Uncle_Tricky

This fall/winter I am experimenting with the low-tech "Rocky trains in Siberia to meet Ivan Drago and avenge Apollo Creed's fatal beating" workout regimen. 1) Woodwork: cut trees, buck logs, haul logs, cut to 16 inch lengths, split logs, stack logs. Split 3+ cords of ponderosa and lodgepole today and still have both feet. Success. 2) Dirtwork: Hand dug/backfilled ditch for phone/propane lines--18 inch trench for 150 feet. Also hand backfillilng Infinite Ditch of Woe. Ditch of Woe is gravity flow water line that was dug by backhoe down a hill too steep for backhoe to backfill (he tried and failed, nearly died in process.) Ditch is 4.5 feet deep by 1.5 feet wide, by 250 feet long. By my calculation, about 500 cubic yards of dirt to be pushed, pulled and thrown back into ditch on steep hillside. Mixed in with dirt are dozens of jumbo-beach-ball-sized rocks for variety. Hired several people to help. Most quit. A spirit crushing workout. 3) Snowwork: After each snow, hand-shovel 70 foot driveway, clear parking spaces in front yard on grass where my housemates and I park, and shovel paths from back door to woodshed and gate. Snow shoveling is an ephemeral effort, and yet strangely more fulfilling than shoveling dirt.

Perhaps we should switch to Bro-Brah? Dood, we had a straight up phat snofari yesterday. It was off the richter. If It had been any sicker I would have speed- dialed 911. The pow pow was righteously gnarlacious and so deep my brahs were going all snorkelrific on it. Dood, the terrain was so extreme it made the Taco Bell Xtreme Value Meal look like the biggest rip since bro poached that roach and "made green eggs and yams" with that smoking shred betty who happened to be the Hawk's fiance. Oooh, man! Brah busted this mad air and was rolling down the windows so fast I thot he was gonna bail, but instead he banished the flail and stomped the landing. He was soooo stoked! Props to him. Bro hadn't been out this season, so he was doing the stinkbug for the first few turns and nearly had he weekend turn into a tweekend when he barely missed this spruce. Oh, dood! The snow in the lower trees was beat, bordering on whack, but after a yerba sesh we were all good. I'm still amped.

Hey BP, gots to make ya jealous here. Yesterday headed up to Powder Cache and got many vertical of deep powder turns. Hwy 20 is closed at Varden Creek, but it's just a short walk up the road til you turn up into the trees. Incredible views of the east faces of the silver star, the wine spires, vasiliki ridge, etc. The natural half-pipe coming off the top is superschweet--the only place it was a bit slabby, but very stable elsewhere. Coverage was great, cept down in the lower trees where we were shrubwacking, fjording creeks and crawling over logs. Had two snowboards, two teleheads and a randoneer along. Only once incident of high-speed tree hugging. Oh yeah, what's the place called you pointed out that you access via the Rendevouz? Later dood...

I spent 10 minutes alone in a room shooting the shit with Ross Perot. There was a impressionist print on the wall. He asked me if it was one a them Mo-Net paintings. I said yes. He said "yeah I bought the wife a few of those back in the early 80s. Now I could make a killing selling them to the Japanese, but she done fell in love with them Mo-Nets and won't let me. Women!" I've seen U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein make at least five people cry. I burnt parsley with this guy in Westport, WA who I later learned was a former Olympic snowboarding champion from mooseland who had lost his gold medal the previous winter after failing a drug test because he "happened to be at a party where people were smoking parsley-like substances."

Nice TR--the cold keeps you moving this time of year!

Go to sayulita. It's about 45 minutes north of PV on the coast by bus. My friend Shanti and I went there for the surfing about 5 years ago. After spending a week there, we took the bus into PV and it felt like we'd warped into SoCal or something. While I've heard its changed somewhat, sayulita was a sleepy cheap little fishing town. If you've never tried surfing, the break is a nice mellow longboard wave--both rights and lefts. There's a guy in town who rents boards. Just don't drop in on Tigre.

