klenke

Brian, thanks for not posting the picture of me with my bare chest ala Michael Layton sans nipple rings. Lance: no, no beer cans seen though plenty of other garbage around. A lot of the logging roads are fairly overgrown now, so that'll keep the riff-raff away. In fact, FR-4005 exiting from MLH at Verlot is gated--apparently by the guy operating the Robe store--because of people dumping garbage. Ryan, there's a humorous anecdote to my falling in that tree well. We had set a turn-around time of 1:30PM. So I'm rounding the last tree. I've got my eyes on this hump of snow right in front of me amongst the trees literally four feet away. It's the "summit." But, this tree I'm stepping past has other ideas and my left leg goes right in up to my hip. Naturally, my snowshoe gets stuck. And you know it's nearly impossible to take the snowshoe off when it's way down there. Meanwhile, Brian is about a minute behind me. It's 1:25PM. I remember thinking, "Great, I knew something was going to happen to keep me from making the summit at the designated turn-around time." Just kind of funny the timing of it. It only took a minute or so to get out but it was a struggle. To die trapped in a tree well: what a horrible way to die. Every year plenty of skiers do. Gee Point: I have not done it. I have done Finney Peak though, so I know the area. Big Gee is the high point in the Gee Point vicinity. It's 5,080+ feet and has 3,120 feet of prominence! It might make for a respectable winter climb.

Dave: just be sure to spell Alpental right in your letter, else they may not take you seriously...if they take you seriously at all.

None of us were able to snap a photo off of the dense forest (not as thick as a hedge but damn thick). In fact, it would have been near impossible to get our packs off to get at our cameras. So, in lieu, here is a cartoon representation of catbirdseat in the chaparral: It was the type of "forest" one typically encounters off the verges of logging roads. They seem to form a barrier between the road and more open forest farther in. Incidentally, so where is Green Mountain? Here are three pics with this particular Green Mountain featured in it: 1st picture with Green in it (Three Fingers from Pilchuck) 2nd picture with Green in it (Rainier from Baker) 3rd picture with Green in it (Baker from Pilchuck) This last one does not show the East Peak of Green.

Cwm is from the Welsh, where 'w' is a vowel or can serve as a vowel. The word is etymologically related to combe, which is the British Celtic variation of cwm. How many points does cwm get you in scrabble? About seven? I once fooled my competitors with oner saying it was the root of onerous. They were obviously thinking along the lines of onus. Well, onus is actually the root of onerous, not oner. Score! There was much debate but they ultimately allowed my little subreption. Of course, at the time, I was also thinking that there must be this root word oner. But in scrabble one must never show one's uncertainty. After the game (after I had won) we verified that oner wasn't a word.

Your comment brought this thought to mind: If they close the parking lot to non-industrial skiers (snowshoers, etc.), then these people will have to walk the Alpental Road from wherever they'd have to park (probably Snoqualmie Pass Ski Area). That road is about 2 miles long and is walled in with snow (i.e., no sidewalk or suitable pedestrian path). With more pedestrians on the road there is an increased chance of one or more of them getting hit by a car--especially if it is icy. This would be even more dangerous than backcountry avalanches. The powers that be would then command that pedestrians are not allowed to walk the road (they can only take the shuttle?). If that happens, then there is no longer any access unless a driver drops off the rest of his party and he goes without or catches up after taking the shuttle bus. The foregoing paragraph shows just how boneheaded an idea it is to close the parking lot to non-industrial skiers.

Undecided. Leaning toward it. Where's it supposed to be at this week? Oh yeah Trask:

It's all mine! Thanks, Thinker.

I agree with savaiusini that they should leave well enough alone. Lots of roads and the like have liability issues. I-90 costs lots of money to plow and there are deaths on it every year but you don't see it closed down. The avalanche fatality argument just doesn't hold water. More people are likely killed at the ski area every year than there are in the backcountry. The plowing argument doesn't either at least it won't after the Alpental pedestrian bridge gets rebuilt. The percentage of non-skiers (snowshoers, ice climbers, etc.) that use that lot is maybe 5% on a good weather weekend. Why should those 5% be admonished? The parking lot will be plowed anyway for the skiing patrons. I thought that parking lot was a Sno Park anyway? And having the non-DHskiers take the shuttle from the other areas to Alpental sounds so stupid. It's just shifting the parking place to someplace else and wasting space on the bus. There's plenty of parking at Alpental for everyone. Bureaucracy!

