Fairweather

“It was supposed to freeze overnight and didn’t," she says, “I was just, like, standing, and then all of a sudden, the snow underneath me collapsed." Ummm, yea. Ok. And you're a guide?

Is it just me? IMO this episode reflects very poorly on the climbing community. No broken bones? Hike the f^ck out. At a minimum, turn off your "live feed" while good people are trying to rescue you. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/washington-woman-records-mountainside-rescue/ar-AA1H3KjQ?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Beautiful trip; great photos!

https://www.nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/carbon-river-and-mowich.htm Based on a conversation I had with staff and the link above, it is illegal to access the park via Mowich or Carbon entrances--period. No bicycle workarounds, not via Foothill Trail, no secret back doors. No access except from Sunrise or Westside Road on foot. (I didn't mention Lake Eleanor.) Unless, of course, you are NPS staff in a white pickup truck.

Conflicted. Not a big fan of trail runners--or the NPS.

Great TR! Thanks. We did this one back in the 1990s--I think it was mid May and the Boulder Shelter was buried to the roof. I do recall some very, very steep snow below the top that was obviously covering a cliff band. This was the era of 35mm slides; I'll have to flip through the book.

True--but I assume the Bellingham Herald still has an editor who reviews articles before publication?

🤣🤣🤣🤣 Oh my, if this is the state of local journalism, well, we're in worse shape than I feared. Please please please tell me this was NOT a WWU grad. Kids who can't write good. I scrolled down to her bio. Hard to fathom how writing like this gets past the committee.

Oh, duh! You meant THE mountain!🤣

Haha. Yes, very foreshortened. I think the only place to see the "whole" mountain is from Beljica above Lake Christine. Not sure you can get there anymore as the road is closed? From inside the park, there are some views from below Round Pass--but the mountain is basically just a long cliff/ridge. A traverse from Lake Allen to Lake George would be VERY interesting! These are the best I can do from yesterday:

Trip: Mount Wow - Via Lake Allen Trip Date: 06/02/2025 Trip Report: Climbed Mount Wow with Dwayner today. Very enjoyable hike to Lake Allen up the very steep boot path, then mostly snow to the short ledge. Bare there and above. Flowers are starting to show everywhere the snow isn't hanging around. About 4000' gain/loss in only about 6 1/2 miles round trip. Steep. Gear Notes: Mountain boots still helpful. Ice axe too. Approach Notes: It's a boot path to the lake.

Detached much?

It's funny, I hiked the Grand Canyon earlier this month. NPS is building a GIANT pump house along the Colorado River near Phantom Ranch and installing a 10" pipe all the way up to the south rim along the Bright Angel Trail. Also a large pump station at Havasupi Gardens humming away in an otherwise pristine setting. NPS is getting ridiculous--compare the wilderness zealots at NOCA with the industrial scale recreation at Grand Canyon with the political grandstanding at Yosemite. Makes no sense. Pretty clear there has been no definable mission at Interior for a long, long time.

Awwww Porter, c'mon. Just when we were starting to have a good dialogue, you pout & get all bitchy. A common problem with progressives--and products of Olympia Public Schools. Truth is, I'm not "religious" at all. But I do believe in God. And I will take a Representative Republic over a theocracy or your mob democracy any day of the century. I just think America works best when it adheres to its traditional values. It's difficult for you, I get it.

100% agree. And yet the Washington State Senate Majority Leader, Jamie Pedersen, has lectured parents again and again about their limited roles if their kids are 13 or older. Ditto, Chris Reykdal, State Superintendent of Public Schools. Democrats just removed key parental notification rights regarding gender reassignment, SB 5181. Signed by Governor Cuck Ferguson. Maybe it's time to let public schools die off.

What you describe is nihilism. And according to Neitzsche, if God is dead then all bets are off. We can do whatever we want without consequence. He died in 1900 and, as he predicted, 20th century faith in government resulted in the biggest bloodbaths in human history. When government supplants God, nothing good happens. This explains why leftist, progressive and liberal governments tolerate, or even lead, attacks on believers and traditional family. Because these two institutions are its only real competitors. Truth is, atheists don't bother me--but far too many of them behave like anti-theists. And their proselytizing sounds a lot like the words they claim to despise.

No to both questions. The myth of separation comes from the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. If there is no God, then to whom do we answer? The state?

Whose God? Ours. The One proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and most State Constitutions--including Washington State's. Kids, we agree. I don't even think parents should have the right to alter their children--much less their public school teachers. Adults? Like you, I don;t really care--until they start stealing my granddaughter's trophy or scholarship and make absurd demands that I "properly" gender them. I choose to not participate in a fantasy. Sorry, O'Brien, but two plus two does not equal five. Men cannot become women. They don;t menstruate. They can't have children. Re Yosemite NP, well, what's bizarre is hanging a giant banner proclaiming that "Trans is Natural." But my complaint is entrenched government meting out different responses to different interests. The first amendment doesn't include defacing national parks--or impersonating a federal LEO.

That's easy--when parents and teachers start mutilating God's beautiful children. Or when a man demands I call him a woman under threat of career--or even law. That's when.

Trans Is Natural! Well, except for all those hormone injections and scalpels and stuff. It's a mixed up world, a shook up world...

Washington State's biennial budget twelve years ago was $18.5Bn. Today's is $76Bn. A state income tax won't solve wilderness access problems. And an additional sales tax would get funneled straight to politically-connected orgs just like Inslee's "Climate Commitment" carbon auction fraud.

Great topic. I wrote a master's thesis on wilderness access and your work reminds me of that long-ago project. You mostly avoid the effect wilderness/green orgs have had in limiting access vis-a-vis litigation and road closures. Back in the day NCCC and ALPS--and even the WTA were advocating for very limited/restricted access to virtually all wild areas and a strict interpretation of WA1964. Ditto the Pilchuck Audubon Society--and even some pretty radical NPS Superintendents like Bill Briggle. Other than theorizing that wilderness provided a sort of escape valve for capitalism, I didn't map out the economics as you have. I like what you've done!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/activists-unfurl-trans-pride-flag-on-iconic-yosemite-cliff-hate-is-unnatural/ar-AA1FdKxT?ocid=BingNewsSerp Again, imagine a MAGA banner hanging from NA Wall and what the NPS response would be. And again, this is an NPS management problem. Fire everyone at Yosemite; rehire and reassign the handful who may not be ok with this.

https://youtu.be/GKdl-GCsNJ0?si=K8eSuFZnqx3Ygs2u

Trip: Grand Canyon Rim to Rim - Down South Kibab, Up Tonto and Bright Angel Trip Date: 05/07/2025 Trip Report: Finally saw the Grand Canyon. Intended to do a South Rim to North Rim--but the highway up north was still closed. Day trip. Gear Notes: High top Merrels Approach Notes: Nice trails blasted out of cliff bands