klenke

I saw The Corporation last night. I thought it was pretty good. A little bit propaganda but more on the fence in its delivery than Fahrenheit 911. For the liberal wanks among us, Michael Moore appeared and made some cogent points and some humorous points. At any rate, have any of the rest of you seen the movie? If so, discuss.

Fox, STFU will you already.

Two things I've got to say about this thread: 1. Minx, if you don't want to be a moderator, don't be a moderator. 2. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Looks nice, Tod.

I'm not positive what the dark cliffs are in front of Kololo Peaks. Based on straight-line & angular measurements, those peaks are in the vicinity of Sitting Bull Mountain (7,759 ft) near Suiattle Pass. At right is Agnes Mountain (8,115 ft). In front of Glacier is what I believe is Bannock Mountain (7,760+ ft). Corteo Peak is closer to the camera at extreme right. Gunsight Peak is at extreme right on the horizon.

Good, that means we're finally seeing eye to eye.

I can't speak for ML, but in my case, I just like to yank people's chains. And Ray's is so easy to yank. "I have walked part of the pct in wa for 5 days and did not see a soul." That's because they saw you coming and ran for their lives.

Here's the best I can do. From Tower Mountain in Aug. 2003. The summit of Porcupine is in the foreground:

I think my interest in this thread is flagging.

So you asked. That's what. Although, I know you were responding to CBS. How many "peaks" have I done in total this summer? Maybe sixty, so 50% have been 'no trail' excursions. I could get my log and count specific numbers but 'so what.'

This summer I've done about 30 peaks and maybe more where I never used a trail the moment I left the road. But I'm a peakbagger, not the "weekend must make it easy on myself lame lazy warrior" like so many others, so I don't count.

Yeah, I was trying to understand Cavey's "'hyped up' mystique." Still not quite sure what he means. Perhaps he can elaborate.

Porcupine Peak (Pk 7762) is SE of Mt. Hardy, across Swamp Creek. Last summer when I climbed Tower I wondered about north-side routes on Porcupine. The center buttress on that rivaled many in the area in terms of angle and height. Are you saying you climbed up it a little, Michael?

I should mention that the only climbs I ever went on where someone in the party flagged a route was when I was with the Mounties. I'm not saying they do it all the time but their mentality is to be safety conscious. They'd be more apt to flag a hump through the woods than others.

I had never really considered the flagging issue but John's got a point. I've often made use of them when they appear before me to lay out the route. But that's because it's easy to be lazy when the "data" is right there before you. Indeed, there is way too much flagging in the woods. If it isn't climber flagging, it's survey flagging. Seems like in recent times (last few years) I've seen more and more flagging hanging aside logging roads. What's it doing there? What's it demarking? A ditch that needs dredging out? I don't know but they certainly draw my eye away from the natural green to the unnatural pink or red or yellow or blue or pink-yellow-blue striping, etc. However, the hard part is cleaning flagging up. While I agree it is an eyesore and makes lazy climbers out of us, it's always hard to justify the time expenditure to stop and stop and stop and stop to remove it. I'd never get on with the main objective I was there for in the first place: to climb a peak.

I have those low spatz-style Outdoor Research gaitors. I like them. They work well for conditions where full gaitors aren't necessary. They work well for snow (partcularly when more consolidated), brush, scree, etc., are lighter, and don't keep in as much heat as large gaitors. However, I don't like wearing mine on scree for fear of wearing out the strap. The way I hike/climb (my particular gait), I haven't had a big problem with wear & tear of the strap, but I know others who have. The strap can be replaced pretty easily, though. The velcro stitching isn't the best, though. Over time, the yanks to undo the strong velcro has seemed to rip some of the stitching.

Misery loves company, or at least loves Matt. (What Phil said.) Oh, and yes, Matt, the road is still washed out. Damage was severe. I saw a picture somewhere recently of roadbed scoured down to bare river side rock level. It won't be repaired this fall. I don't know the timeline. Call the Stehekin R.S.

A March thread about local ticks: Tick Season in the Icicle

Asshole.

I'm pretty sure Dragontail (and all of the Enchantments) are part of the granitic (granodioritic) Stuart Batholith, which was emplaced in the Cretaceous Period. My geology book said it was once capped by volcanic strata that has long since eroded away. That is, it rose up through the volcanic bedding.

I think I'm beginning to understand the difference between what my mind is saying and your minds are saying. That's why I didn't call a full bullshit. You could go up to Dragontail, hack off a piece of the mountain (a piece of granodiorite), call it a chunk of granite, and you wouldn't be wrong. Just because it's no longer on the mountain it doesn't mean it's no longer granite (granodiorite). Because the chunk would be a mixture of minerals within it, it would be hard to write out a chemical formula for the chunk as a whole, as if to say the quartz or feldspar or whatever is in it is immiscible with everything else, or the chunk as a whole. If you had a perfect separation device, you could separate out the individual constituents and lay them in different mineralogical piles on the table.

So granite in general is a mixture, I understand that. But once you get down to one chunk of granite with a definite chemical constituency, that chunk (if homogenous) is a mineral. That is, you can write out a chemical formula for it.

So granite is a mixture?

Why should it matter what it's made of that determines if granite is a mineral or not? A mineral is a chemical compound. Granite is a chemical compound--an amalgam of various other chemical compounds. If granite is not a mineral, what is it? From a book of mine called "Minerals Encyclopaedia" (1999, Korbel & Novak): "There are minerals known to humankind since prehistoric times such as quartz and gold." If a pure element like gold or copper can be considered a mineral, then why not granite. Here's a mineral for Dru out of the above book: Dickite Al2-Si2-O5(OH)4 Monoclinic -- uncommon -- other info I'll omit here.

Tell me why granite is not a mineral. Then tell me why quartz is.