Well, we've come this far....

sorry bout the typing--the first letter of the lphbet is not working on my computer. Just imgine I'm muffy nd trnslte. My neighbor is modern dy scvnger. One dy he invited me over to try out new gourmet specilty. Not sure if they were cutworms or cbbge worms, but bsiclly these things looked like hirless cterpillers bout 2 inches long nd s thick s your little finger tht he'd dug out of his grden. He heted up pn of oil nd threw these wiggling grubs in. They promptly exploded, sending green goo ll over the wlls. I wsn't too disspointed tht dinner ws ruined.

Hmmm...it's cool that the gov is getting kind people to wield tools of torture for free, but as I'm currently getting paid $12.50/hr to plant shubbery (although I do have to bring my own sack lunch), the selfish capitalist in me hates to see productive markets undercut by well-meaning samaritans. It reminds me of when I was once an "Ecology Youth At Work." Instead of paying people (or compelling convicts) to pick up trash along the interstate, they just had us school kids schlep along in the trash filled median of I-5, wobbling from the blowback of speeding 18-wheelers, snot freezing our gloves to our faces, our ill-sized orange vests flapping like sails---all the while us this was part of our field biology class and a valuable two bird killing community service to boot. So go, plant your shubbery in the rain and make salmon feel all groovy in their new habitat, but realize that you are killing us shub planters with your fishy kindness. And also ponder the damage that you are doing to our yongest generation, depriving them of the character building experience of being an Ecology Youth At Work.

Be scared. Be very scared.

I'll be headed up there from Hood River shortly. Anyone who wants to climb this afternoon/tomorrow look for white trickymobile van with superstylie spoiler.

Yup yup, a good time indeed. Ya'll crack me up.

Current Location: The lovely The Dalles. Expected time of arrival: three hours from now. Supplies: greenish condiments (for the burgers of course), 20 gallon propane tank, large BBQ grill, lantern, jungle hammock, hound.

Good to see some repeat customers on these two routes. Now all you guys got to do is figure out how to back down my road without driving off into the field and getting the van high centered, subsequently resulting in a minor engineering project to coax the van cross-country down the hillside, over a cutbank, and back onto a different road. Ya'll checked for oil leaks yet?

A good few days were had this weekend. Got rained out at the pass on Thurs, so ended up on restless natives on goat wall, where I pulled off a big chunk of rock and took a fall that left me with toes touching ground. A bit scraped up and fully adrenalized, we continued up for another few pitches, pulling off loose holds until it started raining hard. Bring your helmet on goat wall fer sure. Matt came out for the weekend. With a party of 3, we got lost on the east face of minuteman and ended up on some wacky stuff. We didn't traverse right soon enough and got suckered towards the neat looking but off-route left facing dihedral w/finger crack. (It looks sweet, getting to it is the problem as it's protected by 30+ feet of hard, loose, difficult to protect climbing above a leg breaker slab). By the time we figured out we needed to be one left facing corner over, we needed to skeedadle, as G-man had to be in twisp for work that afternoon. The next day Matt and i went up the SW Rib of SEWS, taking the 5.10 fingercrack variation pitch, then traversing left to go up through the spectacular and exciting 5.10 double roofs pitch of the Boving route (NW face of SEWS). Wild! We then rejoined the SW rib above the double wide cracks. A great way to make a fun route more challenging!

To clarify, it's the marmots that are running around in assless chaps. It's a disturbing sight. Which is why we are trying to round up this deviant species before they spread.

Unless of course you made a habit of eating slugs as I did as a child. This does explain a few things however.

Careno Crag at Leavenworth would be perfect. There's a number of lines each of which has big ledge systems that allow you to pick easier or harder options for each pitch. There are a number of nice 5.7-8 cracks/corners that protect well and would be good for a beginning leader interspersed with 5.9-5.10 crack/face or mixed crack/face pitches.

Second the reco for the sportiva megas.