How: Foot and snowshoe, green belays and curses; 3,400 ft total gain What: Green Mountain's East Peak by Verlot (4,454 ft; 1,600 ft of prominence); some of the densest evergreen "forest" I've ever bushwhacked through -- BW4 (a chapparal for sure) When: 8:30AM - 4:30PM Today (3 hours longer than I had expected) Where: Road 4005 (Benson Creek Road) leading ENE from Verlot. It is permanently gated at about 0.4 miles from MLH. Bikable road ends in 1.4 miles near where the Maiden of the Woods carving used to be (a diminutive replica can be seen at the entrance to Mtn. View Inn in Robe). Took 4005 to T-junction labeled 1759 ft on maps. Went straight upslope to 2,900 ft where another road was found. Took this road left (west) for a few hundred yards then left it to bear NE uphill to ridge crest 0.7 miles south of East Peak. At crest just before road is where the chapparal was. Took 40 minutes to go 200 yards! Said we wouldn't go back down that way for sure. Followed ridge crest logging road all the way around to 3,900 ft at head of Benson Creek. Dropped packs and snowshoed the remaining half-mile to the summit (no views due to weather). Some interesting crags at the false summit. On the return, we descended the upper Benson Creek drainage to the logging road crossing the creek at 2,959 ft. Returned to where we had gained that logging road on the ascent and continued down to the car, arriving back there at just before dark. I had wanted to do a 0.3-mile side-trip to the Maiden of the Woods carving but we didn't have time. As it turns out, it is not there anymore anyway (or so the guy at the Robe store said). Map of start. Map of summit. Who: Brian Hench (catbirdseat), Jim Johnson (Really_Big_Johnson?), Paul Klenke Why: Who knows? Because it's there. A peak few have visited, even fewer in the winter. Go get this bad boy. Or maybe not.

He (Herve) was only 3'9" and his head was bigger in proportion to his body.

Note tongue in cheek icon ( ) in my last post.

Yeah, but the difference between me and other people who shall remain nameless is that I never fully commited (said yes) to your climb. I told you up front that I had tweaked my back and may not want to go. So there!

Who cares.

Once, when I was a Mutantneer in 2000, I was slated to go to Mt. Jefferson. Well, the leader called me to say the trip was off. Why was it off? Seems he dropped a can of Campbell's soup on his foot when he was reaching for it in an upper cupboard. Now what kind of lame excuse is that? I've never dropped any cans on my foot in the kitchen. A toenail came off today but I may still go out tomorrow (if Catbird doesn't bail on me).

"Da Plane! Da Plane!" I think that's got to be Tattoo (Herve Villechaize). Also in The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), from which we all know the above quote was taken. I think he's been dead about 10 years.

I have previously pondered your point about charging those that do the damage with the costs of fixing said damage. It appears to make sense but it does open up a real problem: the trucking industry will tell you that if they're going to be charged for 80% of costs, then the other 20% should be charged to the other users (us ordinary drivers). Will the government then pay our share or will we pay for it out of our own pockets? Either way it's a "tax burden" imposed upon us. If the trucking industry then pays for it all, then the cost of trucking cargo will go up, which ultimately is paid by the consumer (us in our singular cars). What goes around comes around. I place military/defense in the society half. We only need it because of humanity's (society's) ill will toward each other. But this world is not a utopia so what can you do? It's really too bad we've got to spend so much money on defense. Unfortunately, now that we are the Superpower, we have no choice otherwise because we have to protect our interests. If we don't we die. Just what exactly are our interests on this melancholy orb is debatable. People that don't got want what you've got. That's human nature. We all like to strut around saying we aren't like that but really 95% of us are (especially us folks dragging along the lead ball of mass consumerism, which, sadly, is too many of us in America and Europe). As long as you're one of the people who would like more money, be it for whatever purpose, you'll be someone who wants what you haven't got but others have got. I once brainstormed a silly thought regarding taxation: if we're paying taxes to fund social programs such as Welfare, how about then cutting out the middle man (the government entity)? Each citizen is required to give up 0.005 percent of his salary to some sorry sap on the street. Since everyone is poorer than at least one other person in the country with the exception of Bill Gates, we all stand to get some money from somewhere. Call it trickle down taxation, or a reverse pyramid scheme. By cutting out the middle man you are also cutting out the beauracracy associated with the middle man.

