Cairns

I notice you don't say whether beta has to be helpful. Maybe that's part of the reason people are missing the issue. The real question is how much help did you get? Not whether onsight or flash. Knowing the person who gives the beta is the most important beta of all. WARNING: BETA ALERT I was told that on the undercling of the 2nd (11c) pitch of Borderline to step down to a hold on the right. I wasn't paying attention when I was told that and when up there all I could remember was to look for something off to the right. I was trying to find the something when I noticed I could prop a knee in the undercling and get some rest. On Split Pillar Left Side I was told to take the initial finger-size crack straight on. Not unless you have bigger fingers. Layback works much better. Despite all this talk of beta I can't remember when it's ever really helped me. Usually any idea I develop about a route from reading or hearing about it does more harm than good. I never studied Alan Watts' notations, though. Dave Slinger of Devil's Lake kept a little black book on all the routes he'd done so when he did them again he could look up how. He was 65, then. Last I heard, some 10 years later, "He can probably still climb 5.10 but has trouble remembering his name." Gather ye rotpunkt beta while ye may.

No, this is only about taking a position and defending it. However, a sense that something is missing may still be experienced by people with disadvantaged humor.

Thanks, Bob, I couldn't agree more. I just don't like the idea that catching a glimpse of someone on a route destroys the onsight. I have to stay on your good side. There is this really fun Polish woman I know. She's a married Catholic co-worker and I hold a position of trust as her Union Steward, but I figure a couple sentence of Polish will get me where I need to go. If you've done Genius Loci ALL OF IT then we can talk. Oh yeah, chalked holds can give something away but timing and just how to grasp or how to pull has to be rehearsed on the climbs you should be on: the ones you can't onsight or flash. As far as sequences, it's hard to put really good climbers on moves they haven't seen before, but even they have to dial in the fine-scale. Unless we are talking about 2-inch straight vertical cracks at Indian Creek. Beta is not a thing, it's only a word with shifting definition like red(vs pink)point.

Well, Bob, I would be happy to make this about myself. I have a healthy well-stroked ego. Start another thread for What-the-fuck-does-Cairns-know? However, you are the one who started this thread, so if you don't want to talk, no problem. You didn't have a case anyway. I'm surprised that the usually sharp DFA doesn't seem aware that I'm actually on his side, as could be deduced from my confession to having started climbing before chalk saw much use (1967). I have a better understanding than most about the difference between onsight and flash, but all I'll say here is that it's more fun if you don't know what's coming. So why can't you or DFA explain what is so important about onsight versus flash? My hardest redpoint isn't that easy to pick out from all the years, areas, and eras. Perhaps the purist form of onsight is in competition climbing where the route was created maybe the day before. When they had a lead comp at the local gym in 1991, Geoff Weigand listed his hardest redpoint at 14a and Greg Child said his was K2. In the qualifying round I placed between and within a couple points of the two of them. The gym hadn't scheduled a final for us over-40s, though. And how could DFA fall into error on both sides of this issue? He says that the difference between onsight and flash is obvious and well understood, then he fuzzes on whether chalked holds are beta.

To summarize Cairns: The difference between onsight and flash can be so small that it doesn't really say anything to call an ascent one or the other without further qualification. DFA: You'll know it when you see it. You're a wanker. Pig Latin Pizzle Tizzle Bob: Ignorace is horrible.

As for inchoherence, what are you trying to say, above? If you were standing around and overheard a route being discussed and some of the details may have taken residence in some corner of your head, but you have no conscious memory of it, would that be beta? Sure, the distinction between onsight and flash could be obvious to a dictionary, just not useful in practice. If y'tell me that y'love me you'll be talkin' way above me That's no way to answer someone standing on your toe If y'love me show you know me You've got to talk my language It's the only one I know

My memory is of a very short article, in Mountain Gazette, I think, that said low snowfall that season aided the (dope) recovery efforts. What I liked was a line something like this: When the terrible drought of '77 was brought up in conversation, smiles were seen in certain parts of California.

Incoherence is a good refuge for you. I am only making the case that there are so many gradations of beta between "onsight" and "flash" that to worry over whether an ascent is one or the other is stupid. Of course hair cells of the vestibular sensory epithelium can be broadly divided into type I or type II but those are really just ends of a spectrum.

No, the difference between a flash and an onsight is pretty widely understood and well defined. You either got the beta from someone else by talking to them or watching them climb the route, or you didn't. Period. Footnote. Your definition may help YOU decide if you flashed or onsighted iff you have no mental defects. How does it help ME pigeonhole your style? Can I look under the lid? I am a trained neurophysiologist. My understanding is that your understanding of wide understanding is flawed. Actually, this is an endnote. But what do I know? I'm an untrained neurophysiologist without a windshirt. Thanks, stranger. Anything but a period. Let us never be so final. Why don't you have a windshirt? And what is a windshirt? Explosive diarrhea?

