PaulB

Go variable and pay it off as fast as you can! You can lock it in at any time. Long term fixed rates are expensive insurance.

This assumes that you have the discipline to set aside the "extra" cash and actually invest it. Most people don't. When you're a tenant, you're renting space, when you're an owner, you're renting money to pay for your space. Conventional wisdom is that over the short term neither option has a real advantage. Traditionally, the benefits of ownership aren't realized until a large amount of equity has been built up in the property, and the value has appreciated enough that it could be sold for a profit (not sure how it works in the US, but in Canada, that profit is tax free if the property is your principle residence). These days, owning a home is more of a lifestlye choice (an emotional decison) than an investment vehicle (a fact based decision). Unless you live in a crazy market (e.g. Vancouver) where prices just keep going up and there is potential to profit quickly, there are lots of other ways to make returns on your money without the hassles of ownership. That being said, I just bought condo in January, and ownership feels good (once you get used to having an almost incomprehensible amount of debt).

I'd recommend skis for the glacier, and be up the pyramid gully as early as you can. As mentioned in the WA Pass thread, new snow last weekend + record heat this weekend = postholing wallow-fest.

Just about any tele boot will serve that purpose. If you don't want a big, stiff plastic boot, you might also consider the Scarpa T3 or T4, or Garmont Excursion.

Making my first trip to WA Pass this weekend. What are the options for camping in the area? When do restaurants in Mazama shut down at night?

Good grief... the arguments for/against can be extended to the extreme. e.g. How much energy does it take to make the hundreds (if not thousands) of kilometres of steel pipe and lay it in the ground? How do all the pipeline workers get to the job site? Probably not in hybrid Civics. CC power plants are very cool, and are a great choice when there is a good supply of cheap natural gas or coal that can be gasified. As long as the price of fuel is low and the price of electricity is high, things are good. Unfortunately, there are a lot of CC plants around the world that became uneconomical to operate when deregulation (now there's a whole other topic of debate!) caused electricity prices to drop at the same time as fuel costs increased. No technology is perfect in all situations, and it'll be a combination of those that we already have with ones that have not yet been invented that will let civilization move forward into the future.

I can't afford to buy a normal house (at least not in North Van) so it's unlikely that I'll pay the extra 25% to build a super-duper environmentally correct one. As with hybrid cars, the limitations of the current technology mean you'll never recover the money you spent to get a warm fuzzy for "going green". As Selkirk says, it'll be great when/if the alterntives are feasible, but in the meantime nuclear is a logical solution.

That's true for base load plants (nuclear, coal, oil, hydro), but there are lots of peak load plants (usually gas turbines) that might run for a few hours a day, might run 24 hours a day for a week, or might go unused for a month.

Just out of curiousity, how much coverage did Galloway ripping a strip off the Senate committee get down there? Quite entertaining on the CBC & BBC, but I can't imagine it got much airtime in the US.

You can download the Sonic Stage software from the Sony website. It sucks, but I think it's the only option for getting music onto a NetMD.

Hardly worn, barely broken in, lots of original rubber left on the soles. I live in North Vancouver, so if you're interested, and on your way to Squamish, we can arrange to meet so you can look at them.

Having just ticked off the 7 Summits, it's only a matter of time before Annabelle steps up to the plate on this. She also has the advantage of the aforementioned silver spoon. Only 13 more to go!

If you haven't already, ask on Live The Vision's message board.

Last May (prior to the long weekend) we camped at a place just down the road from the waterslides (no idea what it was called). The weird thing was that they had all their facilities open (showers, washrooms, etc.) but there wasn't anyone around to collect any cash. Two nights free waterfront camping!

I'm pretty sure that the heel levers from any of the Riva family (Riva, Riva 2, Riva 3, Riva Z) are all interchangeable. Should be easy enough to find someone looking to unload a pair of Riva bindings that you could use for spare parts.

In the quest for gold, any obstacle can be overcome: "For five years, Barrick has been working on a plan to use big dump trucks and hydraulic shovels to haul away the ice and tack it onto a bigger glacier two kilometres away." "The company will submit a glacier management plan to the Chilean government later this month, and hopes to have all the approvals it needs by the end of the year."

If you have G3 skins, flip the tip loop around so that the metal bar is over the tip of the ski instead of the plastic coated section. This seemed to help keep them from popping off the tips of my Havocs.

Gore-Tex is not a fabric! It is a polytetraflouroethylene (PTFE) membrane (similar to Teflon) which is laminated to a fabric. Ideally, the properties of the chosen fabric will complement the properties of the chosen membrane (XCR, Paclite, Windstopper, etc). For example, while the Paclite membrane is supposed to be more breathable than XCR, if they are both laminated to a relatively non-breathable fabric, then the advantages of the Paclite will be mostly negated. Obviously, a designer needs to compromise between fabric properties such as durability, breathabililty, stretch, hand, etc. to get the product they want. Chances are good that something more durable will be less breathable, so it won't matter if it uses Paclite or XCR. As someone mentioned, it is primarily the face fabric and it's DWR finish that do most of the work of keeping the water out. If you closely read the label on any Gore-Tex garment, the caveat for performance is that you keep the outer fabric clean and maintain the DWR finish.

Well I am glad to hear I am not the only one missing my issue. I'm still waiting for mine as well. I recently moved, but I know they have my new address because they sent me a renewal notice even though I've still got 2 issues left on my current subscription.

Note that the ice screw is capped... prevents unsightly gouging of the upper thigh. Safety first!

I have both. I found the "membrane on liner" version to be more dextrous, but after 4 years of climbing and skiing they failed, as Dru described, with the thumbs coming apart.

I've never driven (or been in) a Lexus, but when I was in Italy a couple of years ago, I rented a Renault Laguna which had a push button start: The "key" was kind of cool too: The adventurous part was cruising down the highway at 140 kph, and still getting passed by the locals in their Fiats.

I noticed this in the last issue, but I'm pretty sure that previous issues (maybe not all) were printed in Canada.

In late December, Jordop and I only had to ski about 5km into the cirque. There's gotta be less snow on the road now, although it might icier. Even if the road is bare, you can only drive to the point where it crosses the Sumallo, which is about 2km from the head of the cirque.

I did the same thing... upgraded to very snug T1s for inbounds and BC day trips, kept the comfy old T2s for longer tours.