mr.radon

AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Shizzle.

Ice climbing isn't stupid unless you do something stupid like fall.

I thought Simpson was funnier then Letterman. I never watch but heard it was going to be on. Pretty good interview. ++

I got a good note actually about the Lynnwood REI. I had my bike seat bolt shear this summer as I was cranking down the hill on the west side of the I90 bridge. Going fast down hill and then having the seat come out from under you is shizzle sticks. I got a new bolt for free after showing them the sheared one. (ten year old bike) Then I needed a new front and rear gears. They found the no-longer-in-production gears I wanted and installed them for free! Then I ordered a special rim for my non-standard-rims. After waiting 6 weeks I got a call and had my new rim. No extra charge! (The rim was ordered out of the Seattle REI). Since I mount my own ski bindings (I've got a mill) I don't know how ski service is, but as far as bikes go, I was a happy camper this summer. However, when the Lynnwood store moves into the mall, I will avoid that store like the plague. I find Marmot much better. I've noticed in these last few years REI is dumbing down to the average Joe SUV driving crowd. No more neat climbing eqp. for sale, just clothing for mass market.

Well we sell something you might be interested in but you need a CDL to drive it. Gets alright gas mileage, about 8.0mpg but you can get that towing about 80K. With (2) 150 gallon tanks you can go over 2,400miles between fillups. Suggest you order the optional toilet so all you have to do is pull over into the breakdown lane. Cup holders can be ordered to heat hot liquids and keep cool ones cold (figures it out on its own). Anybody hits you with anything smaller then an H1 Hummer will only require minor work on the easily replaceable body panels. Most accidents are a pain, you have to wait for the wrecker truck to come and free things up. Well with this monster you can just drive over the carnage, no need to wait for the tow truck to arrive. Heck you can even make some money towing the wrecks away yourself! Imagine how big you can make those mud flap images! Chrome, lets talk chrome. This truck can be customized with enough chrome to be seen from space on a sunny day! Spray, passing people in bad weather you can blind them temporarily effectively letting them know how annoyed you were following them till a passing lane/opportunity showed up. Seeing how I get a commission with sales, mention my login name when you call the KW dealer near you.

My solution is to kick out the 8-10 million illigals and take there jobs. Think about it, you could create millions of jobs overnight. But I guess most people would rather stay unemployed because it pays more then most of the jobs these people hold.

My favorite:

The rule changes don't allow them to do that either. You're reading between the lines of the change. What the changes does do is prevent stupid lawsuit due to ambiguous language.

Talked to one of the searchers yesterday and asked a couple of questions. 1) He had never skied off that side before and therefore really didn't know that side of Alpental. 2) Tracks indicated he was changing dirrection a lot and therefore made only one days progress in four days.

Back on topic: Mars review. http://www.gamespy.com/fargo/january04/marsrover/

Where the heck are you going to get power from? Don't like to dig up coal or burn it, don't want nuclear power plants, don't want to bury the waste of nuclear plants, don't want to burn natural gas because of green house gas. Solar and wind power you don't want because it costs too much. Power goes out because of a storm, your the first to call teh power company. Bunch of whiners without any solutions. Lets just go back to living in caves, oh wait they burned wood to heat those.....

I'd like info. Basically I want to go off-season, early spring or mid spring. Maybe ski down. I want to do the North side, the Yoshidaguchi Climbing Trail from the Sengen Shrine. Watch the Sunset and Sunrise, then return. If anyone has done this and can give me info, EXSP about transportation to and from the airports. Hitch hiking allowed in Japan?

About beacons: When I first got mine a few years back I tended to use the excuse, But I’ve got beacon! I'm now starting to make decisions like I did before I bought it. Unfortunately a lot of newbee's have the same thought process with a lot less years of experience behind them. Buying a beacon doesn't give anyone anymore experience determining a slope's potential to put an end to a nice day out. Sometimes it acts like the sweet Lure of the Siren sailors have always had to deal with. The '99 Source Lake slide put me in a new frame of mind since I have camped near the lake and all the times I've been out there climbing/skiing.

