JayB

Makes me wonder how much cash I've got socked away in gear.

Thanks for sharing the info about this area, everyone. Might be a good destination during one of the busier summer weekends. Fred/Jake - thanks for offering to share the photos. I'm sure that there are other folks out there who would like to check them out too.

Hubba Hubba wasn't even damp, let alone icy as of Saturday. On the prior Saturday we noticed some festering patches of rotten verglas on the rocks accross the valley about two miles up Mountaineer Creek Road, but that was about it for ice in that area. Even those had fallen off and dried up one week later.

Hey - it is in the brown book. I looked through that sucker a couple of times but obviously not thoroughly enough. There's just enough info in there to make it worth taking the pain and hoofing it in there to take a look this summer. Someone's gotta have a picture though.... Thanks for the info on BCW Erik. Any OW or other nastiness on the two upper pitches of the BCW? Thanks,

V. Kramar mentions this wall in his guidebook and makes it sound pretty sweet, e.g. "Though not technically in the Icicle, Toketie Wall is a remote hidden jewel, offering 1000 feet of steep crack systems rising out of Toketie Lake. Toketie Buttress has several moderate multipitch routes. The hefty approach will insure your solitude on these cliffs." Looks like the hefty approach checks in at about 4 miles, with 5000 feet elevation gain along the way. I've looked all over for more information and asked around but either no one knows anything or no one is telling. Anyone have any first or second hand information about the place or photos? I can't imagine anyone worrying about this place getting overrun, as even if the word got out that there was a mini-Yosemite up there the approach will keep visitation to a minimum. Also, anyone taken the C.B. route up the lower half of the Bridge Creek Wall and /or the last two pitches of the East Face route to the top of the upper wall? Looks like you could string the two together for a sweet 5 pitch 5.9. I noticed the B.C.W. on the way back from Colchuck this weekend and it looked pretty sweet. :

Conditions as of 2/22 -New snow: 2-3" at 500-1000 feet above Bridge Creek C.G. 4-6" at Stewart Lake T.H, on top of weak breakable crust. 1' at junction between trail to Colchuck and Stewart Lake Trails with crust below. 18"+ at Colchuck Lake. Looked like high, steady winds above treeline. Skis or shoes would be a good idea until the snowpack consolidates.

I've got one of the BD "classic" picks without the recurve that I use for stuff like you're talking about. Makes a good hybrid tool for snow routes with short, icy steps, etc. Not sure if BD still sells these picks though...

Hussein Emboldened by Antiwar Sentiment Iraq Has Failed to Follow Through on Cooperation, Inspectors Say By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, February 19, 2003; 7:01 PM BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 19 -- President Saddam Hussein's government, apparently emboldened by antiwar sentiment at the U.N. Security Council and in worldwide street protests, has not followed through on its promises of increased cooperation with U.N. arms inspectors, according to inspectors in Iraq....

C'est Vrai, comrade?

Not me - but it'd be cool to see some o' that new stuff, either online or in print.

Actually - I have to agree with JoshK and AlpineK on this one - when it comes to the snow/skiing out there. The only places in the state with terrain that compares to the stuff in the PNW are A-Basin and Crested Butte, and most years their better terrain is closed for half the season for lack of snow. There's also too much grooming, the dumps are few and far between, not to mention the hordes of wankers sporting one piece Euro-Suits with fur trim. And the snowpack is too damn lethal to be much fun until May.

One idea would just be to scan one of the original guides in - if the folks who put those together were cool with that. Since I get the impression that these guides were labors of love rather than projects undertaken to generate a profit, maybe they would be okay with that. Or maybe not. Anyone in touch with any of these guys?

I just wish I could pull down hard enough to name something "The Road to Serfdom"....

Not my photos(!) - DCramers photos - from the gallery - like this one.... Do it for The Party, comrade.