Hellow fellow jokersposeurshosersandfreaks -- I am living in Twisp, able to climb anytime. WaPass, N. Cascades, Skaha, Squish, L-worth, Okanogan, whatever? I'd also like to get into Cathedral peak before the snow flies. Possible road tripping somewhere sometime. Get in touch if you want to climb. If anyone is coming over to the Methow, I can offer rustic accomodations at the Snafflehound Hill Sheep Ranch and Puddlefront Cowgirl Spa. Nothing fancy mind you. But as long as you can put up with a bunch of randy cowgirls riding around bareback while herding marmots in nothing but assless chaps and cowgirl hats, it's survivable. Drop me an email or pm a couple days in advance, as internet service is intermittent. Even the peg-legged pikas who run the drool-powered electricity-generating water wheel around here need a break every now and then. And ELMERETTE, you are NOT invited--go make sweet love to a speeding Saguaro Cactus, honey.

After pissing away an hour of my life reading this thread, I feel obligated to reply... Someone asked "where does the $87 billion come from?" (Not to mention the $500 billion we are adding to our bar tab this year alone.) Answer: The government prints up IOUs (treasury bonds and bills) and pays people whatever interest rate is required to get people to buy them. Who buys them? The governments of China and Japan are our largest creditors. Interest rates rise as our creditors become less willing to lend us money because they are either afraid of default (highly unlikely in the case of the US) OR that we will attempt to relieve our debt problems by inflating our own currency (modern version of printing more money) and thereby debasing the dollar, which results in our creditors demanding higher interest rates in order for them to continue to lend us money that is losing it's value through inflation (highly likely). So instead of the "Taxing and Spending" Bush has adopted a policy of "Cut Taxes, Borrow Massive Amounts from China and Hugely Increase Government Spending." A short term strategy that may juice up the economy just in time for the election, while indenturing us to a strategic competitor and virtually assuring much higher interest rates and a weaker dollar in the future. As far as the Iraqi government debts to Russia, France, etc. As occupiers of the country, we've essentially assumed responsibility for Iraq's debts. So in effect, we will be forced to pay (directly or indirectly) France and Russia back for all the military hardware we just finished destroying. While there MIGHT be long term strategic value in occupying the world's largest oil reserves, for the foreseeable future we will be paying through the nose for a non-performing asset. As for the hopes for a democratic government for Iraq that will be friendly to the US? Fuggetaboutit. Imagine if you could magically hold elections in Iraq tomorrow. Who would win? The candidate that best expressed the will of the majority, whose Shiite Islamic fundamentalist platform might best be expressed as "Thanks for getting rid of Saddam. NOW FIX THE SHIT YOU FUCKED UP AND GET THE HELL OUT!" The will of the masses expressed democratically would be a government far less friendly, less stable and more hostile to the US. Thus, a fundamental conflict exists between our (latest) stated goal of creating a democratic, liberated Iraq, and the fact that such an Iraq would be led by people reacting against the continuing US occupation. In strictly pragmatic terms, our foreign policy has consistently shown that we prefer a friendly dictator over a hostile democracy. Thus, the only way we will bring order to the country is to install, arm and train some sort of Saudi-Arabian like totalitarian government that will work with us. Tragic but true.

1) The couple days I spent climbing with my uncle up some easy classics on Lumpy Ridge, CO. (climbs he last climbed in the early 70s) 2) Second ascent of Gato Negro on Whine Spire, West Face Silver Star w/bobbyperu. Apparently we got the FA on the direct finish on the 11th pitch? 3) Sold my place, quit my job, moved to where I want to be.

Please add me to the guest list--I don't want to have any problems with the valet parking/bouncers.

My understanding is while the fire is not directly threatening any homes, it's close enough that it could make a run if conditions were right (or wrong in this case). So as a precaution mandatory evacuation notices were issued this afternoon for the Lost River area west of Gate Creek up the road from Mazama. The fire has apparently burned across the Harts Pass road, and within 1 mile of the USFS structures up at Harts pass. More info and updates here

People are now being evacuated from the areas NW of Mazama. Fire has grown from a few acres to 15,000 in the last 5 days. The view from Sun Mountain up valley towards Mazama/Goat Peak: