stinkyclimber

How come YOU ain't at EC's stag? I figured the $100 ferry trip for 1 night wasn't worth it. I gotta work tomorrow.

Thank you. I think I have my answer...roll it and smoke it. Dru is sure to have the bud to make it smoother.

Dru, no man is an island, so just shove off. Watch out for butt pirates while you are out there.

I keep forgetting to ask about this, mainly because I don't care that much about it. However, out of interest... When I was down at Shuksan, I got a little yellow envelope from the FS reminding me that I forgot to pay the fee thingy, and politely asking me to send it in at my earliest convenience. They even, helpfully, wrote down my plate #, description of car, etc. (however, under "state", they put "Canada"...I guess the Tool doesn't know we aren't a unitary state like the UK). So, my question: I assume I can roll this fucker up and smoke it? They don't have anything as fancy as a computer that stores and retrieves the plate # to burn me the next time I am there, or share the info with BC, do they? Thanks, Mike

If you feel like a ferry ride, the closest BC mountains that ARE open are in northern half of Stratcona Provincial Park, in the middle of the island. Lots of supposedly decent, and even some hard, alpine rock up there. Check out Mt. Colonel Foster on bivouac.com. The trailhead is 5-6 hours drive north of Victoria, then a quick hike into the base. Then up to 20 pitches. Hey, Doug Scott said it was the shit. I have only seen it from afar...I prefer to go the mainland for good alpine climbing, but there you go... I'd go to WA for alpine climbing this weekend if I had the weekend free, but if you want Canadian rock, then we have it here.

Actually, I preferred "riding the cow" as the phrase of choice when trying to sell my old Scarpa double-leathers. Awesome touring boot, but the wonders of plastic made me choose the Dark Side. I apologized to John Clarke about it sometime after, may he rest in peaks (all unclimbed, of course).

We did it last weekend (Aug 22-23?). No problems whatsoever. The glaciers are in decent shape - a couple of tricky bridges, but both seem quite good and will probably last out the season. Only one other party on the route who, inexplicably, camped at Winnie's Slide, then only went to the base of the summit pyramid before turning around for lack of time. We passed them on the way down the Chimney's after topping out, and easily beat them out. A lotta shit to carry so high. The snow is nice and consolidated, giving easy travelling conditions both in the morning and even in mid-afternoon. One axe is fine, and a short rope. We neglected to look at, or bring the guidebook, so consequently wasted 3 hours going up the wrong start to the Chimney's, then downclimbed/rapped it, found the right start higher up, then soon after realized we were about 20m shy of the trail in the gully we originally took. Yes, we are a bit slow. Our 530 start from Lake Ann translated to an 830 start after deducting our clusterfuck, and the snow was still fine coming down. Otherwise, a pretty casual 12 hours return from Lake Ann - only 9 if we hadn't gotten lost. We should have just done it car to car and skipped the Lake Ann bivy (although it was a great sunset) - Lake Ann (aka Lake Giardia) is infested with dogs, and is only 90 minutes from the car, even with an overnight pack. Have fun. A nice, easy, scenic mountain route with a bit of everything.

I failed to bring photo ID and proof of citizenship with me when I headed into the US in June to do Baker. The US border dudes were NOT amused, took a frigging hour to check shit out, then told me that if I did it again, I'd be turned away. Heading back into Canada at the end of the trip, the Canadian border people didn't even ask to see ID. Lesson: you may be OK getting into Canada, but you could get fucked coming back south into the US. The new rule for Canadians is that we have to have both photo ID AND proof of citizenship (i.e. passport, or DL + birth cert/proof of citizenship) to get into the US...a DL doesn't count. Fuckers. I don't know if this also applies to Yanks, but by the sounds of other people in this thread, it is a possibility. Good luck..and remember, you can't bring guns in; pot is fine though.

Actually, I think the French guy was leashless (and he dropped both of his), so you can't blame the Androids for that.

Ah fuck...the CPR? That's no fun. And EC won't like to hear that, being the train nut that he is. Oh well, I took a dump on top of Eisenhower Tower...call that a political protest about 50 years too late to make a point. It felt good. Dude, Uto peak was fun (I have done it too as a rain-check to Sir D), but you need to get back up there to do Sir D itself...loads of alpine scrambling fun. It is worth it. Plus, you could probably bivy in AMC's backyard in Revvie (we looked her up, but she was in the Charlotte's on a trip).

This is the short and boring TR for our Rockies trip last week (Aug. 2-10). We started out in Rogers Pass. Scooted up the NW Ridge of Sir Donald. Great route - easy, great position, awesome rock. All everyone says about it is true. 6 hours from the car to summit (3rd classing all the way - easy), and longer back down (some raps, and lots of downclimbing). There is a new rap route starting about 200m above the col that heads left (facing down the ridge) down the west face/shoulder which avoids the trickiest part of the downclimbing. We did it, but I would recommend finishing off the tedious downclimbing all the way to the col instead...the rap stations are great, but there are 10 of them (they are set at 25m, and we only had one rope), where as going directly to the col is perhaps 3 raps and downclimbing. The rap route is probably best used as a bad-weather escape - the rock here would be very slippery after rain. After this, our plan was to head into Mt. Assiniboine via Assiniboine Lake on the south side (which is much shorter than the Magog Lake approach), but the valley was on fire. Oh well. Had a hot springs soak, then scrambled up The President, via Little Yoho Valley, as a consolation prize the next day. This is a fairly long day trip (30km) and a slog. Avoid (although the views of O'Hara and the Ten Peaks were awesome...and good views of the HUGE fire in Vermillion Pass (post-Fay Hut burn down). Surmising that this peak and its sister (the Vice President) are named in honour of the US Executive Branch, two of our party left silent, but satisfying (if smelly) symbols of protest against American hegemony on the summit. Organic cairns, if you will. Now, if Dru tells us that these peaks are named in honour of the ACC Executive Committee heads, I think our protest actions are still relevant. We then headed up the Icefields and whacked our way up the North Face of Athabasca. It is in fine condition right now - no snow left, and most of the ice is one-hit-to-the-head styrofoam. The rock band was narrow, but we managed to fuck it up a bit by going too far left and had some fun fixed climbing and scrambling on the worst choss in the Rockies. Fun. If the rock band is ice-free (which is not good), bring blades and baby angles and some small cams. The climbing is easy, but the rock shite, and the exposure dramatic. We scooped a new TCU as booty, which made us feel better about wandering off route. We finished up our tour of Rockies/Columbias moderate classics by a great run up the East Ridge of Edith Cavell. One of the better alpine scrambles I have done. Awesome position. Great rock. Never harder than low 5th, so don't bother with the rope or rock shoes. Less stressful than Sir Donald (which does get a little nerve wracking because of the relentless exposure and scrambling difficulty). The descent is initially a little gross (aka slag heap), but obvious and safe. The valley below is beautiful. Fairly easy day...12 hours or so. Then we drove back to the Coast. Everything is in condition - glaciers, ice, rock. The beer is kept nice and cold in most Alberta establishments. All the smoke from the forest fires is a tad tiresome, but OK. Another fun Rockies trip where one can enjoy alpine climbing without the usual coastal "challenges" (bush, shitty logging roads, bugs, steep approaches). Fast food alpine climbing at it best. But don't gorge on it too long or you'll get fat...or lazy.

I think you should rely on finding extra bivy gear on the route. It worked last time... Bivy gear is aid. Dru is aid.

Bush: "Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly ..." Yah, you and your advisors have only been thinking about this since right after the first Gulf War, and started meeting about and planning it in earnest in early 2000. Relucantly.

Excellent. But if you are wrong, many many people will have died. Without war, we could have kept going with inspections and the like, and it may not have solved the problem immediately (because talking takes time), but it wouldn't have resulted in guaranteed deaths like we are getting now (and even you have admitted that Iraq does not present an immediate threat, but one somewhat further off in the future).

Yes. It is possible. How 'bout you...maybe you have made mistakes in your analysis? How 'bout Bush...maybe him too (actually, he did...about Iraq's nuclear capacity to start with one example, and his flimsy linkage between al Qaeda and Iraq for another)? Except that death and destruction by war is final - you don't have to answer for your mistakes, and you don't get to take them back. Regardless though, America plows ahead, pretty sure of themselves, but without proof. Pre-emptive war. It is fine, as long as you are right. Just like the death penalty. I will freely admit that I cannot be 100% of my opinions or the so-called facts that I have access to. I am humble enough for that. Are you really 100% sure? One thing I am sure of: with this war, there is 100% chance of innocent people dying. Without the war, there is not a 100% chance...maybe a good chance, maybe even a very good chance, but it is not a 100% chance. Trading 100% death in the present for less than 100% chance of death in the future - seems like bad math.

Tomcat: "Whoa .. Earth to Necronomicon. Hey bud, we're down here. " Dude, he is down here. YOU were the one that brought up the ridiculous historical comparison.

