ughh! But what a fantastic solution to the dichotomy between sportos and tradniks: relegate all sport climbing to road-cut!!!

WOW! Gotta second the approbation for Will's manifesto on traditional climbing (note that I didn't use "trad," in keeping with the original intent of this thread). A well-written and persuasive argument for the pre-eminence of traditional over sport. I recently met a sport climber from Texas in the Gunks who sport climbs 5.11. Yet he was climbing a classic 5.3 trad route, and balked at my suggestion that he give Horseman (a superclassic 5.5) a try. "Maybe some day," was his reply. That being said (and I wholly agreeing with everything in Will's argument in principle), we climbers of every persuasion -- trad, sport, aid, boulderers -- need to overcome our differences in order to preserve access for us all. We cannot afford to be divided into warring factions -- it is a recipe for defeat at the hands of those who would keep us -- all of us -- off the land.

In the immortal words of Sargeant Hulka, "Lighten up, Francis." Most folks I've come across would do well to learn that brevity is a virtue. I, for one, can immediately appreciate that "manky" summarizes, rather concisely, a phrase along the lines of "that shit-ass, rusty, fucking last-century, useless motherfucking pin protecting the crux move . . ." Or is the word "crux" anathema now as well?

I, too, saw the Aurora on Baker last year (mid-August). I crawled out of the tent at about 3 a.m. to take a piss, and while stargazing (and shivering!), looked directly above and witnessed this wild, pulsating show of lights. No colors, just whitish, and pulsing like one of those old psychadelic light gigs they had on those cheesy in-home bar units popular back in the 70s! I woke my tentmates and we took it in for about half an hour before it began to fade in intensity. Never forget it.

Yeah, my bad. My geography sucks. So does this mean that I should disregard all the previous beta?

Dudes, thanks for all the info. I haven't been on it yet, but my partner got weathered off last year. I'm SO looking forward to it!

Anybody out there done Liberty Crack on Liberty Bell Mtn recently? Any info on the approach, conditions, etc.? Planning on being there mid-July. Any beta, past or present, would be helpful!