tomtom

Per the AmazingCo, Inc. Collegiate Dictionary, 2004 Edition: FUCKING RETARDS: see syn. at "fucktards" fucktards n: clothing line for the trendy sport climber i.e., Flash, those neon Fucktards you're wearing nicely accentuate your puny legs.

“The International CXT is a truck for businesses that want to promote themselves as much as perform,” said Rob Swim, director, vehicle center marketing strategy, International Truck and Engine Corporation. “While there is nothing tougher or more extreme on the market than the International CXT, it is as much a statement of success as it is performance. If you brought this truck to the playground, you’d be king of the dirt pile.”

I hear this a lot but don't get it. If you can't place good gear safely (or evaluate whether your gear is good) then whipping on to it is not good. J, This is exactly my point. If you have to ask someone else, then don't.

Belaying with anchor tied to the back of the harness?

I'll start off: Falls while leading on trad: Don't. Falls while leading on ice: Don't. I've heard of too many snapped ankles this year to recommend otherwise.

3 months and counting till the guide book is out!

Were you one the two big rope teams on the Quien Sabe Glacier Saturday?

Weather report looks good for Yosemite TONIGHT...CLEAR... LOWS AT 5000 FEET 44 TO 54...AT 8000 FEET 36 TO 46. THURSDAY...SUNNY... HIGHS AT 5000 FEET 75 TO 85...AT 8000 FEET 69 TO 79. THURSDAY NIGHT...CLEAR... LOWS AT 5000 FEET 45 TO 55...AT 8000 FEET 36 TO 46. FRIDAY...SUNNY... HIGHS AT 5000 FEET 74 TO 84...AT 8000 FEET 68 TO 78. FRIDAY NIGHT...CLEAR... LOWS AT 5000 FEET 42 TO 52...AT 8000 FEET 34 TO 44. SATURDAY...PARTLY CLOUDY... HIGHS AT 5000 FEET 66 TO 75...AT 8000 FEET 61 TO 71. SATURDAY NIGHT...PARTLY CLOUDY... LOWS AT 5000 FEET 36 TO 46...AT 8000 FEET 35 TO 45. SUNDAY...PARTLY CLOUDY... SLIGHT CHANCE OF SHOWERS NEAR YOSEMITE SNOW LEVEL ABOVE 8000 FEET. HIGHS AT 5000 FEET 58 TO 68...AT 8000 FEET 53 TO 63. SUNDAY NIGHT...CLEAR... LOWS AT 5000 FEET 31 TO 41...AT 8000 FEET 20 TO 30. MONDAY...SUNNY... HIGHS AT 5000 FEET 57 TO 67...AT 8000 FEET 53 TO 63. MONDAY NIGHT...CLEAR... LOWS AT 5000 FEET 28 TO 38...AT 8000 FEET 19 TO 29. TUESDAY...SUNNY... HIGHS AT 5000 FEET 61 TO 71...AT 8000 FEET 56 TO 66. TUESDAY NIGHT...CLEAR... LOWS AT 5000 FEET 31 TO 41...AT 8000 FEET 22 TO 32. WEDNESDAY...SUNNY... HIGHS AT 5000 FEET 64 TO 74...AT 8000 FEET 60 TO 70. See ya!

Been done ... JUNE 27, 1970. Two Tyrolean brothers, Reinhold and Günther Messner, stand atop 26,660-foot Nanga Parbat, in Pakistan's western Himalayas. Having snatched the first ascent of one of the biggest alpine walls on earth, the 14,763-foot Rupal Face, they shed their frozen felt mittens to shake hands and embrace. But things turn bad when they start down. Günther, 24, has followed his brother to the top despite the 18-member team's plan for Reinhold, 25, to summit alone. Exhausted, he develops altitude sickness and, because neither brother has a rope, cannot descend by the same steep route. They blunder down the west side of the peak, succeeding only in cutting themselves off from the Rupal side entirely. After a bivouac near 26,000 feet, Günther becomes delirious. Seeing two teammates, Felix Kuen and Peter Scholz, ascending the Rupal Face, Reinhold cries for help—but they are too far away to understand his pleas. So the brothers make a life-or-death decision: They will head down the opposite side of the mountain via the less steep, but unexplored, 13,300-foot Diamir Face. The epic that ensued—Günther and Reinhold's two-day descent down uncharted territory, Günther's June 29 disappearance in a reported avalanche, and Reinhold's frantic search of the debris field and grief-stricken escape through the Diamir Valley—is the defining experience of Reinhold Messner's life, and it's described in his 40th book, The Naked Mountain, to be published for the first time in English in November by The Mountaineers Books. What U.S. readers may not hear about is the firestorm that the German edition sparked in Europe. In books written as direct rebuttals to The Naked Mountain, two members of the expedition claim that Messner's story is a whitewash of the truth—that he abandoned his brother on the peak. "There is a big lie behind Reinhold's story," says Hans Saler, a 56-year-old mountain guide now based in Puc—n, Chile. In his June 2003 book Between Light and Shadow: The Messner Tragedy on Nanga Parbat, he claims Messner sacrificed Günther for his own ambition, an allegation echoed in The Traverse: Günther Messner's Death on Nanga Parbat—Expedition Members Break Their Silence, by fellow team member Max von Kienlin, a 69-year-old baron who lives in Munich. Both climbers say that Messner's descent of the Diamir Face was not an emergency escape—that, though this was his first Himalayan expedition, he planned all along to traverse the entire mountain solo and score a first on an 8,000-meter peak. Most astonishingly, both claim that Günther never accompanied Reinhold down the face at all. Instead, von Kienlin and Saler maintain, Reinhold left his brother near the summit to find his own way down, and Günther died descending the Rupal side, alone and unseen. Messner, they say, has been changing his story ever since to deflect his guilt. This bitter controversy began when The Naked Mountain hit German bookstores in February 2002. Angered by Messner's portrayal of what happened on Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth-highest peak, and by his claims on German radio and TV that the team didn't bother to search for the missing brothers, Saler aired his long-simmering grievances in an open letter to Messner circulated on the Internet and published in German newspapers. "In your book you play brilliantly on the keyboard of self-pity," he wrote. "Everybody kept silent about what had actually happened on the wall. Our silence had to do with loyalty, a foreign word for you. You are an excellent climber, but a good comrade? NO!"

Talk to this guy ...

I just bought a Konica-Minolta Dimage Xg. Small size, fast startup, and no protruding lens (the optical zoom is internal). Good snapshot camera.

<edited by request by Alex to keep things on track>

Call Marmot in Bellevue. I think I saw a pair in that wicker basket on the climbing counter.

To resell on ebay?

On two bolt anchors, I typically use two alpine draws (tripled single runners) and then clip a locker through both runners. The rope runs through all three biners.

No worries, it's a gov't job.

Splat!

Okay, okay, so now we know voter fraud is punishable by God. Bush as God?

Matt, dude, the Mountaineers will wait until you've hauled it up the mountain and *then* take it away from you.

Was the stuff visible by peering through the windows, or was it hidden?

As with most of climbing, it is either obvious or a useful revelation.

He's already the ccp. What more could he want?

'waswhington'?

Clinton -> Quadruple coronary bypass. Too many pipes were plugged.