I don't propose that we replace unions. You will note that I did not say I was against them. I just think they have grown to something bigger than they need to be, that modern workplace safety (for all employees not just unionized ones) and workers rights take care of a lot of what union people think they have coming to them because they are union. It's really a checks and balances thing in my mind. Keep everything in the middle. Don't let one side get too much clout over the other. My initial point sought only to explain one of the main reasons why large public infrastructure projects cost so damn much these days. The other main problem is the source of this money (on a taxation basis). In the 50's and 60's many of the freeways were built. Unions at that time were getting stronger than they were but costs were still manageable on a nationwide basis. Lots and lots of roads and power lines and canals and the like were built. These are infrastructure improvements. Once these were completed there was a marked drop in the number of infrastructure projects being built. The costs for these projects minus yearly maintenance was a one-time expense. So, naturally, where will all of those continued tax revenues be spent? The 70's and 80's saw a build out of social programs. Social programs are the antithesis of infrastructure projects. Where as a nationwide infrastructure helps everyone out or at least a great percentage of us (who hasn't driven on the freeway in their life or taken power off the electrical grid?), social programs cater to individuals or groups of individuals. They are meant to help out smaller percentages of us (like programs such as Unemployment and Alcoholics Anonymous). The problem is that these social programs are not a one-time expense. They are on-going. And while no single program has an annual budget of $50 Billion, over a lifespan equivalent to the life span of some segment of infrastructure (power lines, for example), the costs might become more comparable. The final problem with social programs is that they almost always immediately become institutionalized, meaning that you simply can't undo them. Sure you can reduce their yearly funds but they do still exist. As the 70's and 80's progressed, more and more social programs came into being, each with their own budget requirements. Now, our infrastructure is getting old. Bridges are wearing out, Power poles and lines are deteriorating, freeways are eroding, and so on and so on. Yet even though this is the case, there is no money for it (or not as much as there once was) because a greater proportion of the tax revenue to pay for such improvements is tied up in keeping social programs running. But the programs are institutionalized and no politician is going to risk his candidacy in an attempt to abolish some or more of them. I essentially separate the nation into two halves: society and infrastructure. It's hard to effectively pay for both at the same time. One must suffer and it is so much easier to let the infrastructure suffer. After all, it's not people, it's concrete and copper. Well, if you like your social programs, let's hope the power stays on for them. Let's hope we don't have another massive blackout on antiquated equipment.

Ehmmic -- for being moderator the least amount of time.

We don't pay the soil to move itself. We pay unionized workers to move the soil. Got me? Your comment about the cars still using the highway is not germane to my point, but it does make things take longer to do because you can't simply close down the right of ways in the construction zones. Well you could but there are other issues which preclude it (like the effects on businesses in those work zones).

In my view, probably the greatest reason why large public works projects such as the monorail are so expensive now is because of the over-unionization of our blue-collar workforce. In the early 20th Century unions were weak by comparison. Things could be done for that much cheaper. Now, the average unionized construction worker is so heavily subsidized with perks, etc. (they strike so often for it, after all; and lately it's become a fad) that they require 10 times as much on a percentage basis as they received 80 years ago. When things cost $50 Billion these days, they would have cost $50 Million or less 80 years ago. This rate of increase is much greater than inflation alone. So when anything is passed by public approval or otherwise, invariably taxes are levied to pay for it. It's no wonder the percentage of our income taxes keeps going up and up and up. Will the percentage ever reach an asymptope? I'm not saying I'm anti-union. I understand their import, without which corporations would have even less regard for their employees. Now it is more difficult--comparatively speaking--for companies to mistreat their employees. There's constant litigation, for instance, which itself contributes to cost. Then there is more concern with safety now than long ago. More cost ratcheting. My opinion is that once unions became so large that they were able to pull strings in Congress and The White House, it was the beginning of the prohibitive cost era. Unions no longer care about the welfare of the U.S. as a whole. They're only interested in taking care of themselves, and the unionized masses often don't know better. Case in point is the requirement that you be a union member to work certain industries (like electrical workers in Washington). If that's what you do for a living, then you have to be union to do it. You can't leave the union. If you then have no choice in the matter, then that is a problem for America as a whole. It certainly benefits the Union, it doesn't benefit America. We just can't get anything done in the 21st Century without it being prohibitively expensive. As William Buckley once said, "Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive." Now I'm sure some union employees like Marylou will pipe in and toe the union line. Unions are like their own political entity. There's the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, the Judicial Branch, and the Union Branch.

In the poll on the link, it shows that 8600+ people (46% of respondents) think the ghost is real. I say that security guard himself is in on the stunt. Maybe even the whole palace administration to get more tourists to come, thus more money. I've been to Hampton Court. It's a nice palace.

Also, so I'm in the last 40 posts screen. In the "Poster" column, if I click on an avatar for the last person to make a post in that thread, it instead takes me to the first person to post in that thread (i.e., the person to initiate that thread). I verified this was happening in all the thread rows. So even though it looks like I'm clicking on, say, my avatar, I get specialed's profile page. And now that I look again, the next column over (the "Posted On" column) is not really working right either. It lists the date and time of the first (initiating) post of the thread for each row. For a last 40 posts listing, what should really show up there is when the last post was made.

Unrelated possibilities. Must be a trick question. I say "both."

How come when I click on each link they both only show 25 of the most recent posts (i.e., the second link doesn't list 40 of them)? Am I missing something?

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