Go girl!!! Soon you'll have RuMR shaking in his size 3 shoes.... Since my shoulder surgery, I've doubled my pull up count. I'm in training for the Pikes Peak Marathone. Basically run Mount Si & West Tiger III, plastic rock once or twice a week, Raquetball, weights twice a week. Weekends, catching freashies with Jdog or climbing ice. I also agree that after 30 the body takes longer to recover and results progress slower. But for some reason time seems to fly by so much faster.....

This has everything, love triangle, group dynamics, hiddin agendas, brother vs brother, you name it. Soap opera time.

Here is the text: December 10, 2003 PAGE ONE TELL ME A STORY Read selected excerpts from the anthology "Herd on the Street: Animal Stories from The Wall Street Journal," at WSJbooks.com/herd1. High Altitude Drama: 30-Year-Old Mystery Roils Climbing World Ascent That Killed Brother Made Mr. Messner's Name; Now, Mounting Questions By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL STAVA, Italy -- On June 27, 1970, Reinhold and Guenther Messner stood atop the 26,650-foot Nanga Parbat, a western Himalayan peak and one of the world's highest. The young Tyrolean brothers had just become the first climbers to scale the peak's southern wall, considered the highest and biggest mountain face on earth. Then Guenther, 24 years old, began to suffer altitude sickness, which forced the brothers to take a different descent down the unexplored western side of the mountain, as Reinhold, then 25, later told the story. On the way down, according to Reinhold, an avalanche swept the weakened Guenther to his death. Despite the tragedy, the remarkable climb launched the career of Reinhold Messner, who went on to become one of the world's greatest mountaineers and adventurers. He was the first to climb Mount Everest without oxygen, the first to scale all 14 of the world's 26,000-foot peaks and the first to traverse Antarctica without machines or dogs. He has earned millions of dollars from sponsorships, speaking fees and more than 40 books. In 1999, he was elected to the European Parliament as a member of the Green Party representing his native Tyrol in northern Italy. Now, more than three decades after the climb that changed Mr. Messner's life, the events on Nanga Parbat are threatening to ruin his well-cultivated reputation. For the first time, four of the surviving members of the 1970 expedition have broken their silence about what happened. They accuse Mr. Messner, who is now 59, of lying about the events and placing his goal of personal glory above the safety of his brother. His much heralded descent, they assert, was not a necessary emergency route, but, rather, part of a plan he had all along to achieve the first ever traverse -- up one side, down the other -- of a 26,000-foot peak. They believe Guenther died somewhere near the summit, after Reinhold abandoned him. "Not even the emergency condition of your exhausted brother could keep you from your ambitious goal," wrote Hans Saler, a member of the team, in an open letter posted last year on the Internet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOW JONES REPRINTS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit: www.djreprints.com. • See a sample reprint in PDF format • Order a reprint of this article now. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A furious battle has erupted, in the German-language press and in the courtroom. The accusations fly in several new books relating to the expedition that have appeared in the past two years, including two by Mr. Messner himself and two by fellow climbers from the 1970 expedition. He is suing to have books written by Mr. Saler and by fellow-climber Max-Engelhardt von Kienlin taken out of print temporarily so that what he considers inaccuracies can be corrected. The climbers are testifying now in a state civil court in Hamburg, Germany. "Once you lose your credibility, you can never restore it," says Mr. Messner, in the kitchen of the restored 13th-century castle where he lives, perched on a 3,000-foot cliff in the Tyrolean Alps. "The only way I can prove my case is to find my brother." To this end, Mr. Messner is now preparing to return to Nanga Parbat to scour the avalanche field on the western side of the mountain for his brother's remains -- to prove that he did not abandon Guenther at the top. He visited the mountain in October to begin training local villagers to help with the search. "I will do it as long as it takes," he says. Located in the western Himalayas of Pakistan, the summit of Nanga Parbat wasn't reached until 1953, when Hermann Buhl, another Tyrolean, made a controversial solo dash -- against the wishes of the trip leader -- from his camp below the peak. Mr. Buhl's aggressive single-mindedness deeply influenced the young Mr. Messner, who calls him his model as a climber. The plan for the 1970 expedition was to try to repeat Mr. Buhl's feat but this time by scaling the previously unconquered southern wall, called the Rupal Face. The first sight of the mountain was "overwhelming," wrote Guenther, in his journal dated May 15, 1970. "Huge hanging glaciers, terrifying precipices, furrowed by avalanches. Right over to the left is the summit of Nanga!" At 2:30 on the morning of June 27, Reinhold set out alone from the highest camp in the 25-below-zero darkness up the face. He had no pack or provisions, since he figured to be back that night and wanted to travel light. He was climbing alone because the team had decided that if the weather was bad, they would scrap the group climb and let Reinhold try a sprint for the summit. The weather actually was good -- clear and sunny -- but the expedition leader at the base camp mistakenly fired the signal flare for bad weather. Late that morning, sensing he wasn't alone, Reinhold turned to find Guenther following him up the face. Guenther knew Reinhold would make the summit in the clear weather and grew frustrated that he wouldn't share the summit with his older brother, according to a climber who was with Guenther when he set out after his brother. The two made the top together late that afternoon, when Guenther began showing signs of altitude sickness. What