Not that I'd get any use out of anything even close to that hard, but - it'd be a cool addition to the site. Come one comrade - you - SC, master of the Moondance can't right click on one of DCramer's photos, scrounge up a computer with a basic photo-editing program and post? And if you are pulling down that hard I'll pay an appearance fee equal to the cost of the latest issue of the "Socialist Worker" so I can score some beta on the stuff that's been crushing me forever.

Take a break from the political threads and post a few of 'em, homes.

Since you and I are willing to keep boring the bejezus out of everyone with this stuff.... True, there's not a 100% causal relationship between any of these stats and the well being of the average person, but there is a mighty strong correlation there that shouldn't surprise anyone which is - the higher the GDP per capita (in general) the better everyone in the nation lives, and the lower the GDP per capita the more miserable everyone will be. The citizens of Canada might outperform the US on several standardized measurements of well-being even though the GDP per capita is a bit less than our own, but you could hardly make the same claim on behalf of some nation where everyone gets by on a few hundred bucks a year. And Canda and the rest of the modern world have largely abandoned the planned economy in favor of the markets anyhow. Show me a first world nation where they still think it'd be a good idea to nationalize industry, eliminate competition, stifle innovation, etc, etc. Even the Scandanavians, the socialist poster children that everyone likes to point to have never been under the delusion that it's anything but private industry that pays the bills for their social programs, which they've had to moderate in response to the same demographic trends which are keeping actuaries awake at night all over Europe - a declining ratio of working age adults to retirees. I like social programs, a sound infrastructure, etc. etc. and don't mind paying the taxes necessary to support them, but the bottom line is that if you want these programs to continue you've got to manage the economy in a manner that will keep the economy healthy and growing and in so doing continue to generate the tax revenues necessary to pay for them. I'd type more but I've gotta go Choco - but if you're hard up for reading material look into the development experience of Singapore, Taiwan, Hong-Kong, South Korea et al and contrast it with Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and other African nations that gained independence in the same generation as the Asian countries I mentioned. Most of them endured colonial rule every bit as brutal as their African conterparts but the paths they chose to develop with, and the outcomes that those paths generated have been very different.

S.C. I should also add that despite the fact that I couldn't possibly disagree with you more on just about every conceivable question involving politics (or so it seems), I respect that fact that you have the gumption and the integrity necessary to stick your neck out there and stand up for the things that you believe in. .

I don't know why you bother continuing with the insults as your opinion couldn't possibly mean less to me .

"Sheesh. Neo-liberal capitalist reform didn't do much to solve their problems, did it? Nor has it done anything to solve the problems of most Latin countries." Cough, cough. Chile. Cough, cough. Care to address that one? The key difference is that economic programs of the sort that Comrade Chavez wants to foist on Venezuela have failed calamitously in every single instance when they've been implemented, while the neo-liberal capitalism that you deplore has succeeded in dramatically improving the condition of the societies that have implemented them with anything even vauguely resembling competence, such as, ohh, I don't know...Chile. And why did the Latin American countries that you are alluding to wish to make these reforms? Because the command economies that they had implemented had effectively reduced them to paupery. The problem with the Argentina and other countries of their ilk is that they paid lip service to pro-market reform while adhering to the same disastrous economic policies hatched during the Peronist Era, including a bloated state sector, expenditures far in excess of the tax revenues that their economy could support, all of which resulted in an ever worsening financial situation for the state that eventually - surprise - led to the largest bond default by a sovereign nation in history. People saw that was coming and knew that the peso was about to take a massive dive, and started exchanging pesos for dollars in droves. This burned through what was left of Argetinas dollar reserves and voila - all of a sudden the peso is no longer worth a dollar, the currency implodes, and economic reality reasserts itself - you can only spend more than you earn for so long. Since you are an expert on economics, I encourage you to compare the "Asian Tigers" with virtually any economy that has attempted lift its population out of penury using state control (plenty of examples in both Africa and Latin America) and compare the two.

While these are some fair criticisms of the manner in which the media covers climbing related tragedies, it'd be more appropriate to put your thoughts in a letter to the heads of the local media companies rather than laying into the individuals posting as NEWSTIPS and king5news, who by now surely rue the day they ever tried to engage the climbing community by means of this site.

