Uncle_Tricky

The original inspiration for the hotel in The Shining was the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Stephen King stayed there for weeks as he was writing the book. While the movie wasn't filmed there, it's eerily similar to the hotel in the movie. It was built around the turn of the century, and is very ornate, with red carpets, fancy chandeliers, tall winding staircases, and walk-in freezers. When I was in high school, parts of the hotel were closed for renovation. We would drink heavily, and sneak around the deserted hotel in the wintertime in the middle of the night. Spooky indeed! [ 11-17-2002, 09:11 PM: Message edited by: Uncle Tricky ]

Al Pine, I agree that first 5.9 pitch on the NW Corner (I assume that's what you call the zig-zag pitch?) is one of the coolest single pitches at the grade. Great exposure, some mandatory runouts to make it exciting, cool moves, etc. The last pitch on the S. Face of Prusik is up there too. Some less popular but still fun crag climbs at the grade: Just Ducky and The Drain (Bathtub Dome, Leavenworth) April Mayhem (Leavenworth) Free For All (Beacon Rock) Several cracks at the Bend in the Salomon's roof area who's names escape me. Oh, and Inca Roads. Has anyone climbed First Blood at the Royal Columns? Maybe I was on the wrong line or something, and I didn't have hardly any big gear, but that thing was bloody hard for a 5.8.

Hey Lambone, not saying you're wrong, cause it's all subjective, but I'm curious what single pitch 5.9s in Washington you think are way better than zilla? [ 11-16-2002, 10:46 PM: Message edited by: Uncle Tricky ]

welcome to the land of low contrast

*Never* Fear, MtnGoat and his asterisks *are* here. Raised by the *invisible* hand, schooled in the *art* of *Rand-Fu,* MtnGoat stands *strong* and is ever *vigilant* against *collectivism*! Stay *tuned* as he struggles *mightily* to enlighten the *heathens* of CC.com!

All of you please report to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Total Information Awareness Office to have you chips implanted ASAP.

I likes zem both! It's a little different comparing one long pitch off the ground like Godzilla with the GM-->HOC linkup. When I did the GM/HOC, we swung leads and broke it up into short pitches, so while I got the sweet HOC hand crack, it didn't have the same flow as a longer pitch like zilla. I could see how linking the 2nd of GM and the handcrack pitch of HOC would make for a fun long varied lead. So what about comparing Princely and Godzilla? I find princely a lot less strenuous, but just more plain fun.

Three syllables: Ko-kan-ee! Best cheap weak beer out there.

Death by spray:

Glad all ya'll had fun. I shoulda woulda gone, but had big plans that didn't quite turn out as expected. I had a very nice woman over to my place. I cooked sockeye salmon I caught in Alaska. I made tasty salad. I baked homemade garlic bread. We drank red wine and were merry. At 9:30, the cab showed up to take us downtown. Destination: Yonder Mountain String Band. We were super-psyched to groove to some jamgrass. The cab drops us off in front of the Showbox. It seems a little quiet. Too quiet. In fact, the doors are locked, and nobody is there. I remove the tickets from my pocket and discover that the show is on Thursday. Ah well, I guess it's better to be two days early for a show instead of two days late!

Why is Eyman even an issue? It's the people across the state who vote that decide whether to give the thumbs up to inititives.

I've always been interested in etymology, and was wondering if anyone knows anything about the origin of the term sandbagging. Recently, I've been asking random people if they know the word, and most give me a strange look of incomprehension. In the dictionary, the only definition that comes close to the way climbers use the term is "to force by crude means, to coerce." But that doesn't really reflect the flexibility of the word, which climbers use as a noun, verb and adjective. A google search reveals the following uses of sandbagging: "Sandbagging is deceptive play in poker that is roughly the opposite of bluffing: betting weakly with a strong holding rather than betting strongly with a weak one." "Traffic cops team up with sandbagging, mafia-connected, highway-construction, multi-billion-dollar global corporations..." "I hope we're all running to take Ecuador off the second round of our World Cup brackets, or they're dedicated to sandbagging Mexico and Italy." "Sandbagging is the process over an internet go server (or in an over-the-board tournament) of deliberately setting your rank lower than it should be." "As this year’s tests wrap up, the Fords have been most accused of sandbagging. The Pontiacs seem to have been a little slower than the Dodges and Chevy's as well, but haven’t faced the same accusations." We all know what sandbagging is, but where did the word come from?