happened next is in dispute. According to Reinhold, Guenther said he was too weak to return the way they had come up and pleaded to go down the western side, called the Diamir Flank. Even though the risks on that route were incalculable -- since no one had done it -- Reinhold led his wobbly brother down the unplanned descent, he says. He happened to have a photo of the Diamir, which helped in finding a route, he says. After a night without a tent, Reinhold says he spent much of the next morning yelling for help. He exchanged a few words late that morning with two other climbers from the team who were making their way to the summit, but they weren't able to help from their location, says Reinhold. Later the next day, near the bottom of the mountain, Guenther fell victim to an avalanche, Reinhold says. The body was never found. Reinhold suffered several frostbitten toes that would later require amputation. The former team members now say it made no sense that Guenther's weakening condition would force the brothers to choose the Diamir side. If anything, Guenther's illness would be more of a reason to stick to the same route they came up, where there were fixed ropes, tents, provisions and other climbers, who could have helped Guenther down the mountain. Reinhold chose the other route because that was his path to fame, charges Mr. von Kienlin, a baron who became close to Reinhold during the trip. The sunny weather meant that other members from the team likely would also make the peak, he says. "To be one of a group of five or six on the summit was not the program for Reinhold Messner," says Mr. von Kienlin, wearing a pink shirt, gold tie, pin-striped pants and black leather boots in his antique-filled Munich home. "He wanted to be the next Buhl, and that required a Buhl moment." Mr. von Kienlin and other team members say Reinhold had shared with them more than once in the preceding days his desire to descend the Diamir Flank, calling it the "next step" in the climbing world. He had shown them his photo of it. That he had it in his pocket on the summit that day was no accident, they assert. Mr. Messner admits he may have brought up the prospect of the Diamir, but, "I was just chatting like maybe in 100 years we'll be climbing on the moon." The other team members also question the brief exchange Reinhold had with the two other climbers he met during his descent. The lead climber of the two on the way up, Felix Kuen, and Reinhold agree on the rudiments of their conversation. "Hello," Reinhold called out when Mr. Kuen was about 300 feet away, though with a precipice between them. Guenther was not visible. Reinhold suggested Mr. Kuen take a slightly different summit route from the one he and Guenther had taken. Then Mr. Kuen asked, "Is everything OK?" "Yes, everything's OK," Reinhold responded. Mr. Kuen and his partner continued their ascent. After calling for help for more than three hours, why would Reinhold not mention Guenther's predicament now that help had finally arrived? Reinhold answered that way because at that point he was alone, Mr. von Kienlin says, and didn't need help. Instead of calling for help all morning, Reinhold had actually been looking for Guenther, whom he had abandoned at the summit the previous day, Mr. von Kienlin adds. Reinhold had confided all of this in him while recuperating after the team had reunited, Mr. von Kienlin says, but Reinhold later concocted his story, at Mr. von Kienlin's suggestion, to protect his budding career. Mr. Messner calls this nonsense. He explains that since the two climbers below had no rope, they could not have helped Guenther anyway. He adds that at that elevation, health is "relative." The brothers were still alive, so they were "OK," he says. Mr. Messner thinks Mr. von Kienlin has a motive for trying to destroy his name: Shortly after returning from the expedition, Mr. Messner fell in love with Mr. von Kienlin's wife. Though she had just given birth to their third child, she divorced Mr. von Kienlin and married Mr. Messner. Mr. von Kienlin says he got over the split years ago. Over the next 30 years, the story faded into mountaineering lore -- until Oct. 4, 2001. At a presentation in Munich launching a new book on the expedition's leader, Mr. Messner said that his brother's death "was truly a mistake of the other climbers' not going in the Diamir valley" to look for them. He then accused several of the team members of wishing for them not to return. Two expedition members in the audience were dumbstruck. The controversy that has followed hasn't hurt Mr. Messner's drawing power. Late last month, he delivered his first public account of the events, complete with a multimedia presentation, in a symphony hall in Munich. His tan, weathered face beamed from one of the two huge video screens behind him on stage. He eagerly signed his books for a long line of fans, before and after the presentation, and during intermission. "I am the only one who survived," he told the sold-out audience -- with ticket prices starting at $21. "So I am the only one who can say what happened." Mr. Messner says he had wanted to write about the trip for years, for his family and for his own peace of mind. Now, finding his brother's remains on the Diamir side, he says, is the only way to lay the matter to rest. The trip is planned for 2005. Write to Christopher Rhoads at christopher.rhoads@wsj.com2 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107101071024896700,00.html Hyperlinks in this Article: (1) http://WSJbooks.com/herd (2) mailto:christopher.rhoads@wsj.com Updated December 10, 2003 -----Original Message----- From: Roy Grossinger Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 9:34 AM To: Steve Oparka Subject: RE: article in WSJ Got rejected, send text. -----Original Message----- From: Steve Oparka Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 8:26 AM To: Roy Grossinger Subject: article in WSJ Mystery Roils Climbing World An expedition to a western Himalayan peak in 1970 launched the career of Reinhold Messner, but the events that took place on the mountain also claimed the life of his brother and now threaten to ruin the famed adventurer's well-cultivated reputation.

