G-spotter

When Jeremy Frimer and the boys went to the Miyar Valley in India they climbed a 1,000m long ridge at 5.10a, and retreated 50m from the top and called it a new route and named the peak and everything. The Grmjsoviks* from Slovenia (* I bet I spelled that wrong) were there the next year and climbed the whole thing to the top and gave it a new name and a new grade: VII- which is Euro for 10c. Jeremy got all pissy in the Alpinist comments and said something like "your line isn't new and you didn't make the first ascent and anyway it is 5.9+ not 10c" Tanja Grmjsovik responded politely to him "The crux was the last pitch that you did not climb." Anyways I don't know what that has to do with first ascents in the Cascades but it is a pretty funny story. Another contrary example from the Andes is The Slabs of Koriancha route on La Esfinge that was rated 13a by Bubu and Silvo Karo on the FA and last I heard was downgraded to 12a or 11d depending on who you talk to. I think there's a lot more inflation in the overall grades in these parts, be it I-VI or F to ED+, than there is in number grades. I know when I climbed Graveyard Shift I was surprised when Alpinist asked me to write something up for them because as a route it was no big deal. Several year prior when they didn't have such a news-hungry website we sent them some details from Talchako and they said something in reply like " a new 30 pitch V 5.8 AI3 is not hard enough for us, you should have done a sitstart to bump the grade up and make it newsworthy"

Some climbers get sponsored for climbing the hardest routes, and some get sponsored for climbing the fastest, and some get sponsored for soloing. Personally I think soloing is rad but not for money. When soloing is tied to cash, judgement is compromised and bad things can result. So far Alex seems to have avoided the trap of having a pro photographer and video crew along to document his solos and sell them afterwards (no shots of him soloing Moonlight Butt for instance) and I hope he maintains that.

It's cool but more to the point, are we going to see any photos or video of this, especially in ads or DVDs? I hope not. That (sponsorship cash for boldness) is the start of the slippery slope that led Dean Potter from his French-free solo of Half Dome to Delicate Arch.

MTV has soaps now? That ain't workin That's the way ya do it

Hexes are way cheaper to rap off than cams if you have to bail

I don't believe that's the case, I don't know that he's ever posted here, or on any climbing related BBS for that matter. Dru had said he posted as Trask. Trask was banned...ergo... Did you know that "gullible" is misspelled in most dictionaries? OMG!

Since Mccain can't raise his arms above shoulder height i'm guessing they will stick to slabs?

yeah, maybe you over-lubricated the springs

If you clip three Rockcentrics to a biner and throw it, it makes a pretty good bolas with which you can bring down small game if you are starving in the mountains.

The population is on a multiyear cycle that has highs and lows. Wasps, their major predator, generally lag the webworm population by a year - next year will probably be tons of wasps and no webworms.

That is a purty looking line It is strange how much those "stinging nettles" look like fireweed. If it's got Distal in the name shouldn't there be a bouldering picture in the trip report?

If all you want to do is repeat routes, your first step is to actually go out and climb some of them. Once you've climbed a bunch of them here, you can start to visit other parts of the world. Within North America, The Coast Mountains, Canadian Rockies and Alaska as well as some more obscure locations, generally have longer and more demanding routes than the Cascades. Overseas you have all sorts of destinations in the Greater Ranges. Some people however, aspire to not merely repeating routes but climbing first ascents. This is a complementary game and requires, amongst other things, better research skills on your part. If you can't at the moment find any beta on the Pickets or the north face of Sir Donald, you are going to have a whole heap of trouble figuring out exactly what things in the mountains are still unclimbed. You should start by improving your research skills - primarily by buying maps, journals, and guidebooks and reading all the trip reports you can online.

Although commonly called "tent caterpillars" around these parts, real tent caterpillars only build tents in spring. What you saw was actually the Fall Webworm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_webworm

big balla found in dog

mid-October is usually when 6-8 weeks of continuous rain starts

The prunage is pretty random, though. In some parts it is good, then vanishes for 200m and begins again.

You can walk to the same point (old growth strip) on the road on the other (west) side closer to Les Cornes. The alder isn't any worse on that side and you avoid the thrash across the creek.

We took two separate lunch breaks this time (it was Chris' first multipitch climb this year and all the lowangle slab was working his calves) so probably 3 hrs up and 1.5 down. We also spent over an hour picking raspberries and huckleberries on the way down I took advantage of Tyler's advice and walked down the last 2 pitches instead of rapping them. Top of the 2nd is a little steeper than the Apron descent slab, don't slip.

Spent a couple of days in the Anderson River group this weekend. Saturday E. and I went in to do the scramble up Steinbok. Spent three hours wandering around on alder-choked logging roads getting soaked in frequent rain showers. South side is definitely a better approach to the Ibex-Steinbok col. Ran into Blake and avitripp back at the parking also getting skunked by the rain, no Voodoo Chile for them. My friend Chris came out on Sunday from Squampton and we headed for Yak. Two parties already on Yak Check so we did Speedway. Great day but cold and windy up there, two jackets on all day long. Wet Steinbok on Saturday Climbing Speedway on Sunday Simulrapping back down.

Lie of the year.

there is a very good reason why only three peaks out of the hundreds in the southern selkirks have ever had winter ascents.

I saw rockfall pretty much every half hour down the north face. That's loose enough for me.

Beckey-Chouinard 1960s Loose

I usually try to put ON 10 lbs or so before ice climbing season starts because I usually lose that much in the first few weeks of ice season from the shivering and I found that if I didn't gain some weight before the season started, by the end of the season I was too cold all day and it just wasn't fun. Btw I'm 184 cm, 74 kg

Fans of heavy metal music are gentle, creative people who are at ease with themselves, which makes them very similar to fans of classical music. That's the finding of a new study at Scotland's Heriot-Watt University of the link between peoples' personalities and their choice of music. Adrian North, the professor behind the study, said he was surprised at the similarities between fans of classical music and heavy metal, especially their creativity and generally shy natures. "The general public has held a stereotype of heavy metal fans being suicidally depressed and of being a danger to themselves and society in general. But they are quite delicate things," he said in an interview with the BBC. North suggests that music lovers tend to identify with the characteristics of the music itself. "We think, what we think the answer is, that both types of music, classical and heavy metal, both have something of the spiritual about them — they're very dramatic — a lot happens." The study of more than 36,000 people from six different countries found that people had more in common with fans of their favourite music in other countries than they had with fellow citizens who preferred different styles of music. North describes it as a new kind of tribalism, based on musical taste. "We have always suspected a link between music taste and personality," North said. "This is the first time that we've been able to look at it in real detail. No one has ever done this on this scale before." Jazz fans tend to be creative and outgoing, with high self-esteem, in keeping with the innovative and sociable nature of the music. Country western fans were found to be hard-working, but introverted, fitting with the blue-collar image of country music. The research concluded soul music lovers are a well-rounded bunch — creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease with themselves and with high self-esteem. Rap fans are outgoing and far from gentle, while indie music lovers lack both self-esteem and the work ethic. "Researchers have been showing for decades that fans of rock and rap are rebellious, and that fans of opera are wealthy and well-educated," North said. He also made a link between income bracket and musical tastes, with more affluent consumers liking more exciting, punchy music while those lower down the pay scale preferring more relaxing sounds. North said his research might have applications in commercial marketing of music