Having a dog will affect when and where you choose to go climbing. Sometimes, you'll have to make arrangements to leave him at home. Sometimes, you'll choose to go somewhere less crowded. I started taking my dog climbing as a puppy so he'd get used to it. At first he would moan and groan when I got off the ground, but now he just falls asleep. If there's anyone else around that he might bother, I leash him. I bring a bowl of water, maybe something to chew on, and sometimes even a blanket so he can snooze in comfort while we climb. Just try and expose him to lots of people, dogs, and situations while's he's young. Be aware of other people, and don't let him bother someone who's belaying or get into their stuff or piss on their rope.

Everyone has scars. I've recently added a few to my collection. I was helping a friend of mine close a restaurant. I was using a potato press to crush whole raw potatoes into french fries. You put the potatos in the press, yard down on the lever and the potato is crushed in a vice with blades in the bottom that cuts it into fries. I put my hand in the wrong spot. When I pulled down the lever, I pinched the heel of my palm in the press, right below where the thumb attaches. It took out a deep chunk that has only stopped cracking and oozing now a month later. Bloody fries anyone? ----- When I was a kid, my brother and I were out on a rocky beach at the ocean turning over rocks. Of course, the bigger the rock, the cooler the critters. So we found this huge flat rock, and working together, we were barely able to tip this thing up. While my brother held the rock up, I tried to catch a couple mud eels in the crater. Of course he couldn't hold the rock, and it tipped back over, catching my hand underneath. Since one of my hands was busy being crushed under a salty barnacle covered boulder, we were unable to move the huge rock. I had to sit there for 10 minutes while my brother ran to get my dad to get the rock off my hand. That left a neat half-moon scar across three fingers. --- Others include scars from 2 knee surgeries, one elbow surgery, and two surfboard fin scars on forehead and head. Anyone else have some marks?

Stapling your hand to the side of a shed with a hammer-tacker sucks.

Thanks for the sharing the memory. Funny how certain climbs fade into memory, and other become more vivid through time. Seems often to have more to do with what's going on inside that the rock or route itself.

Perhaps we should call the Sooners the Laters?!?

It was bound to happen Sooner or later.... ...Oklahoma couldn’t escape Texas A&M this time, and it could cost the Sooners a shot at the national title. Saturday’s 30-26 loss certainly will drop the Sooners (8-1, 4-1 Big 12) from the No. 1 position in both the Associated Press poll and the Bowl Championship Series standings...

BTW: Anyone want to go surfing on Monday and/or Tuesday? Certain spots on the Olympic Peninsula will be protected from the predicted Southerly winds and should be firing. Drop me a pm if interested. [ 11-09-2002, 06:29 AM: Message edited by: Uncle Tricky ]

The wave size for this swell peaked at 49 ft with a 20 second wave period. That's huge. Here's some pain being doled out by waves half that size. PS. He survived this journey to the bottom of the ocean, but died the next year. [ 11-09-2002, 06:12 AM: Message edited by: Uncle Tricky ]

When I was 10 I thought I could swim the length of an olympic-sized swimming pool underwater. The pool was covered with a plastic cover. I was wrong.

Kinda suprising, but the water is often warmer off Tofino and the W. coast of Vancouver Island than it is off the Washington or Oregon coasts. Typically happens in late summer and early fall when prevailing N/NW winds causes upwelling off headlands and cools the Japanese current as it goes down the West coast. Often the water temps as far South as Santa Cruz are about the same as up here. [ 11-06-2002, 12:50 PM: Message edited by: Uncle Tricky ]

Also, the longer the wave period, the faster the wave. In the case of an earthquake, the tsunamis that may be created are very long period waves, and they travel very fast. Any tsunami effect from a quake in Alaska would be seen here in a matter or minutes or hours, not days. I've got a web page that has links to some neat graphics. Click on "Pacific wave heights and directions" for images of current and forecasted wave height and direction.

Yeah, waves are basically a product of three things, wind speed, wind duration, and the fetch, which is the distance the wind blows over the water. Wind waves are waves created by local wind conditions, and generally have short period (up to roughly ten seconds.) Swells are waves that have traveled outside the windy area in which they were created, so all the shoppy crappy wind waves die out, and you are left with clean long period (usually 10-20 seconds, but sometimes longer, such as in the case of tsunamis, which might have a wave period measured in minutes. An analogy that works for me is this: Have you ever tried to fall asleep in a house where someone is playing music in another room? All you can hear is that base, because the short period wave energy (treble or wind waves) is weak and dies out, but bass (or swell) has a longer wave period, so the sound carries much further from the place where it was created. If you're surfing, you generally want swells that were created far away and have had time to clean up into long period waves and organize themselves into sets, not stormy victory-at-sea type conditions, though those can work some places. When it's 30 feet out at the ocean and coming down the strait of juan de fuca at just the right angle, it's possible to surf fun shoulder to head high ocean swells on Whidbey Island.