No SPRAY RuMR you non-skiing tool. For the last time I'm not going to Smiff this weekend.

Anyone know of conditions up there? Looking for backcountry snow this weekend, suggestions?

Learn to friggin spell, Radon not randon. Then try reading for comprehension, my point was very clear. I'm not saying anything derogatory about RuMR, he’s a top notch rope gun. But, he thinks a normal, in shape climber, irregardless of body type, should be able to crank out 50-70 pull-ups. I believe certain exercises are easier for certain body types; Pull-ups are rigged in the favor of short people. Pull-ups are rigged in the favor of short people. Sorry, I'm repeating myself for glassgowkiss’s benefit. For the same body type (height independent), short people have an easier time completing a pull-up because they expend much less energy. Next, where in the heck did I mention anything about short people having an easier time climbing? Obviously, you’ve got major issues here. Are you short? Take an example from RuMR, suck it up and just crank out those 5.13’s. RuMR, pull out a mirror if you want to see a real PUNTER

The assault weapons ban; the most ignorant piece of legislation ever. I fellow student at the University of Colorado submitted a wonderful augmentative paper on the assault weapons ban. His premise was wonderful. We started the argument by stating his goal was to be the most efficient killer around and then went on to describe his perfect weapon. I have to admit knowing something about guns he made a good case. The weapon wasn’t banned either. Ends up you don’t need a lethal weapon to kill lots of people, you just need a lethal mind. I wonder how many bullet holes were in the women Ridgeway killed? Wow none? How could that be I thought guns killed people????

