klenke

And how does he know the toilet bowl isn't occupied by someone else's unflushed business?

Maybe he just waits for someone else to come in then asks, "hey, dude, is there any shit on this TP?"

I would like to note that bannination was invented on this site and will appear in the Oxford English Dictionary in two years.

I like to politely party.

Pax, please keep your tongue in your pants, I mean mouth, from now on. Also, I see you've got a purple BD leash on your axe, just like me. You know your leashes.

The most interesting thing I've gotten out of this thread so far is that there is such a thing as a shitbrick and apparently Catbirdseat is one.

The guy looks a lot like Dave Schuldt.

I think what was "higher" was the snowpack on the road. Though there were some bare spots where we "dry tooled it" with our snowshoes, for the most part there must have been at leat three-feet of snow on the road (more the farther you went in). As is typical, there was snow on the road but the adjacent underforest was almost snowfree. If you did the climb in no-snow conditions (i.e., summer), then I can see how there would be more brush to contend with on that road. There was one trio of huge blowdowns across the road at about halfway that were bothersome, but other than that, twas easy to maintain a good pace. I'll post a few representative photos of the climb tomorrow. In my mind, Damnation is a totally worthy snowshoe destination with foudroyant views to offer from the rocky summit. On the other hand, I wouldn't recommend it as a ski tour because of the approach road. You'd have a good 2,500-ft run on the SE side of the peak, but it would be tree skiing, not so much open bowl stuff.

Info and pics for NEB can be found here: NEB Route page and Photos (start here on page 4 of the photo sets and work your way back to page 1 to view pictures of Sabertooth's and my climb on 2/22).