Do me a favor .. go read resolution 1441 and, in light of all mitigating circumstances, you tell me if you think the resolution was followed word for word. If not, you can't disagree with my opinion. Don't try and twist this on me telling me I believe GW Bush -- I do the reading for myself and draw my own conclusions -- something the peace protester crowd is obviously having problems with. My convictions are not influenced by one person, or what one person has said -- I make my own investigations and draw my own conclusions from these investigations. It's this simple. So now you know I've read resolution 1441 and I have seen evidence of Saddam willingly disregarding the resolution, please contest my beliefs with hard facts like I have just done. Nope, you are correct. They have not followed the spirit or the letter of the resolution. But diplomacy isn't limited to blindly following pieces of paper written long ago, in a different context and for various and sundry motives. If you want justification to fight a war, then by all means go ahead and write an overly rigid UN resolution, then follow it to the letter regardless of other factors (like Blix saying that they are finally making progress; like the fact that Iraq is totally contained (300,000 surrounding troops!) and that there is no immediate or even medium-term threat to anyone. Do people really go to war over pieces of paper? I suppose they do...pretty sad.

Yes, excellent, lets close our eyes, click our heels and return to Kansas. And let's not concern ourselves with the lives of those other human beings...Iraqi civilians and conscripts. Lets just "kick their ass" and minimize our own suffering. I cry for everyone over there and won't be happy until EVERYONE stops killing one another in this senseless war...matters not whether they are American, Iraqi, Kuwaiti or British.

"Truth is always the first casualty of wartime." Agreed, when it is the military speaking the "truth". Except in THIS case, it is the news media in the supposedly leading nation of the free world who have deliberately omitted material information.

"maybe the inspercters were not finding something" Actually, the inspectors DID find these...and what's more, they secured the agreement of the Iraqi government to destroy them, AND the Iraqi government actually DID start destroying them. Funny how quickly everyone forgets history, even if it is only a week old.

Tomcat, your arguement rests primarily on your conviction that the UN Weapons Inspection Team (not just one guy - hundreds of them) is wrong, and that your GW Bush is right. Regardless of my personal feelings of Bush, it seems to me that that is a pretty limited conviction to go to war. Hardly convincing evidence. Perhaps lack of convincing evidence...but is the abscense of evidence enough to kill a lot of people. And VeggieBelay's article about "banned missles". Oh no - he has decade-old inaccurate short-range missles that go 200km! That is a threat to the USA? No, that is 10 years worth of vengence, similar to Versailles: "The dude lost the war, so we'll punish him for a decade and not allow him the same armaments that everyone else in the region has". I would feel differently if he had ICBMs or something, but those are short-range missles that Israel might worry about, but then if they do, then THEY should go to war, no?

1) UN Inspections did not work .. those who thought they were working were being fooled by Saddam and his Regime. [/b] Hans Blix, the guy who would know, disagrees. He has said repeatedly the the inspections were working, that they were making progress.[/b] [/b] 2) Resolution 1441, which was signed by every single member of the UN (including France and Russia), CLEARLY OUTLINED the steps necessary to prevent a US Coalition led invasion. Saddam Hussein broke MANY (not just 1) of the regulations put forth in Resolution 1441 ... hence the invasion we are now seeing.[/b] There are many countries in material breach of UN resolutions, including Israel (Golan Heights), Indonesia (West Papua), and China (Tibet). The US doesn't feel the need to invade them. [/b][/b] 3) We shouldn't need any more reasons beyond #2, but I will provide them because people are having a tough time comprehending.[/b] See above.[/b][/b] 4) Saddam has chemical weapons, we have plenty of intelligence that confirms this, and Saddam will use them at any time. Just because we're not invading him doesn't mean he's not going to use them.[/b] See point #1. He may have them, but the guy in charge of finding them says the inspections were working. In addition, the US has chemical weapons as well as nuclear (and has promised to use nuclear weapons when needed). North Korean has nukes and seems predisposed to using them - clearly a much greater risk in terms of WMD. [/b][/b] 5) Saddam's people are suffering and cannot speak out publicly to attest to this fact. They will be very thankful after they have been liberated and can lead their lives how they choose without fear of repression or torture from the Iraqi regime. If you don't believe it, wait until the war is over and get back to me.[/b] That may be true, but it is therefore as true as it was in Rwanda, East Timor, West Papua, Tibet, Nigeria, Zimbabwae, Western Sahara and Zambia - all places as much as or more in need of "liberation", and have been for a MUCH longer time. Yet no US involvement. In many cases, not only has the US not gotten involved, they have obstructed the UN from intervening (Rwanda).[/b][/b] You say "These may be hard facts to live with, but it's the truth and the truth hurts sometimes. " I guess so.

But Dru, what if you put your pack down on the pile of rope at a belay, then the pack gets jettisoned off when you feed rope through to the leader? Not that I am saying that YOU would do that. All I know is that I like when others do that. Booty.