Fred_Beavon

Regarding the small lake, I saw it from the summit, but I have no info on getting to it. It didn't really look very appealing. Regarding the route up Lightning Peak, from the obvious main gully, veer way, way left to the ridge between Timber Mountain and the east summit of Lightning Peak. Then traverse the ridge over to 4654'.

I went up Lightning Peak above Lake Cushman on Friday, 8/7/15. I thought it would be a piece of cake, but was sorely mistaken. It's quite rugged, but was still loads of fun. As per Peggy Goldman's new Washington Scrambles book, I took the alternate route, driving FS 2451 to the crossing of Elk Creek where I parked. Then went up to the ridge where I picked up the trail at a Geocache hidden in a hollowed out dead tree. Big mistake. That route is steep, brushy and only for masochists. Has ANYONE ever used this route, besides me? Second mistake was following the main gully right to the notch between the western and eastern summits of Lightning Peak. It wasn't too bad to start out, but it kept getting narrower and steeper, but by then I was committed. The last bit has much loose rock, exposure, and some technical climbing. It's most dangerous. I definitely wasn't going down that way. Heading to the western summit plateau, there was one wall to overcome that at first appears as a dead end, but there is a good hidden route just a bit to the left that is fun and only a little exposed. It's easily down climbed. After returning to the notch and going up the lower eastern summit, too, where the register is located, I found the standard route up. It was such a pleasure going down that way, after that scary gully used on the ascent. I wanted to do Timber Mountain, too, but my legs were sore from participating in Road Runner Sports Adventure Run Thursday evening, from 7 to 8 p.m. It involved a lot more running than I was expecting. The drive back home to Edmonds on Friday afternoon left something to be desired. From Olympia to Tacoma took about an hour, but the rest of the way home wasn't too bad. Taking the Kingston/Edmonds ferry route home instead would have been much more pleasant, but I decided to save the ferry fare. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/14ef013ff0049f54?projector=1 Lightning Peak picture at the link above. The summit is on the right. The lower eastern summit is on the left. The dangerous gully is in the center. At least it is dangerous without snow. Another nice picture of the peak: http://images.summitpost.org/original/95337.JPG

<You are the modern day Tom Sawyer/Lt O'niel> So true. What a grand adventure. Being partial to solo trips, I can't imagine improving on a trip like that. Surely you'll be experiencing a "high" from Lawson for a long time to come. I got "high" just from reading it.

How refreshing it is to find someone of such high caliber posting to CascadeClimbers as JayB. I'm with you all the way! In regards to minimum wage laws, I'd suggest Minimum Wage, Maximum Damage: How the Minimum Wage Law Destroys Jobs, Perpetuates Poverty, and Erodes Freedom from http://www.self-gov.org/mw.html And regarding the French protestors, the following may be of interest. France Labors at Folly by Edward Hudgins We can always count on the French to show us how holding the wrong moral values and following the wrong economic policies will produce a comedie that becomes tres tragique. Hundreds of thousands of students have been taking to the streets from Paris to Lyon demonstrating and rioting against a new labor law that will allow employers to dismiss without cause employees 26 years old or younger within the first two years of being hired. France has some of Europe's most stringent laws restricting the freedom of employers to manage their labor force. It’s virtually impossible to get rid of workers who either aren’t performing their jobs well or who employers simply can’t afford to pay because demand drops for the goods and services produced by their enterprise. Not surprisingly, even when demand is high, employers will not hire costly workers because it would be extremely difficult to downsize if business is bad. And costly they are! In France wages, labor rules and regulations are set by negotiations between the major unions, business groups and the government, that is, by corporatist collusion rather than voluntary contracts between employers and employees. The French government also mandates six weeks of paid vacation, lots of paid holidays and other benefits. Nice work if you can get it. The trouble is that one in ten can't. Not surprisingly, unemployment in France has averaged over 10 percent for the past 15 years, with the current rate at 9.6 percent. Private sector job creation has been almost non-existent. With France's population stagnant, you'd think the demand for labor would be high. By contrast, America’s unemployment for the same period averaged just over 5 percent -- the current rate is 4.8 percent -- with 23 million net new jobs added to the economy -- and this with the population jumping by 40 million. America is a job creation machine! But are the French who actually do have jobs better off? Not really. Per capita gross domestic product in that country is $29,000 compared to nearly $40,000 in America. The French government in the late 1990s decided on a bizarre strategy to combat unemployment. It mandated a cut in the work week to 35 hours but without a corresponding pay cut, on the theory that employers would need to take on more workers to make up for those lost hours of production. It became a crime to work too much. Government agents literally kept watch for people who might be putting in too much time on the job. Like criminals meeting in dark bars to plan crimes, honest individuals had to meet secretly to plan productive activities. It was a nightmare right out of Atlas Shrugged. And how were French employers supposed to pay for more workers? Ah, there's the problem. The employers didn't have piles of money sitting around or beaucoup bucks stuffed in their mattresses. To pay for extra workers they would need to increase the prices for their goods and services which would -- you guessed it -- hold down demand for those products, meaning less reason to hire more workers to make merchandise that people couldn't afford to buy. Is this the fabled logic from the country that gave us Descartes? Add another perspective to this picture. Last summer poor, mostly young, Muslim immigrants from North Africa rioted, burned and looted throughout France in part out of frustration because their jobless rate was 40 percent. Part of the motivation for the new law allowing easier dismissals of workers is to remove the disincentive to hire such workers to begin with. And that is what has set off this latest wave of protests and riots by young students as well as union leaders who don't want to see their stranglehold on a dying economy loosened so it can breathe. These failed economic policies have their origins in -- and have in turn fostered further -- the moral failings of France's petulant population. Its citizens think the world, society and their neighbors owe them a living and they demand secure jobs as a "right" to be paid for by others. If their whims aren't granted they consider themselves "slaves." Bottom line: They want the unearned. And how, exactly, do they think their economy, failing under such demands, will continue to meet them? Bottom line: They don't think. These children masquerading as adults are too busy throwing temper tantrums to ask such questions. Who would want to hire such crybabies to begin with? It doesn't enter their minds or moral code to take personal responsibility for their own lives, to act like entrepreneurs by trying to make themselves the best employees possible so that their employers would work to keep them and to demand complete economic freedom so that they and their employers can prosper together. The economic mess in France is the manifestation of a moral mess at the basis of all welfare states and is a preview of what's in store for America if we continue along the path of our Gallic cousins. Only a morality of responsible individualism, in France, America and in all countries, will bring both peace and prosperity. ------------- Hudgins is executive director of The Objectivist Center and its Atlas Society, which celebrates human achievement.

<Mike Collins and I both would like to gain access to Heaven without having to die first. So we visited Elija to consult with him...> LOL. How creative. Another great report, among many.

That sounds like a neat loop trip you had planned, going over "Tarheel". Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I had never considered it before. I'll definitely do the loop.

Thanks Snafflehound, for sending that e-mail to me about that guy who did Rainier. Yes, I was most interested in it for it was my kid brother. I soloed Rainier via the Emmons Glacier 8/12/98 round trip from Edmonds in a day so of course Don had to go upstage me by doing it in the winter.

Do you mean the Double Peak mentioned in the Cascade Alpine Guide? If so, I soloed both of them on 6-21-01. The rock work mentioned in CAG on the lower summit isn't too difficult as long as one's fairly competent. No rope needed.

[This message has been edited by Fred Beavon (edited 09-02-2001).]