Climb: Damnation Peak - A Southern Gully then the South Ridge Date of Climb: 3/1/2004 Trip Report: We were damned. Tony Tsuboi (Toast) and I were damned to climb in the North Cascades today. What did we climb? Why Damnation Peak of course. Why Damnation? If the name alone is not a good enough reason, then to get a nice view of Mt. Triumph from the area (Damnation is 3 miles southwest of Triumph). Some facts for Damnation Peak: Height: 5,635 ft Prominence: 715 ft Has a USGS Quad named after it even though it isn't the highest peak in the general area (and nowhere near the highest on its namesake quad). Drainages: Damnation Creek on the south, Triumph Creek on the north. Tony agreed to join me on a climb of either Trappers Peak or Damnation, both of which provide nice close views of Triumph. The trailheads for both of these use the same approach road (the road to Thornton Lakes Trail), so if one wasn't accessible, the other could be done. Well, about 2.2 miles from the highway (c. 1,500 ft) there is a sizable blowdown blocking the road. Right away, this ruled out a climb of Trappers, and Damnation would now require an extra 1.5 miles of logging road walking to get to its normal start at 2,245 ft. As it turns out, the road was snowed over about 0.7 miles from the blowdown so it was no big deal. In half-an-hour we made up the distance to the old overgrown road that junctions off of the Thornton Lakes Road. As soon as the snow started, we noticed many snowshoe tracks (plus some odd animal tracks we thought could be a cougar's but were probably some dog's). The snowshoe tracks went up the old road too. To my surprise, the overgrown road was not so bad despite the impressions Stefan had left me with concerning it. The old road turns north around the mountain and parallels the east side of Damnation Creek, whereupon it ends at about 3,200 ft closely south of the rising bulk of Damnation. On the approach, an outstanding view of the cliffy east side of Oakes Peak can be had. Some nice winter alpine routes on that side of Oakes. We kept following the tracks up the old road. With my camera's zoom lens, I could see tracks high on the South Ridge of Damnation. As I kind of expected, the snowshoers from the weekend had themselves gone up Damnation. Though this took away from the pristine feel of the outing, it would nonetheless be nice to have a track to follow all the way up. Makes routefinding easier. Plus, with the steepness now becoming apparent for the lower half of the peak, the snowshoe steps would be really nice to have. It would save us a lot of energy. After crossing the creek, we snowshoed in the tracks into a 40-degree gully. The weekend's party had glissaded it. It was beginning to be a leisurely outing and, being ahead of schedule due to the better than expected condition of the overgrown road, I began entertaining the idea of additionally running the ridge 0.8 miles northwestward from Damnation to another summit called Salvation Peak (5,560+ ft). It would feel good to be absolved shortly after being damned. However, dark clouds were forming to the south. Was it going to rain? We hoped not. All leisure soon ceased, as the tracks we were following suddenly vanished in glissade tracks. Good God Almighty, Class-4 snowshoeing! What are we doing in this gully? Arrrggh! (I want to give a well-deserved thanks to Tony here for making mostly nice steps in the firm snow with his MSRs. My Too Ungodly Big Blundering Snowshoes were not cutting it. Yes sir, I was at the limit of my climbing abilities in those snowshoes. After a bit of sketch, we finally relocated the track then shortly took the snowshoes off to do some pseudo-ice climbing (without proper equipment, of course). Beyond that, we made it up to the 5,200-ft false summit with minimal problems. The snow was staying hard, which meant snowshoes were not necessary. We also enjoyed our first fanstastic views of Mt. Triumph basking in a small pocket of sunshine. The skies were otherwise cloudy. Further, it started to snow very lightly (the snow looked like little white insects flitting around). Fortunately, the weather did not bug us beyond that, although the lack of sunshine had cooled the air to a few degrees below perfection. We ditched our packs at the false summit and quickly booted it up to the main summit. With our four poles, I then erected a tripod (quadpod really) for my camera in order to take a group photo. Additionally, we waited at the summit for about 20 minutes while a light snowshower drifted off of Triumph and Despair so I could get some better photos of them. Meanwhile, Mt. Blum and Bacon Peak were cool looking from this angle. The former reminded me of a Canadian Rockies peak; the latter looked like a worn down volcano with vast open slopes. Both these peaks are on my tick list. Oakes was quite a sight too. To the southeast, Teebone Ridge looked real nice for skiing (if you could get to it). There weren't many other views due to the many upper-level snowshowers idling about. There was no wind, so the snowshowers were not in a hurry to drift off and thus provide me my desired photo subjects. Time up = 4 hours, 45 minutes. Distance = 3.5 miles + 1.5 miles of extra logging road walking. Gain (from car at blow down) = 5,635 ft - 1,500 ft + 100 ft in and out of creek + 100 ft miscellaneous = 4,300 ft. On the way down, we avoided the pseudo-ice climbing section by glissading from the top of the gully. The top of the gully was about 50 degrees, quickly reducing to 40 degrees in the middle. It was one of the more difficult glissades I have done due to the firm (almost icy) snow and my super-slick nylon pants. Man, I really had to dig that ice-axe in to slow myself down. However, I was able to stay in control all the way down to the creek, which we got back to in less than an hour from the summit. In another two hours we were back to the car. Total roundtrip time = 8 hours. Epilogue: A "comic observation" made while driving home. While on the summit waiting for the photography potential to improve, we killed time by discussing Mel Gibson's new movie "The Passion of the Christ." Tony related to me a story of when he went to see Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" in 1988. Outside the theater, overly religious Christians exclaimed to him that he would burn in Hell if he saw that movie (even though they hadn't seen the movie so how would they know). Well, Tony said he thought the movie paid a respectful tribute to God, something counter to the zealot's claims. At any rate, it struck me while driving home that we had had this discussion about burning in Hell while standing on a summit called "Damnation Peak." Humorous coincidence. Gear Notes for winter: Snowshoes, trekking poles Ice-axe, maybe lightweight crampons. Approach Notes: North Cascades Highway past Marblemount to road to Thornton Lakes Trailhead. Take it 3.7 miles to major switchback at 2,245 ft (0.5 miles beyond crossing of Sky Creek). At switchback, take an overgrown logging road for about 2 miles to get to the base of the peak. It's then another mile and 2,400 ft of climbing to the summit.

Yeah, like women are any different. Wouldn't it be interesting/funny/cool if there were such a device that could sense when someone was thinking about sex (not necessarily exactly what they were thinking)? You could take the device into a crowd and get a good sense of how often people think about sex. Or you could use it on your date to see if he/she/it wanted you.

Icegirl said, "I own three sets of clogs." clogs looks like dogs if you don't pay attention. For a second there, I thought you went out and adopted a bunch more woofers.