Just about every piece of climbing gear in the US...

The only problem is that what has happened in practice is that the poor and oppressed became both more impoverished and more intensely subjugated after the implementation of these policies. Good intentions are nice, but the true measure of any political philosophy are the results it produces. No other political philosophy in history has century has produced a more impressive catalogue of misery, suffering, and repression (China, Russia, North Vietnam, North Korea, Cambodia, etc, etc) than the "sharing" at gunpoint that you seem to be in favor of. It is one thing to have supported such policies prior to the 80-100 million odd deaths that are a direct consequence of their implementation, but to do so now suggests a startling willingess to disregard facts that run counter to one's ideological fantasies. In Venezuela now, as with the examples cited above, the folks in charge seize control of the capital and the productive resources in the name of helping the poor, when what is really happening, of course, is that they are merely consolidating their power. Once the new regime has assumed power over the economy, they have all of the power that they need to effectively control every aspect of political life in that country, as any citizen who opposes them is likely to lose his livelihood, and any corporation that resists state domination can be overtaken by decree. Once this happens you can set your watch and observe the new regime squander what's left of the nation's hard currency reserves and industrial capital, missallocate the state's productive resources, and the population begin their slow death spiral into abject subjugation and poverty. For Venezuelans, unlike the ideological voyeurs cheering on Chavez in this country, these are not mere abstractions but concrete realities that they are staring in the face, and that is what they were striking to prevent. If you were really concerned with the well-being of the poor and downtrodden in that country, you'd be on their side.

Based on what you are looking for, I would strongly suggest taking a look at the canyons outside Escalante, Utah, and the White Canyon between the Hite Marina and the Fry Canyon Lodge. Take Hole in the Rock Road just before you hit Escalante, and you'll soon find yourself in the midst of some of the more remote, spectacular, and concentrated slot canyons in all of Utah. If you are into slots, Brimstone Gulch is the narrowest, deepest, and generally the gnarliest slots I've ever been in, with a few sections so deep, narrow and convoluted they're dark at mid-day, and sustained passages so narrow that you've got to turn sideways and exhale for many, many, many meters to get through - if you're sporting a waist that exceeds 33" or so by too many inches, good luck getting through. There's also Spooky Hollow and Peek-a-Boo Canyons a bit closer to the road; Coyote Gulch, a deep winding canyon with unreal amphiteaters carved out of several hundred feet of sandstone, natural arches, huge cottonwoods, etc. There's also neon canyon, which features a sweet trip through narrow slots and ends up with a 100 foot rappel through a hole in the ceiling of a massive ampitheater and straight into a 30 meter pool of nice, cool, H20, and to top it all of there's a 100 meter long pictograph nearby. The White canyon has quite a bit of this same stuff, with killer narrows in Fry Canyon, Gravel Canyon, and Cheesebox canyon. If you're into swimming through flooded narrows there's the Black Hole of the White Canyon - drop in just a few miles from Hite Marina and you'll be in for a killer hike that involves swimming through quite a few narrow-ass slots for several hundred meters at a time - do this one one a hot day (like 100) or bring a wetsuit top to fend off hypothermia, as the water'll be about 40 degrees or colder in may. And there's always the Big Daddy, "Buckskin Gulch," supposedly the longest/narrowest slot canyon in the world - which feeds into the Paria Canyon that Erik mentioned, and you can combine the two into an amazing loop (need bikes or two cars to do this combo though). If you're into Archaeology, be sure to hit the Grand Gulch, which has the highest concentration of well preseved ruins in the area, and beautiful Canyons to boot. And, if you're looking for a guide to the whole area, check out Michael Kelsey's "Canyon Hiking Guide to the Colorado Plateu," which in additon to being the most detailed guide to the slots out there, also features many "foto's" of M.K. in his mega-old-school OP short shorts, tube sock, and feathered hair striking adventurous poses amongst the many natural wonders o the desert. If any of this stuff sounds like what you're into shoot me a pm and I can give you some more info...