I've told this tool before, and he should know this being an engineer. Basically pull-ups are also a function of body dimensions. Old RuMR can't avoid the fact he barley scrapes in at 5' with stubby little arms. So the amount of energy he expends for one pull-up with his hobbit arms is significantly less then I. The equation in question would be this W=F*d W= Work (energy) F= Force d= distance First off RuMR weighs in on a good day at 120#, I 165#; he's about .73 of my weight. His arms are about 2/3 the length of my arms. Lets see, .73*.66=.48. So when RuMR does a pull up he exerts about half the energy as a tall skinny cuss like me. If you pale in comparison to old RuMR remember if you can only do half as many you're still the better man/woman.

How to ski really cheap. Buy a ski lift ticket at the supermarket or where ever they sell the non-dated ones. The kind that gets validated the fist time its scanned. Take your AT gear and skin up to a mid level lift. Get on the lift; they never scan the lift ticket. Ski all day on the upper slopes. Repeat. If they do scan you, you have a valid ticket. You can ski all year on one lift ticket. I use my AT gear all the time on the slopes. I ski all terrain and find the AT gear just a realiable as down hill. I have Denali boots so I get plenty of support.

Funny I heard about this move a couple of weeks ago and I sent an e-mail to a friend. I haven't been in a mall in decades, my REI days are over. Well another reason not to go to REI anymore. Yesterday I went into the Lynnwood REI only to find the store has radically changed the last few years. Basically, all the climbing stuff is shoved into an itty-bitty corner and the selection is sparse. They didn't even have a climbing bib, I need a new one this year. I looked at their rock climbing and ice climbing supplies, Spartan would describe my selection. From my e-mail: I think REI is expanding their profitable areas, mainly main stream stuff. Sad for a company whose origins and foundation was that REI could procure the hard to find items for outdoor enthusiast. Now it seems REI's sole existence is to satisfy the yuppie, mall cruising crowds who wear gore Tex to "look cool" while hanging out at the mall or ordering value meals from the drive through while cruising town in their gas guzzling urban SUV landmobiles. Basically people who would die within hours of being left alone on any Pacific Northwest trail even though they wear enough high tech gear to make Robinson Crusoe salivate from his grave.

Sometimes it's not. Sometimes your number just gets called a little early. Two friends died climbing in Eldorado Canyon when a freak rock fall cut the rope and both their lives short. I got to met Scott Kinkle on Liberty Ridge, only to learn some punk shot him in the head a few months later. Could very well be that they did everything right but were just on the right route at the wrong time. My condolences to those close to them, esp. the young kid.

Why, you want me to dumb it down to your public education level? BTW: I took the liberty to correct your spelling; separate not seperate & sentence not sentance. You're still a know-nothing. Obviously a wonder of uncaring parents and a failing public school system. You are right, the administration hires good qualified teachers. However, it's the UNIONS that deny recognition to the good ones, protects the bad ones and doesn't give a crap about the students. Sorry, first thing I did was to teach my son to shoot (even before climbing). My arsenal includes several high powered, pre-Brady bill assault weapons along with a few dozen other assorted firearms. I'm going to be living high on the hog off your stash. Sorry, but I care a lot about my son's education. I'm sure he'll do his part to keep the good'ol USA from falling into your neo-barbarian utopia. Oh, and even an idiot can tell I appreciate our educators system. I just can't stand to see good minds wasted in a failing system.