Summitseeker (someone I know?), I have not done those three peaks you've listed so I hesitate to give you any information on them. My assumption has always been that the easiest routes up these three peaks are: Flora = scramble Devore = class 4 in hardest part (don't know how sustained that part is) Tupshin = class 5 (maybe mid-fifth at hardest pitch). I won't know until I get there (hopefully this summer) what really is the case for these three. True enough, Beckey's info is sparse, but you don't think he's been up there himself, do you? No way. His info for these is second-hand. Further, I doubt all routes up those peaks have been explored. The current "standard" routes described by Beckey may not necessarily be the easiest routes. Some pictures of Flora: from northeast from south I from south II Some pictures of Devore: from northeast (far away) from southwest from south Some pictures of Tupshin: from northeast from southwest from south (far away)

If the Porsche SUV can't be safe, no SUV can!

Curious: what happens to the alcohol after the liver processes it? Is it turned into something else? Enlighten me please.

India, the next superpower? (it could happen) Probably more likely China. My Op Ed: Three trends (of many) in America that are working against America to undermine its own superpower status: 1. The rising gulf between CEO pay and average worker pay. What was 40x in 1980 is now 500x in 2004 (eg. if the avg. pay for Joe Blow worker is $40K, then this means the avg. CEO is making $20M). That is to say, more of the money gained by a company is going toward lining the pockets of the elite within the company instead of sharing with the masses. This exacerbates the dichotomy between the two. Couple this with a marked lack of accountability for executives who fail (they still get their golden parachutes no matter what, as the AT&T Wireless fiasco illustrates), and you've got even more recipe for this growing dichotomy. They shirk the working class for their own profit. This is never good. A third wasting of corporate money (misdirected monies) is this need to have some celebrity--usually a major athlete--endorse your product for ungodly amounts of money. I think of Nike sponsoring Tiger Woods for $20M a year or whatever it is. Instead, give him $5M a year (still too much) and give the other $15M to the people within the company who might deserve it. That $15M could help pay the salaries of employees who's jobs would otherwise be outsourced. The rising pots for golf tournaments amazes me too. Same problem as the endorsement issue 2. The rising cost of college tuition. Less and less people can afford it (including those that qualify for student loans because they still have to pay for it sooner or later), meaning less highly educated people with which to compete with the world 3. The outsourcing of Middle Class jobs (the very jobs that the educated persons are vying for). Combining this with #2 above and you will have more people giving up their dreams of a higher education because it would just not be worth it anymore. Better to take your Lower Class service job servicing the Upper Class. The Middle Class is weakening. And we all know it is the Middle Class that fundamentally controls a country's economy (and otherwise). The Middle Class enjoys the happy combination of having greater monetary holdings/earnings than the Lower Class and greater numbers (total population) than the Upper Class The foregoing is subject to alteration or elaboratin solely on the author's (my) whim.

Snugtop = Marylou ???

I've been in that area. It sounds like that part from Windy Pass to Tinkham Pass thence to the outlet of Mirror Lake was later followed by the Pacific Crest Trail. Is that right? I would be interested to see a picture of one of these orange marker flags just to see if I've ever maybe seen one and not known what they are. Got a picture you can upload/attach?

Keep threatening Dru like that, ChucK, and you're liable to get banned.

Gary, those "dudes" that did the East Face earlier in the morning was just one guy (named Kendall). We met him in the upper east basin after he descended (staggered) out of the rappel gully. He told us he went up the middle of the East Face then up the slightly overhanging waterfall at mid-face. Spicy, he said. See this picture.

The irony of that Sabertooth situation is that he and I didn't really even need snowshoes yesterday. In fact, I didn't even put mine on all the way back to the parking lot. The boot/snowshoe/ski path is so compacted right now that's it's almost as hard as a summer trail. All that will no doubt change with the next dump.

Thanks, E. I might look a little rusty in that video. First time out this year and first time since last March. Plus, not my gear but Sergio's. The boots are a little looser than what I'm used to. I've always been a tight parallel skier. Used to be an above-average moguler, which requires it.

After selecting the link that screws up, I can then click "refresh" and it comes up fine. It works for me, mmkay?

yessirreebobbalubba.

I'm having trouble understanding both of you.