No, the difference between a flash and an onsight is pretty widely understood and well defined. You either got the beta from someone else by talking to them or watching them climb the route, or you didn't. Period. Footnote. Your definition may help YOU decide if you flashed or onsighted iff you have no mental defects. How does it help ME pigeonhole your style? Can I look under the lid? I am a trained neurophysiologist. My understanding is that your understanding of wide understanding is flawed.

Simply a no-sight. Part of the problem comes from mixing the objective and subjective realms. I prefer to stay with something observable like flash and would defer further use or discussion of onsight until we have the mind reading tech. At the Gunks seeing ALL the holds actually was pretty hard in the years before widespread chalk use. The game is different now in so many ways that chalk is lost in the noise.

By all means tempt fate, but try Dr Cash.

Being polite (and overly trusting) worked for me, too, on Davis. Congrats to Ade and Stuart. The reference to milkshake/blowjob reminded me that I once posted a manfully terse Davis Peak TR .

No way to predict. Even experts disagree. Past experience may be unreliable. Speaking legally you would probably be better off to pay although that could be taken to mean you admit your guilt. I'm a US citizen living in Vancouver. My only speeding ticket was ridiculous - exceeding a city limit (50k/h) on a stretch of road with no side roads or residences in good visibility and dry surface and no posted limit. I didn't pay, just sent a letter with my reasons for questioning the fine, and have heard nothing further for > 10 years now, no problems on license renewal. The treatment you got for a headlight out is way overboard. I thought 1812 was behind us. Did you say anything about the Queen? Just don't ever walk along the RR tracks around Chicago wearing a bikini and carrying a baseball bat - that is strictly illegal, and the law in that case leaves little room for ambiguity. We are all crooks but don't plan a career in Evil until you read The Probability That God Exists, by Stephen Unwin.

NW Corner is 5.9 Supposedly there's a 5.7 route on the north face but I haven't found it, and if I did it didn't look good to solo. All the other spires are easy. There was a 5.7 on N. Face NEWS in the first Beckey. Curiously, it also showed up in the Mountaineers' Intermediate Climbs with a slightly different description ("good granite"). Beckey was going according to Greg Markov who did the climb in poor visibility, not realizing, or so he told me, that it was on SEWS, but for some reason or other it got reported as NEWS. I tried to get an understanding from the Mountaineers' too, but they apparently defy explanation. Anyway, there is a N. Face of NEWS now. The technical crux is low and though > 5.7 it should not hold back a soloist considering the protection on the upper part of the pitch. The climb needs a more direct finish if it hasn't had one. Oh, yeah, the route I'm talking about starts from a small cave very near the notch dropping off to the E. side.

Glad to have caught that. Sounds like 90% of my climbing career, though we didn't have the micro-brews, fine coffee, cacaphonous canned anomie, or qds. Or your culinary flair, but ham sandwiches require no brain.

Likely to be memorable: Clean Corner at Squamish for chimney OW pitch on Memorial Pillar

Maybe. I'm going to do my part to make it incomplete.

This could be old news but so is all of mine. My paper runs the NY Times Crossword 6 weeks after the original: yesterday's clue for 48 Across: Spray distributor answer has 3 letters Congratulations YKW

assisted living makes me laugh

You are twisted or not much at math? The first pitch is a God-said-Climb-Here dike. The second pitch is a beautiful crack in a good position, coverclimb for the McLane guide. Choice of 4 count them 4 finishes all good but 1 pretty hard. The area gets sun in early and late or winter season when you have to wait 'til afternoon for sun at most other multi-pitch options. Not much road noise. Airy because of elevation gained on the approach, and good view of Mamquam icefield. Main downside: long uphill approach, for cragger, for 1 route.

Robin Barley is the one to talk to and he isn't hard to find, perhaps at Skaha more often these days but may be getting a place by the Smoke Bluffs. The initial dike of Sunblessed is narrow and leans left. It could throw newer climbers whose balance and footwork are still under construction or worse, gym acquired. The handholds are positive, but you don't want trouble reaching for the next. I did it once when a lower bolt had been added and didn't even notice the difference. Until next time when it had been chopped. It would take 2-3 lower bolts to remove the risk.

You have a serious problem. But only 1, so please work on it.

Quinn story helps explain the Pre-Memorial route, I guess. At 5.9 that was the hardest route I ever got my climbing mentor to accompany me on - he was old school 5.4 when he got me started in the Gunks back in '67. I'm not much of a faller, myself. The longest I recall happened just a couple years ago on Great Game at Squamish, running a long second pitch. You wouldn't expect to fall far with that much rope drag. I was just about nose level with a bolt near the belay when I popped. Usually I don't even bother to call 'falling' cause its so obvious anyway, but the belayer was out of sight so I did. Don't now how far I went but I do know I got to say 'falling' 2 and 1/2 times with increasing emphasis.

Here's one. So far only 1 problem with only 1 ascent: Caliban V5. Story Needs re-cleaning. Caliban is now under this future grow-op: Unintended irony or realtor stoning 2 birds with 1 killing: